Category Archives: US elections 2024

Record $15.9bn in US political ad spending expected for 2024

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Assessment by GroupM expects spending totals for presidential election year to be up 30% on 2020 election cycle

With little more than a month to go before the US presidential election season kicks off in Iowa, a new projection of political spending says a record $15.9bn will be spent on advertising, up more than 30% up on the 2019-2020 election cycle.

The assessment, by GroupM, one of the world’s largest paid advertising agencies, suggests total political ad revenue could add a billion more to reach a total of $17.1bn, if including direct mail pitches.

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Why are third party candidates a threat to Biden in 2024? – podcast

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This week, Joe Biden admitted that he probably would not be running for re-election if Donald Trump was not likely to be the Republican candidate. The thoughts of a rehashed presidential race in 2024 has many Americans dreading next year, and some are looking to third-party or independent candidates as potential alternatives.

So why hasn’t an outsider been more successful in the past? Is running independently of the Democrat and Republican parties a legitimate offer to voters, or nothing more than an election spoiler? And if the answer is the latter, why should the president be the one to worry?

This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Nitish Pahwa of Slate about why Democrats are worried that Biden could suffer the same fate as Hilary Clinton in 2016

Archive: CNN, CSPAN, CBS News, AP News

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Jamaal Bowman on his censure: ‘This Republican House is unserious and unproductive’ – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. You can read our full report here:

Here is the moment House speaker Mike Johnson announced the votes on the censure of New York’s Democratic representative Jamaal Bowman:

The House has voted to censure Jamaal Bowman with 214 yeas and 191 nays.

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Nikki Haley says TikTok makes people ‘17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas’

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Republican presidential contender mocked for claim about Chinese-owned app during primary debate on Wednesday night

The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley claimed during the Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday that watching TikTok made people “17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas” every 30 minutes.

“We really do need to ban TikTok once and for all and let me tell you why,” Haley said. “For every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok every day they become 17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas based on doing that.”

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Biden ‘not sure he’d be running’ in 2024 if Trump wasn’t: ‘We cannot let him win’

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President spoke about risks Trump poses to democracy at event amid fears a second term would be far more autocratic

The US president, Joe Biden, said on Tuesday that he is not sure he would be seeking re-election in next year’s election if he were not likely facing Republican Donald Trump.

“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden said at a fundraising event for his 2024 campaign outside Boston. “We cannot let him win.”

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Muslim leaders in swing states pledge to ‘abandon’ Biden over his refusal to call for ceasefire

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Warnings that president stance on the war risks losing support of community in states critical to his chances for re-election

Muslim community leaders gathered on Saturday in Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the US, to protest President Biden’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, reiterating that the president’s stance could affect his support in crucial swing states next year.

Jaylani Hussein, director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that Biden’s unwillingness to call for a ceasefire had damaged his relationship with the American-Muslim community beyond repair. (Cair-Minnesota is not involved in his work on the Abandon Biden effort, which the organization said Hussein is doing in his personal capacity.)

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‘Moderate’ or Roe v Wade killer: can Trump have it both ways on abortion?

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The former president is proud of appointing the supreme court justices who overturned the right to abortion – now the issue is a vote loser for Republicans

A few months ago, the former president Donald Trump accused the Republican party of speaking “very inarticulately” on abortion. And yet, for the GOP presidential frontrunner, inarticulateness seems to be a feature, not a bug, of his own approach to abortion.

Trump thinks he can run in 2024 as a “moderate” on abortion, Rolling Stone reported this week – even though he’s currently running ads in Iowa, a crucial state in the Republican primary, proclaiming himself “the most pro-life president ever”. It’s a title to which Trump has a legitimate claim: his three nominees to the supreme court not only handed the nation’s highest court a definitive conservative majority, but all three voted to overturn Roe v Wade in summer 2022.

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Georgia county to use program linked to election denier to flag ineligible voters

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Controversial EagleAI program connected to Trump supporter uses public records to flag people who shouldn’t be on the rolls

A Georgia county on Friday agreed to use a controversial program to identify ineligible people on its voter rolls that is connected to one of the most prominent election deniers and a key figure in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Columbia county, which is just outside Augusta, is believed to be the first place in the US to use the program, which is called EagleAI, the New York Times reported. The software matches voting data with publicly available information like post office and death records to flag people who should no longer be on the rolls.

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Liz Truss backs Trump with call for Republican presidential victory

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Short-lived PM does not mention frontrunner for nomination by name but says ‘I hope a Republican will be returned in 2024’

Liz Truss, the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, who was memorably shown to have a shorter shelf life than a lettuce, has in effect backed Donald Trump in next year’s US presidential election.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Truss – who spent just 49 days in No 10 Downing Street before being turfed out by her own Conservative party in large part for pitching the UK economy into crisis – said she wished for a Republican president next.

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Abortion activists across US launch fresh efforts to add measures to 2024 ballots – live

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Abortion rights groups in Missouri and Nebraska are proposing measures to expand rights; 2022 clip surfaces of Mike Johnson saying allowing people to receive abortions is ‘causing an American Holocaust’

Democrats in Virginia this week proposed amending the state constitution to enshrine abortion rights.

The proposal follow Democrats’ win in the state earlier this month in which they gained control of the state legislature, signifying a blow to Republicans’ plans that included curtailing abortion access.

“Throughout the campaign cycle we told Virginians that a Democratic majority meant that abortion access would be protected in the Commonwealth.

Today, that reigns true. Our resolution will begin the process of amending our constitution to protect reproductive rights in Virginia, building on the work that I and congresswoman Jennifer McClellan started many years ago.

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Jill Stein formally launches 2024 White House bid as Green party candidate

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Stein is latest in a series of mostly leftist figures to announce candidacies with the potential to erode Biden’s core support

A new front opened in the growing threats to Joe Biden’s presidency on Tuesday when the left-wing environmentalist Jill Stein formally launched her third presidential bid in an online conversation with two fellow progressive activists.

Stein, 73, who is bidding to become the US Green party’s nominee, is the latest in a series of mostly leftist figures to announce candidacies with the potential to erode Biden’s core support in an expected re-match against Donald Trump in next year’s poll.

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Biden celebrates birthday as polls show struggles against Trump

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Voters concerned that Biden, who turns 81 on Monday, is too old for second term while Trump, 77, makes headway among key groups

As he turned 81 on Monday, Joe Biden was presented with unwelcome gifts: more polling showing him struggling against Donald Trump, his likely opponent next year who is just three and a half years younger but whom many fewer Americans think is too old to be president.

In its US Election Watch Report for November, the Morning Consult polling organisation said Trump is gaining ground among key voter segments including Black, Hispanic and young Americans. “Throughout 2023, Trump has made up ground with Joe Biden in our head-to-head tracking by improving his margins” among such groups, also including independents, it said.

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Texas governor endorses Trump for 2024 race at US-Mexico border event

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Greg Abbott said Biden’s border policies pose a danger to the US and credited Trump with lowering number of border crossings

Donald Trump won the endorsement of Texas governor Greg Abbott at an event near the US-Mexico border Sunday, a location meant to highlight the former Republican president’s plans to crack down on immigration if he wins the 2024 White House race.

Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination to challenge Democratic president Joe Biden next year, traveled to Edinburg, Texas, with his fellow Republican Abbott to visit national guard soldiers, state public safety department troopers and other service members stationed there.

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Georgia judge in Trump case rules to block release of ‘sensitive’ material

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Fulton county’s Scott McAfee issues order after outlets published details of videotaped statements from former Trump lawyers

The Fulton county judge overseeing the 2020 election subversion case against Donald Trump and his top allies in Georgia issued on Thursday a protective order against the release of certain discovery materials, ruling that further leaks of evidence could taint the jury pool before trial.

The order entered by the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee came after media outlets published details of videotaped statements that the former Trump lawyers Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro gave as part of their plea deals.

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Biden accuses Trump of echoing Nazis with ‘vermin’ remark

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President says comment from predecessor at New Hampshire rally ‘echoes language you heard in Nazi Germany in the 30s’

Joe Biden has attacked Donald Trump for using the word “vermin” to refer to his political enemies, saying it echoed the language of Nazi Germany.

At a recent rally in New Hampshire, Trump repeated his false claim that fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election and told the crowd he would “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections”.

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Trump can appear on Republican primary ballot in Michigan, judge rules

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Setback for challengers who say Trump should be barred from presidential run under ‘insurrection’ clause of 14th amendment

Donald Trump can appear on the ballot for the Republican primary in Michigan, a state judge ruled on Tuesday, a setback to challengers who argue he is constitutionally disqualified from being president because of his actions on 6 January 2021.

The lawsuit is one of several that left-leaning groups have filed across the country arguing that section 3 of the 14th amendment bars Trump from holding office. The provision says anyone who takes an oath to the United States and then engages in “insurrection” or “rebellion” against the nation cannot hold office unless Congress votes by two-thirds majority to allow them. The measure was adopted after the civil war and has not been tested.

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Newsom 2024: could the California governor be a rival to Joe Biden?

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Amid concern over the president’s poll ratings, Gavin Newsom appears to be running something of a shadow campaign

One of the strongest candidates for US president in 2024 may be one who’s not yet in the race. There’s growing evidence that Gavin Newsom, the charismatic and energetic Democratic governor of California, is running something of a shadow campaign to Joe Biden and ready to step up if, or when, the incumbent is out of the running.

Several developments in recent days suggest Newsom, who romped to re-election a year ago without really campaigning, is ready to bring forward what was already expected to be a strong run for the presidency in 2028.

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Joe Manchin’s Senate resignation fuels speculation of third-party 2024 bid

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Democratic West Virginia senator signalled possible White House run in announcement he would not run for re-election to Senate

The West Virginia Democrat senator Joe Manchin’s announcement that he will not run for re-election next year has triggered speculation that he might instead launch a bid for the White House as the candidate of No Labels, a third-party group which has attracted significant funding.

Manchin has long flirted with such a bid, brushing off warnings that by running he would only help elect Donald Trump, the likely Republican candidate who is far ahead in the party’s 2024 nomination race.

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Trump suggests he would use FBI to go after political rivals if elected in 2024

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Trump said: ‘If I happen to be president and I see somebody doing well and beating me very badly, I say go down and indict them’

Donald Trump has suggested he would use the FBI and justice department to go after political rivals should he return to the White House next year in a move which will further stoke fears of what a second period of office for Trump could mean.

Trump made the comments during an interview with the Spanish-language television network Univision. The host Enrique Acevedo asked him about his flood of legal problems saying: “You say they’ve weaponized the justice department, they weaponized the FBI. Would you do the same if you’re re-elected?”

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Support for Israel and verbal sparring propel fiery third Republican debate

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Candidates clash over Ukraine and immigration and grapple with abortion questions as Donald Trump holds rally nearby

The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and other foreign policy issues dominated Wednesday’s fiery third debate of Republican presidential hopefuls in Miami. Candidates pledged wholehearted support for Israel’s military response following last month’s Hamas attacks, and clashed over Ukraine, China and immigration.

The debate, minus Donald Trump, the runaway favorite for the party’s 2024 nomination who was hosting his own private rally elsewhere in the area, was a more bitter affair than its predecessors in Wisconsin and California. Lively verbal sparring sometimes regressed into insults, with Nikki Haley at one point calling one of her rivals “scum”.

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