Election 2024

I would never vote for Trump, but the VPs that he's looking at are awful, too. I think Elise Stefanik, JD Vance, Kari Lake, Bryan Donalds and Tim Scott are probably on his short list as well.  I don't know if his ego can handle a female VP, but he might choose one, thinking it will improve his chances with women voters.  I would never vote for any of them on their own.

www.nytimes.com/2024/02/24/us/politics/trump-vp-cpac-kristi-noem-vivek-ramaswamy.html

Kristi Noem and Vivek Ramaswamy Are CPAC’s Choices for Trump’s Running Mate
The conservative gathering’s straw poll is hardly predictive, but it can show which way political winds are gusting on the far right.

Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy tied for the top choice to be former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate in a straw poll on Saturday at a prominent gathering of conservative activists.

The straw poll, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, was the first time in years that a question about whom Republicans should pick for vice president had overshadowed one about the presidential nominee in the survey of attendees.

That was partly because Mr. Trump won the presidential poll, as expected, in a landslide over Nikki Haley, beating her by 94 percent to 5 percent. The last time Mr. Trump was not the top choice for the White House among CPAC attendees was in 2016, when Senator Ted Cruz of Texas finished first.

The straw poll, which provides one measure of enthusiasm on the far right and is not intended to be predictive, was announced at the end of the four-day CPAC gathering outside Washington. The attention on the vice-presidential question was notable because Mr. Trump is still fending off a challenge for the Republican presidential nomination by Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. He has won the party’s first several nominating contests and easily defeated Ms. Haley on Saturday in her home state.

Several Republicans viewed as contenders to be Mr. Trump’s running mate gave speeches at the event. They included Representative Byron Donalds of Florida on Thursday; Ms. Noem, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and Representative Elise Stefanik of New York on Friday; and Kari Lake, an Arizona Senate candidate, on Saturday. Mr. Ramaswamy spoke on both Friday and Saturday.

Ms. Noem and Mr. Ramaswamy each garnered 15 percent of the vote in the straw poll. Former Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who ran for president as a Democrat in 2020 but has since left the party to become an independent, was third with 9 percent, followed by Ms. Stefanik and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina with 8 percent each.

Mr. Vance, whom CPAC attendees choose as their favorite senator, received 2 percent in the vice-presidential question, behind Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News anchor, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the political scion of a Democratic family who is now running for president as an independent.

“It feels like I’m the only one who isn’t running for vice president,” said Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, who spoke at the conference. “Although — who knows what will happen.”

Charles Romaine, 75, a retiree in Silver Springs, Md., said he had arrived at his first CPAC this week supporting Ms. Stefanik as Mr. Trump’s No. 2, but changed his mind to Ms. Noem after hearing her speak on Friday.

He said that Ms. Noem’s speech was energetic and that he liked her opposition to health restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic and her support for sending National Guard troops to the southwestern border.

“She has had real authority as governor and she’s used it,” Mr. Romaine said. “That’s important experience to be vice president and, maybe, someday, president.”

James Ong, 20, a college student in Washington, D.C., said he had supported Mr. Ramaswamy, the 38-year-old businessman, as Mr. Trump’s running mate because he could appeal to younger voters whom the older presidential candidates in both parties might struggle to win over.

“America First is about America’s future, not just Trump, and Vivek can carry on that legacy,” Mr. Ong said.

Mr. Trump’s third presidential campaign will be his first without former Vice President Mike Pence on his ticket. The two men parted ways politically after Mr. Pence refused to help Mr. Trump overturn the 2020 election.

Behind the scenes, Mr. Trump has informally discussed potential running mates with advisers, and his team has weighed the risks and rewards of potential contenders.

Publicly, the former president has offered conflicting thoughts on the role. He said last month that he knew whom he would pick as his running mate, but later said he had not decided.

His campaign, meanwhile, has leaned into the anticipation.

His team has emailed and texted supporters with more than two dozen fund-raising solicitations this month designed to look like surveys about whom Mr. Trump should pick. The questionnaire mostly asks about various characteristics for a possible vice president but does not offer any specific names.

I wish journalists would stop talking about replacing with President Biden or VP Harris. Realistically, neither will happen. Choosing a nominee or a VP at a delegate would not go over well with voters. I have mixed feelings about Newsom, but I like his response.

Republicans know their policies are unpopular and they're desperately trying to hold onto power. Instead of changing their policies to gain more support, they have focused on voter suppression. They are also planting the seeds to cast doubt after the election, if it doesn't go their way.





www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/us/politics/trump-voter-rolls.html

Trump’s Allies Ramp Up Campaign Targeting Voter Rolls
Calling themselves investigators, activists are using new data tools and disputed legal theories to urge officials to drop voters from the rolls.

A network of right-wing activists and allies of Donald J. Trump is quietly challenging thousands of voter registrations in critical presidential battleground states, an all-but-unnoticed effort that could have an impact in a close or contentious election.

Calling themselves election investigators, the activists have pressed local officials in Michigan, Nevada and Georgia to drop voters from the rolls en masse. They have at times targeted Democratic areas, relying on new data programs and novel legal theories to justify their push.

In one Michigan town, more than 100 voters were removed after an activist lobbied officials, citing an obscure state law from the 1950s. In the Detroit suburb of Waterford, a clerk removed 1,000 people from the rolls in response to a similar request. The ousted voters included an active-duty Air Force officer who was wrongly removed and later reinstated.

The purge in Waterford went unnoticed by state election officials until The New York Times discovered it. The Michigan secretary of state’s office has since told the clerk to reinstate the voters, saying the removals did not follow the process laid out in state and federal law, and issued a warning to the state’s 1,600 clerks.

The Michigan activists are part of an expansive web of grass-roots groups that formed after Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat in 2020. The groups have made mass voter challenges a top priority this election year, spurred on by a former Trump lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, and True the Vote, a vote-monitoring group with a long history of spreading misinformation.

Their mission, they say, is to maintain accurate voting records and remove voters who have moved to another jurisdiction. Democrats, they claim, use these “excess registrations” to stuff ballot boxes and steal elections.

The theory has no grounding in fact. Investigations into voter fraud have found that it is exceedingly rare and that when it occurs, it is typically isolated or even accidental. Election officials say that there is no reason to think that the systems in place for keeping voter lists up-to-date are failing.

The bigger risk, they note, is disenfranchising voters.

“If you’re challenging 1,000 voters at once, you are not bringing the sophistication required when you are handling someone’s constitutional right,” said Michael Siegrist, the clerk of Canton Township, Mich., and a board member of the Michigan Association of Municipal Clerks.

In an email response to questions, Ms. Mitchell dismissed those concerns.

“The only persons ‘disenfranchised’ by following the law are the illegal voters, whose illegal registrations suppress and dilute the votes of those who are lawfully registered,” she said. “Our primary goal is to see that the laws of the states are followed and enforced by those sworn to administer the elections according to the applicable law.”

It is difficult to know precisely how many voters have been dropped from the rolls as a result of the campaign — and even harder to determine how many were dropped in error. A Times review of challenges in swing states, which included public records, interviews and audio recordings, suggested the activists were rarely as effective at removing voters as they were in Waterford.

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But even when they fail, the challenges have consequences. In some states, a challenge alone is enough to limit a voter’s access to a mail ballot, or to require additional documentation at the polls. Privately, activists have said they consider that a victory.

At the same time, right-wing media outlets have promoted the challenges, casting public officials as corrupt and creating fodder that could be used in another round of legal challenges should Mr. Trump lose again.

“It really is aimed at being able to cast doubt on the results after the fact,” said Joanna Lydgate, the chief executive of States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan organization. “But also, before the election itself, at being able to shape who turns out and how they turn out.”

There are a significant number of Haley voters who say they won't vote for Trump.  If Trump were any other incumbent and losing 30-40% of the vote in the primaries, this would be really big news.

Trump is desperate to win to avoid jail time. Desperate Trump could be really dangerous.


www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/05/trump-super-tuesday-victories-desperation-survival/

If you want to worry about autocracy in America, this is what you should worry about. It’s never a good betting strategy to predict Trump’s behavior, but at heart, he’s always been more of a craven entertainer than a scheming monarchist. He might not care very much about the principles of a democracy, but neither is it clear that he cares enough about the things he does care about — immigration, trade, white nationalism — to try to impose his will on the courts or the military.

But if there’s one thing we can infer from Trump’s career as a con man, it’s that he will do whatever it takes to save himself. The presidency would cloak him in a temporary immunity, which he desperately needs. Would he use his control over the Justice Department to shut down prosecutions? Absolutely. Would he attempt the legal contortions of issuing himself a blanket pardon? Bet on it.

Within days of his second inauguration, Trump would turn the executive branch into his sanctuary and his law firm, an instrument of protection and retribution. Everything else — and everyone else — would come second.
In 2016, Trump’s improvised campaign was a lark. Eight years later, he is running with the ferocity of a desperate man. For the star of politics’ greatest reality show, cancellation is no longer an option.

I hope Biden can win over some Haley supporters

One of my favorite things about Biden is the people he hires. Unlike Trump, they really are the best. I really like Jen Psaki and appreciate her perspective.




Ok…3 things for anyone who feels like they need to breathe into a paper bag right now about the election
1. About 1/3 of R primary voters (according to NBC exit polls) in NC and VA say they wont vote for Trump—means some work to do on uniting his party. Doesn’t help when you eye poke the people who ran against you
2. He has a money problem—-serious cash on hand disadvantage (and remember he is spending money on his legal fees)
3. He has an organizational disadvantage—GOP state parties are in complete disarray (hello Michigan..) and Dems have actually been building the infrastructure and actually working with Biden team to do that…. It’s gonna be a grind. It’s gonna be close. But Trump needs to expand base of support to win. He needs money and an organization (and discipline) to do that….all in short supply currently.

Campaign finances - Trump vs Biden

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/21/trump-biden-fundraising-2024-campaign/


Donald Trump has always loved to boast about how much money he has — or claims to have. When he announced his presidential run in 2015, he pledged to self-finance his campaign and crowed, “I don’t need anybody’s money.”

He sure needs some now.

President Biden’s reelection campaign reported Wednesday that it has $71 million in cash on hand — more than double the $33.5 million that Trump’s campaign reported having. If you throw in the bank balances of affiliated groups supporting the candidates, Trump’s campaign liquidity rises to $42 million — but Biden’s soars to a stunning $155 million, a ridiculous amount for this point in the cycle.

It makes me wonder about all those stories telling us how unenthusiastic Democrats are about Biden’s reelection. I’m starting to think that maybe — hear me out — we should pay less attention to what people say and more to what they actually do.

The Republican National Committee is in no position to bail the Trump campaign out. It reported raising $10.7 million in February, ending the month with $11.3 million in the bank. But the Democratic National Committee raised $16.6 million in February and was left with $26.6 million in cash on hand. No wonder that Trump sent daughter-in-law Lara Trump over to the RNC to try to improve the balance sheet.

The Biden campaign can be excused for a bit of chest-thumping. “If Donald Trump put up these kinds of numbers on ‘The Apprentice,’” communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement, “he’d fire himself.”

At the moment, of course, campaign cash might be the least of Trump’s money concerns. His lawyers told a New York court this week that the former president has been unable to secure a bond that would give him time to appeal a $454 million judgment against him and his company for fraud.

Trump approached more than 30 companies about underwriting the bond, his lawyers said, but all refused to accept real estate as collateral — and real estate is the source of most of Trump’s wealth. The insurance firm Chubb did underwrite a $91 million bond for Trump to appeal a separate civil judgment (for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll) but decided to steer clear of the fraud case.

New York Attorney General Letitia James could theoretically begin seizing Trump’s assets as soon as next week if he is unable to secure and post a bond. It would surely be galling for Trump to lose his gaudy triplex apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, where he famously descended the escalator in 2015 to announce he was running for president.

Declaring bankruptcy is the one remedy guaranteed to keep the wolf away from Trump’s lavishly gilded door, but he has reportedly ruled it out. That would likely give him years of breathing room on the massive fines, which Trump should know given his past: He has used bankruptcy six times largely to get out from under his foolish and ruinous foray into the casino business in Atlantic City.

Of course, filing for bankruptcy in the middle of the campaign would threaten Trump’s image as a successful, respected businessman. The Post quoted a source close to Trump as saying: “He’d rather have Letitia James show up with the sheriff at 40 Wall and make a huge stink about it than say he’s bankrupt.”

Trump’s personal cash crunch is relevant because the campaign is helping pay the soaring legal bills that he and his associates — and co-defendants in the criminal cases — are racking up. Trump’s Save America political action committee has spent $8.5 million on legal costs since the beginning of the year. The campaign itself has paid another $1.8 million to lawyers.

So far, the RNC’s position has been that it will not use Republican Party funds to pay Trump’s legal bills. But a resolution that would have made this stance official failed to win enough support to make it to the floor at a recent RNC meeting. Watch as they do, not as they say.

Montana, Ohio and Maryland are probably the most vulnerable races for the Democrats.






Senate races