Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have dominated the Republican presidential nomination fight for much of the year. Neither dominated the debate stage Wednesday night.
Republican Party
Republicans chose Milwaukee for the first debate and for the national convention in just 11 months largely because of Wisconsin’s well-earned status as a swing state. Four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point.
Moms for Liberty didn’t exist during the last presidential campaign, but the Florida-based nonprofit that champions “parental rights” in education has rapidly become a major player for 2024, boosted in part by GOP operatives, politicians and donors.
Republicans are poised to launch aggressive get-out-the-vote campaigns for 2024 that employ just those strategies, attempting to match the emphasis on early voting Democrats have used for years to lock in many of their supporters well ahead of Election Day.
The campaign will be the second for the former governor and federal prosecutor, who lost to Donald Trump in 2016 and went on to become a close on-and-off adviser before breaking with the former president over his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election.
Sounding the alarm about the current political environment, the nation’s largest organization devoted to the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans said advisories warning against travel to dangerous places aren’t enough to help people already living in so-called hostile states.
Mike Pence, the nation's 48th vice president, will formally launch his bid for the Republican nomination with a video and kickoff event in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday, which is his 64th birthday, according to people familiar with his plans.
The 44-year-old Republican revealed his decision in a Federal Election Commission filing before an online conversation with Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
The Senate’s only Black Republican, Scott kicked off the campaign in his hometown of North Charleston, on the campus of Charleston Southern University, his alma mater and a private school affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
Donald Trump’s repetition of those words, which have been taken up by other top Republicans, show how he is trying to turn his historic position as the first former president charged with crimes to his advantage.
“We should put the right to choose on every ballot across the country in 2024 — not just with the candidates we choose, but with referendum efforts to enshrine reproductive rights in states where right-wing politicians are stripping those rights away,” Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker told CNN.
In a presidential proclamation on Thursday and a subsequent statement on Friday, Biden acknowledged “a wave of discriminatory state laws” aimed at trans Americans, squarely blaming “MAGA extremists” for “advancing hundreds of hateful and extreme state laws that target transgender kids and their families.”
While Trump and his lawyers prepared for his defense, the prosecutor in his hush money case defended the grand jury investigation that propelled him toward trial, while congressional Republicans painted it as politically motivated.
From Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, there appears to be little rush to join the field of official presidential candidates. The reluctance reflects the unsettled nature of U.S. politics.
Law enforcement officials are bracing for protests and the possibility of violence after Donald Trump called on his supporters to protest ahead of a possible indictment in New York.
Mayor Gary Grasso of Burr Ridge says the Republican Party needs to listen to those more moderate voices if the party is to make an impact going forward in Illinois.
