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    Super Tuesday key takeaways: protest vote, low turnout and far-right machinations

    The sleepy US presidential primary continued on, with more than a dozen states turning out to cast ballots on Super Tuesday.President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump dominated yet again, all but ending the primary season, though some states still have to go to the polls. Voters have stayed home or tuned out, waiting until later in the year to show their enthusiasm.Biden faced his biggest challenge so far from an ongoing protest vote against his stance on the Israel-Gaza war. Trump lost one state to Republican challenger Nikki Haley, whose campaign is on its last legs.Across the states, far-right candidates won in key primaries, setting up a race in North Carolina between a man who has made repeated antisemitic comments and a man who could be the state’s first Jewish governor.Here’s what we learned from Super Tuesday.The protest vote continuesPerhaps the biggest threat to Biden in the Democratic primary is coming from no one – or, rather, from a concerted effort by anti-war Democrats to issue a protest by urging voters to cast ballots for uncommitted or no preference options.The ad hoc organizing came after Michigan’s uncommitted campaign pulled in more than 100,000 votes, a message to Biden that his base in the swing state was at risk. Since then, the Vice-President Kamala Harris called for an immediate, temporary ceasefire, which organizers say needs to be permanent, but is a sign the tactic is working.“They’re feeling the pressure, and we want them to feel that pressure. We want them to know that this is unacceptable,” said Khalid Omar, a Minneapolis uncommitted voter who helped organize the movement there.Several states saw sizable showings for uncommitted: at the time of writing late on Tuesday evening, in Minnesota, about 20% of voters chose “uncommitted”. Massachusetts saw about 9% of votes go to a “no preference” options. In North Carolina, about 12% of voters picked “no preference”.Imam Hassan Jama, a Minneapolis community leader, voted for, campaigned for and endorsed Biden in 2020, but didn’t vote for him on Tuesday because he is disappointed at Biden’s inaction on a ceasefire in Gaza. He instead voted “uncommitted” and worked to get others to do the same.“Hopefully we’ll send a strong message from Minnesota to White House,” he said. “And if they don’t listen, November is coming.”While Biden, his allies and Democratic parties have sought to make the election solely about Trump v Biden, the Biden campaign acknowledged the movement on Tuesday, with campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt telling the New York Times that “the president hears the voters participating in the uncommitted campaigns. He shares their goal for an end to the violence and a just, lasting peace – and he’s working tirelessly to that end.”Other states still waiting to vote are now organizing around uncommitted options, like Washington state, where the largest labor union endorsed the concept. Some states don’t have an uncommitted option or the ability to write in or leave blank.The anti-war movement isn’t going away; the uncommitted drumbeat, as it morphs and grows, keeps the calls for a ceasefire in the headlines, forcing Biden to contend with his biggest liability among Democrats.Biden and Trump is inevitableDespite the hopes of many voters this election year, it’s going to be Trump and Biden redux in November – unless something non-electoral happens, like a prison sentence or health crisis.The insurgent campaign to hold Biden accountable for Gaza is the only hurdle left for the president this primary season: the candidates who tried to oust the incumbent have not gained enough ground to credibly stay in the race.View image in fullscreenTrump and Biden have been acting like it’s the general election already for months, aiming their campaigns at each other mostly rather than on primary contenders. And the contrasts between the two men feel much the same as 2020.In his victory speech at Mar-a-Lago, Trump leaned into nativist comments again, calling the US-Mexico border “the worst invasion” and saying that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country”.Biden, meanwhile, said Trump is “driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people” and is “determined to destroy our democracy, rip away fundamental freedoms like the ability for women to make their own healthcare decisions, and pass another round of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy.”What will last candidates standing doSome Super Tuesday states had a couple handfuls of random names on their ballots, despite the lack of competition in both parties’ primaries. Those also-ran candidates with national campaigns need to decide soon whether they’ll stay in the running.Marianne Williamson, the self-help author, previously suspended her campaign, then un-suspended it after a better-than-expected showing in Michigan, but has garnered usually low single digits.Dean Phillips, the Minnesota congressman, lost his home state not only to Biden, but to the uncommitted campaign. Phillips has alluded to a forthcoming exit from the race, pointing out all the people he’s lost to on the campaign trail so far and saying people asking him to drop out could be nicer about it.In the past month, Phillips had to lay off much of his staff after he wasn’t able to fundraise much because he is challenging a sitting president, he said on X in February. He did, however, win his first county, the rural Oklahoma panhandle’s Cimarron county, winning 11 votes out of 21 on Tuesday.On the right, Nikki Haley is the last non-Trump Republican standing. She won Vermont on Super Tuesday, Trump’s only loss that day and Haley’s second victory, after Washington DC. She previously lost her home state of South Carolina. She doesn’t have a path to the nomination anymore, but hasn’t dropped out yet. She may after Tuesday’s results sink in.Haley said many times that she’s not interested in a third-party bid, though Phillips once floated the idea of running with Haley as a “unity ticket”.Dropout announcements could come in the next few days from either side of the ticket.Low turnoutBecause of the lack of competition and lagging enthusiasm for Trump and Biden, voters don’t seem excited to head to the polls this primary season.Turnout has fallen below past races, though in some states, uncommitted campaigns newly energized those voters who might have stayed home.Minnesota secretary of state Steve Simon told reporters on Tuesday that a few factors affect turnout.“One is candidates that inspire strong feelings, and the other is perceptions of competitiveness,” he said. “I think it’s safe to say, I don’t think I’m breaking any new ground here, that we have a lot of number one, and not so much of number two.”In California, officials were concerned about low turnout, with few voters saying they believed their vote would be important in this primary.Only about 8% of California’s 22 million voters had returned their mail-in ballots a week before voting day, Politico reported. The numbers fall even more for younger voters between the ages of 18 and 34, a subset that typically boosts progressive candidates and priorities. Only 2% in that age group had turned in their ballots during that same time period.View image in fullscreenBut the lower turnout in the presidential primaries doesn’t tell us anything about what could happen in November’s general election. Presidential general elections bring the highest turnout of any US elections.“Over the last many years, there has been virtually no connection, virtually none, between early in the year primary turnout and general election turnout,” Simon said.Far-right machinations in the statesAn explosive ruling by Alabama’s supreme court last month set off a chain of political reactions across the country, as Republicans fearing a backlash quickly uttered delicately-worded statements praising the virtues of in vitro fertilization while attempting to defend their pro-life political credentials. Lawmakers in several states – including Alabama – began crafting legislation to protect IVF.But Alabama’s Republican voters chose not to closely challenge the abortion politics of their state’s highest jurists on Tuesday. Their chosen successor to Tom Parker, Alabama’s retiring chief justice, is Sarah Stewart, an associate state supreme court justice who voted with the majority in its ruling last month declaring frozen embryos as “children” for purposes of legal protection.In North Carolina, Lt. Gov Mark Robinson captured about two-thirds of the Republican primary vote on Tuesday to win the nomination for governor. If elected, he would be North Carolina’s first Black governor. But Robinson has made a litany of inflammatory public comments about race, gender, sexual orientation and religion, with repeated and particular attacks on Jews. He described the movie Black Panther as “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic Marxists” that was “only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets”.He has compared gay people to “maggots” and – as of Tuesday evening – still has a 2014 Facebook post up quoting Hitler’s comments about having “pride in one’s own race”. His commentary elicits comparisons to EW Jackson in Virginia and more recently Herschel Walker in Georgia, notable as Black conservatives courting the far right with political extremism.Robinson’s opponent in November will be Josh Stein, the North Carolina attorney general. The Democratic nominee would be North Carolina’s first Jewish governor. More

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    Who is Jason Palmer? Biden beaten by unknown in American Samoa Democratic caucus

    As he wrestles with the challenges of the Democrat “uncommitted’ protest vote, Joe Biden faced a new opponent on Super Tuesday, and lost.The president swept every Democratic contest in the early results, including taking Minnesota, the home state of nearest challenger Dean Phillips. But he didn’t reckon on the power of Jason Palmer in American Samoa.Out of 91 ballots cast in the territory’s caucus, Palmer won 51 and Biden won 40, according to the local party, giving the previously unknown candidate from Baltimore four delegates to Biden’s two.The outcome in the tiny collection of islands in the South Pacific with fewer than 50,000 residents is unlikely to derail Biden’s march toward his party’s nomination but sparked interest amid the more predictable results. Many greeted the news online with the question: who is Jason Palmer?“I found out that I had won because my phone started blowing up with friends and campaign staffers texting me,” Palmer said in an interview with the Associated Press after the results were announced.Palmer, a Maryland resident, said he’d never visited the territory before the caucus, but had been “campaigning remotely, doing Zoom town halls, talking to people, listening to them about their concerns and what matters to them”.Palmer qualified for the presidential ballot in 16 US states and territories and, at 52, has promoted himself as one of the youngest Democratic candidates.On the day before the caucus, Palmer posted on X that “Washington DC is long overdue for a president who will be an advocate for American Samoa.” His account includes pictures of young people holding homemade campaign signs.“This win is a testament to the power of our voices. Together, we can rebuild the American Dream and shape a brighter future for all #VoteJasonPalmer,” he later added.According to campaign finance records, Palmer has loaned his campaign more than $500,000 of his own money.“You can’t take the money with you when you die,” he told AP. “But you can change the world while you’re here.”Residents of US territories vote in primaries but do not have representation in the electoral college for the general election in November.American Samoa has been the site of quixotic victories before. During the 2020 Democratic primaries, billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s only win came in the territory.With Associated Press More

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    California Senate race: Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey advance to November election

    Adam Schiff, the centrist Democratic congressman, is poised to be the next US senator from California after securing enough votes to advance to the November election. He will face off with Republican Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player, who also performed well in the nonpartisan primary on Tuesday.Schiff, a pro-Israel Democrat, was quickly called a winner by the Associated Press, and Garvey secured his spot in the general election about an hour after polls closed. The two progressive Democratic candidates were trailing far behind, with the Orange county congresswoman Katie Porter in third place and the Bay Area congresswoman Barbara Lee in the fourth spot. The rankings could continue to change as more votes are counted, but the AP said Schiff and Garvey were certain to advance.Garvey stands little chance of winning in the general election; the last time a Republican won a statewide seat in California was in 2006. Facing off in the runoff with an inexperienced Republican candidate in a majority-Democratic state would likely see Schiff cruise to victory in November.View image in fullscreenThe primary broke records as the most expensive senate race in California. Schiff’s campaign is widely seen as having engineered Garvey’s strong primary performance by spending millions of dollars to air ads attacking Garvey, the former first baseman for the LA Dodgers and an inexperienced Republican candidate, thus elevating his name recognition among Republican voters in a way the Garvey campaign itself was not able to afford.Schiff’s strategy appeared to be effective at boxing out his two Democratic progressive competitors. Neither Porter nor Lee are expected to return to Congress next year, after choosing to compete in the Senate race rather than run for re-election in their house districts.Lee, a longtime progressive, had called for a ceasefire in Gaza in October 2023. Porter broke with the Biden administration in December to call for a “bilateral ceasefire”.Schiff, in contrast, has shown continuing support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and has refused to call for a ceasefire, a position that has sparked protests by some young progressive California Democrats.Polls showed Porter, a nationally prominent consumer advocate known for grilling CEOs with the help of her trademark whiteboard, would have been a strong competitor against Schiff in a two-Democrat race.View image in fullscreenIn early polls, Porter had been coming in second after Schiff, with Lee trailing behind, until growing support for Garvey pushed Porter into third place.Porter denounced the Schiff campaign’s ads targeting Garvey in early February, writing Schiff was “playing cynical, anti-democratic political games to avoid a competitive election in November” and that “voters deserve better”.Garvey has done minimal campaigning for his seat and gave a lackluster performance in campaign debates. He has struggled to answer policy questions from journalists. When asked about homelessness and his lack of specific ideas, he said: “Once we get through the primary, I’ll start a deeper dive into the [issues].” In addition to his baseball career, he also starred in weight-loss infomercials and is reportedly estranged from several of his adult children.Schiff was the Senate frontrunner throughout the California senate primary, thanks to his fundraising prowess, and a public profile burnished by his prominent roles in the first impeachment of Donald Trump and the investigation of the January 6 insurrection.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn all, at least $65.3m was spent on advertisements in the Senate primary battle, a record-breaking amount more than the last three senate races combined, Politico reported, citing data from AdImpact, a political ad-tracking service.Porter’s campaign was also targeted in the race’s last month by $10m in attack ads from a Super Pac funded by the cryptocurrency industry. The Pac celebrated Porter’s defeat in a statement on Tuesday night.In a statement after polls closed, Lee quoted her “mentor and friend” Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman in Congress, who said: “You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.”She added: “Our campaign has always been about giving a voice to people who don’t feel heard in Washington – and I’m exceptionally proud of the grassroots, multi-ethnic, cross-generational coalition this campaign built across California.”The California Senate seat became available after Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving woman in the US Senate, died in September. Laphonza Butler, a Democratic strategist and former labor leader, was appointed her replacement, but did not run for a full term.By November, California won’t have a female senator for the first time in 30 years.In early results, California voters also appeared to be backing Proposition 1, a mental health funding ballot measure proposed by Governor Gavin Newsom to “prioritise getting people off the streets, out of tents and into treatment”. The measure, which earned 53% of votes with a third of votes counted, is opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union and disability rights advocates who argue it would fund locked-door psychiatric institutions and involuntary treatment and take money from community programs.Criminal justice reform advocates were also closely watching the crowded Los Angeles district attorney’s race. George Gascón, the incumbent who has pushed progressive policies to reduce mass incarceration, was in the lead with 37% of votes counted, with Nathan Hochman, a former GOP attorney general candidate and federal prosecutor, in second place. Many of Gascón’s 11 challengers, including Hochman, have pledged to undo his reform agenda. More

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    Super Tuesday 2024 live: millions of voters head to polls in the US as Haley suggests she could stay in the race

    Voters in more than a dozen states head to the polls on Tuesday for what is the biggest day of the presidential primaries of the 2024 election cycle.Polls are now open in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia for voters to cast their ballots in the Republican presidential primary on Tuesday. All those states except Alaska are also holding their Democratic primary contests as well. In Iowa, where Democratic caucuses were held by mail since January, the results are expected this evening. (Republicans held their Iowa caucuses in January, when Trump easily won the first voting state.)First polls will close at 7pm Eastern time. Here’s what to expect tonight, so you can plan your evening. Meanwhile, here’s a recap of the latest developments:
    Nikki Haley once again rejected a third-party presidential bid, as she insisted she would stay in the race “as long as we’re competitive”.
    “I don’t know why everybody is so adamant that they have to follow Trump’s lead to get me out of this race. You know, all of these people deserve to vote. Sixteen states want to have their voices heard,” she told Fox News.
    Joe Biden aimed to shore up his standing among Black voters as he warned what would happen if Democrats lose the White House.
    Biden is reportedly eager for a “much more aggressive approach” to the 2024 contest for the White House that would revolve going for Donald Trump’s jugular.”
    Donald Trumphas predicted he will sweep “every state” on Super Tuesday and said he is fully focused on the November election against his presumed opponent, Joe Biden.
    Trump voiced support for the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza, and claimed the Hamas attacks of 7 October on Israel would have never happened if he had been president at the time.
    Taylor Swift has urged her fans to vote on Super Tuesday in a post on her Instagram Story.
    Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming has decided not to run for Senate Republican leader to succeed Mitch McConnell, and instead will run for the No. 2 position of whip.
    Only in the past few years have Democrats known success in Arizona’s Senate races, and Republicans are hoping to undo that in November.In a statement, Montana senator and head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee Steve Daines said Kyrsten Sinema’s decision to bow out will boost the prospects of Kari Lake, who the party is backing for the seat.“An open seat in Arizona creates a unique opportunity for Republicans to build a lasting Senate majority this November. With recent polling showing Kyrsten Sinema pulling far more Republican voters than Democrat voters, her decision to retire improves Kari Lake’s opportunity to flip this seat,” Daines said.Turnout has lagged in Minnesota’s primary compared to previous years, at least so far. About 88,000 people had returned early ballots as of Tuesday morning, out of 200,000 who had received them, the state’s secretary of state, Steve Simon, told reporters.Nationally, many states have seen lower turnout this presidential primary season as Trump and Biden have dominated the nominating contests, leaving voters feeling like their vote won’t play much of a role at this point.“There are at least a couple of factors that explain turnout,” Simon said. “One is candidates that inspire strong feelings, and the other is perceptions of competitiveness. I think it’s safe to say, I don’t think I’m breaking any new ground here, that we have a lot of number one, and not so much of number two.”But the lower turnout in the presidential primaries doesn’t tell us anything about what could happen in November’s general election. Presidential general elections bring the highest turnout of any US elections.“Over the last many years, there has been virtually no connection, virtually none, between early in the year primary turnout and general election turnout,” Simon said.Nationally, many states have seen lower turnout this presidential primary season as Trump and Biden have dominated the nominating contests, leaving voters feeling like their vote won’t play much of a role at this point.“There are at least a couple of factors that explain turnout,” Simon said. “One is candidates that inspire strong feelings, and the other is perceptions of competitiveness. I think it’s safe to say, I don’t think I’m breaking any new ground here, that we have a lot of number one, and not so much of number two.”But the lower turnout in the presidential primaries doesn’t tell us anything about what could happen in November’s general election. Presidential general elections bring the highest turnout of any US elections.“Over the last many years, there has been virtually no connection, virtually none, between early in the year primary turnout and general election turnout,” Simon said.Hello US politics live blog readers, Super Tuesday is all go at the voting booths and the results will start coming in this evening. We’ll be here to bring you all the news and the context, as it happens.Here’s where things stand:
    Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and his wife, Nadine Menendez, have been charged with obstruction of justice in a new, 18-count indictment unsealed on Tuesday related to a years-long bribery scheme linked to Egypt and Qatar.
    Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, ex-Democratic Party and now independent US Senator, has announced she will retire at the end of her term this year. Her exit clears the way for a likely matchup between Republican Kari Lake and Democratic Ruben Gallego in one of the most closely watched 2024 Senate races.
    Nikki Haley, the last rival to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, once again rejected a third-party presidential bid, as she insisted she would stay in the Republican race “as long as we’re competitive.” She told Fox News on Super Tuesday: “All of these people deserve to vote. Sixteen states want to have their voices heard.”
    Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming has decided not to run for Senate Republican leader to succeed Mitch McConnell, and instead will run for the No. 2 position of whip, according to multiple reports. Barrasso, 71, is relatively popular with the Republican right. He endorsed Donald Trump in January and has the closes relationship with the former president of the “three Johns”.
    Barasso’s decision not to run means the race is now effectively between senators John Thune of South Dakota and John Cornyn of Texas, although Barrasso’s departure could pave the way for another Trump ally to throw their hat in the ring, such as Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who met with Trump on Monday night amid speculation that he could launch a bid for Senate leader.
    Polls are open and voting is under way in some states as millions head to the ballot box on this Super Tuesday, the largest day for voting for both Democrats and Republicans before the November presidential election. Voters involved today are in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. The territory of American Samoa will be caucusing.
    The Guardian US Super Tuesday live blogging team’s Léonie Chao-Fong is now handing over for the rest of the day and evening to Chris Stein and Maanvi Singh.Senator Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, have been charged with obstruction of justice in a new, 18-count indictment unsealed on Tuesday related to a years-long bribery scheme linked to Egypt and Qatar.Menendez has pleaded not guilty to earlier charges of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from businessmen to impede law enforcement probes they faced, and illegally acting as an agent of the Egyptian government.In the new indictment, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Menendez’s former lawyers had told them in meetings last year that Menendez had not been aware of mortgage or car payments that two businessmen had made for his wife, and that he thought the payments were loans, Reuters reported.In countless campaign appearances during his futile pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination, Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, celebrated his state as “the place woke goes to die”.Now, by virtue of a federal appeals court ruling that skewers a centerpiece of his anti-diversity and inclusion agenda, Florida resembles a place where anti-woke legislation goes to die.In a scathing ruling released late on Monday, a three-judge panel of the 11th circuit appeals court in Atlanta blasted DeSantis’s 2022 Stop Woke Act – which banned employers from providing mandatory workplace diversity training, or from teaching that any person is inherently racist or sexist – as “the greatest first amendment sin”.The judges upheld a lower court’s ruling that the law violated employers’ constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression. They were also critical of DeSantis for “exceeding the bounds” of the US constitution by imposing political ideology through legislation.The panel said the state could not be selective by only banning discussion of particular concepts it found “offensive” while allowing others.Donald Trump is seeking a new trial in the defamation case brought by E Jean Carroll, claiming that the judge in the case improperly restricted his testimony.In January, Trump was ordered to pay $83.3m in damages to Carroll for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her allegation that he raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.Trump’s testimony lasted less than five minutes as the judge in this case, Lewis Kaplan, significantly limited what the ex-president could say in court.In a court filing on Tuesday, Trump’s defense attorneys Alina Habba and John Sauer argued “the Court’s restrictions on President Trump’s testimony were erroneous and prejudicial” because Trump was not allowed to explain “his own mental state” when he made the defamatory statements about Carroll. They continued:
    This Court’s erroneous decision to dramatically limit the scope of President Trump’s testimony almost certainly influenced the jury’s verdict, and thus a new trial is warranted.
    Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent, has announced she will retire at the end of her term this year.“I love Arizona and I am so proud of what we’ve delivered,” she said in a video posted to social media.
    Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done, I will leave the Senate at the end of this year.
    The now independent senator won her seat in 2018 as a Democrat. She was the first non-Republican to win a Senate seat for Arizona since 1994. She’d go on in December 2022 to announce her leave from the Democratic party to become an independent.Her exit clears the way for a likely matchup between Republican Kari Lake and Democratic Ruben Gallego in one of the most closely watched 2024 Senate races.Joe Biden claimed he has been leading in recent public opinion polls not noticed by the media.The president was asked about his message for Democrats who are concerned about his poll numbers as he boarded Air Force One in Hagerstown, Maryland. Biden replied:
    The last five polls I’m winning. Five in a row, five. You guys only look at the New York Times.
    A spokesperson for the Biden campaign did not immediately provide a full list of polls referenced by Biden, the Washington Post reported.Biden was also asked about the chances of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, to which he said:
    It’s in the hands of Hamas right now. Israelis have been cooperating. There’s been a rational offer. We will know in a couple of days what’s gonna happen. We need a ceasefire.
    Although many Democrats have sharply criticized Joe Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza, several primary voters who cast ballots in Arlington, Virginia, said they felt the president has done as much as he can to bring about a ceasefire.“I think he’s been between a rock and hard place,” said John Schuster, 66. “I’m a supporter of the state of Israel, but not of the way Israel has prosecuted the war.”Looking ahead to the general election against Donald Trump, Schuster said:
    I see no reason whatsoever to vote against Biden on that issue [of the war in Gaza] because the alternatives will all be worse.
    Russell Krueger, 77, condemned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the situation in Gaza, where more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.On the question how Biden has navigated the war, Krueger said”:
    I would have liked a little bit more verbal outreach, but I suspect he’s done most of what he can do … I would have given up on Netanyahu a little before this.
    Asked about Kamala Harris’ recent call for an immediate temporary ceasefire in Gaza, Krueger took her comments as a sign that the administration is “definitely moving in the right direction”. He added:
    I think that they will probably come out much more forcefully at the State of the Union address this Thursday.
    One Virginia Democrat said he had planned to cast a primary ballot for “uncommitted” on Tuesday, but he ended up voting for Marianne Williamson because “uncommitted” did not appear on Virginia’s primary ballot.David Bacheler, 67, criticized Joe Biden as a “horrible” president, arguing that the nation’s welfare had been materially damaged since he took office.“This country needs to change. It’s going in a very bad direction,” Bacheler said after voting at Clarendon United Methodist Church in Arlington.
    Everything’s blown up. Look at all the mess we’ve got in the Middle East now. It wasn’t like that a few years ago.
    Bacheler said he believes the country was better off when Donald Trump was president, and he is currently leaning toward supporting him over Biden in the general election.“He knows how to handle the economy better,” Bacheler said.
    I’m still undecided, but I’m leaning toward Trump.
    Two self-identified Democrats said they cast primary ballots for Nikki Haley this afternoon at Clarendon United Methodist Church in Arlington, Virginia.Virginia holds open primaries, so voters do not necessarily have to participate in the primary of the party with which they are registered.Although both said they planned to vote for Joe Biden in the general election, they chose to participate in the Republican primary as a means of protesting Donald Trump‘s candidacy.“There’s no greater imperative in the world than stopping Donald Trump,” said John Schuster, 66.
    It’ll be the end of democracy and the world order if he becomes president.
    Schuster acknowledged he did not align with Haley on most policy matters, but he appreciates how her enduring presence in the Republican primary appears to have gotten under Trump’s skin.“It’s a vote against Trump. Nikki Haley is very conservative. I disagree with her on everything, except for on the issue of democracy and Russia,” Schuster said.
    Anything to irritate [Trump] and slow him down is what I’m doing.
    Voters in more than a dozen states head to the polls on Tuesday for what is the biggest day of the presidential primaries of the 2024 election cycle.Polls are now open in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia for voters to cast their ballots in the Republican presidential primary on Tuesday. All those states except Alaska are also holding their Democratic primary contests as well. In Iowa, where Democratic caucuses were held by mail since January, the results are expected this evening. (Republicans held their Iowa caucuses in January, when Trump easily won the first voting state.)First polls will close at 7pm Eastern time. Here’s what to expect tonight, so you can plan your evening. Meanwhile, here’s a recap of the latest developments:
    Nikki Haley once again rejected a third-party presidential bid, as she insisted she would stay in the race “as long as we’re competitive”.
    “I don’t know why everybody is so adamant that they have to follow Trump’s lead to get me out of this race. You know, all of these people deserve to vote. Sixteen states want to have their voices heard,” she told Fox News.
    Joe Biden aimed to shore up his standing among Black voters as he warned what would happen if Democrats lose the White House.
    Biden is reportedly eager for a “much more aggressive approach” to the 2024 contest for the White House that would revolve going for Donald Trump’s jugular.”
    Donald Trumphas predicted he will sweep “every state” on Super Tuesday and said he is fully focused on the November election against his presumed opponent, Joe Biden.
    Trump voiced support for the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza, and claimed the Hamas attacks of 7 October on Israel would have never happened if he had been president at the time.
    Taylor Swift has urged her fans to vote on Super Tuesday in a post on her Instagram Story.
    Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming has decided not to run for Senate Republican leader to succeed Mitch McConnell, and instead will run for the No. 2 position of whip.
    Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former Trump press secretary turned Arkansas governor, has said she is confident that her former boss will win the GOP nomination and take back the White House in the November general election.Sanders, speaking to reporters as she cast her ballot at a Little Rock community center with her husband, Bryan Sanders, said:
    This is a head to head matchup at this point between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and he’s the clear favorite, has all the momentum, and I feel really good about him winning again in November.
    She went on to say that she was not surprised by the US supreme court’s ruling restoring Trump to primary ballots, adding that the 9-0 decision was “very telling” and “should be a signal to stop trying to use our courts for political purposes.”Reaching for racist rhetoric bizarre even for him, Donald Trump compared undocumented migrants to the US to Hannibal Lecter, the serial killer and cannibal famously played by Sir Anthony Hopkins in the Oscar-winning 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs.“They’re rough people, in many cases from jails, prisons, from mental institutions, insane asylums,” the former president and probable Republican presidential nominee claimed in an interview with Right Side Broadcasting Network on Monday.
    You know, insane asylums, that’s Silence of the Lambs stuff. Hannibal Lecter, anybody know Hannibal Lecter?
    To laughter from the audience at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump added:
    We don’t want ’em in this country.
    Trump has made such statements before, including in his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland last month. As framed to Right Side, they were the latest piece of extremist and dehumanizing invective from a candidate seeking to make immigration a core issue of the 2024 presidential campaign.Trump has a long history of such racist statements, having launched his successful 2016 presidential campaign by describing Mexicans crossing the southern border as rapists and drug dealers.Joe Biden took to the radio airwaves on Super Tuesday as he aims to shore up his standing among Black voters, a critical constituency for Democrats in the November general election.In an interview aired this morning, Biden promoted his achievements for Black voters, such as increased funding for historically Black colleges and universities and key investments in infrastructure to benefit Black communities, AP reported.The president also criticized Donald Trump and warned what would happen if the Democrats lose the White House in another interview.“Think of the alternative, folks. If we lose this election, you’re going to be back with Donald Trump,” said Biden.
    The way he talks about, the way he acted, the way he has dealt with the African-American community, I think, has been shameful.
    Donald Trump has claimed that the Hamas attacks of 7 October on Israel would have never happened if he had been president at the time.Trump, in an interview with Fox, was asked whether he supported the way the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is fighting in Gaza. Trump said:
    You’ve gotta finish the problem. You had a horrible invasion [that] took place. It would have never happened if I was president.
    Texas’s plans to arrest people who enter the US illegally and order them to leave the country is headed to the supreme court in a legal showdown over the federal government’s authority over immigration.An order issued on Monday by Justice Samuel Alito puts the new Texas law on hold for at least next week while the high court considers what opponents have called the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since an Arizona law more than a decade ago.The law, known as Senate Bill 4, had been set to take effect on Saturday under a decision by the conservative-leaning fifth US circuit court of appeals. Alito’s order pushed that date back until 13 March and came just hours after the justice department asked the supreme court to intervene.The Republican governor, Greg Abbott, signed the law in December as part of a series of escalating measures on the border that have tested the boundaries of how far a state can go to keep people from entering the country.The law would allow state officers to arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally. People who are arrested could then agree to a Texas judge’s order to leave the country or face a misdemeanor charge for entering the US illegally. Those who do not leave after being ordered to do so could be arrested again and charged with a more serious felony.Donald Trump has predicted he will sweep “every state” on Super Tuesday and said he is fully focused on the November election against his presumed opponent, Joe Biden.“My focus is really at this point, it’s on Biden,” Trump said on Fox News.
    We should win almost every state today, I think every state. … But we [should’] really look at Biden. More

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    Texts reveal Trump co-defendant Chesebro’s role in ‘fake electors’ plot

    Kenneth Chesebro was eager to help.It was five days after the 2020 presidential election and Joe Biden was projected to defeat Donald Trump and win Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes. Trump’s campaign was requesting a recount. Chesebro, a little-known Harvard-educated lawyer, believed there were abnormalities in the election and emailed Jim Troupis, a friend and former Wisconsin judge, to offer to help with any of the campaign’s legal efforts.Chesebro tacked on a thought at the end of his message. If there were still questions about irregularities while Wisconsin’s members of the electoral college cast their votes for Joe Biden, Congress might not have to accept the result of the election.“If these various systemic abuses can be proven, and found to be pivotal in a court decision and/or detailed legislative findings, I don’t see why electoral votes certified by Evers (at least if court proceedings are still pending on the ‘safe harbor’ days) should be counted over an alternative slate sent in by the legislature, whose decisions should have primacy,” he wrote in an email on 8 November 2020. “At minimum, with such a cloud of confusion, no votes from WI (and perhaps also MI and PA) should be counted, perhaps enough to throw the election to the House.”The short email was the earliest seed of what would come to be known as the “fake elector” scheme – a national effort led by Chesebro to get Congress to reject legitimate slates of electors in favor of pro-Trump slates. It was a critical piece of Trump’s anti-democratic effort to overturn the 2020 election and now lies at the center of two criminal cases against Trump.Chesebro has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to file false documents, a felony, in Georgia, and was sentenced to five years of probation and $5,000 restitution. He is an unnamed co-conspirator in the federal election interference case against Trump. Troupis, who currently sits on a judicial ethics panel in Wisconsin, has not been criminally charged for his role in the scheme.“The resolution of this litigation provides much-needed transparency into how the fraudulent electors scheme was conceived and developed, and it exposes the key roles both Troupis and Chesebro played not only in executing the scheme in Wisconsin, but also around the nation,” Law Forward, Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) and Stafford Rosenbaum, the legal groups who brought the civil case, said in a statement.Chesebro did not immediately return a request for comment.“It is the duty of lawyers to vigorously represent their clients, regardless of their popularity, within the bounds of the law. Our representation was vigorous and ethically appropriate,” Troupis said in a statement.Five days after his email, on 13 November, Troupis invited Chesebro to be part of the “legal briefing” team. Chesebro, who had been peppering Troupis with tweets he came across, replied that he was available to join “any call today on 20 mins notice”.“In the meantime, I’m still reading up on election law,” he added.Five days later, Chesebro sent what is now a well-known memo outlining the fake elector scheme. With the subject line “The Real Deadline for Settling a State’s Electoral Votes”, the document offered a legal justification to throwing out the valid votes of Americans across the country and would become a roadmap for what was to unfold over the next few weeks.In the emails, Chesebro floated multiple avenues to challenge the election in Wisconsin – attempting to solve the puzzle of actually getting a court to side with them.“I should add a note about a more aggressive version of this strategy,” he wrote to Troupis on 19 November, arguing that the state legislature could justify choosing its own electors by casting doubt on the official process – which had changed during the pandemic to expand absentee voting. “The beauty of this is that the Republican legislators, if they adhere carefully to this theory, can emphasize that they’re simply acting in the interests of the State,” he added.Clever legal arguments would be important, but so would the perception, among Republican voters, that the 2020 election had been tainted by rampant fraud.“The whole idea is a long shot. Probably it would only be viable if by early December there was a palpable sense among conservatives that there was a concerted effort by Democrats to steal this election in multiple states,” he wrote.Chesebro pointed to numerous pandemic-era practices as potential legal challenges: “Democracy in the Park” events staffed by poll workers in Madison parks where voters could drop off their ballots ahead of election day and the use of ballot “drop boxes” were two particularly troubling practices, in Chesebro’s mind, and could form the basis for an objection.The documents also show how Chesebro sought to use conservative media to get the attention of conservatives on the Wisconsin supreme court. As they discussed various theories of wrongdoing in 18 November, Chesebro suggested “tipping off” conservative radio hosts. “Mostly to maximize the chance that [supreme court of Wisconsin] justices hear about this quickly and prejudge the case?” he wrote, adding a winking emoji to the text.In mid-December, after the Wisconsin supreme court declined to overturn the state’s election results, Chesebro sent Troupis a screenshot of a text that appears to joke about killing Brian Hagedorn, a conservative justice who cast a critical vote in the case. “We’re thinking of inviting Hagedorn on the plane and solving that problem at high altitude, over water…” the message says. It’s not clear who the message is from.Outside of the legal strategy, the documents also show how Chesebro was willing to assist with any detail, no matter how small – from brainstorming a media strategy to offering to coordinate on logistics. He drafted up a press release on the Wisconsin alternate electors meeting, only backtracking when Michael Roman, a top Trump aide, made clear in a 14 December email that the plan was not to be shared with the media.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionChesebro offered an alternative idea – rather than a local media blitz, a message about their effort could come from the top – “Like a tweeted statement by Ellis, and follow up on-camera explanation by RG, and or follow up tweet by the President?” he replied, apparently in reference to Trump campaign lawyers Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani. “Much wiser heads on that sort of thing than me!”View image in fullscreenLater, as he and Roman tried to figure out how to get the fake elector documents to the Capitol on January 6, Chesebro offered different flights and routes a congressional aide can take as they fly into Washington.Those who know Chesebro have been baffled at how he got caught up in the fake elector scheme. The messages hint at a sense of excitement in being involved with Trump and his closest aides. After Troupis and Chesebro met with Trump in the Oval Office on 15 December, Chesebro texted Troupis a picture of Troupis on what appears to be a private plane.A few days after that meeting, Trump sent out a tweet inviting supporters to Washington on January 6. “Be there, will be wild,” Trump said. Chesebro sent the tweet to Troupis and wrote: “Wow. Based on 3 days ago, I think we have a unique understanding of this.”And on January 6, Troupis praised Chesebro’s work as senators began to object to the electoral college vote. “You got Arizona. Well done Ken! History is made,” he wrote in a text message. Chesebro replied with a picture of him on the mall smiling in front of the Washington monument. He later followed up with a smiling selfie of him and the far-right host Alex Jones. “Hanging with Alex Jones,” Chesebro wrote. “Lol. I told him to put you on his show.”The next morning, after the attack on the capitol, Chesebro suggested Trump surrogates should lay blame on antifa and poor security that was under the control of Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi. He also suggested Trump could put the episode behind him by inviting Biden and Harris over for coffee on the morning of the inauguration. “He could lighten it up with a couple of well-placed jokes.”About an hour later, he said it was “stupid to have a rally on Jan. 6”. “Original plan was Jan. 5 right? Would have been perfect to have a Jan. 5 rally, then told people to go home, so focus would be on debate in Congress.” He also added Mike Pence was to blame for giving Trump hope of overturning the election and then not following through.On 22 February, the US supreme court dismissed a request filed by Troupis and Chesebro on behalf of the Trump campaign to revisit the Wisconsin election results.“So sorry,” Chesebro wrote.“You’re [sic] work was incredible Ken. I am honored to have been a part of it,” Troupis replied.“I am honored you invited me to help at all. Would have been worth it even if we’d gotten no votes and had never met the President – just being on a team with the guts to represent someone with an important case who other lawyers shunned was worth it,” Chesebro said. More

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    Independent senator Kyrsten Sinema will not seek re-election in Arizona

    Kyrsten Sinema, the former Democrat from Arizona who is an independent in the US Senate, said on Tuesday she would not run for re-election this year.“I love Arizona and I am so proud of what we’ve delivered,” Sinema said in a video posted to social media. “Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done, I will leave the Senate at the end of this year.”The news is a boost for Sinema’s old party, as it faces a tough task in seeking to maintain control of the Senate in the November elections.Ruben Gallego, a US Marine Corps veteran and congressman, is the clear leading candidate for the Democratic nomination in Arizona but has lagged in polling behind the extremist, election-denying, pro-Trump Republican nominee, Kari Lake.Both parties will now court Sinema’s remaining supporters.Sinema’s ideological journey from the Green party to the Democratic left and on to sitting as a centrist independent has been a source of incessant speculation and reporting, not least as to what she might do next. She said last year she would not become a Republican but otherwise kept her plans to herself.Sinema also stoked tremendous frustration among progressives.Wielding significant power in a closely divided Senate, she and Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat from West Virginia, exerted great influence over policy priorities for the Biden administration.The two senators were on board for Covid relief and infrastructure legislation but also acted to block an attempt to weaken the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60-vote supermajorities for most legislation, a near-impossible target in so partisan and closely divided a chamber.Activists and Democratic party officials knew filibuster reform was necessary for passing voting-rights protections meant to counteract Republican-led voter suppression in key states. Sinema’s own state Democratic party formally censured her on the issue.In a western sun belt state shifting from Republican red to Democratic blue – or perhaps to swing-state purple – Sinema first sat in the US House, then won her Senate seat in 2018, becoming the first non-Republican to represent Arizona in the upper chamber since 1994.To win that seat she beat Martha McSally, the Republican successor to John McCain, a giant of US politics who held the seat for 31 years and was the GOP presidential nominee in 2008.In March 2021, Sinema courted controversy – and progressive fury – with a gesture apparently learned from or used in tribute to McCain, a senator widely known as a political maverick, willing to buck his own party.In 2017, McCain’s famous “thumbs down” gesture on the Senate floor defeated a Republican attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.Three years later, Sinema used the same gesture to express her opposition to raising the minimum wage.In December 2022, Sinema announced her switch to become an independent, enraging the left again.On Tuesday, Nina Turner, a former campaign chair for the Vermont senator and former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, said: “Kyrsten Sinema’s legacy as a senator will be that she upheld the filibuster, tanking legislation enshrining voting rights, reproductive rights, doubling child poverty by not expanding the Child Tax Credit, and killing raising the minimum wage increase.”In her own statement, Sinema heralded her work across the aisle in the Senate, naming Republican allies including Mitt Romney of Utah and Rob Portman, a former senator from Ohio, but lamented that “Americans still choose to retreat farther to their partisan corners”.“It’s all or nothing,” she said, “the outcome less important than beating the other guy. The only political victories that matter these days are symbolic, attacking your opponents on cable news or social media. Compromise is a dirty word. We’ve arrived in that crossroads and we chose anger and division. I believe in my approach, but it’s not what America wants right now.”What America has right now is a bitter partisan divide, as jaggedly expressed in Arizona, a focal point for Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.Replace Sinema Pac, a group established to oppose Sinema, said the senator “obstructed President Biden’s agenda, got in the way of fundamental rights … and did the bidding of her wealthy donors”. Claiming credit for her departure, it said: “Arizonans deserve better.”Steve Daines of Montana, the Senate Republican campaign chair, told CNN he was not surprised by Sinema’s announcement and claimed that polling showed Lake would benefit more than Gallego from Sinema’s exit.“It gives us another great opportunity, another open seat on the Senate map,” Daines said.In a statement, Lake said Sinema “shares my love for Arizona”, wished her “the best in her next chapter” and attacked Gallego as “far left” and a “radical”.In his own statement, Gallego thanked Sinema “for her nearly two decades of service to our state” and said: “Arizona, we are at a crossroads.“Protecting abortion access, tackling housing affordability, securing our water supply, defending our democracy – all of this and more is on the line. It’s time Democrats, independents and Republicans come together and reject Kari Lake and her dangerous positions.” More

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    ‘Greatest first amendment sin’: appeals court condemns Florida’s Stop Woke Act

    In countless campaign appearances during his futile pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination, Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, celebrated his state as “the place woke goes to die”.Now, by virtue of a federal appeals court ruling that skewers a centerpiece of his anti-diversity and inclusion agenda, Florida resembles a place where anti-woke legislation goes to die.In a scathing ruling released late on Monday, a three-judge panel of the 11th circuit appeals court in Atlanta blasted DeSantis’s 2022 Stop Woke Act – which banned employers from providing mandatory workplace diversity training, or from teaching that any person is inherently racist or sexist – as “the greatest first amendment sin”.The judges upheld a lower court’s ruling that the law violated employers’ constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression. They were also critical of DeSantis for “exceeding the bounds” of the US constitution by imposing political ideology through legislation.The panel said the state could not be selective by only banning discussion of particular concepts it found “offensive” while allowing others.“Florida may be exactly right about the nature of the ideas it targets. Or it may not,” Judge Britt Grant, an appointee of Donald Trump, wrote in the 22-page opinion. “Either way, the merits of these views will be decided in the clanging marketplace of ideas rather than a codebook or a courtroom.“We reject this latest attempt to control speech by recharacterizing it as conduct. By limiting its restrictions to a list of ideas designated as offensive, the act targets speech based on its content. And by barring only speech that endorses any of those ideas, it penalizes certain viewpoints – the greatest first amendment sin.”The ruling, which follows a legal challenge from several small companies in Florida – including the online wedding registry site Honeyfund, and the owners of a Ben & Jerry franchise – was targeted at the workplace provisions of the wider-ranging Stop Woke (Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees) Act, also known as the Individual Freedoms Act.It reinforced an August 2022 decision by district court judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee that the act unconstitutionally “attacks ideas, not conduct”, and attempted a wide ban on free speech.In a separate ruling three months later, Walker halted part of the Stop Woke Act limiting what Florida’s colleges and universities could teach about racism and sexism.Calling the law “positively dystopian”, Walker invoked George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four in his injunction: “‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13,’ and the powers in charge of Florida’s public university system have declared the state has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of ‘freedom,’” he wrote.Free speech advocates welcomed the appeals court ruling. “Today is a good day for the first amendment and the ability of American businesses to speak freely,” Shalini Goel Agarwal, an attorney at the advocacy group Protect Democracy, acting for the plaintiffs, said in a statement.A spokesperson for DeSantis’s office said the governor strongly disagreed with the ruling, and was “reviewing all options on appeal going forward”.“The US court of appeals for the 11th circuit held that companies have a right to indoctrinate their employees with racist and discriminatory ideologies,” the spokesperson said in a statement.“We disagree with the court’s opinion that employers can require employees to be taught – as a condition of employment – that one race is morally superior to another race. The first amendment protects no such thing, and the state of Florida should have every right to protect Floridians from racially hostile workplaces.”When he signed the law in April 2022, DeSantis said his intention was to protect individual freedoms of Florida’s citizens. “We will not let the far-left woke agenda take over our schools and workplaces. There is no place for indoctrination or discrimination in Florida,” he said at the time.On Friday, in compliance with other “anti-woke” legislation the governor has signed banning institutions of higher education using tax dollars to fund diversity, equity and inclusion programs, the University of Florida terminated all DEI positions.It was the latest development in what has become a nationwide crusade by the Republican party and rightwing allies to tackle perceived wokeness – loosely defined as a raised awareness of social injustices such as racism – by liberal adversaries.The messaging, however, fell on deaf ears during DeSantis’s failed challenge for the Republican presidential nomination, which he had staked almost entirely on anti-wokeness.Even the three appeals court judges, two of which are Trump appointees, appeared to acknowledge that people are growing weary of politicians with extremist agendas. “Intellectual and cultural tumult do not last forever, and our Constitution is unique in its commitment to letting the people, rather than the government, find the right equilibrium,” they wrote. 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    What’s next in the US primary election: key dates

    The 2024 election will see US voters choose the next president and determine which party holds the House and Senate.Voting in the primary elections kicked off in Iowa on 15 January, where Republican voters handed Trump a landslide victory over Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. In New Hampshire, Trump again beat Haley; meanwhile in the Democratic race, Joe Biden won the primary – despite his name not being on the ballot.Haley lost to “none of the candidates” in Nevada’s 7 February primary. Trump was the only major candidate in Republican caucuses on 8 February, taking 99.1% of the vote.Biden won the South Carolina primary, easily sweeping past his opponents. Haley lost to Trump in the Republican primary in her home of South Carolina on 24 February.Biden easily won the Michigan primary on 27 February – but shed support over Gaza, with 100,000 “uncommitted” votes cast. Trump defeated Haley easily in Michigan, with 68% of the vote.Next up is Super Tuesday on 5 March. Voters in 16 US states and one US territory will head to the polls to cast ballots in presidential primaries. Follow live Super Tuesday updates here.States have different rules, but the primary elections determine how many delegates are awarded to each presidential candidate. Those delegates then vote at the Republican and Democratic conventions in the summer to officially choose the party’s nominee. On 5 November, the country will cast its vote for a presidential candidate as well as in other races, such as Senate, House and state-level positions.Super Tuesday: read more
    Live Super Tuesday updates as 16 US states vote
    Key issues in the 2024 US election
    Who’s running for president?
    In a uniquely American fashion, there are ever-changing rules and party maneuvers in both how people vote, and when. After the 2020 election, which culminated in political violence and lengthy court battles, this year’s election is difficult to predict. For now, here’s the schedule of key events to watch. More