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      Indictments fueled extremists’ support for Trump, survey finds

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      The criminal charges against Donald Trump have fueled increased radical support for the former president while his efforts to paint the government and Democrats as a threat to democracy have convinced more people to distrust democratic institutions.New survey results from the University of Chicago’s Chicago Project on Security & Threats (CPOST) shows increased violent support for Trump aligns with the indictments, as did the erosion of support for democratic norms. Court cases using the 14th amendment to try to keep Trump off the ballot could further erode confidence in the political system, regardless of how the supreme court rules on the issue, the survey found.Support for democratic norms has gone from “bad to worse”, said Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago who directs CPOST. The two ideas are connected: The more a person believes the system is corrupt or rigged, the more likely they are to support using violence instead of the political system.“Once you think you live in a corrupt political system, then you give up on politics as a solution and you go for violence,” Pape said.While 50% of survey respondents said Trump was a threat to democracy, now 36% said the same of Democratic president Joe Biden. That means Trump’s attempt to twist messaging is working: the former president has repeatedly attacked Biden in recent months as Biden warns of the threat Trump poses to democracy after Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump has called Biden a “threat to democracy” and a “destroyer” of democracy.Effectively, Trump has turned a losing issue for himself, the future of democracy, into much less of a liability, particularly among Republicans.“His new argument … is that the institutions of government are unfairly targeting him,” Pape said. “And what this data is showing is that he is actually persuading significant numbers of people on this issue.”Support for violence has also increased across the political spectrum, a sign of intense polarization and weakened beliefs in the political system. The percentage of people who believe using force would be justified to keep Trump from being president again is higher, at 9.6%, than the percentage of people willing to use force to restore Trump to the presidency, at 6.5%.Through the 2024 election, CPOST will be releasing new survey data tracking continued dangers to democracy every quarter. The data will be published first with the Guardian.The survey results cut across various questions about the state of American democracy. Now, 50% of survey participants said political elites, both Republicans and Democrats, are the most immoral and corrupt people in America, up from 42% a year ago. And 63% said they agreed that a small group of elites controls all the levers of power and enriches themselves at the cost of normal Americans, up from 54% last January.Support for conspiracy theories has increased during that time as well: 22% now believe Biden stole the 2020 election, up from 21%; 30% believe the Democratic party is trying to replace the current electorate with more obedient voters from the third world, up from 21%; and 14% believe a secret group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles is ruling the US government, up from 11%.They are also more likely to support the use of violence to achieve political goals now compared with one year ago. 16% said the use of force is justified to coerce Congress, up from 9%, while 6.5% said force would be justified to return Trump to the White House, compared with 4.5% last January. On abortion rights, 9% said force would be justified to restore them, up from 8%.Supporters of Trump who also believe in using violence to achieve their political goals are statistically much more likely to believe democratic institutions are deeply corrupt: 68% of that subgroup believe the 2020 election was stolen; 56% say their party has virtually no chance of winning elections in 2024 because the system is rigged and 81% think the prosecutions of Trump are intended to hurt his electoral prospects this year.Those radical Trump supporters are the most likely to move toward violence if they don’t achieve their goals through the political process, Pape said. And depending on how Trump himself fares politically, he could instigate or orchestrate violence as well, he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“If Trump is put in jail, in prison, then his radical support is likely to go up,” Pape said. “And that’s where political violence is most likely to happen from the right.”The 14th amendment cases, where left-leaning groups have filed lawsuits seeking to remove Trump from the ballot for violating the 14th Amendment by participating in an insurrection while an officer of the US, could exacerbate the political violence problem, no matter which way the case is decided by the US supreme court.There’s an extreme partisan divide on the issue. For Democrats, 78% support disqualifying Trump from the ballot. For Republicans, 72% believe removing him would be an assault on democracy, with 16% of Republicans saying it would justify the use of force to restore him to the White House.“There’s a real risk that whatever the supreme court decides is going to be viewed as illegitimate by one side or the other in the 14th amendment controversy,” Pape said.There’s a subset of Republicans, 14%, that support disqualifying Trump. Of that group, 24% already plan to vote for Biden, while 71% said they wouldn’t vote for Trump. The group is heavily college-educated. Pape said this group is “enough to swing 2024” and serves as a “critical vulnerability for Trump” that his opponents could target in key states.In order to subdue any claims of illegitimacy, the court itself should work to publicly explain its reasoning and make the case that its decision was based on the facts of the case, Pape said.“This is why democracies fade into authoritarianism. These are the issues, ” he said. More

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      Biden attacks Trump after securing UAW endorsement; union says Trump is ‘against everything we stand for’ – as it happened

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      “We have more work to do but our plan is delivering to the American people, building an economy from the bottom up, not the top down,” said Biden.“If I’m going to be in a fight, I want to be in a fight with you, UAW. We have a big fight in front of us. We’re fundamentally changing the economy of this country, taking it from the economy that takes care of those at the top… All anyone wants is just a fair shot, an even shot,” he added.”“You’re the heroes of this story,” he continued.Biden also condemned Donald Trump’s policies, saying, “He’s the only president other than Herbert Hoover who lost jobs when he was president.”“He cut taxes for the very wealthy and the biggest corporations. He shipped good paying jobs overseas because labor was cheaper… It hollowed out entire communities, closing factories, I’m not making this up, you know this to be true,” Biden added.Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      The United Auto Workers union has endorsed Joe Biden for re-election as president. Addressing the union, UAW president Shawn Fain said: “This November, we can stand up and elect someone who stands with us and supports our cause, or we can elect someone who will divide us, and fight us every step of the way.”
      Joe Biden addressed the UAW at its conference in Washington DC and was met with repeated applause and cheers following the union’s endorsement of him. “I’ve always fought for a strong auto industry… You deserve to benefit when these companies thrive… Record profits mean record contracts,” said Biden, adding, “We build in America, we buy in America.”
      Joe Biden also condemned Donald Trump’s policies, saying, “He’s the only president other than Herbert Hoover who lost jobs when he was president.” “He cut taxes for the very wealthy and the biggest corporations. He shipped good paying jobs overseas because labor was cheaper… It hollowed out entire communities, closing factories, I’m not making this up, you know this to be true,” Biden added.
      Joe Biden’s re-election campaign expressed confidence in the president’s ability to again defeat Donald Trump in November, even as polls show the two men running neck and neck. Biden also made some changes to his campaign team, bringing in reinforcements from the White House.
      Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel called on Nikki Haley to drop her 2024 presidential bid, the day after Trump beat her in the New Hampshire primary. “Looking at the math and the path going forward…I don’t see it for Nikki Haley,” said McDaniel.
      Nikki Haley vowed to carry on her campaign despite losing the New Hampshire primary by a significant margin. She immediately headed to her home state of South Carolina, which holds its Republican primary on 23 February.
      Donald Trump comfortably won the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday evening, beating his only remaining credible contender, Haley, into second place. It was not a crushing victory but it was solid.
      Ryan Binkley, a Texas pastor and co-founder of a financial services firm, remains committed to becoming the US’s next president. Binkley, who received 0.1% of the votes – or 284 votes – in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, has his eyes now set on Nevada. “Please keep spreading the word about http://Binkley2024.com as I move forward to Nevada,” he wrote on X.
      That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.Ryan Binkley, a Texas pastor and co-founder of a financial services firm, remains committed to becoming the US’s next president.Binkley, who received 0.1% of the votes – or 284 votes – in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, has his eyes now set on Nevada.In a post on X, Binkley thanked New Hampshire residents, saying:
      “New Hampshire: Thank you for a great few days. I enjoyed the time and conversation around issues that matter to all Americans. Thank you for being #FITN [’first in the nation’]. Please keep spreading the word about http://Binkley2024.com as I move forward to Nevada.”
      He went on to include several hashtags including “#WhoIsRyanBinkley.”Binkley, who launched his presidential bid nine months ago, has spent more than $8m of his own money on his campaign.Explaining his decision to run, Binkley said, “God spoke to me.”Here is video of United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain announcing UAW’s endorsement of Joe Biden: Fain said:
      “We need to know who is going to stand up with us and this choice is clear. “Joe Biden bet on the American worker, while Donald Trump blamed the American worker! We need to know who’s going to sit in the most powerful seat in the world and help us win as a united working class. So if our endorsements must be earned, Joe Biden has earned it!”
      Biden concluded his speech to a room full of applause, saying, “It’s never ever ever been a good bet to bet against the American people.”“I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future… There’s nothing beyond our capacity when we work together,” he added.“We have more work to do but our plan is delivering to the American people, building an economy from the bottom up, not the top down,” said Biden.“If I’m going to be in a fight, I want to be in a fight with you, UAW. We have a big fight in front of us. We’re fundamentally changing the economy of this country, taking it from the economy that takes care of those at the top… All anyone wants is just a fair shot, an even shot,” he added.”“You’re the heroes of this story,” he continued.Biden also condemned Donald Trump’s policies, saying, “He’s the only president other than Herbert Hoover who lost jobs when he was president.”“He cut taxes for the very wealthy and the biggest corporations. He shipped good paying jobs overseas because labor was cheaper… It hollowed out entire communities, closing factories, I’m not making this up, you know this to be true,” Biden added.“I strongly believe a company’s transition to new technology should…include every hire in the same factories in the same communities with comparable wages,” said Biden.“Existing union workers should have the first shot at these jobs,” he added.“I don’t believe any company should be using threats or tactics to stand in the way of workers’ righst to organize. Period,” he continued.The crowd descended into a united chant of “UAW!” as Biden looked on.“We build in America, we buy in America,” said Biden. “Because of you, Toyota, Volkswagen, Nissan…all gave their workers double digit raises. Because of you!” he said.“I’ve always fought for a strong auto industry… You deserve to benefit when these companies thrive… Record profits mean record contracts,” Joe Biden told a cheering crowd.“I’m tired of jobs going overseas… But not anymore. We’re building products here and shipping overseas!” he added.The influence of the union, a symbol of America’s working class, cannot be understated.The endorsement secures a major win for Biden, who hoped to win the group’s favor after appearing on a picket line with striking auto workers last fall – a first for a sitting president. Biden said it was his goal to “be the most pro-union president ever.”A grateful Biden has now taken the stage after receiving UAW’s endorsement.“This November, we can stand up and elect someone who stands with us and supports our cause, or we can elect someone who will divide us, and fight us every step of the way,” UAW president Shawn Fain said.“That’s what this choice is about. The question is, who do we want in that office to give us the best shot of winning?”“Biden!” someone could be heard shouting from the crowd.The endorsement of UAW is likely to send a message that Biden is on the side of working-class Americans – a group the Trump campaign has tried to court in the past.Addressing the union, UAW president Shawn Fain spoke of unity and putting fear in the hearts of the billionaire class.“They try to weaken us by dividing us,” Fain said, referring to large corporations that take the lion’s share of profits. “The wealthy divide the masses as the rich walk away with all the money.”Biden is about to address the United Automobile Workers union at their conference held in Washington. The powerful labor group is expected to endorse the president for a second term, AP reports. It’s good news for Biden who needs to make gains in key swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin, where auto-manufacturing is major industry.UAW also endorsed Biden in 2020.Joe Biden is about to address the annual conference of the United Auto Workers union, in Washington, DC, and reports are multiplying that the union intends to endorse him for re-election as US president.The Democrat from working class Scranton has frequently called himself the most pro-union US president and he became the first sitting president to appear on a picket line when he supported the auto workers in their industrial action against the big three makers of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler vehicles last fall.Outlets including NBC, CNN and the New York Times are among those citing sources that the UAW will endorse Biden this afternoon. Reuters cited the NYT in its report.Biden told striking workers last September in Michigan that they deserved a big pay rise, after years of wage scrimping while their corporations did well. The workers ended up getting deals and resolving the strikes.The Senate this afternoon is expected to confirm Jacquelyn Austin to become a US district judge South Carolina and Cristal Brisco to become a US district judge in the northern district of Indiana.The two women will bring the total number of Black women appointed to lifetime seats on the federal bench in Joe Biden’s presidency to 35.Judge Brisco will be the first Black judge and first woman of color to serve as a lifetime judge on the northern district of Indiana. Judge Austin will be the third Black woman to serve as a lifetime judge on the district of South Carolina and the only Black woman who will be currently serving, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights noted in a statement earlier today.“Milestones like this are important. The Senate’s confirmation of 35 Black women – many of whom have worked to advance civil and human rights throughout their legal careers – to lifetime appointments on our federal courts continues the Biden administration’s historic progress toward building a judiciary that reflects and represents the vast diversity of our nation. We celebrate this progress, including the critical yet underrepresented legal backgrounds that many of these judges bring to the bench,” said Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.Asked about the milestone at a media briefing in the west wing earlier, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Joe Biden “has been very proud of the women, the women of color, that he has been able to put forward for these positions…It’s important that we have this kind of representation, representation matters.”It’s been a lively morning after the night before in New Hampshire and there’s much afoot in Washington and on the campaign trail, so follow events here as they happen.Here’s where things stand:
      Joe Biden’s re-election campaign expressed confidence in the president’s ability to again defeat Donald Trump in November, even as polls show the two men running neck and neck. Biden also made some changes to his campaign team, bringing in reinforcements from the White House.
      Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel called on Nikki Haley to drop her 2024 presidential bid, the day after Trump beat her in the New Hampshire primary.
      Joe Biden won New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary, even though the incumbent refused to campaign in the state and had to rely on a write-in campaign powered by his allies and surrogates to secure a victory.
      Nikki Haley vowed to carry on her campaign despite losing the New Hampshire primary by a significant margin. She immediately headed to her home state of South Carolina, which holds its Republican primary on 23 February.
      Donald Trump comfortably won the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday evening, beating his only remaining credible contender, Haley, into second place. It was not a crushing victory but it was solid.
      Dean Phillips, the Democratic congressman from Minnesota, is pushing on with his 2024 bid for president.On Wednesday, Phillips departed for South Carolina ahead of the state’s primaries next month. According to his campaign, Phillips is set to greet patrons at the Bistreaux by Fleur de Licious, a restaurant in the state capital Columbia, this evening.Speaking to ABC on Tuesday, Phillips vowed to stay in the race, saying,
      “The country would be much happier with a Dean Phillips-Nikki Haley matchup this November. I know she’s hearing that. I’m hearing the same thing.”
      Donald Trump spent his victory night in New Hampshire privately seething to his aides, according to reports.CNN reports that after the polls for the state’s primary closed, Trump “continued to rail against Nikki Haley privately and publicly after she declined to drop out of the race”.The ex-president also reportedly told his aides that he was baffled that Haley remains adamant about staying in the race, and urged his political aides to ramp up their attacks on his former UN ambassador.During his speech last night, Trump issued a warning to Haley, saying: “Just a little note to Nikki. She’s not going to win. But if she did, she would be under investigation by those people in 15 minutes, and I could tell you five reasons why already.”He added: “Not big reasons, little stuff that she doesn’t want to talk about, that she will be under investigation within minutes, and so would Ron [DeSantis] have been, but he decided to get out.Joe Biden’s campaign expressed confidence in the president’s ability to again defeat Donald Trump in November, even as polls show the two men running neck and neck.Quentin Fulks, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, noted that Trump’s 11-point margin of victory in New Hampshire last night was actually narrower than his 20-point win in 2016, when he was running against more opponents.“To put simply, Trump’s party is divided, and now he’s about to face the only politician who has ever beaten him and who did so with more votes than any presidential candidate in history: President Joe Biden,” Fulks said.But reporters pressed campaign officials about Biden’s performance in polls, some of which show Trump pulling ahead in key battleground states.“We don’t govern based on polls, and polls are just a snapshot in time,” said Cedric Richmond, the Biden campaign co-chair. “If I had a dollar for every time somebody counted Joe Biden out based on polls or something else, then I’d be independently wealthy.”He added: “Do we think we’re going to win? Absolutely. Because there’s too much on the line not to for the American people.” More

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      Upbeat Haley vows to press on but prospects against Trump look bleak

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      Nikki Haley was surprisingly peppy as she took the stage in New Hampshire on Tuesday, considering she had just suffered her second bruising defeat by Donald Trump. Trump beat Haley by 11 points in New Hampshire, a victory that came on the heels of the former president’s 30-point win in the Iowa caucuses.Undaunted by the reality of her losses, the former UN ambassador pledged that she would continue on in the Republican presidential primary. Haley voiced confidence about her performance in her home state of South Carolina, which will hold its Republican primary on 24 February.“New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation,” Haley told supporters in Concord. “This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go, and the next one is my sweet state of South Carolina.”But everyone not named Nikki Haley appears all too ready to declare the Republican primary over. With Trump winning a historic majority of votes in Iowa and New Hampshire, Haley’s path to the nomination appears increasingly difficult – if not impossible. In his victory speech on Tuesday, Trump belittled her efforts to downplay her losses and mocked her decision to stay in the race.“She had a very bad night,” Trump said. “She came in third [in Iowa], and she’s still hanging around.”In a rare moment of agreement between Trump and Joe Biden, the president made clear that he would turn his attention to the general election in November, effectively writing off any chance of a Haley comeback.“It is now clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. And my message to the country is the stakes could not be higher,” Biden said in a statement. “I want to say to all those independents and Republicans who share our commitment to core values of our nation our Democracy, our personal freedoms, an economy that gives everyone a fair shot – to join us as Americans.”Despite Haley’s claims to the contrary, her prospects in South Carolina and beyond look bleak. According to the FiveThirtyEight polling average, Trump is running 37 points ahead of Haley in South Carolina, where he has already locked up the endorsements of the state’s governor and senators. If anything, Haley’s losing performance in New Hampshire may represent a high-water mark for her, given her strong support among independent voters who were allowed to participate in the Republican primary.There’s also the question of money. Haley has reportedly planned a major fundraising swing with big donors in the coming weeks. However, if those donors start abandoning her in large numbers, Haley may have no choice but to withdraw .Of course, Haley’s campaign insists she can be competitive in many states that will vote on Super Tuesday, which falls on 5 March. In a campaign memo circulated on Tuesday, Betsy Ankney, Haley’s campaign manager, noted that roughly two-thirds of the 874 delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday are in states with open or semi-open primaries.“Until then, everyone should take a deep breath. The campaign has not even begun in any of these states yet,” Ankney said. “A month in politics is a lifetime. We’re watching democracy in action. We’re letting the people have a voice. That’s how this is supposed to work.”As Haley looks ahead to South Carolina, her campaign has leaned into the message that she is the most electable Republican candidate. In one of two new ads that the Haley campaign dropped in South Carolina on Wednesday, a narrator highlights Biden and Trump’s unpopularity and makes the pitch for a new era of political leadership.“Biden – too old. Trump – too much chaos,” the narrator in the ad says. “A rematch no one wants. There’s a better choice for a better America.”Some data supports Haley’s electability argument. She performed well with moderate Republican voters in New Hampshire, pointing to a potential vulnerability for Trump in November, and one Wall Street Journal poll frequently cited by Haley’s team showed her beating Biden by 17 points in a general election.The problem is, she has no viable route to that general election.Nevertheless, at the election night watch party in Concord, Haley’s supporters echoed the candidate’s resilience.“I’m not about to have a panic attack after one state,” Marie Mulroy, 76, said moments after Haley spoke. Mulroy is an independent New Hampshire voter who backed Biden in 2020 and remains hopeful she’ll have the opportunity to cast her ballot for the first female president in November.“If it’s like this after Super Tuesday, then you start thinking,” she added.Mary Ann Hanusa was so committed to electing Haley that she flew to New Hampshire to volunteer for her campaign after caucusing for Haley in Iowa, where she lives. Hanusa said she was prepared to go to South Carolina to help.“I think Americans deserve a choice,” she said. “We’ve got 48 states to go.” More

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      Trump-Biden rematch increasingly inevitable after New Hampshire primary

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      A sweep of the first two nominating contests on the 2024 primary season left Donald Trump in a strong position to seize the Republican party nomination, and made a rematch with Joe Biden even more inevitable.Trump’s Republican rival, Nikki Haley, vowed to fight on despite her second place finish in New Hampshire, a state where she had hoped for an upset, and her third place finish in the Iowa caucuses. But she faces long odds. There is no precedent for a candidate winning the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary and losing their party’s nomination.In his victory night speech, Trump previewed the crudeness of the campaign rhetoric to come if Haley does not accede to his calls for her to drop out. In his remarks, which were more angry than celebratory, Trump suggested that Haley would find herself under investigation if she became the nominee, but then declared that she had no chance of dethroning him.“This is not your typical victory speech,” he said, surrounded by all of his vanquished Republican rivals. “But let’s not have someone take a victory when she had a very bad night.”Haley’s campaign dismissed Trump’s speech as a “furious and rambling rant” and asked: “If Trump is in such good shape, why is he so angry?”“This is why so many voters want to move on from Trump’s chaos and are rallying to Nikki Haley’s new generation of conservative leadership,” her campaign said.Haley was more gracious in her speech. She conceded to Trump and congratulated him on his victory. But she said she would not be pushed out of a contest that had just begun. “New Hampshire is first in the nation,” she told supporters in Concord, the state’s capitol. “It is not the last in the nation. This race is far from over.”Haley insisted that she could parlay her second-place showing in New Hampshire into an even stronger finish in her home state of South Carolina, where she was twice elected governor. But polls show Trump leading Haley by roughly 30 percentage points in South Carolina, which holds its Republican primary election on 24 February.Haley’s loss underscored Trump’s strength among Republican voters, who looked past his false claims of a stolen election and a web of legal troubles amounting to 91 criminal charges.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHaley has said “chaos follows” Trump and argued Republicans would lose the presidency again if he was their nominee. “A Trump nomination is a Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency,” she said, suggesting that the 81-year-old president would not be able to complete his term.Biden was not on Tuesday’s primary ballot in New Hampshire, but won the contest thanks to a homegrown write-in campaign.“It is now clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. And my message to the country is the stakes could not be higher,” Biden said in a statement on Tuesday. “Our Democracy. Our personal freedoms – from the right to choose to the right to vote. Our economy – which has seen the strongest recovery in the world since COVID. All are at stake.” More

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      Trump v Biden increasingly likely but Haley undaunted: key takeaways from New Hampshire primary

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      The New Hampshire primary, even with its history of unpredictability and freethinking independents, produced a familiar result on Tuesday: Donald Trump v Joe Biden.After months of heavy campaigning in the state, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley came in second place in the Republican primary. Securing a double-digit win over Haley, Trump nabbed his second decisive victory after the Iowa caucuses a week before.In the Democratic primary, Joe Biden’s name wasn’t on the ballot after the Democratic National Committee decided to have their first primary in South Carolina in early February. But New Hampshire decided to go ahead with the Democratic primary anyway, and Biden handily won through write-in votes, although the DNC has said that no delegates will be awarded based on the results.The dynamics of the New Hampshire primary, which marked the second voting event of the 2024 election season, also held some insights for the high-stakes general election in November. Here are five things you need to know.1. The independent vote couldn’t topple Trump, but it should still make him nervousNew Hampshire is known for its independent voting bloc – which comprises 40% of the electorate. This group has helped numerous presidential candidates rise to the top in past elections, or at least remain competitive. Haley was hoping Republican-leaning independent voters would respond to her tempered messaging, in which she pitched herself as a younger, fresher face and antidote to both Trump and Biden.Although independent voters were not able to lift Haley to victory, their support for her could create a problem down the road for Trump. According to an NBC News exit poll, Haley won 73% of Republican primary voters who described themselves as moderate. If Trump wants to defeat Biden in November, he will need to sway some of those moderate Republicans, and Haley’s strong performance with that voting bloc indicates the former president has much more work to do to win their support.2. Haley remains undaunted after two bruising lossesDespite her third-place finish in Iowa and her double-digit loss in New Hampshire, Haley still insists that she will continue on in the Republican primary. As she addressed supporters in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, Haley expressed optimism about her home state of South Carolina, which will hold its Republican primary on 24 February.“New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation,” Haley said. “This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go, and the next one is my sweet state of South Carolina.”But polls show Haley trailing far behind Trump in South Carolina, so it remains unclear how the state might shake the fundamental dynamics of the race.3. Biden avoided embarrassment with some help from his campaign and surrogatesBecause of the strange circumstances of the Democratic primary, Biden’s name was not on the ballot, though the names of long-shot candidates Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson were. There was some concern that Biden’s decision not to run in New Hampshire could provide an opening for a candidate like Phillips, who tried to present himself as more electable than the sitting president.But in the end, Biden cruised to an easy victory thanks to the help of a write-in campaign led by his most loyal supporters and promoted by surrogates like Congressman Ro Khanna of California, who traveled to New Hampshire over the weekend.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion4. Republicans and Democrats appear ready to turn their attention to the general electionNew Hampshire provided further evidence that the 2024 general election in November will indeed be a rematch between Biden and Trump, and members of both parties indicated on Tuesday that they are ready to move past the primary.“While we work toward November 2024, one thing is increasingly clear today,” Julie Chávez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, said on Tuesday. “Donald Trump is headed straight into a general election matchup where he’ll face the only person to have ever beaten him at the ballot box: Joe Biden.”With more and more Republican lawmakers lining up to endorse Trump, the former president’s allies called on Haley to withdraw from the race to allow the party to focus on defeating Biden in November.Taylor Budowich, CEO of the pro-Trump Super PAC Make America Great Again Inc, said on Tuesday: “It’s time for unity, it’s time to take the fight to the Democrats, and for Nikki Haley: it’s time to drop out.”5. Trump’s election lie was not as popular in New Hampshire as it was in IowaDuring the Iowa caucuses, a clear majority of Republican voters said they believe that Trump won the 2020 election, despite all evidence supporting a fair Biden win. In New Hampshire, early exit polling and interviews showed that there was more of an even split among Republicans in that state who believe the false claims about widespread election fraud in the 2020 election and those who do not.As Haley voter Patricia Hemenway told the Guardian on Tuesday: “I will have to say the January 6 thing was absolutely revolting to me.”Nevertheless, Trump leaned into the big lie in his victory speech on Tuesday. “We won in 2016. And if you really remember, if you want to play it straight, we also won in 2020, by more,” he said. “And we did much better in 2020 than we did in 2016.” More

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      The primaries are mere formalities. Trump is Republicans’ once and future king | Lloyd Green

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      On Tuesday night, Donald Trump emerged as the winner of New Hampshire’s Republican primary and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, handily defeating Nikki Haley. He is the first non-incumbent Republican to win both Iowa and New Hampshire. South Carolina’s contest is next month and those that follow are formalities on the road to coronation.The Republican party belongs to him. “It has to be Trump as long as … he can fog a mirror,” Steve Bannon told Jonathan Karl of ABC News. Haley has pledged to remain in the race, but the fall campaign has begun. As the polls closed in New Hampshire, the Biden White House announced a campaign shake-up. This is not a well-oiled machine.For the third time, Trump is his party’s standard bearer. Maybe this run will be a charm, so to speak. Maybe for the first time he will garner a plurality, if not outright majority, of the popular vote, a feat that has previously eluded him.By those metrics, Hillary Clinton bested him in 2016 and Joe Biden did the same four years later. To put a point on it, no non-incumbent Republican since George HW Bush in 1988 has garnered that level of national support. Rather, like George W Bush in 2000, Trump owes his initial win to the mechanics of the electoral college.Election day 2024, however, may be different. The Democrats had best be prepared for that possibility and for the day after. At the moment, Biden lags Trump in trial heats. Among independents, the president trails by as many as 10 points. Beyond that, Biden, 81, exudes frailty. His speeches are dull affairs, often more closely watched for signs of infirmity, as opposed to policy.His mantra of democracy being on the line in 2024 is true. Yet it repeatedly falls flat. In too many instances, he discounts prevailing public sentiment. Popularism, the notion that politicians ought to follow the polls and do what’s electorally expedient, is honored more often than not in the breach. Triangulation, as mastered by Bill Clinton, is a thing of the past.To illustrate, Biden continues to double down on porous borders, poking a stick in the eye of public opinion. His win on Monday before the supreme court on Texas and its razor-wire barriers may eventually prove politically self-injurious. The justice department may have scored a victory for federal supremacy and executive power at the expense of Biden’s own standing.Beyond that, no Republican sits in the cabinet, breaking a tradition upheld by re-election-minded Democrats. Barack Obama placed Republicans Robert Gates at the Pentagon and Ray LaHood, a former Illinois congressman, at transportation. Appointing Arizona’s Cindy McCain, wife of the late Republican nominee and Trump nemesis, and Jeff Flake, a former Arizona senator, as ambassadors doesn’t quite make the cut. Out of country, out of mind.In case Biden needs further reminding, he didn’t win in a landslide. Obama’s vice-president never was and never will be the second coming of FDR, much as he attempts to convince himself that he is “transformative”.Meanwhile, Trump praises authoritarians. He vows to act as a dictator on day one, at least for a few hours anyway. Take him seriously on that and wonder if he means it literally or not.What dictator can push himself away from the table of dictatorship after just one day? Just before the New Hampshire voting, he mused about 12 more years in office and let the word “fascist” slip from his tongue.America ought to be frightened, but less than a majority actually fears the prospect of Trump as American Caesar. The rest is open to arguments that Biden is over his head and that Kamala Harris should have starred in Veep, the HBO sitcom, rather than be a heartbeat from the Oval Office.Trump is the strongman his base yearned for. Back in 2016, Paul LePage, then governor of Maine, made it explicit: “We need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country.” So much for 1776, the declaration of independence and the US constitution.As in Iowa, Haley’s candidacy served as a magnet for high-end suburbanites, a constituency whose clout diminishes daily within the Republican party. Looking back, she never had a chance.Haley mulled cuts to social security and raising the age for retirement. These days, Americans live medically challenged lives. Chronic illness supplants death on life’s back nine. Her pitch might have been designed for her donors, and there are too few of them to matter.Under Trump, the party of Lincoln has been transformed into a mixed martial arts octagon. The ex-president channels his core supporters’ resentments better than anyone. Theirs is a symbiotic relationship. Gladiator, the Oscar-winning Ridley Scott film about Commodus, the debauched and unhinged Roman emperor, remains the movie for our time.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More

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      Long-shot Democratic candidates seek upset in New Hampshire primary

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      As New Hampshire voters head to the polls on Tuesday, much attention will be paid to the Republican presidential primary, but another race could provide additional clues about the general election in November.New Hampshire Democrats are moving forward with holding their presidential primary on Tuesday, despite warnings from the national party. The Democratic National Committee decided last year to make South Carolina the first voting state, a move that upended a century-old tradition of New Hampshire hosting the first primary.Outraged over the voting calendar change, New Hampshire officials have chosen to hold an unsanctioned Democratic primary on Tuesday, although the DNC has said it will not award delegates based on the results. Joe Biden’s name will not appear on the ballot, but his allies have launched a vigorous write-in campaign in support of his re-election.Other long-shot candidates, namely the Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson, hope to capitalize on Biden’s absence and pull off an upset in New Hampshire. The two candidates have held events across the state to make their pitch that the Democratic party needs to move in a new direction.“We believe it is time to segregate the far-left and the far-right and give voice to the exhausted majority of America. Are you ready for that?” Phillips told a crowd in Nashua on Saturday.In total, the names of 21 candidates will appear on New Hampshire’s Democratic primary ballot. Some voters outraged over the war in Gaza are also expected to write in “ceasefire” to criticize US support for Israel’s military. Given the large number of expected write-in votes, it may take longer than usual for New Hampshire officials to count Democratic primary ballots after polls start closing at 7pm ET.Even without a formal campaign presence in New Hampshire, Biden is expected to receive the most votes by a wide margin. An Emerson College/WHDH poll conducted last week showed Biden winning the support of 61% of likely Democratic primary voters, compared to 16% for Phillips and 5% for Williamson.But a disappointing performance could point to decreased enthusiasm among the Democratic base, which would be a worrisome sign for Biden heading into the general election. Polls already show Biden running neck and neck with Donald Trump, who is widely expected to win the Republican presidential nomination.In an indication of Biden’s potential vulnerabilities, some of the president’s prominent allies, including Congressman Ro Khanna of California, have spent time campaigning on his behalf in New Hampshire. Speaking at a house party in support of the write-in campaign on Saturday, Khanna predicted a “decisive win” for Biden in New Hampshire.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“That’s going to propel him to have a big win in November,” Khanna said. “At the end of the day, I am a believer that Americans love this country and love our democracy.”
      Adam Gabbatt contributed reporting from New Hampshire More

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      Of course Trump is dominating the primaries. That doesn’t mean he’ll beat Biden | Robert Reich

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      The mainstream media is flabbergasted at Trump’s success in sweeping the Iowa caucuses, dominating the polls and destroying all his rivals but Nikki Haley before Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.CNN is awestruck, calling Trump’s “landslide victory in Iowa” a “stunning show of strength”.The New York Times is dumbfounded, talking of an “expected Trump coronation” and also the “power of his political machine”.Time magazine marvels at his “commanding position” to secure the Republican nomination, and that “nothing has slowed him down”.The Washington Post’s Dan Balz writes that “the end of any real competition could come very soon”.Headline after headline offers the same breathless, spellbound story: “Trump is dominating.” “Disciplined”. “Ruthless”. “Hugely effective”. “Remarkable”.Earth to the mainstream media: this is dangerous nonsense.Why should Trump’s dominance be surprising? He’s dominated the Republican party since 2016. He dominates by ridiculing opponents, blasting anyone who stands in his way, bullying, browbeating and bellowing. The media eats it up. He’s outrageous and entertaining.Trump’s success in last week’s Iowa caucuses wasn’t a “stunning show of strength”. It was a display of remarkable weakness. He got just 56,260 votes. There are 2,083,979 registered voters in Iowa. Fewer than 3% of Iowans voted for him.According to an entrance poll, only 46% of the Republican caucus-goers considered themselves part of the Maga movement. Nearly 50% said they were not. Three-quarters of these non-Maga Republican voters opposed Trump.Over 30% said they would not consider Trump fit to be president if he were convicted of a crime.His performance in New Hampshire will probably reveal similar weaknesses.What seems to be lost on the media is that Trump was president for four years. In effect, he’s the incumbent Republican president.That’s not because he says he won the 2020 election. It’s because he was in fact president.Former presidents have a huge advantage in their party’s primaries because they control their party apparatus. Presidents who have served just one term and seek the nomination for another are always re-nominated by their party, as was Trump in 2020 – and presumably will be again in 2024.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOf course Trump will be the Republican nominee. Trump was the party’s presumptive nominee before he even announced he was running again.What’s remarkable is that he nonetheless attracted so many competitors for the nomination, who raised a lot of money for their primary runs. Tim Scott, Niki Haley, and Ron DeSantis finished September with a total of $26.7m available for use in the primary. That’s no small change.It’s also easy to forget that Trump began his third bid for the White House just days after Republicans took a beating in the midterms. That was the third straight national election in which Trump was a drag on his party. Across the country, his hand-picked candidates, who embraced his big lie that the 2020 election was stolen, lost critical races.The danger in the mainstream media’s awestruck coverage of Trump right now – making a big deal out of his winning the Iowa caucuses, dominating the polls, pushing out all rivals except Haley, and almost surely winning today’s New Hampshire primary – is that it creates a false impression that Trump is unstoppable, all the way through the general election.But no one should confuse Trump’s performance in the Republican primaries for success in the presidential election.When Americans actually focus on the presidential election and the stark reality of choosing between Biden and Trump, I expect they will once again choose Biden.Even if Trump is not yet criminally convicted, I doubt that a majority of Americans will want for their president a man who has 91 criminal charges against him, who has been impeached twice, who has orchestrated an attempted coup, who has profited financially while president, who has stolen top-secret documents and who has been judged to be a rapist.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More