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      Biden challenger Dean Phillips drops out of US presidential race

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      The Minnesota congressman running against Joe Biden in the Democratic primary dropped out of the race on Wednesday, ending a long-shot bid to stop the US president from winning the nomination. He endorsed the president.Dean Phillips, who represents a wealthier suburban area outside Minneapolis, entered the Democratic race seemingly against his will and against the advice of most of his Democratic colleagues. The congressman, who first took office in 2019, first tried to recruit more prominent Democrats to challenge Biden, publicly saying Biden needed to let the next generation lead the party.The announcement comes after he lost his home state of Minnesota, where he gave up a seat he flipped from Republicans in order to enter the presidential race.“I ran for Congress in 2018 to resist Donald Trump, I was trapped in the Capitol in 2021 because of Donald Trump, and I ran for President in 2024 to resist Donald Trump again – because Americans were demanding an alternative, and democracy demands options. But it is clear that alternative is not me,” he said on Twitter/X.“And it is clear that Joe Biden is OUR candidate and OUR opportunity to demonstrate what type of country America is and intends to be.”In his first election test, Phillips nabbed about 20% of the vote in New Hampshire, losing to Biden, whose name was not actually on the ballot.His campaign in New Hampshire was not without controversy: a former political consultant affiliated with Phillips’s campaign claimed responsibility for a now-infamous robocall in New Hampshire that urged voters not to show up to the polls; Phillips has denounced the robocall.Since then, Phillips’s momentum has fallen off, but he has stayed in the race – despite having no listed events and little, if any, campaigning happening in the field in any state. Even in his home state of Minnesota, there was no semblance of a campaign – no stops at local diners, no field office, no ground work.In Michigan, he lost to both an “uncommitted” vote that sought to protest against Biden’s inaction on a ceasefire in Gaza and to Marianne Williamson, the self-help author who had previously suspended her campaign. Williamson, buoyed by the results, made the unusual move to “un-suspend” her campaign.In mid-February, Phillips announced he had to lay off “a lot” of his staff because he had found it so hard to fundraise with an incumbent in the race. Phillips, the heir to a liquor empire, had previously given his campaign several million dollars to get up and running.“We can do it,” he said in a video announcing the layoffs. “We can do better. I love you all and thank you for keeping the faith. And join me, the Dean team, we can do it.”Phillips managed to strike both a self-deprecating earnestness about his own campaign while continually sounding an alarm that Biden cannot win and someone should do something about it – but maybe not him.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“If you resent me for the audacity to challenge Joe Biden, at least you’ll appreciate how relatively strong I’m making him look among primary voters!” Phillips wrote on X, adding a biceps emoji.He shared an opinion piece endorsing him the headline of which said: Vote for whatshisname. He made a meme of a Dean shoe, a Technicolor joke poking at Trump’s new sneaker. He played the guitar.He floated the idea of a “unity ticket” with the Republican candidate Nikki Haley, who has stuck in the GOP race despite repeated losses to Trump. He is still trying to goad other Democrats into the race, specifically calling on Democratic governors such as Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer and JB Pritzker to run.And he has complimented Biden, in a strange way: when a New York Times poll showed Biden trailing Trump and losing support from people who previously voted for him, Phillips cast doubt on the poll.“When the NYT/Siena poll shows me at 12%, you better believe it is flawed,” he wrote on X. “Only 5% even know who I am.” More

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      The not-so-Super Tuesday is over. America has two clear choices ahead | Cas Mudde

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      Not-so-Super Tuesday has made an end to two faux primaries, confirming what everyone has known for month: the presidential elections will be a repetition of those four years ago. Despite thousands of columns and hundreds of millions of campaign money, Donald Trump was unapproachable in the Republican primaries, while Joe Biden faced no real opponent and won without ever really campaigning. So, where does that leave the US?In many ways, the upcoming elections will be the same as most of the US presidential elections this century. The race will be between two unpopular candidates, who are mostly mobilizing an “anti-vote” based on a broadly shared narrative that this could be the last election to “save America”. But the situation is even worse than four years ago, because both the electoral context and political climate have worsened.US presidential elections have always been fundamentally undemocratic, because of the electoral college, an elitist safety-valve the Founding Fathers put in between the popular vote and the actual election of the president. Moreover, the voting process is extremely decentralized, which has facilitated voter intimidation and suppression, particularly targeting African Americans – but also, increasingly, Hispanics and college students.Ironically, given that one-third of Americans who believe Biden’s election was illegitimate, the 2020 presidential elections were the most “free and fair” in US history. While offering extensive new opportunities for absentee/mail voting, partly a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, experts declared the elections “the most secure in history”. Still, Republicans have weaponized their unfounded “stolen election” claim to limit the possibility to vote, mostly by passing restrictive voter ID and absentee/mail voting laws at the state level, and retake control of the election process.Today, more than 80% of Americans are worried about democracy in the US and about political violence in the future. In fact, this is one of the few things Democrats and Republicans (as well as independents) agree upon! Of course, they sharply disagree what is at stake and who is the main threat. Ironically, both are mostly right, largely because they stand for fundamentally contradictory Americas.The Republican claim that Democrats want to “destroy America” is based on Christian nationalism, which considers the US to be a “Christian nation”, based on the foundations of biblical values and the “traditional” (implicitly white) family. And it is true that most Democrats want to destroy this America, which might have been the reality of the country’s history, but is in clear opposition to its own (revered) constitution.In sharp contrast, most Democrats worry that another Trump presidency would mean the end of US liberal democracy, that is, the system enshrined in the constitution. And they are right too. Decades of radicalization have made the Republican party one of the most extreme far-right parties in the world, catering to an illiberal popular and media base that is largely in line with its paranoid and unhinged leader.It is too early to say which America will win in November. For now, ignore the polls, at least until October, as the key factor will be turnout, which will be largely determined by circumstances very close to election day. Like all but one presidential elections in the 21st century, the Democratic candidate will win the popular vote. But in an undemocratic regime like the US, this is no guarantee to also win the election. Given how close the results will probably be in several key states, we are in for a protracted legal battle should Trump lose, in which the increasingly partisan supreme court might have the final say.To prevent such an outcome, and ensure that US democracy prevails, at least for another four years, Democrats face a lot of challenges in the coming six months. While the Republican base is fired up, many (potential) Democrats are either “uncommitted” or weakly committed to Biden. At the same time, some liberal media, the New York Times in particular, seem determined to make the same mistake as with the “Clinton emails” in 2016, obsessing over Biden’s age and health.Let’s be clear, the age and health of both Biden and Trump are problematic for such a demanding and powerful position, but this is the choice the parties and primaries have given the US voter. Suggestions that the Democrats can still replace Biden and win against Trump are completely delusional. Not only are the Democratic electorate and politicians much more diverse and divided than the Republicans, but there is also no clear candidate who can unite them better than Biden or who has a name recognition that comes even close to that of Biden and Trump. Moreover, this new candidate would have to build their campaign and name in the shadow of a Democratic president, who has already won a significant number of delegates in the primaries.So, whether we like it or not, American voters have a choice between two very clear and different Americas, represented by two old and unpopular candidates. If Biden wins, not too much will change – except for an even more brazen insurgence from Republican-led states against the federal government. But should Trump return to the White House, the US will change fundamentally, and not for the better. Whatever (legitimate) issues potential Democratic voters have with Biden, let’s hope that they can get over them by 5 November. The fate of both the US and the world depends on it.
      Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today More

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      Biden and the Democrats are sleepwalking into a potential Trump win | Osita Nwanevu

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      Barring an act from a God, who has seemingly forsaken the American electorate, Donald Trump and Joe Biden will, again, be the Republican and Democratic candidates for president. Tuesday’s results all but assure that, and they can’t really have been a surprise to anyone who has paid close attention to the campaign thus far.In fairness, most Americans still haven’t tuned in, nor many Democrats, who have spent much of the last year hoping against hope that one or more verdicts against Trump in the courts might hand them the election ⁠– and perhaps even put Trump behind bars before November. That was always a risky bet, but now the supreme court has put the trial over his attempted coup in 2020 on hold, while the other cases against him have uncertain timelines.Meanwhile, Biden’s team and Democratic officials have been telling the press that Biden’s replacement on the ticket isn’t any likelier. The race, they insist, is already on.Who’s ahead? All but a handful of high-quality national polls taken since January say it’s Trump. A New York Times poll fairly representative of the rest that drew a significant amount of media attention over the weekend put Trump ahead by five points, 48-43%, among registered voters. That’s the largest lead Trump has held in a Times poll since he launched his first presidential campaign in 2015.Meanwhile, Biden, more unpopular than ever, sits at an approval rating of 38%. Ten per cent of those who voted for him in 2020 now say they will vote for Trump. And the demographic picture the poll paints is dire ⁠– not only for Biden but perhaps for the Democratic party as a whole.Biden led strongly with women in 2020 and is now evidently tied with Trump among them; Biden won an estimated 72% of minorities without college degrees last time around and now leads by a mere six points, 47-41%. And while making broad demographic pronouncements on the basis of one poll is unwise, these results are roughly in keeping with some other data.In Michigan for instance, where much of the focus last week was on the uncommitted vote against Biden in that state’s primary, Biden has generally been polling under 70% with that state’s crucial Black electorate, which he won with over 90% of the vote, according to exit polls, in 2020. Deficits like that with previously strong Democratic constituencies go some way towards explaining why Biden, at present, seems to be losing in every swing state given current polling.The Biden campaign’s response to these numbers has been simple: all of the polls are wrong. “Polling continues to be at odds with how Americans vote, and consistently overestimates Donald Trump while underestimating President Biden,” Biden’s communications director, Michael Tyler, said over the weekend in a statement. “Whether it’s in special elections or in the presidential primaries, actual voter behavior tells us a lot more than any poll does and it tells a very clear story: Joe Biden and Democrats continue to outperform while Donald Trump and the party he leads are weak, cash-strapped and deeply divided.”As Tyler and his colleagues surely know, though, the point about “actual voter behavior” is wrong. Primary election results are not very indicative of how strong candidates will be in a general election; if they were, Trump, who didn’t even win a majority of the Republican primary vote in 2016, never would have been president. And there’s basically zero relationship between results in special elections like the one Democrats just won in New York ⁠– which involve small, unrepresentative electorates in small, unrepresentative places ⁠– and presidential election results.As flawed as they might be, general election polls are our surest guide to how the general electorate is feeling about the general election. In fact, as the political scientist David Faris noted recently, the leader at this point of the year in Real Clear Politics’ average of polls has gone on to win the election in every race since 2004 other than 2004 itself, with only a few points worth of difference between the margin and the final result.In 2004, the exception, Kerry and Bush were virtually tied in early March, around 44-44%, while Bush went on to win the popular vote by just over two points. And even that exception is reflective of a trend that can’t be of much comfort to Democrats ⁠– in every race since 2004 save 2008’s post-crash election, the Democratic candidate has performed slightly worse in November than polls at this point in the year have suggested.All told, we have every reason to believe that the hole Biden is in is real, as unfair as it might seem to his supporters. As rosily as they might evaluate his record in office so far, it looks substantially more mixed now than it did six months ago. It’s true that the economy is roaring by all available macroeconomic metrics and that Democrats under Biden have managed to pass the most expansive domestic policy agenda of any president since at least Lyndon Johnson.But it’s also true that voters have been stung by high prices and interest rates, as well as the expiration of pandemic relief programs. Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was brave and laudable ⁠– both morally and strategically overdue. But he was hammered for it in the press and now faces a progressive insurrection over the US’s support for Israel’s inhumane offensive in Gaza so severe that the campaign is reportedly reducing large in-person events to avoid protesters.And on immigration, still at the front of mind for many voters, Biden has functionally conceded that Trump has been right about the state of the border; while immigrants are less prone to crime than the native-born population and substantially responsible for the economic boom we’re experiencing, Democrats are trying their best to outflank the right on border security and asylum, to little effect thus far, rather than countering the racist myths Trump has propagated directly and focusing on a positive immigration reform agenda.Most voters haven’t plugged into these policy debates; Biden wears his greatest liability to them on his face. According to the New York Times’ poll, 73% of registered voters, including 61% of voters who backed Biden in 2020, say he’s too old to effectively serve as president.And as much as Democrats might want to blame the media for that perception in the wake of the Robert Hur report, this is a problem many of them foresaw themselves during the last campaign. “If Biden is elected he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection,” one campaign adviser told Politico’s Ryan Lizza flatly in 2019; according to Lizza, four sources close to Biden at the time told him that it was “virtually inconceivable” that he would mount another campaign.Yet here we are ⁠– sitting between a Super Tuesday that Biden swept and what could be the most consequential State of the Union address in some time, given the opportunity it presents for the president both to demonstrate his lucidity and to outline, at long last, an actual plan for his next term. Previews of the speech suggest it will feature now familiar language about protecting democracy and “making the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share”, along with some proposals on the opioid epidemic and veteran care.But Biden will have to do substantially better than that to get his campaign right side up. Plainly, he’s become a symbol of our political system’s decrepitude ⁠– a stand-in for all the old men in Washington who voters believe, rightfully, can’t or won’t do much to dramatically improve their lives. He’ll have to prove to voters that he’s capable of both dreaming and doing ⁠– to sell an ambitious vision of further material progress over the next four years, not woolly rhetoric about ending polarization and bringing serenity back to politics that will leave him looking dishonest and even more ineffectual when the tenor of political life remains the same, as it surely will.Whether or not Democrats control Congress will naturally constrain whether Biden makes good on that policy agenda; but having a compelling agenda in the offing to begin with might lift the candidates he’ll depend upon in his next term to victory. All that aside, faith in Biden’s capacity to lead and accomplish will rest in some part on whether and when the situation in Gaza comes to a peaceable resolution ⁠– getting a handle on the situation and pressuring Netanyahu into ending the war would be a significant turning point in his presidency.There and elsewhere, Biden needs to find a new course. Otherwise, the election may be over before he realizes it.
      Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Haley wins surprise Vermont victory as Biden and Trump dominate Super Tuesday

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      Joe Biden and Donald Trump largely cruised to easy victories on Super Tuesday. In early results, Biden and Trump captured wins in their respective primaries in California, Virginia, North Carolina, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Colorado and Minnesota. Biden also won the Democratic caucus in Iowa and Vermont, but lost American Samoa, while Nikki Haley won the Republican primary in Vermont – her second victory of 2024.The United States has not witnessed a primary campaign season with so little competitive tension since political primaries began to dominate the nomination process in the 1970s. Neither the current president nor the former president secured the nomination of their respective parties, but both are likely to do so within the next two weeks.Both candidates took shots at each other in statements and speeches on Tuesday evening. Biden said Trump was focused on “revenge and retribution” and “determined to destroy democracy”.“Tonight’s results leave the American people with a clear choice: are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?” Biden said.In a victory speech at Mar-a-Lago, Trump praised his wins, stating that “never been anything like this” and again attacked migrants, falsely claiming that US cities are “being overrun by migrant crime”. The former president has frequently derided migrants and made baseless and racist comments that they are dangerous.Biden sweeps, but with warning signsBiden requires 1,968 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination. Going into Super Tuesday, he held 206. Primaries and caucuses today offered another 1,420. Assuming Biden continues to sweep through primary contests, the earliest he could secure the nomination on the first ballot would be 19 March with results from Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio.Democratic candidates can win delegates with 15% or more of the vote in a congressional district. California’s 424 Democratic delegates were the richest haul of the evening.View image in fullscreenVotes for write-in candidates typically take days to tabulate, but observers have been acutely watching for “uncommitted” or “none of the above” protest votes to register displeasure with the Biden administration’s policy on the Israel-Hamas war. The campaign has gained more ground after a strong showing in Michigan last week.William Galvin, secretary of state for Massachusetts, told reporters today that if enough voters selected “no preference”, a delegate may be assigned to that option.Trump marches on, but party rifts visibleTrump entered Super Tuesday with 273 delegates, requiring 1,215 needed to win the nomination outright at the Republican National Convention. Super Tuesday offered 865 delegates, but Nikki Haley’s continued campaign has prevented Trump from claiming all of them. With tonight’s results, the earliest Trump could secure the nomination is also 19 March with Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio.View image in fullscreenTrump gained a late-game reprieve in Colorado when the US supreme court unanimously ruled on Monday that states cannot unilaterally kick a presidential candidate off the ballot using the 14th amendment and was expected to win Colorado.Haley won the District of Columbia primary on Sunday, becoming the first woman to win a Republican presidential primary in history. Only about 2,000 people voted in the primary but she did score her first state win on Tuesday with Vermont.Notable state races hold more upsetsCalifornia voters have been focused on the state’s highly-contested down ballot race to fill the seat held by Dianne Feinstein, the late US senator. California places the top two candidates from the primary in a runoff.Adam Schiff, the centrist Democratic congressman and longtime Trump antagonist, was declared the first place winner. He will face off with Republican Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player, in November.But voters in California were unenthusiastic and analysts projected the state could see its lowest voter turnout in history.“I’m not excited about any of the issues, I just needed to take a walk today so I decided to drop off my ballot,” said Daniel, a 50-year-old voter who declined to share his last name.Texas held state and federal legislative primaries Tuesday, presenting Texan voters with a Republican grudge match over state politics. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has been on a revenge tour to punish legislators who voted for his impeachment on corruption allegations last year, issuing a long list of endorsed challengers to incumbents.About half of a slate of endorsed challengers have either claimed victory or are taking incumbents to a runoff, including a challenger to the powerful Texas speaker of the house, Dade Phelan. Late returns suggested Phelan will face Trump-backed challenger David Covey.Four claimed open seats and seven challengers won primaries outright, while seven others will go on to runoffs. One of those runoffs will feature Katrina Pearson, Trump’s former spokeswoman, who is neck-and-neck with Justin Holland, a state representative, in the suburban Dallas district.View image in fullscreenTed Cruz, the US senator, secured the Republican nomination with no major GOP competitors. Democratic representative Colin Allred beat out Roland Gutierrez, who has emerged as a national gun control advocate following the Uvalde shooting, to face Cruz in November.Alabama voters in a newly-redrawn second congressional district pushed Democrats Anthony Daniels and Shomari Figures to a runoff while Republicans Dick Brewbaker and Caroleene Dobson also face a runoff. The US supreme court forced Alabama to redraw its congressional map last year, declaring it a racial gerrymander that illegally diminished the political power of Black voters. As a result, two white Republican congressmen – Jerry Carl and Barry Moore – faced each other for a single seat after their districts were redrawn. Moore beat out incumbent Carl in the first district.More than 6,000 voters in the second district received postcards with incorrect voting information ahead of the primary, which a county official attributed to a software error.Notably Tom Parker, chief justice of Alabama’s supreme court, who issued a religiously-inflected ruling on the personhood of frozen embryos last month, was not on the ballot tonight. Alabama bars judges over the age of 70 from running for re-election; his term ends in 2025. The winner of the Republican nomination to succeed Parker is Sarah Stewart, an associate justice on the Alabama supreme court who was part of the court’s majority ruling on the embryo case.In North Carolina, the Republican state legislature redrew congressional maps last year after winning a majority on the state supreme court. As a result, the current delegation of 14 congresspeople will likely change from a 7-7 split to a 10-4 Republican majority and the most competitive seats have attracted sharp primary contests, particularly the 13th district.North Carolina’s first congressional district in the state’s coastal north-east has historically held a Democratic, mostly-Black majority. Lawmakers redrew it to be much more competitive for a Republican candidate. Representative Don Davis beat the 2022 Republican nominee, businesswoman and perennial candidate Sandy Smith, by four points. Smith this year lost the Republican primary to challenger Laurie Buckhout. .Meanwhile Mark Robinson, the lieutenant governor, has won the Republican nomination for governor, to succeed North Carolina’s term-limited Democratic governor, Roy Cooper. Robinson, North Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor, has a history of sexist and inflammatory comments, particularly about Jews.Robinson’s opponent in November will be Democrat Josh Stein, the North Carolina attorney general who would be the state’s first Jewish governor. More

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

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

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      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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      What’s next in the US primary election: key dates

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      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

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      The Biden administration has a chance to deliver student debt relief. It must act | Astra Taylor and Eleni Schirmer

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      Last week, the Washington Post reported that President Biden recently pressed Jeff Zients, his chief of staff, on the issue of student debt cancellation, telling him “to make sure his team was making the relief as expansive as possible”.That’s good news for tens of millions of borrowers. But expansive relief will not be delivered if the administration fails to learn the lessons from round one of the cancellation battle: speed and conviction matter.When the supreme court struck down President Biden’s attempt to cancel student debt last summer, his administration got to work to make plans for future cancellation. Today, the window for cancellation is open once again. Biden’s Plan B has a fighting chance – but only if the president moves fast.Last month the administration concluded a five-month long regulatory process to hammer out the legal parameters for cancellation using the Higher Education Act – a different legal authority than Biden used the first time around. In the last session of this process, a session which was only undertaken thanks to pressure from activists and progressive elected officials, rulemakers cracked open a critical window for debt cancellation.This session established “economic hardship” as grounds for cancellation. Once again, Biden’s Plan B has a fighting chance – but only if the president seizes the moment and walks through it.Why is the new provision on economic hardship such a game-changer? As we know all too well from our work in the debt abolition movement, the vast majority of student borrowers experience economic hardship, struggling to make basic living expenses. In fact, we consider student loans themselves to be an indicator of economic hardship, a kind of regressive and financially debilitating tax on anyone who isn’t wealthy enough to pay for tuition outright.These new guidelines recognize this. They open space for Biden to deliver on promised relief. Our fear, however, is that the administration will move slowly and cautiously, and, by doing so, enable their Republican adversaries to slam the window shut and claim another victory.Moving slowly – a result of prioritizing means-tested relief, rather than cancellation for all – was one of the reasons that Biden’s prior debt relief plan met a bad end. Consider how the Department of Education took 51 days to put their extremely simple application for relief online. Every day they delayed implementing relief bought time for billionaire-backed lawsuits to move through a court system stacked with conservative judges eager to make partisan rulings.It has now been six months since Biden announced his Plan B and already too much time has been wasted on regulatory machinations that some experts argued weren’t even necessary to begin with. Looking ahead, cancellation must be issued in the boldest, fastest manner possible, to give people relief and to register the results in time for the upcoming elections.If the administration decides, once again, to route cancellation through an application or to otherwise “target” relief, instead of universally applying it, we will find ourselves in a groundhog day scenario: waiting for the administration to ready their process to administer relief while further lawsuits are prepared by the conservative right’s battalion of highly paid lawyers.Last summer, both of us helped launch a first-of-its kind online tool that helps borrowers create and send legal appeals for the Department of Education to cancel their debt. The Student Debt Release Tool builds from the Department of Education’s legal authority to cancel student debt as part of the Higher Education Act of 1965 – a tried and true authority that has been used many times to eliminate people’s federal loans. Within weeks of the launch of the Student Debt Release Tool, tens of thousands of borrowers submitted appeals, flooding the Department of Education, and rumored to have shut down the agency’s email servers at least once.The information in the Release Tool clearly demonstrates how student debt creates hardship, and why cancellation is the urgent and just response. In these appeals, borrowers recount their brushes with homelessness and turns to sex work, their mounting medical bills, their children’s grumbling stomachs when the cupboards yet again fall empty, the anxiety and depression that ensues.The Release Tool also shows that the Department of Education already has the information it needs to act, and should start doing so now.Beyond a canned reply, however, borrowers have received no meaningful response to their appeals from the Department of Education, leading debtors to seek help elsewhere. Over the past three months, groups of student borrowers in New York, Boston, Seattle, Philadelphia, Georgia, Indianapolis and Missouri have been virtually marching into their congressional representative’s offices – asking them to send letters to the Department of Education urging the secretary to use the powers vested in him by the Higher Education Act to cancel student debt without delay, or excessive administrative procedures that risk thwarting the actual delivery of relief.Although President Biden insists that he is doing everything he can to cancel student debt, the tens of millions of debtors desperate for relief, and the tens of thousands of unanswered Release Tool appeals, suggest otherwise.Since President Biden’s initial plan to cancel debt was announced, the stakes have only become higher. As part of debt ceiling negotiations, President Biden turned student loan payments back on, leading the interest on over $1.6tn dollars of federal student loan debt to once again pile up. Although Biden has attempted to reform one of the most faulty income-driven repayment programs, too many borrowers have found their payments erroneously increasing, rather than the purported goal of lowering monthly bills.And while the Biden administration proudly struts its efforts to cancel student debt on social media, in reality only 10% of eligible borrowers have received even partial relief. The majority are waiting, desperately, on a promise unfulfilled. A sense of being gas-lit looms.There is, of course, no way for Biden to wholly protect against bad-faith litigation or to avoid anti-democratic decrees issued by Trump-appointed judges. But the Biden administration should show it is willing to fight. Don’t tell voters you are doing everything you can on debt cancellation, President Biden. Show us.
      Astra Taylor is a writer, organizer and documentary maker and a co-founder of the Debt Collective
      Eleni Schirmer, a writer and postdoctoral fellow at the Concordia University Social Justice Centre in Montreal, is part of the Debt Collective More