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      Crosstalk and weak zingers hand win to absent Trump at Republican debate

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      It’s hard to pick the low point of a debate that dissolved frequently into incoherent crosstalk and included former vice-president Mike Pence, a Christian conservative who has famously said he would never dine alone with a woman other than his wife, attempting to make a joke about his sex life. (“My wife isn’t a member of the teachers union, but I gotta admit I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years,” he said.)In a debate conducted not far from Ronald Reagan’s grave, seven GOP presidential candidates shouted and sniped at each other for two hours without producing a single standout moment.Whether echoing Donald Trump’s rhetoric, or attempting to criticize him – Chris Christie dubbed him “Donald Duck” for choosing not to participate – none of the presidential hopefuls succeeded in upending the expectations of the race. Once again, Trump won the GOP debate without even having to show up.On substantive issues, the Republican candidates endorsed virulent transphobia, with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy arguing that “transgenderism” is “a mental health disorder”. He said he wanted to end birthright citizenship, so that children born in the US to undocumented parents would not be given citizenship.Florida governor Ron DeSantis suggested he would address the fentanyl overdose crisis by using the US military against drug dealers in Mexico, and treat them like “foreign terrorist organizations”. He also did not believe Republican losses in the 2022 midterm elections should be blamed on the party’s embrace of extreme anti-abortion policies.Pence said his plan for preventing future mass shootings was not new gun control laws, but instituting “a federal expedited death penalty for anyone involved in a mass shooting”. (Research shows that many mass shooters are suicidal.)But some of the brutal Trumpian rhetoric seemed to have lost its punch. “Yes, we’ll build the wall,” DeSantis said, sounding almost bored.On Fox News after the debate, former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway argued that “nobody made the case” that they had something different from Trump to offer voters. “They want to build a wall, they want to secure the border, they sound a lot like him,” she said.Trump’s rivals also tried, and largely failed, to produce memorable attack lines against each other.South Carolina senator Tim Scott tried to criticize former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for a set of $50,000 curtains at her residence as UN ambassador. “Do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains,” Haley responded.Haley, in turn, savaged 38-year-old entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy for doing business in China and for joining the social media app TikTok, which Ramaswamy defended as a logical thing to do to help the party attract younger voters, even as he said that people under 16 should not be “using addictive social media”.“TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media apps that we could have,” Haley said. “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.”“We can’t trust you,” she said. “We can’t trust you.”The reviews were mixed. New York Times political correspondent Maggie Haberman wrote early in the debate, “This is unwatchable.” But Fox News’ Laura Ingraham argued after the debate that Haley and Ramaswamy were the most promising candidates in two flavors – Ramaswamy as the populist, Haley as the more traditional conservative supported by GOP donors.Ramaswamy seemed at one point to flaunt his youth and inexperience, acknowledging that as the “new guy”, he expected that voters would see him as “a young man who’s in a bit of a hurry, maybe a little ambitious, bit of a know-it-all”.“I’m here to tell you, no, I don’t know it all. I will listen. I will have the best people, the best and brightest in this country, whatever age they are, advising me,” he promised.Scott earned applause from the audience and praise from Sean Hannity for saying that, while he had experienced discrimination as a Black man, “America is not a racist country.”At the end of the debate, moderator Dana Perino of Fox News asked the candidates: “Which one of you onstage tonight should be voted off the island?” Almost everyone refused to reply. When Christie did, he attacked the one person who wasn’t on that particular island.Donald Trump. More

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      Fact-check: six Republican debate claims from crime to immigration

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      Seven Republican presidential candidates participated in a Wednesday night debate in California, offering up an array of dubious data and claims to prop up their talking points.Here are six fact-checks from the night.The claim: Candidates said crime was overrunning US citiesWhile Republicans discussed fears of crime overrunning cities, it’s worth noting that the best data we have so far suggests that, after an increase in killings during the early pandemic, the number of murders across the country fell substantially last year. Crime analyst Jeff Asher has also noted that murders appear to be falling even more this year.The 2023 drop in murders began early in the year, when Asher’s analysis of early data suggested that the “United States may be experiencing one of the largest annual percent changes in murder ever recorded”.The claim: Mike Pence suggested the threat of the death penalty would deter people from committing mass shootingsThe former vice-president volunteered his plan for preventing mass shootings in the United States: “a federal expedited death penalty for anyone involved in a mass shooting.” He said he was disgusted that the teenager who committed the Parkland school shooting did not get a death sentence.According to the Violence Project, a research firm, “Seventy-two percent of mass shooters were suicidal either before or at the time of the shooting.”Data from the FBI on mass shootings in 2021 and 2022 also showed that a third to nearly a half of perpetrators either died by suicide or were killed by police or other citizens during the attack.The claims: Vivek Ramaswamy said children who are transgender have ‘a mental health disorder’ , while Mike Pence implied that children could transition without parents’ consentRamaswamy said: “Transgenderism, especially in kids is a mental health disorder.”But major medical organizations, like the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, say being transgender is not a mental disorder. Gender dysphoria is recognized as a medical condition that doctors agree should be remedied by offering gender-affirming treatment.Pence, meanwhile, misleadingly claimed: “The Linn-Mar community schools in Iowa had a policy where you could, you had to have a permission slip from your parents to get a Tylenol but you could get a gender transition plan without notifying your parents.”Linn-Mar’s policy directed educators to use students’ chosen names, without consulting with parents. That’s a far reach from a “gender transition plan”.Claim: Pence boasted that under his and Donald Trump’s administration, illegal immigration dropped drasticallyskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We reduced illegal immigration and asylum abuse by 90%,” Pence said.In fact, the number of border patrol apprehensions was higher during the Trump administration than during the last four years of Barack Obama’s administration. There was a change in how US Customs and Border Protection reports migrant encounters during the pandemic, complicating some of this data – pre-pandemic, the agency reported enforcement actions taken under immigration law, but after, it also began reporting actions taken under the Title 42 public health policy that authorized officers to immediately send most migrants at the border back to Mexico.Analysis by PolitiFact found that Pence’s 90% reduction figure could be approximated by comparing enforcement data from May 2019, the month that saw the highest number of apprehensions, with data from April 2020 – just as governments around the world moved to drastically restrict travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “That’s a severely cherry-picked period,” the fact-checking group writes.Claim: Ron DeSantis denied that the Florida school curriculum suggests that enslaved people drew benefits from slaveryThe Florida governor was asked about the curriculum in Florida that said enslaved people “develop skills which in some instances, could be apply for their personal benefit”.Historians and educators decried the new teaching standard, which came after the state enacted the “Stop Woke Act” signed by DeSantis, prohibiting instruction that could cause students to feel discomfort or guilt due to their race, sex or national origin.DeSantis decried the criticism as “a hoax that was perpetrated by Kamala Harris”, mispronouncing the vice-president’s name. In an impassioned speech reacting to the standard, Harris said: “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us and we will not stand for it.” More

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      Republican debate: Trump attacked for being absent as reports say he will skip third one too – as it happened

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      From 8h agoChris Christie turned a question about crime fighting into an attack on Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination who has snubbed this debate.“And I want to look at a camera right now to tell you, Donald, I know you’re watching. You can’t help yourself. I know you’re watching, OK,” the former New Jersey governor said.“And you’re not here tonight. Not because of polls, and not because of your indictments. You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on the stage and defending your record. You’re ducking these things. And let me tell you what’s going to happen. You keep doing that, no one up here is gonna call you Donald Trump any more. We’re gonna call you Donald Duck.”For two hours, the seven Republican candidates gathered in California duked it out over everything from energy to immigration, all in the absence of Donald Trump, the far-and-away frontrunner for the GOP’s presidential nomination. We’ll see if anything that was said on the debate stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library this evening changed the contours of the race, but one thing is now clear: none of these candidates will share the debate stage with Trump. He’s opted to skip the third debate set for Miami in November, and his campaign is calling for the Republican Party to cancel it altogether.Here are some highlights from tonight’s event:The reviews of the second Republican presidential debate are rolling in from political analysts and they are … not great.Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics:Fernand R. Amandi of public opinion research firm Bendixen & Amandi:GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who thought Nikki Haley and Tim Scott’s argument about curtains was a low point:But did think Chris Christie handled questions about abortion in a way other Republicans could learn from:Republican rivals hoping to face Donald Trump on the debate stage won’t get their chance. CBS News reports that the former president will skip the third and final debate of the primary process, set for November in Miami:In fact, the Trump campaign is out with a statement calling on the Republican National Committee to cancel the third debate entirely. Here’s the campaign’s senior advisor Chris LaCivita:
      Tonight’s GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first debate, and nothing that was said will change the dynamics of the primary contest being dominated by President Trump. President Trump has a 40- or 50-point lead in the primary election and a 10-point lead over Joe Biden in the general election, and it’s clear that President Trump alone can defeat Biden.
      The RNC should immediately put an end to any further primary debates so we can train our fire on Crooked Joe Biden and quit wasting time and money that could be going to evicting Biden from the White House.
      Mike Pence claimed that during his and Donald Trump’s administration, they “reduced illegal immigration and asylum abuse by 90%.”That’s not really true.The number of Border Patrol apprehensions was higher during the Trump administration than during the last four years of Barack Obama’s administration. There was a change in how US Customs and Border Protection reports migrant encounters during the pandemic, complicating some of this data – pre-pandemic, the agency reported enforcement actions taken under immigration law, but after, it also began reporting actions taken under the Title 42 public health policy that authorized officers to immediately send most migrants at the border back to Mexico.Analysis by Politifact found that Pence’s 90% reduction figure could be approximated by comparing enforcement data from May 2019, the month that saw the highest number of apprehensions, with data from April 2020 – right as governments around the world moved to severe restrict travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic.“That’s a severely cherry-picked period,” the fact-checking group writes.It’s worth noting that the moderators’ attempts to spur even more conflict between the candidates was not particularly well received.None of them were willing to name another to be voted off the stage, or the island, as it were:The candidates are now leaving the stage after the moderators wrapped up the second Republican presidential debate with a question that, fittingly, invoked Donald Trump.In the debate’s final moments, the candidates were asked by the moderators to write down which other candidate they would – in the style of pioneering reality TV program Survivor – vote off the stage. Chris Christie chose Trump, the frontrunner for the nomination who did not attend.“This guy has not only divided our party, he divided families all over this country. He’s divided friends all over this country,” Christie said. “I’ve spoken to people and I know everyone else has, who have sat at Thanksgiving dinner or at a birthday party and can’t have a conversation anymore if they disagree with Donald Trump. He needs to be off the island and taken out of this process.Vivek Ramaswamy disagreed. “I think Trump was an excellent president. But the America first agenda does not belong to one man. It does not belong to Donald Trump. It doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to you, the people of this country. And the question is who’s going to unite this country and take the America first agenda to the next level?” he said.“We did not just hunger for a single man, we hungered for the unapologetic pursuit of excellence and yes, I will respect Donald Trump and his legacy because it’s the right thing to do.”And with that, the debate was over.Call it the Squabble in South Carolina.While the debate may be taking place in Simi Valley, California, the two candidates hailing from the Palmetto state – Senator Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, the state’s former governor – just got into it over gas taxes, curtains and several other things.“As the UN ambassador, you literally put $50,000 on curtains in a $15m subsidized location,” Scott said, while Haley defiantly interjected, “bring it, man.”“You got bad information,” Haley, who served as UN ambassador under Donald Trump, replied. “On the curtains, do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains.”“Did you send them back?” the senator asked.“It’s the state department!” Haley shot back at Scott. “Did you send them back? You’re the one that works in Congress … You are scrapping right now!”“We do not intend to go ahead like this,” the moderator, Stuart Varney, said, before sending us all, mercifully, to a commercial break.Ron DeSantis was asked about curriculum in Florida that said, enslaved people “develop skills which in some instances, could be apply for their personal benefit”.DeSantis called this “a hoax that was perpetrated by Kamala Harris”, mispronouncing the vice-president’s name. In fact, the quoted bit is taken straight from Florida’s African American history standards.In an impassioned speech reacting to the standard, Harris said: “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us and we will not stand for it.”Ron DeSantis just won himself some applause with a well-timed interjection to tout his accomplishments as Florida governor.Amid bickering over government spending between Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, DeSantis piped up.“I’m the only one up here who’s gotten in the big fights and has delivered big victories for the people of Florida. And that’s what it’s all about,” DeSantis said to cheers.“You can always talk but when when it gets hot in there, when they’re shooting arrows at you, are you going to stand up for parents rights, keep the state free? Are you going to be able to do all those things? And in the state of Florida because of our success, the Democratic party lies in ruins. We have won the big fights. We have turned our state into a Republican state.”Doug Burgum really wants to answer these questions, but the moderators aren’t having it.They asked Nikki Haley elaborate on her energy policies – but not Burgum. “As the only leader of an energy state, can I answer?” interjected Burgum, whose state has a sizable oil industry. But the answer the North Dakota governor got was no.He tried again after Ron DeSantis was asked the same question, but was rebuffed. “We can’t talk over each other. We must respect each other,” moderator Stuart Varney insisted.As candidates address trans rights on stage, here’s a bit of context.Vivek Ramaswamy said: “Transgenderism, especially in kids is a mental health disorder.”This is false. Major medical organizations, like the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association (APA), say being transgender is not a mental disorder. Gender dysphoria is recognized as a medical condition that doctors agree should be remedied by offering gender-affirming treatment.From Mike Pence: “The Linn-Marr community schools in Iowa had a policy where you could you had to have a permission slip from your parents to get a Tylenol but you could get a gender transition plan without notifying your parents.”This is misleading. Linn-Marr’s policy directed educators to use students’ chosen names, without consulting with parents. That’s a far reach from a “gender transition plan”. Children under 17 seeking gender affirming care such as hormone replacement therapy or gender affirming surgery.Vivek Ramaswamy was the most pilloried candidate at the previous debate, and will likely win that dubious distinction after this debate.He recently joined TikTok, the controversial social media app many GOP candidates want to ban over allegations that it’s tied to the Chinese Communist party. Asked why he was on the app, Ramamswamy cited its popularity with young people, and said: “The answer is, I have a radical idea for the Republican party. We need to win elections, and part of how we win elections is reaching the next generation of young Americans where they are.”Nikki Haley did not like that response. “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say,” she said, before going on to outline a number of privacy and national security concerns about the app.Mike Pence wants to “repeal the Green New Deal”. Too bad it’s never passed Congress or been signed into law…“Joe Biden’s Green New Deal agenda is good for Beijing and bad for Detroit. We ought to repeal the Green New Deal,” the former vice president said. “We ought to repeal the Green New Deal.”The Green New Deal is a climate legislation proposal that was never passed. Joe Biden did sign into law the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes key climate provisions is different.Although the IRA includes major investments in clean energy technologies – some of which have relied on critical minerals controlled by China. But the landmark climate investment is also considered a key step in reducing reliance on China for these minerals by increasing domestic supply. And while ramping up domestic extraction has raised new environmental concerns, Pence’s assertion is notably misleading.The IRA’s tax credits for electric vehicles, for example, come with the caveat that the materials used to manufacture the veible come from the US or countries with which the US has free trade agreements. The law also incentivizes domestic manufacturing.Doug Burgum did it again.The moderators didn’t call on him for a contentious question about social media app TikTok, so he just started talking, keeping the moderators from moving on to Ron DeSantis.“We will have to cut your mic and I don’t want to do that,” warned moderator Dana Perino. Burgum piped down.Raise your hand if you expected Mike Pence to discuss his sex life at this debate.Us neither. But discuss it he did. Chris Christie laid the groundwork while responding to a question about how he would close educational gaps with minorities, which he turned into an attack on teachers unions.“This public school system is no longer run by the public. It is run by the teachers unions in this country,” Christie said. “And when you have the president of the United States sleeping with a member of the teachers union, there is no chance that you could take the stranglehold away from the teachers unions.” That line was a reference to Jill Biden, who has taught at community colleges and is a union member.It got weird when the moderators, a few minutes later, called on Mike Pence. “By way of full disclosure, Chris, you’ve mentioned the president’s situation,” Pence said. “My wife isn’t a member of the teachers union, but I gotta admit I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years.” OK Mike. More

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      Trump, crime and bad jokes: key takeaways from the second Republican debate

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      The second Republican presidential debate – once again without frontrunner Donald Trump – took place on Wednesday evening at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.Amid the squabble of the seven candidates, all of whom trail Trump significantly, Americans were left to parse which direction the Republican party plans to take in 2024. Trump, meanwhile, gave a speech in Michigan, where autoworkers have been striking for better work conditions and pay.Here are the main takeaways from the two-hour debate that aired on Fox Business.The candidates finally called out Trump for his absence, and spoke out against him more oftenUnlike in the first debate, candidates Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis directly commented on Trump’s absence multiple times.“He should be in this room to answer those questions for the people you talked about who are suffering,” Christie said.Later, he added: “And you’re not here tonight. Not because of polls, and not because of your indictments. You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on the stage and defending your record. You’re ducking these things. And let me tell you what’s going to happen. You keep doing that, no one up here is gonna call you Donald Trump any more. We’re gonna call you Donald Duck.”DeSantis, once seen as Trump’s main rival, also took on his fellow Florida man. “He should be on this stage tonight,” DeSantis said. “He owes it to you to defend his record.”The jokes were worse than usualFrom Chris Christie’s highly practiced Donald Duck quip to ultra-conservative Mike Pence’s weird foray into his sex life, the audience was mostly left to uncomfortably chuckle.Republicans continue to politicize crime to avoid talking about solutions to issues like gun violence, immigration and drug overdosesThe party has tried to hold up crime rates – which have continued to decline after the pandemic spike – to criticize attempts at police reform or gun control.DeSantis touted his ousting of “progressive prosecutors” who he claimed were making Floridians unsafe when they investigated police misconduct, while Nikki Haley tried to connect issues at the southern border with seemingly unrelated looting in Philadelphia this week.When faced with a question about the prevalence of school shootings in the US, Mike Pence said the “expedited” death penalty for the shooters would prevent more shootings.Children were at the center of multiple questions about daycare, education and transgender rights, but it mostly devolved into culture warsBuilding on the heated discussions about “parents’ rights” and school choice that escalated during the pandemic, the candidates doubled down on their cultural agendas.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDeSantis refused to backtrack on the part of his state curriculum that says enslaved people benefited from enslavement and touted Florida’s education record. Meanwhile, students and parents in Florida are organizing against the ongoing book bans and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric that Republicans have brought to endless school meetings.Pence said he would enact a national ban on transgender care when asked about violence against the LGBTQ+ community. Vivek Ramaswamy said a return to faith would motivate the youth, and claimed “transgenderism, especially in kids, is a mental health disorder”. (Major health organizations disagree.)Haley addressed the issue directly. “We have to acknowledge the fact that 67% of our eighth-graders are not proficient in reading or math,” she said. “And recently they came out and said our 12- and 13-year-olds are scoring at the lowest levels they have been scoring in reading and math in decades.”Abortion was almost overlookedUnlike in the previous debate, abortion took a backseat, despite the fact that Republicans have lost several recent elections to this issue after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year.DeSantis denied that abortion played a large role in those elections and implied Trump was turning on pro-life voters. Christie, however, talked about the need for Republicans to talk about the issue in a way that didn’t downplay the health of women caught in difficult circumstances.The Trump campaign may have revealed in an email blast who they feel most threatened byWhile Trump, speaking in Michigan, joked about there being no one at the debate fit for even the vice-presidency, a campaign email suggested otherwise. The email, with the subject “The Real Nikki Haley”, outlined her past quotes and positions to make her look hypocritical and weak.A recent poll showed that if Haley were the Republican nominee, she might beat Biden next year. More

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      Republican contenders gather for key debate with Trump again absent

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      Seven Republican presidential contenders gathered in California on Wednesday night for the second primary debate of the 2024 election season, but the absence of Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner in the race for the party’s nomination, again loomed large over the event.Seven candidates qualified for the second debate, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute in Simi Valley, California. Those candidates were Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, the former vice-president Mike Pence, the former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and the North Dakota governor Doug Burgum.Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor who participated in the first primary debate, did not appear on Wednesday because he failed to meet the heightened polling requirements outlined by the Republican National Committee.Trump skipped the event – as he skipped last month’s debate – and instead delivered a speech in Michigan, where auto workers have gone on strike to demand pay increases. A day earlier, Joe Biden joined some of the striking workers on the picket line, and the back-to-back events provided an odd preview of the likely matchup in the 2024 general election.The second debate comes as Republican primary candidates have struggled to put a dent in Trump’s significant polling lead, even as the former president faces 91 felony charges across four criminal cases. One NBC News poll conducted this month showed Trump has the support of 59% of likely Republican primary voters, giving the former president a 43-point edge over DeSantis. Besides Trump and DeSantis, every Republican primary candidate remains mired in the single digits, the poll found.DeSantis in particular could benefit from a breakout moment to help dispel mounting doubts over his ability to challenge Trump for the nomination. The Florida governor has seen his polling numbers tumble in recent weeks, with one New Hampshire survey showing DeSantis dropping to fifth place in the second voting state.With less than four months left for the Iowa caucuses, the pressure is escalating for candidates to quickly prove their mettle in the primary. One Republican candidate, the Miami mayor Francis Suarez, has already dropped out of the race, and others may soon follow suit if they cannot gain momentum in the coming weeks.But some of the candidates, including Hutchinson, insist they will keep fighting for the nomination despite the significant headwinds against them. In a statement released on Monday, Hutchinson said he would move forward with events planned in early voting states even after he failed to qualify for the second debate.“I entered this race because it is critically important for a leader within the Republican party to stand up to Donald Trump and call him out on misleading his supporters and the American people,” Hutchinson said. “I intend to continue doing that.” More

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      Home discomfort for Ron DeSantis as Florida Republicans edge away

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      There haven’t been many good days for Ron DeSantis’s flailing presidential campaign lately, and news that the Florida governor has slumped to fifth place in a poll for the New Hampshire primary will hardly have lifted his spirits.Yet the biggest blow of the past week came from Florida’s once fiercely loyal Republican party, which appears to be souring on the idea of their man in the White House.The state party’s scrapping last weekend of a loyalty oath for candidates in its presidential primary next year was, on its face, an innocent move, declared by its sponsors to merely ensure voters could choose from all Republicans competing for the White House. Removing Donald Trump from Florida’s ballot because he would not pledge support for the eventual nominee would be undemocratic, they said.But there appears to be more behind the defiance than just giving the former president a leg up in a race he already leads by a substantial margin. The action, which the Republican Florida governor lobbied hard against, sends a clear signal to DeSantis that he no longer enjoys the unquestioned allegiance of the party in his own state, a potentially fatal position for a candidate seeking to convince the rest of the country he is best qualified for the presidency.“People are paying attention, and they notice when a candidate’s home state is balking,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.“One thing that DeSantis was correctly noted for was his iron grip on the Florida Republican party. They didn’t question his directives, the legislature passed bills they didn’t even have extensive hearings on because DeSantis submitted them, and he kept his people in line.“He had an iron grip, but the iron has rusted. This suggests, yet again, that DeSantis has lost not only prestige, but influence, which is what really matters in the pre-nomination battle.”Rumblings have circulated for months that some Florida Republicans have become “fatigued” with their second-term governor and his extremist agenda. Several voted in the most recent legislative session against a six-week abortion ban that passed anyway, while others have criticized his feud with Disney over transgender rights.The reversal of the loyalty oath requirement approved in May for the 19 March primary heralds a significant crystallization of that opposition.Before the vote, behind closed doors at the Florida Republican party’s statesman’s dinner at an Orlando hotel, one senior operative told NBC News it “would be viewed as a ‘fuck you’ to DeSantis” if it passed.After it did, another Republican source told the outlet: “DeSantis just got steamrollered in his own home.”It came at a critical stage for his presidential run, with DeSantis’s poll numbers continuing to collapse (he trails Trump for the Republican nomination by 50 points in a Quinnipiac survey, and has slipped to third place behind Trump and Nikki Haley in New York); and while his latest campaign reset, following the dismissal of more than a third of his staff and appointment of a new manager, struggles to gain a footing.“This is going to be a case study going forward for many years, just because you won an election in your state by a landslide, that does not mean that you are unstoppable at the national level,” Sabato said.“In fact, it may mean relatively little, even when it’s a mega-state like Florida. Was Ron DeSantis the candidate who won in a landslide in 2022, or is he the presidential candidate who’s slipping below the radar today? Well, he’s both of those things. And they aren’t contradictory.“Can he reverse it? Anybody can reverse anything given the right time and circumstances, but it sure doesn’t look that way. In all the polls I’ve seen he just keeps dropping, and pretty soon one of those other candidates, maybe it’s Nikki Haley, maybe somebody else, will end up going above him in the polls. Maybe it’s only a few points, but that’s all that’s needed to change the narrative.”Notably, the measure to reverse the loyalty oath was brought by the Republican state senator Joe Gruters, the former chair of the state party who has clashed with DeSantis over the Disney wrangle. In June, Gruters accused DeSantis of vetoing spending in his district as retribution for not supporting him.“The governor is clearly upset I endorsed Donald Trump for president, so he took it out on the people of Sarasota county,” he said in a statement at the time. “Simply because I support his political opponent, the governor chose to punish ordinary Floridians.”Gruters did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian, but told reporters after the Orlando vote that it was about fairness.“It’s not about the pledge. It’s about creating unnecessary roadblocks late in the game that makes it perceived that it’s anti-Trump,” he said, according to Politico.DeSantis, who skipped the Orlando humiliation for fundraising events in New York, will have the chance to try to win back the support of state Republicans at the party’s Florida Freedom Summit in Kissimmee on 4 November.“The Florida GOP will remain neutral, but we will work to support the entire Republican team by helping give all the presidential candidates as many opportunities as possible to connect with Florida voters,” spokesperson Nathalie Medina told reporters.Before that, however, DeSantis must plot his strategy for the next Republican primary debate on 27 September in California, seen by many as another possible make-or-break moment for his campaign.“He’s had a lot of turnover in his management team, his campaign team, so we’ll see. A lot of us are watching whether that’s going to make a difference, particularly looking ahead to the next debate,” said Susan MacManus, distinguished professor emeritus of political science at the University of Florida.“Will he continue to focus on policy, which is what a lot of people would prefer, or is he going to have to get into the bashing of Trump and his colleagues on the stage? I don’t think the payoff for him is good in bashing, it’s in identifying problems facing the country and talking about how he will deal with them.” More

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      DeSantis falls to fifth in New Hampshire poll in latest campaign reverse

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      The Florida governor Ron DeSantis fell to fifth in a new New Hampshire poll, trailing not just Donald Trump, the runaway leader for the Republican presidential nomination, but Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley and Chris Christie.The poll, from CNN and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), was just the latest worrying sign for DeSantis, whose hard-right campaign has struggled ever since a glitch-filled launch with Elon Musk on his social media platform in May.The former president faces 91 criminal charges, for election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments, and civil threats including a defamation case in which he was adjudicated a rapist.He denies wrongdoing and claims political persecution. His popularity with Republicans has barely been dented. Though at 39% his support in the New Hampshire poll was lower than in national and other key state surveys, he still enjoyed a commanding lead.Describing “a close contest for second”, CNN put the biotech entrepreneur Ramaswamy at 13%, the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley at 12% and Christie, a former New Jersey governor running explicitly against Trump – and focusing on New Hampshire – at 11%.DeSantis was next with 10%, a 13-point drop since the last such poll in July.The Florida governor has run a relentlessly hard-right campaign, seeking to outflank even Trump, by any measure an extremist.“DeSantis’s decline comes largely among moderates,” CNN said, detailing a 20-point drop in such support, “while Haley has gained ground with that group. Ramaswamy’s standing has grown among younger voters and registered Republicans. And Christie’s gains are centered among independents and Democrats who say they will participate in the GOP primary.”Ramaswamy and Haley were widely held to have shown well in the first debate, in Wisconsin last month. The second is in California next week. Trump is again set to skip the contest.Outside the top five in the CNN-UNH poll, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott attracted 6% support and Mike Pence, a former Indiana governor and vice-president to Trump, scored 2%. No other candidate passed 1%.New Hampshire will be the second state to vote. It has been widely reported that Trump is gearing up to attack DeSantis in the first, Iowa, where DeSantis has targeted evangelical voters.According to the author Michael Wolff, Rupert Murdoch, the Fox News owner, originally believed Trump would lose to DeSantis in Iowa because “it was going to come out about the abortions Trump had paid for”. Iowa polling, however, returns consistent Trump leads.Speaking to the New York Times, David Polyansky, DeSantis’s deputy campaign manager, said: “Winning an Iowa caucus is very difficult. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline. It takes an incredible amount of hard work and organisation, traditionally. So much so that even in his heyday, Donald Trump couldn’t win it in 2016.”The Texas senator Ted Cruz won Iowa then. But Trump won the nomination – and the White House.On Wednesday, at an oil rig in Texas, DeSantis introduced his energy policy, attracting headlines by saying opponents were stoking “fear” about the climate crisis.A spokesperson, meanwhile, was forced to deny Wolff’s report that DeSantis may have kicked Tucker Carlson’s dog.“The totality of that story is absurd and false,” Andrew Romeo told the Daily Beast, of the report involving the former Fox News host. “Some will say or write anything to attack Ron DeSantis because they know he presents a threat to their worldview.” More

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      Gavin Newsom says Ron DeSantis is ‘fundamentally authoritarian’

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      Ron DeSantis is “fundamentally authoritarian”, but Donald Trump’s quest for “vengeance” poses an even greater threat to democracy, California’s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom said on Sunday.Newsom took aim at the leading two candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination during a hard-hitting and wide-ranging interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, the final episode with its long-time host Chuck Todd.“I worry about democracy,” he said. “I worry about the fetishness for autocracy that we’re seeing not just from Trump, but around the world, and notably across this country.“I’ve made the point about DeSantis that I think he’s functionally authoritarian. I’m worried more, in many respects, about Trumpism, which transcends well beyond his term and time in tenure.”Newsom added: “The vengeance in Donald Trump’s heart right now is more of a threat.”The governor, seen as a rising star in the Democratic party and a likely future presidential candidate, was referring to the former president’s often-voiced promises to gain “revenge” – if he wins back the White House – over political rivals he blames for the multiple criminal indictments against him.If Trump does win the 2024 general election, Newsom said, he would work with his administration for the sake of California residents, as he said he did during the Covid-19 pandemic.“At the end of the day, these are the cards that are dealt. And I want to do the best for the people that I represent, 40 million Americans that happen to live in California,” he told Todd, who is standing down as host of Meet the Press after almost a decade.“Many support him. I’m not going to oppose someone just to oppose them – I don’t come into a relationship with closed fists, but an open hand. I call balls and strikes, and few people were more aggressive at calling balls and strikes against Donald Trump. I called California the most un-Trump state in America, and I hold to that.”Newsom saved his harshest criticism, however, for DeSantis, the rightwing Republican governor of Florida, with whom he has frequently clashed. He disagreed with DeSantis’s strategy of lifting lockdowns and banning mask mandates, and attacked the Florida leader’s “partisanship” – most recently on display when he snubbed Joe Biden’s visit to the state in the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia.“I don’t like the partisanship. And I thought it was demonstrably displayed by what I thought was a very weak exercise by governor DeSantis,” Newsom said regarding the Floridian’s snub of the president.Newsom and DeSantis have agreed to a televised debate on Fox TV this fall. An impasse over logistics might soon clear, Newsom said.The California governor said he was fine with the rightwing Fox personality Sean Hannity as moderator, making it effectively a “two-on-one” debate in Newsom’s words. But Newsom said he was still not happy with the proposed venue and sizable public audience.“They wanted thousands of people and [to] make it a performance. I wasn’t interested in that. We were pretty clear on that. [But] we’re getting closer,” he said.Other subjects covered during the interview included who might run as the Democratic party’s candidate in the 2024 presidential election if Biden – who will be 81 on polling day – drops out.Newsom said he doesn’t expect that to happen, but if it does, the candidate will not be him.“Won’t happen,” he replied when Todd asked him if he would ever run against the vice-president, Kamala Harris, a former California senator with whom he said he has “a very good relationship”.“It’s the Biden-Harris administration. Maybe I’m a little old-fashioned about presidents and vice-presidents. We need to move past this notion that he’s not going to run. President Biden is going to run, and [I’m] looking forward to getting him re-elected,” Newsom said.Newsom was also questioned on the future of the veteran California senator Dianne Feinstein, 90, whose recent health issues have led to long absences from the chamber and prompted calls for her to stand down.He refused to be drawn on whether he would appoint a replacement, as he did when elevating Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state, to the senate when Harris became Biden’s running mate in 2020.“Her staff is still extraordinarily active and we wish her only the best,” he said, insisting that Feinstein could still represent the state until next year.“Her term expires – she’s not running for re-election. So this time next year we’ll be in a very different place. I don’t want to make another appointment, and I don’t think the people of California want me to make another appointment.“That said, [if] we have to do it, we’ll do it.” More