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    From the economy to the climate crisis: key issues in the 2024 US election

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    As a Joe Biden v Donald Trump rematch looms, much is at stake. From the future of reproductive rights to the chances of meaningful action on climate change, from the strength of US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, and Israel in its war with Hamas, to the fate of US democracy itself, existential issues are firmly to the fore.Here’s a look at why.Economy“It’s the economy, stupid.” So said the Democratic strategist James Carville, in 1992, as an adviser to Bill Clinton. Most Americans thought stewardship of the economy should change: Clinton beat George HW Bush.Under Biden, post-Covid recovery remains on track. Unemployment is low, stocks at all-time highs. That should bode well but the key question is whether Americans think Biden’s economy is strong, or think it is working for them, or think Trump was a safer pair of hands, forgetting the chaos of Covid. According to polling, many do prefer Trump. Cost-of-living concerns dominate. Inflation remains a worry. For Biden, Republican threats to social security and Medicare might offset such worries. For Trump, whose base skews older, such threats must be downplayed – though they are present in Republicans’ own transition planning.ImmigrationHouse Republicans impeached Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s secretary of homeland security. The Senate quashed that but at Trump’s direction, Republicans sank a bipartisan border and immigration deal. One day in February, Biden and Trump both went to the southern border. Biden highlighted Republican obstruction but called on Trump to work with him, aiming to show voters which party wants to work on the issue. Since then, Trump has focused on denunciations of Biden and claims of border chaos stoked by sinister forces. Expect such contrasts on loop.EqualityRon DeSantis made attacks on LGBTQ+ rights a hallmark of his attempt to “Make America Florida”. The governor’s failed campaign suggests how well that went down, but Republican efforts to demonize so-called “woke” ideology should not be discounted. States have introduced anti-trans legislation, book bans and restrictions on LGBTQ+ issues in education. The US supreme court weighed in by ending race-based affirmative action in college admissions.Struggles over immigration, and Republicans’ usual focus on crime, show race-inflected battles will play their usual role, particularly as Trump uses extremist “blood and soil” rhetoric. On the Democratic side, a worrying sign: Black and Hispanic support is less sure than it was.AbortionDemocrats are clear: they will focus on Republican attacks on abortion rights, from the Dobbs v Jackson supreme court ruling that struck down Roe v Wade to the mifepristone case, draconian bans and candidates’ support for such measures.It makes tactical sense: The threat to women’s reproductive rights is a rare issue on which Democrats poll very strongly, fueling electoral wins in conservative states. This year’s Alabama IVF ruling, which said embryos should be legally treated as people, showed the potency of such tactics again; from Trump down, Republicans scrambled to deny wanting to end treatment used by millions.Trump must balance boasting about ending Roe, by appointing three justices who voted to strike it down, with trying to avoid blame for attacks on reproductive rights even as his supporters call for, and implement, harsher abortion bans. Expect Biden and Democrats to hit and keep on hitting.Foreign policyFor Biden, the Israel-Gaza war presents a fiendish proposition: how to satisfy or merely mollify both the Israel lobby and large sections of his own party, particularly the left and the young – those more sympathetic to the Palestinians.Spiraling and ongoing campus protests against Israel’s pounding of Gaza show the danger of coming unglued from the base. So do protest votes against Biden in the Democratic primary. Republicans have no such worries: They are simply pro-Israel.Elsewhere, Biden continues to lead a global coalition in support of Ukraine in its fight against Russia, scoring a win at home in April as the Republican speaker of the US House, Mike Johnson, finally oversaw passage of a new aid bill despite fierce opposition from the right of his party. Throw in the lasting effects of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan (teed up by Trump, fumbled by Biden), questions about what happens if China attacks Taiwan, and the threat Trump poses to Nato, and heavy fire on foreign policy is guaranteed.DemocracyBiden is keen to stress the threat to democracy at home. After all, Trump refused to accept the result of the 2020 election, incited the deadly January 6 attack on Congress, is linked to plans to slash the federal government in a second term, and even says he wants to be a “dictator” on day one of re-election.Trump maintains the lie that his 2020 defeat was the result of electoral fraud even as his various criminal cases proceed: 14 of 88 charges concerning election subversion. The other 74 charges concern hush-money payments (34, now on trial in New York) and retention of classified information (40, going slowly in Florida).It should be easy to portray an 88-time indicted potential felon as a threat to constitutional order, particularly given Trump’s clear need to win power as a way of avoiding prison. Accordingly, the issue has been profitable for Biden at the polls. But some doubt its potency. David Axelrod, a close ally of Barack Obama, told the New Yorker: “I’m pretty certain in Scranton [Pennsylvania, Biden’s home town] they’re not sitting around their dinner table talking about democracy every night.”ClimateFrom forest fires to hurricanes and catastrophic floods, it is clear climate change is real. Polling reflects this belief: 70% of Americans – strikingly, 50% of Republicans included – want meaningful action. But that isn’t reflected in Republican campaigning. Trump says he doesn’t believe human activity contributes to climate change, nor that climate change is making extreme weather worse, and is opposed to efforts to boost clean energy. Biden’s record on climate may be criticized by campaigners but his record in office places him firmly and clearly against such dangerous views. More

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      Haley finally bows out as Trump and Biden prepare for rematch – podcast

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      Pundits saw it as one of the least exciting Super Tuesdays in American history. Nevertheless, it gave us some answers. Nikki Haley, who surprised everyone by beating Trump in the Vermont primary election decided it wasn’t enough to keep her in the race, and on Wednesday, she dropped out.
      Despite President Biden and Donald Trump winning easily in most states so far, there is a growing trend that neither camp can ignore – they’re both incredibly unpopular.
      So who should Americans who are dismayed at the choice they’ve been left turn to now? How will both Biden and Trump learn from their first contest four years ago? And what else did we learn from the other primary contests that created headlines on Tuesday?
      Jonathan Freedland speaks to conservative columnist Charlie Sykes about who Americans should turn to now that it’s likely Biden v Trump in November

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      It’s Trump v Biden again. Why were there no better options for voters? | Moira Donegan

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      You would hardly know from the 2024 cycle that primaries are supposed to be political contests. Each party’s primaries, if they can be called that, were long exercises in foregone conclusions. And so the primary process, which for nearly 60 years has been a popular contest in which each party’s internal factions jockeyed for position, worked to shape the party identity, and ultimately made their case to voters did not come to pass this year. Functionally, there were two incumbents. And functionally, neither party’s primary offered a meaningful opportunity for the expression of internal dissent.This did not change on Super Tuesday. Biden and Trump racked up delegates; the votes that were cast in the presidential contest were cast mostly in full awareness of their futility, the result already decided. There is one option labeled “R”, and one option labeled “D”. More than once throughout the campaign, I’ve imagined America’s political party leaders as cruel lunch ladies, slopping greyish gruel on to trays for an unappetized America. “You’ll eat it and you’ll like it.”Except nobody does like it. Poll after poll showed that voters did not want a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. In a healthier political system, this discontent with the two incumbents would be an opportunity for other ideas to emerge, for other candidates to make a case to the public. In ours, this dissatisfaction did nothing to affect the slow march to the inevitable. In leaks to the press, representatives from both campaigns have long been speaking of a pivot to the general, and of waiting for voters to let it sink in that the general election would in fact be between Trump and Biden. Like doctors giving a patient a bad prognosis, they seemed eager to skip over the formality of having to deal with how little they had satisfied their constituents, ready to get back to the part where they accrued more power for themselves.But the fact that both parties are sclerotic, slow-moving, captured by cynical necessity and immune from dissent should not suggest that there is any symmetry between them. Functionally, ours is now a unipolar national politics: Trump is the sole author of its controversies and the sole definer of its terms. The Republican party has remade itself in his image, and the Democratic party has struggled to represent all of those who reject him. Neither party was especially strong before Trump’s emergence, and perhaps in another world, the primary system would have collapsed this way even in his absence. But in this world, the force of Trump is what broke the primaries, making every contest, on each side, little more than a referendum on him.On the Republican side, the farcical and juvenile little primary contest, which was never a real competition anyway, dwindled steadily and inevitably down to just two candidates: Donald Trump and the person whose futile candidacy was meant to stand in for all the aspirations of a non-Trump alternative, Nikki Haley. Once the other alternatives were gone, Haley garnered perhaps more support than was expected –showing that a small but sizable contingent of Republican voters are dissatisfied with Trump. But on Tuesday, she lost consistently by wide margins; her unhappy minority was always a small minority; there was not one day when the Republican primary was a real contest. It seems almost ridiculous now, remembering how at the beginning of 2023, some people thought that Ron DeSantis might actually have a chance. The ensuing months proved what we now know: there will never be another meaningfully competitive Republican primary for as long as Trump is alive. So long as he cares to run, it will always be his.The whole Republican party is his. It’s not just that Trump has no real Republican challengers for the presidency: it is that he seems to wield more or less sole authority over policy for all Republican federal elected officials. It was a nod from Trump that killed the draconian border and immigration bill that Democrats had assented to earlier this year – not because Trump did not like the policies, which were a litany of violent Republican priorities, but because he wanted to be able to continue to use immigration as a cudgel in an election year. And so the Republican party dropped one of its most longstanding goals – increasing cruelty to migrants – for the sake of Donald Trump’s personal political convenience. The Democrats, of course, took this as a win: they wanted to be able to say to the American people that they tried to hand all power and policy over to the Republicans, but that the Republicans are too incompetent and internally corrupt to let them.This incident, and the Democrats’ response to it, serves as a decent metaphor for the status of the party: a frantic and committed compliance. Since Donald Trump’s rise, and particularly since the cruelty, disfunction and anti-democratic potential of his tenure became clear during his first term, the Democratic party has become the receptacle for all the hopes of a resurgent left, from the Women’s March to Black Lives Matter. It was these voters, and their anger at Trump, that allowed Democrats to retake the House in 2018; it was these voters, and their anger at Dobbs, that allowed the party an unprecedented victory in the 2022 midterms. But the party has responded to these newly energized liberal voters with all the enthusiasm of someone finding something writhing and slimy under a rock. The party would rather chase centrist and conservative voters who are permanently in thrall to Trump than service this base. They remain a center-right party, contrasting themselves to a far-right opposition. This, they say, is the only way they can win.And this is more or less the only option that their voters have. For all the rancor of the 2020 Democratic primary, that contest was never very competitive, either: Joe Biden was always the presumed frontrunner, and he solidified the nomination when he handily won South Carolina, a victory that showed support from Black voters, particularly older ones.But in 2024, that support seems to be dwindling. In part, it is dwindling because Biden has been so condescending and hostile to the resurgent left. He has repeatedly voiced his distaste for abortion, the issue that his campaign will hinge on; his administration has severely bungled its response to Arab American and pro-Palestinian voters who are angry at Biden’s support for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.Ordinarily, this would be a moment for a leftwing challenger to emerge, to raise the salience of progressive issues and exert influence over the party, even if such a challenge could not capture the ticket. But the necessity of defeating Donald Trump has made such a contest seem unacceptably risky: aside from Dean Phillips, a centrist footnote of a presidential candidate, Biden has had no primary challenge. Concerns about his candidacy have taken on a pretext of being about his age, his energy. But what is really at stake is the fragility of the anti-Trump coalition. Real political struggle, both within the Democratic party and in the nation as a whole, has been largely suspended for the sake of defeating Donald Trump and his threat to constitutional democracy. But Donald Trump keeps on not being defeated.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Far-right candidates see Super Tuesday wins at traditional Republicans’ expense

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      Far-right candidates took notable wins in state elections on Super Tuesday, further confirming the Republican ascendancy of supporters of Donald Trump, the probable GOP nominee for president, at the expense of more traditional conservatives.The highest-profile victory went to Mark Robinson, the lieutenant governor of North Carolina who will now run for governor.The Democratic candidate, Josh Stein, would be the first Jewish governor of North Carolina should he win in November.In opposition to Stein, Robinson is a Hitler-quoting anti-abortion extremist, a dedicated controversialist who once said the superhero movie Black Panther was “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by [a] satanic marxist … to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets”.But the candidate may find recent remarks about his views on abortion harder to brush off, as Democrats seek to continue a string of wins in campaigns focused on rightwing attacks on reproductive rights.Robinson has supported total abortion bans, calling abortion “murder” and “genocide” and, as reported by CNN, calling the founders of the women’s health organisation Planned Parenthood satanists who practiced witchcraft.The spokesperson for Robinson also called Stein an extremist.Elsewhere in North Carolina, a 21-year-old college student affiliated with the extremist Turning Point USA youth group scored a notable victory when he defeated an 84-year-old state representative who has served for 20 years.Wyatt Gable beat George Cleveland in a close primary race. Earlier this year, the Jacksonville Daily News, a local paper, asked both men what experience they had to recommend themselves to voters.Cleveland said: “I have served as a budget writer since 2010 and have chaired various House committees over the past 14 years in veterans and homeland security, general government, marine resources, and aquaculture.”Gable said: “Currently in the university system and only a few years removed from the public education system, I have an up-close look at our education system …“I am also the Turning Point USA president at East Carolina. As president, I have stopped the school from changing the bathrooms to allow men in the women’s room and vice versa. I have also been able to sign up almost 1,000 new members.”Further west, in Texas, a Republican civil war between Trump-aligned hardliners and establishment figures saw hardliners gain the edge in elections on Tuesday.In a US House primary, Tony Gonzales, a Republican congressman from San Antonio, was headed for a runoff election against Brandon Herrera, a social media personality and gun salesman.Last year, Gonzales was censured by his own state party, for voting in favour of same-sex marriage and gun safety reform (the latter after the massacre of 19 young children and two adults at a school in Uvalde, Texas) and for being seen as soft on immigration and border policy.In the Texas state house, the speaker, Dade Phelan, will contest a runoff with David Covey, a challenger endorsed by Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor, and Trump himself.Phelan supported Paxton’s impeachment, a failed attempt to remove the attorney general over allegations of bribery, dereliction of duty and disregard for official duty.Paxton, who faces a securities fraud trial next month, also took aim on Tuesday at three judges on the highest criminal court in Texas. All Republicans, the three judges were part of a ruling that stopped Paxton fast-tracking cases of supposed voter fraud.All three judges were beaten by candidates Paxton endorsed. 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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      Trump’s Super Tuesday victory speech: grim visions of an American apocalypse

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      If this is what he sounds like when he wins, imagine how he would react to defeat.Donald Trump swept to victory after victory on Super Tuesday, all but clinching the Republican presidential nomination, but you wouldn’t have known it from his joyless victory speech.For hours his fans had partied in the gilded ballroom of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, accompanied by Abba’s Dancing Queen, Elton John’s Rocket Man, Queen’s We Are the Champions and other golden oldies. Waiters glided between them serving pastries, prawns and sausage rolls. Each time Fox News – displayed on four giant TV screens – declared another state for Trump, they whooped and cheered and chanted “Trump! Trump! Trump! USA! USA! USA!”Then, after 10pm, into this gaudy pageant walked the Grim Reaper, raining on their parade with a 19-minute speech laden with doom and gloom about the state of the nation.This was Trump as Eeyore.No balloons, no confetti, no parade of family members on stage and no mention of opponent Nikki Haley. No fun.“Some people call it an experiment – I don’t call it an experiment,” Trump said of the United States. “I just say this is a magnificent place, a magnificent country, and it’s sad to see how far it’s come and gone … When you look at the depths where it’s gone, we can’t let that happen. We’re going to straighten it out. We’re going to close our borders. We’re going to drill baby drill.”As the unhappy warrior spoke, 10 guests headed for the exit, apparently worn down by the misery of it all.The strange thing about Trump’s subdued mood is that this should have been his “I told you so” speech, full of braggadocious crowing over the media and his vanquished foes. After all, when he used Mar-a-Lago in late 2022 to announce his third consecutive run for president, there had been widespread scepticism: Republicans had just flopped in the midterms and it was far from certain whether Trump could beat the coming man, Ron DeSantis.Who’s got the last laugh now? It should have been Trump on Tuesday night, revelling in the opulence of crystal chandeliers and gold leaf and Corinthian-style columns, after swatting aside a dozen challengers, leading Joe Biden in opinion polls and watching legal dominoes continue to fall his way.But it turns out he has upended and inverted yet another political convention: optimism. Not for him Ronald Reagan’s morning in America or Bill Clinton’s place called Hope or Barack Obama’s yes, we can. Instead only murder, mayhem and total darkness.If only he had still been running things, he lamented, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine, Israel would not have been attacked and Iran would be broke. Now inflation is “destroying the middle class, it’s destroying everything”. He added morosely that inflation is called the “country buster”.But wait, there is one bright spot: the stock market! It’s going gangbusters. According to Trump, this has nothing to do with Biden, “the worst president in the history of our country”, but the Republican frontrunner’s own healthy poll numbers indicating his return.Then it was back to the bad news of border security and immigration.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Our cities are being overrun with migrant crime, and that’s Biden migrant crime,” Trump grimaced. “But it’s a new category and it’s violent, where they’ll stand in the middle of the street and have fistfights with police officers. And if they did that in their countries from where they came, they’d be killed instantly. They wouldn’t do that. So the world is laughing at us. The world is taking advantage of us.”The room of bejewelled, permatanned partygoers was silent. At this point Trump was like the dinner guest who insists on talking about how sausages are made and what dying animals sound like. And he still wasn’t done, riffing on energy independence and how you turn tar into oil. Boring as well as sad.Maybe his handlers had got to him. Donald, don’t set everyone’s hair on fire. We have to pivot to the general! So it was he did not dwell on his big lie about the 2020 election being stolen from him. But he did grumble about the “weaponisation” of government against a political opponent.“It happens in third world countries,” he said. “And in some ways, we’re a third world country. We live in a third world country with no borders … We need a fair and free press. The press has not been fair nor has it been free … The press used to police our country. Now nobody has confidence in them.”The grim list kept coming: the deadly coronavirus pandemic, the loss of American soldiers in Afghanistan. And Trump naturally could not resist circling back for another bite at the border – no matter that he was the one who ordered Republicans to torpedo bipartisan legislation that might have begun to fix the crisis.“We have millions of people invading our country,” he asserted. “This is an invasion. This is the worst invasion probably.” For good measure, he tossed out an uncheckable fact. “The number today could be 15 million people. And they’re coming from rough places and dangerous places.”There were polite ripples of applause but not much chanting from a crowd that included men in leather Bikers for Trump vests; a young man sporting a Maga hat and dark suit, white shirt and red bow tie; a woman with an eye patch and Moms 4 Liberty T-shirt; a young boy in a suit with a Stars and Stripes tie; and a tattooed white rapper with a Mayor of Magaville cap and thick golden chain with a giant medallion resembling Trump’s head.Two days from now, the audience will be somewhat different for Biden’s State of the Union address in Washington. Trump delivered his own version on Tuesday night: the state of the union is bleak. Perhaps that was fitting for a nation digesting the reality that it really will have to do Biden v Trump all over again. 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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      Who is Jason Palmer? Biden beaten by unknown in American Samoa Democratic caucus

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

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      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