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      ‘2024 is not a repeat of 2020’: how the Biden campaign hopes to energize Black voters

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      Entering the 2024 campaign season, Joe Biden faces a slew of challenges, including economic uncertainties, foreign policy tensions and healthcare reform. Most notable, however, comes from the critical engine that delivered 2020 key victories in swing states: the African American voting bloc.Recent polls show a historic low of 37% in Biden’s overall approval ratings, while others highlight underlying factors, such as the alarming decline in Black voter support, from 86% in January 2021 to 60% now, the lowest of his presidency.Many Black Americans feel the Democratic party has ignored their concerns and reneged on promises. There’s a perception that the party is taking African Americans for granted as well as growing cynicism with the lack of progress on issues such as affordable housing, healthcare costs and student loan debt. More specific policies, like the recent decision to halt the ban on menthol cigarettes, which disproportionately affect Black smokers, have further raised concerns.But members of Biden’s campaign say definitive conclusions from early polls are premature, adding they have a comprehensive strategy to address growing apprehensions.“The DNC hasn’t let up on engaging and mobilizing Black voters,” said the Democratic National Committee chair, Jaime Harrison. “This isn’t something I take lightly. I know what it feels like to have our community taken for granted and only have folks show up for us when they need our vote on election day.”He traced the party’s commitment to investing more heavily in organizing, persuading and activating Black voters ahead of the 2022 midterm election cycle to their plan to double down on those efforts in 2024. Harrison said he’s met with Black voters across the country in the past year, “listened to what matters to them most and shared with them the successes of the administration for Black Americans”, including an investment of more than $7.3bn in HBCUs, lowering prescription drug prices for seniors, the drop in child poverty and executive action on criminal justice reform.The DNC’s deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, acknowledged that messaging is one of their primary challenges going into 2024, which could be contributing to the disconnect currently reflected in polls.“For those voters that we know a lot of these policies impact, we have to communicate ways in which they can get these benefits,” he said. “Like all this funding for capital, all the student loan forgiveness – not everybody knows how to tap into that.“African American voters know that a lot is at stake, and I think, similar to other audiences of color and young voters, it’s our job to communicate to them what’s at stake. And if we do that successfully, and also from a place of respect in our messaging and how we do it, I think that these voters will turn out and vote for Joe Biden.”The DNC has infused $4.8m on off-year advertising costs, with a total ad buy, to date, of $45.6m, including funding from groups such as the Biden Victory Fund ($4.8m).Fulks said they will also focus heavily on college campuses, including HBCUs, and traditional media outreach such as online engagement, television appearances, drivetime radio features, tapping influential figures such as Roland Martin, Steve Harvey and DL Hughley.Sean Foreman, a political scientist at Florida’s Barry University, emphasized the critical role messaging plays and said Democrats need to be forcefully working to retain, or in some cases, restore, traditional support from Black voters, making sure everyday families are aware of the bread-and-butter issues the administration has tackled.“In 2020, Biden may have been Democrats’ best bet to beat Trump, but 2024 is not a repeat of 2020,” he said. “His administration needs to make a better case to the public about their successes. They should make the Infrastructure Act and the Chips Act, and their role in supporting the unions help tell the story about how they are helping people close to home.”The civil rights historian Katherine Mellen Charron, who lectures on southern history and democracy at North Carolina State University, sees it as more of an age-related challenge.“The change between 2020 and now also falls along generational lines,” she said. “Elders from the movement years of the late 20th century went along with [the South Carolina’s congressman Jim] Clyburn’s endorsement [of Biden] and its logic: ‘He knows us.’ Younger people and activists don’t have that same historical relationship with the Democratic party.”In response to such scrutiny, DNC’s political director, Brencia Berry, said the Biden administration will use a second term to continue their agenda. Berry said the first step to countering the polls is “talking to Black voters well before we ask for their vote and building relationships with folks on the ground”.This involves setting the stakes for this election by contrasting the Biden-Harris agenda with how far backward Republicans want to take Black Americans if they win – such as how Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump for example plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.“President Biden and Vice-President Harris made it clear that Black voters are a priority when they made South Carolina the first state on the presidential primary calendar,” Berry added about their critical decision given the state’s significant Black population. “We have an opportunity to spend the earliest part of the election year engaging Black voters in states like South Carolina, Nevada and Michigan.”Jamil Scott, a political behavior researcher and Georgetown University government professor, called Biden’s re-election bid “complicated … It’s always tough when the president makes legislative promises because these only come to fruition if the legislative branch is on board with his agenda.”But the political scientist Lakeyta Bonnette-Bailey of Georgia State University plainly said the promises from Biden’s 2020 campaign were not kept for the electorate. She pointed to the administration’s failure to decriminalize marijuana, take significant action on voters’ rights, and not “substantively address police reform. [Biden] continues to speak out on police misconduct but has not done anything to reform the police, including an inability to eliminate cash bail, which disproportionately impacts lower-income people.”The DNC conceded that such issues need to be clearly addressed on the campaign trail and said they will tackle any misinterpretations in their efforts.“What you’re going to see from us [is] boots on the ground coming out in the new year,” Fulks said, “being in front of these voters and relaying [our message]. I think that a part of it is that voters of color want to feel like they are deeply involved in a campaign. They don’t want to feel like they’re being told that they’re given handouts. These are hardworking Americans who sent Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House.”Foreman believes that while 2024 isn’t “a make or break moment for African American support for the Democratic party,” a weak showing with critical blocs, including younger voters, could sway the party’s direction.He also recognized the calls for Biden not to seek re-election from within the party. Last month, David Axelrod, a former Obama advisor, questioned Biden’s candidacy in light of another poll showing Trump leading in five key states. “If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic party,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”Biden dropping out, Foreman said, could do the party some good because “a different, younger candidate could help mobilize new voters”.“But when it comes down to it, if Biden is the nominee, then the job will be for all Democrats – African American and otherwise – to get out in the various local communities and work hard to motivate people to vote.” More

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      Arizona Democrats’ No 1 message: ‘Republicans want to destroy our democracy’

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      Few states will have more influence over the country’s political future than Arizona. Once a ruby-red Republican stronghold, it is now a south-western battleground and the stakes couldn’t be higher for Arizonans – or Americans.In 2020, Joe Biden carried Arizona by just over 10,000 votes, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in nearly a quarter-century. Two years later, Democrats won statewide races for governor, secretary of state and attorney general and re-elected the Democratic senator Mark Kelly to a full six-year term.Now, Arizona is at the center of the battle for the White House and for control of Congress, with a marquee Senate race and a pair of closely contested House races. At the state level, Democrats are attempting to wrest control of the Arizona legislature for the first time in decades. Republicans presently hold one-seat majorities in both the state senate and the state house.To win in Arizona, Democrats say they must reassemble the coalition of moderate Republicans, suburban women, Latinos and young people who powered nail-biting victories for the party in recent election cycles. They also must confront widespread economic discontent in a state that saw some of the worst levels of inflation in the country last year. Frustration over high prices and housing affordability has hurt Biden’s standing in Arizona, where he trails Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, in a number of swing state polls.As Democrats attempt a repeat of their successes in Arizona next year, Yolanda Bejarano, the state party chair, will play a crucial role in turning out the vote in what is expected to be another closely fought election.In an interview, Bejarano, a longtime union organizer and Arizona native, previewed Democrats’ strategy for winning her state. The Guardian’s interview with Bejarano has been edited for clarity and length:Tell us how you got involved in politics.I was a union organizer for 18 years and I got involved in politics after Arizona passed SB 1070, which was the racial profiling bill. I started volunteering for candidates that I believed in and I thought would make a difference in making sure that racial profiling was not something that we were OK with. I became vice-chair of the state party a couple years ago and then our chair [Raquel Terán] finished her term and then I decided to run.Recent polling shows Joe Biden struggling in Arizona, with voters unhappy over his handling of the economy and immigration. What can Biden do to improve his standing in the state?The best predictor of how voters are feeling is how voters are voting. And we saw in the 2022 and 2023 elections when the Democratic party puts in the time, money and resources behind the president’s agenda, it really is a winning message. President Biden is creating more jobs more quickly than the rest of the world. He’s providing relief in Arizonans’ pockets and it’s our job to continue to do what we do best and to communicate that widely across the state – to communicate President Biden’s accomplishments from bringing back good union jobs like manufacturing jobs, decreasing inflation, expanding broadband, lowering the cost of internet and lowering the cost of prescription drug prices. Folks care about these issues, these kitchen table issues and we’re going to continue to communicate that across the state.Democrats may find themselves in a three-way race for Kyrsten Sinema’s Senate seat. Sinema was elected to the seat in 2018 as a Democrat but left the party to become an independent after the 2022 midterms. She has not decided whether to seek re-election. The Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego launched his campaign for the seat last year and Kari Lake, the former local TV anchor who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022, is likely to be the Republican nominee.In 2022, Democrats portrayed Lake as a threat to American democracy. In a three-way race, could Arizona end up electing a Senator Lake?When we talk about Kari Lake and just everything she stands for – she calls abortion the “ultimate sin” – she’s dangerous for our state, dangerous for Arizonans. Now she’s trying to rebrand herself, trying to appeal to moderate Republicans and it’s just not working. She’s just a failed candidate. She kept saying she was the governor even though she’s running for Senate. Arizonans don’t like her and we’re going to make sure she doesn’t win.What’s your best guess: does Sinema run for re-election?I don’t know if she runs again. I haven’t spoken to her in years. Who knows what she’s going to do. We are laser-focused on making sure that our Democratic nominee wins in November 2024.The state is roughly evenly divided between Democratic, Republican and independent voters. What is Democrats’ message to moderate Republicans, independent and swing voters who they will need to persuade in order to win in 2024?The number one thing is making the persuasive argument that Democrats want to protect our democracy; Republicans want to destroy our democracy. Democrats are helping working families bringing back jobs, Democrats are supporting small businesses, Democrats are bringing back manufacturing jobs, fixing our infrastructure, lowering the price of prescription drug prices that affects everybody, regardless of party affiliation. So I think it’s that we Democrats believe in our democracy, Democrats believe in protecting our institutions and Republicans are trying to tear down everything and privatize things and it’s just not good for our state.Arizona is a border state and immigration is top of mind for voters. How are Arizona Democrats navigating concerns over border security with the concerns of immigrant communities?I grew up near a border town in a place called Roll, Arizona. It’s in Yuma county. My dad was a farm worker. We were pretty poor. We didn’t have healthcare so we would drive across the border to San Luis Río Colorado and go to the doctor, see the dentist. Americans would go there for the pharmacies or to go eat. Mexicans would come across the border to work. It was like an exchange of commerce and people.That being said, I 100% agree that the border needs to be a safe, secure and welcoming place. Our Arizona Democrats from Governor [Katie] Hobbs to our congressional delegation, they’re multi-focused on this issue. It’s a complicated issue. And Democrats are working towards a solution that prioritizes the economics, the safety, the humanity, treating people humanely, people who are suffering and trying to find a better life.Democrats are trying to find a solution while Republicans are weaponizing the border and they’ll continue to weaponize the border. I truly do not believe that they want a solution because they will use the border to dehumanize people, to scare people.It appears likely that a measure enshrining abortion rights into the state’s constitution will appear on the ballot next year. At the same time, the state’s supreme court is considering the legality of a territory-era ban that could effectively outlaw the procedure in the state. How are Democrats working to leverage the issue in next year’s election?This is a mobilizing issue for us. When abortion is on the ballot, like we saw in Kansas, we saw it in Ohio, what happened in Virginia, people do not want the government interfering with their decisions to grow or start a family. People in Arizona and across the country believe that everyone should be free to decide how and when to start and grow a family free from political interference. This is a big issue. It’s going to get on the ballot and we’re going make sure that a woman’s right to an abortion is enshrined in our constitution.How central is abortion to Democrats’ campaign message?In 2022, we elected pro-choice Democrats up and down the ticket: our attorney general, our secretary of state, our governor. They were talking about abortion and it is what got them across the finish line. So it’s huge.The economy and inflation are top of mind for voters in Arizona and across the country. How are your candidates confronting frustration over the economy and Biden’s handling of it?We are starting to see the economic progress made with Bidenomics. In our wallets we’re seeing decreased energy prices, and there’s a consistent drop in inflation. And it wasn’t just the United States that had an inflation problem. It was something across the entire world.So what we’re doing is letting folks know that the reason why they’re seeing their energy bills decreasing is because of our Democratic policies. The cap on insulin at $35 a month for Medicare recipients, that’s because of Democratic policies. Our infrastructure, our improved roads are thanks to a Democratic policies. So we’re messaging that to Arizonans across the state.In 2020 Arizona became “ground zero” for Donald Trump’s stolen election lies. Though Arizona voters largely rejected election-denying candidates in 2022, two Republican officials were recently indicted on charges of conspiring to delay the election. How is the party confronting pervasive and ongoing election denialism in the state? Arizona is a testing ground for Republican election conspiracy theories. We saw in 2022 militia men hanging outside of ballot drop boxes with their rifles to try to intimidate people. We saw Maga mobs showing up to our county recorders’ offices when they were counting ballots in a very transparent manner. People can see how they were counting the ballots but we have mobs outside.Our state where Democrats have been working diligently to protect our democracy, making it clear that if you hold up a certification of our elections, you will be indicted. That just happened to two Cochise county board of supervisors. Our statewide Democrats are laser-focused on making sure that our everybody’s fundamental right to vote is protected. We are prepared to communicate clearly about what’s at stake in this upcoming election.I think this is something that crosses party lines. People need that assurance, that stability, that when you vote that your elections are fair and they are transparent and that is what is happening. And we have people on the Republican side that are still perpetuating this “big lie” and the election conspiracy theories that hurt our democracy and hurt our democracy.Several recent polls show Donald Trump ahead in Arizona. With the caveat that much can change in a year, why do you think Trump is winning over some of the Arizonans who turned against him in 2020?People know that Trump’s judgment is totally compromised. He is not someone who Arizonans will support. Ah. What can I say about Donald Trump? He is dangerous. Arizonans will want progress over chaos, they want stability, and they don’t get that with Donald Trump. They get more chaos.So you don’t think the polls capture where Arizona voters will be come election day 2024?I do not think the polling captures where people will be in a year, correct. More

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      Black Georgian men helped Biden win the White House – are they losing faith?

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      Morehouse College, a 156-year-old Black men’s liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia, has produced graduates such as Martin Luther King and Spike Lee. It has been an essential campaign stop for Democratic politicians such as Barack Obama, John Lewis and, last September, Kamala Harris.But as another presidential election looms, Joe Biden can take nothing for granted here. “A resounding no,” was 28-year-old Ade Abney’s verdict on whether the US president has delivered on his promises to Black voters. “I voted for Biden in 2020 but next year I don’t know who I’m going to vote for. It probably will not be him.”Georgia is among half a dozen swing states that will decide the all-important electoral college next November. Despite its history as a bastion of conservatism in the south, Democrats have scored notable wins in presidential and Senate elections in recent years. African American voters have been fundamental to that success, with Biden securing 88% of the Black vote in 2020.But opinion polls suggest an erosion of support for the president. An October survey by the New York Times and Siena College found that, while 76% of Black voters in Georgia favour Biden, 19% prefer his likely rival Donald Trump – an unprecedented share for a Republican in modern times. It was enough to give Trump a six-point lead in the state overall.The current shift is particularly acute among Black men for reasons that include a perception that Trump would cut taxes and offer better economic opportunities. Abney, a Morehouse graduate who now works at the college, said: “I was in a barbershop and the barbershop conversation was how they like Trump.“The reason was at least when he was in office they felt as though they were able to make more money. A lot of people attribute that specifically to him. A lot of that conversation was pretty clear in terms of OK, well, I had more money when he was in office so I want him back.”Standing beside Abney at the tree-lined college entrance, Dejaun Wright, 23, offered even sharper criticism of Biden. “There’s a lot of broken promises, a lot of a lack of integrity,” the philosophy student said. “He campaigned on promises such as student loan forgiveness and every instance where he’s shown interest in that, he’s always applied a caveat: oh, well, I said student loan forgiveness, but I only forgive $10,000.“A lot of the things that he promised he’s offered either with a caveat or he just hasn’t offered at all. It’s a slap in the face. If you are going to build a campaign and then build a presidency off of lies, or at least not keeping your promises, then I don’t know if I can trust you again.”At liberal colleges such as Morehouse, there is also rising discontent over 81-year-old Biden’s staunch support for Israel, even as it unleashes an aerial and ground blitz against Hamas that is causing thousands of civilian deaths and a humanitarian disaster in Gaza.Wright added: “I’m not appreciative of how vocal he’s been in his blind support of Israel. No sense of criticism there whatsoever. He’s actively been ignoring all of us. We’ve all been saying we don’t support this war in Israel. We don’t like our tax money funding a genocide like this, especially considering the amount of debt we have.”Black men do still vote overwhelmingly Democrat, and it’s only a small segment who might be turning away. In 2020 87% of Black men supported Joe Biden, which although down slightly from the 95% who voted for Barack Obama in his first campaign was better than the 82% who supported Hillary Clinton in 2016. (Black women support Democrats even more strongly: in 2016 and 2020, 94% and 95% voted for Biden.) Only 12% of Black men voted for Trump in 2020 and no Democrat has attracted less than 80% of Black voters since the civil rights era.Small numbers could nevertheless make a big difference. Like Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004, Georgia has become a closely fought battleground that could decide the presidency. In 2020 Biden won the state by a margin of just 11,779 votes, or 0.24%, becoming the first Democrat to carry the state in 28 years. Trump’s false claims and efforts to overturn the result led to criminal charges and a potential trial next year.Democrats’ gains continued two months later, when Raphael Warnock became the first African American from Georgia elected to the Senate and Jon Ossoff became the state’s first Jewish senator. Last year, Warnock won re-election in a runoff against the Republican Herschel Walker, an African American former football star who failed to make significant gains among Black voters.But Stacey Abrams, bidding to become America’s first Black female governor, was defeated by the Republican incumbent, Brian Kemp. In the House of Representatives, the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene cruised to re-election. The state remains so finely balanced that even a fraction of Black voters switching to Trump, voting third party or simply staying at home on election day could make all the difference.Cliff Albright, a co-founder and executive director of the Black Lives Matter Fund, does not believe there is more of an enthusiasm gap now than at the same stage in 2019, when Black voters were unexcited about Biden. “People confuse electability for enthusiasm,” he said. “We weren’t that enthusiastic and we’re still not that enthusiastic. But that’s not news.“It’s just showing up differently because we’re a year out from the election. My prediction is that as we get closer, that pragmatism will set back in and people will start to realise more that this is not a referendum about Biden. This is a choice between this person and the one that we know is anti-us or somebody else who’s equally as bad.”Albright does not believe polls that say Trump will improve on his share of the Black vote next time. But he acknowledges that Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza could hurt him among young Black voters, especially with independent candidates such as Cornel West offering a clear alternative by demanding a ceasefire.“A lot of Black folks see ourselves in the Palestinian struggle,” he said. “A lot of us view that as a David and Goliath situation, a colonial situation. We see ourselves in what’s happening. When we see armed military using teargas and rockets and all that, we also see the George Floyd protests and ourselves going up against tanks and police forces.“There’s some very strong feelings about what many have called a genocide that is taking place in front of our eyes. Not only are you supporting the Israeli government’s ability to carry out this war but you are literally transferring more and more money so that they can do so. It’s not just political cover. It is actual financial and military support.He continued: “You get the Black folks, especially younger Black folks, that are like, ‘you keep saying you don’t have money for us but you’ve got money to go over here to kill some other folks that actually look like us.’ People can say, ‘oh, Trump would be worse,’ but that doesn’t change that what these folks are seeing right now is not Trump doing it. They’re seeing President Biden do it and so that is going to impact.“And many of these young folks, once they turn you off, you’re done. He could come back next month and increase the student debt cancellation. He could come up with some new gun legislation. He could go even further on some of the climate change issues. But many of these folks that right now are furious about what’s going on in Gaza, none of that would change their minds. They’re that mad.”Israel is not the only foreign policy issue weighing on Black voters. While his unwavering support for Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression – Congress has already allocated $111bn in assistance – has earned global plaudits, it appears to be playing differently in some African American communities.Kendra Cotton, chief executive of the New Georgia Project (NGP), a non-partisan organisation that works to empower voters of colour, said she didn’t think much of Ukraine until she “saw all of the African immigrants getting kicked off those trains. Then my eyes glassed over and I was like, this ain’t my problem and I didn’t want anything to do with it.“While I empathise with what’s going on in Ukraine, what I know is, if my Black behind was over there, they’d have kicked me off the trains too, so good luck to you.”She added: “We have people under these overpasses right here living in tents … People are trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents.“So, when you’re talking about billions in aid leaving the country, people don’t know how to qualify that in their minds: OK, but what are you doing domestically? Because when you talk about domestic issues, all you hear is we ain’t got it, there’s no money for that.”The NGP has registered almost 50,000 voters this year as it continues to fight voter purges in the state. In a September survey it found approval of Biden’s job performance down to just 61% among Black Georgia voters, and only 45% of Black 18 to 24-year-olds. Keron Blair, chief of field and organising for the NGP, argues that the White House has less of a policy problem than a communication one.He said: “I talk to people who’ve had thousands of dollars in student loans forgiven. We hear from people who got money directly into their pockets because of IRA [Inflation Reduction Act]. We hear from communities that have received resources for infrastructure. We see the broadband initiative.“That has not been communicated in a serious and strategic way to voters and so people are always going to ask, I voted last time, what happened? If they don’t know the things they are seeing and experienced are the result of choices made by the administration, they’re going to feel like not much has shifted.”Indeed, the gap between positive economic data and a sense of malaise on the ground is evident among Black voters. Gregory Williams, 37, a health coach, said: “The economy doesn’t feel like it’s strong. Everything feels out of whack. Inflation is crazy. Cities that are far out are expensive. Everything is just up right now. It’s hard to even get a loan for a house. Atlanta has the most evictions it’s ever had in its history.”Williams does not rule out voting for Trump. “It depends if he makes sense. He might not be saying what people want him to say but there’s a lot of things that he does and it seems like it helps. It gets a visual effect. People see things happening.”Jasper Preston, 35, a programme director at a homelessness non-profit, added: “Biden’s presidency has been an absolute nightmare for me personally. All the progress I made becoming more financially secure has been completely undone. I find myself worse off than during the Obama years and that has caused quite a setback. I have four children so it’s been very unpleasant trying to make ends meet.”Preston is a longtime Trump supporter who was ridiculed for it by his siblings living on the South Side of Chicago. But not any more, he said. “One privately gave me a call to very secretly admit that she is no longer a Democrat and will be voting for Trump in this upcoming election. She can’t tell anybody around South Side Chicago because, well, it’s South Side Chicago.“The same for my other siblings in Chicago as well as in here in Georgia. People are realising, ‘Oh, my wallet has definitely been drastically affected by this new administration, and all the promises they made based on skin colour turned out to be lies, and apparently promises about skin colour don’t make for a good president.’”In his victory speech after winning the 2020 election, Biden acknowledged that when his campaign was at its lowest ebb, African American voters stood up for him. “You’ve always had my back, and I’ll have yours,” he promised. In his inaugural address two months later, he named racial justice as one of four national crises that would take priority during his administration.While Biden has poured money into historically Black colleges and universities and appointed record numbers of people of colour as judges, efforts at police reform or to protect voting rights have stalled in Congress. When the president travelled to Atlanta last year to make his most aggressive case yet for reform of the Senate filibuster rule, some campaigners boycotted the event.Shelley Wynter, a conservative radio host and member of the Georgia Black Republican Council, said: “A Biden partisan person will tell you all these things that he’s done, but none of it was specifically for Black people. If Ukraine gets attacked and you can find billions and billions of dollars to send to Ukraine, you could have sent money into inner-city urban areas to say, ‘Hey, let’s do this.’”He continued: “If I vote for you and I’ve continuously voted for you and I’m the strongest, most loyal base of voters that you have, and you’ve still got nothing specifically for this group yet you can do stuff for other people, that’s why people are shifting, particularly Black men.“I equate what’s going on to what happens in a Black church. If you go to an average Black church, you’re going to see 90% women, a sprinkling of men. Most of those men are going to be older guys. Men are raised in a church and they see the ministers driving a Rolls-Royce while they are still in a hooptie struggling, and they start to get turned off and they stop going.“But their wives continue to go. That’s what the Democratic party is becoming: a party of Black women and a sprinkling of Black men, because Black men are going to Trump, they’re not going to the Republican party – and it’s a big difference.”Wynter argues that many have come view to Trump’s racism as a myth, empathise with his legal troubles and dismiss dire warnings that he would behave like a dictator in a second term. “It’s like, ‘I’m already living in a dictatorship, I’m already oppressed as a Black man, so all those things that they’re saying about Trump don’t resonate because I’m already there.“‘So now let me pay attention to the things that I really care about, which is my money, and this guy allows me to keep my money in my pocket. Tax cuts, less regulations for the entrepreneurial-spirited guy.’ That’s what they see. It’s a real tangible thing. ‘In 2019, I had X amount of money after I got paid every two weeks. Now I have less. It’s very tangible. I can see it, I can feel it. You telling me he’s evil? I can’t see or feel that. But I can see more money in my pocket.’”Democrats acknowledge the work that must be done to rebuild Biden’s 2020 coalition. Earlier this month his election campaign released a new ad, “List”, making the case that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act are helping people in African American communities. Despite worrying polls and signs of donor fatigue, the party is on a winning streak in recent elections and ballot measures on issues such as abortion rights.Back at Morehouse, there are still plenty of students keeping faith with the president. Damarion King, 18, studying political science, said: “I believe Joe Biden is doing a fantastic job, passing so many bipartisan bills. I don’t think his age is a factor in this election, at least for me. He’s doing the job. He’s doing his work for the people of America and I strongly support him.”King is sceptical that Black men who voted for Biden in 2020 will defect to Trump next year, not least because of the former president’s 91 criminal charges. “Anybody in the Black working class who’s saying that Trump is a better businessman is wrong. He’s gone bankrupt multiple times. He can’t be that great of a businessman.” More

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      DeSantis political woes deepen after chief strategist for Super Pac resigns

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      Florida governor Ron DeSantis political woes have deepened further in the wake of the surprise resignation of a chief strategist at a leading campaign fund dealing yet another blow to the right-winger’s rapidly waning 2024 presidential hopes.Jeff Roe, the chief strategist for the DeSantis-backing Super Pac Never Back Down, said he was stepping down from the massive, $269m fund that was billed as a novel application of campaign finance laws that prevent the integration of a Pac and its spending with a candidate’s campaign.Roe stepped down weeks before DeSantis’s first big test in Iowa in the Republican presidential nomination race, where he is currently battling former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for a second place spot behind overwhelming front runner Donald Trump.DeSantis’s approval has dropped from 18% to 17% between November and December while Haley grew from 12% to 15% as likely Iowa caucus-goers’ first pick, according to the latest Iowa State University/Civiqs poll. Fifty-four percent of Iowa Republicans polled said Trump is their first pick.“I can’t believe it ended this way,” Roe said in a statement posted on X. He said he was “so proud to have worked alongside these men and women at NBD 24/7 the past nine months to save the country. Good luck the next 28 days and a wake up. I’m so sorry I can’t be there with you.”Roe is only the latest and perhaps most significant departure from Never Back Down, which has run a massive door-knocking and get-out-the-vote operation as well as coordinating spending on political advertising. It was seeded with more than $80m from DeSantis’s political accounts this year.The departure came hours after the Washington Post pointed to disputes between the fund and the Tallahassee-based campaign, including accusations of “mismanagement and conduct issues, including numerous unauthorized leaks containing false information”.“The team in Tallahassee could not understand how NBD’s staff could not forfeit their own brand and desire for control,” a person said to be familiar with the campaign’s thinking told the Post. “It was like men are from Mars, women are from Venus during the first months of the campaign.”Roe, who previously ran Texas senator Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign and worked as an adviser on Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin’s election operation, said the description in the story were false but he “cannot in good conscience stay affiliated with Never Back Down given the statements”.Over recent weeks, senior members of the fund have been fired or resigned, including the group’s chairman and its communications director. DeSantis’s Florida allies have created a new super Pac, Fight Right, which had earned the public blessing of the DeSantis campaign.Never Back Down has been hit with accusations that contacts between DeSantis’s campaign and a network of outside groups were blurring the lines of what’s legally permissible.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSeveral people cited as familiar with DeSantis’s political network said that the governor and his wife had expressed concern about Never Back Down’s messaging as his Iowa poll numbers stagnated. Those concerns were reportedly transmitted to members of Never Back Down’s board.DeSantis’s campaign has denied any wrongdoing.DeSantis began the 2024 race with a high profile and a widespread expectation he would pose a dangerous threat to Trump who is hampered by multiple legal woes. But his campaign stuttered early on and has so far failed to break through, either nationally or in key early-voting states.
      The Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      ‘He’s dog-whistling’: Trump denounced over anti-immigrant comment

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      Donald Trump is facing a backlash for repeating a remark at a political rally on Saturday where he said undocumented immigrants to the United States are “poisoning the blood of our country”.The former US president’s comments were the latest example of his campaign rhetoric that seemed to go beyond the lies and exaggerations that are a trademark of his stump speeches and instead go into territory of outright extremism or racism. In November he was widely condemned for calling his opponents “vermin”, language that echoed that used historically by dictators and authoritarians.Trump, who is the overwhelming favorite to be the Republican nominee for the 2024 race for the White House, made the comments at a rally in Durham, New Hampshire, attended by several thousand supporters. He added that immigrants were coming to the US from Asia and Africa in addition to South America. “All over the world they are pouring into our country,” he said.The White House hit back, saying that Joe Biden believes “our leaders have a responsibility to bring the country together around our shared values.”“Echoing the grotesque rhetoric of fascists and violent white supremacists and threatening to oppress those who disagree with the government are dangerous attacks on the dignity and rights of all Americans, on our democracy, and on public safety,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.Trump’s comments come days after he warned that if he is re-elected next year he would act on immigration like a “dictator” – but only on the first day of his term. He has since floated the idea of sending potentially “hundreds of thousands” of US troops to secure the US-Mexico border, build a network of immigrant detention camps, and “begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history”.“He’s disgusting,” former New Jersey governor and Republican presidential contender Chris Christie told CNN Sunday. “He’s dog-whistling to Americans who feel under stress and strain from the economy and conflicts around the world,” Christie said. “He’s dog-whistling to blame it on people from areas that don’t look like us.”Christie, who has emerged as Trump’s most outspoken counter-puncher on the Republican side, accused Republican politicians of being “robot true-believers” to Trump’s messaging, describing him as a “poison on our political system” who, predicted, would be convicted of crimes “worthy of jail this spring and that’s why he’s getting crazier every day”.On CNN Christie accused leading Republican nomination rival Nikki Haley of “enabling” Trump by saying he is fit to be president. “She’s part of the problem because she’s enabling him, but I’m saying it’s not okay to be saying these things.”Former Republican speaker of the house Paul Ryan called Trump an “authoritarian narcissist”.Denunciation of Trump’s comments come as the Biden administration attempts to secure increased military aid for Ukraine and Israel – packages that are now hooked to a political compromise on immigration controls. Progressives have warned that they will not support additional aid packages if the issues are linked.Trump’s comments also come as he is expected to easily win in Iowa’s vital first in the nation caucus next month, according to NBC News. But the latest CBS polls suggests he may face stronger opposition in New Hampshire in February, where he is running at 44% to Haley’s 29% among Republican voters.In a slew of recent polls Trump has also been ahead of Joe Biden nationally and in many key battleground states. That has led to widespread concern that Trump could return to the Oval Office and speculation that he would deeply erode or dismantle US democracy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAgainst the backdrop of Trump’s “poison” comments, the White House issued a statement Sunday on the 80th anniversary of the repeal of the 1882 Chinese Eexclusion Act which had imposed a 10-year immigration ban on Chinese laborers.That law, Biden said, had “weaponized our immigration system to discriminate against an entire ethnic group” and had been followed by further discrimination against Europeans and Asian groups.Biden noted that despite progress, “hate never goes away. It only hides”, adding pointedly: “Today, there are those who still demonize immigrants and fan the flames of intolerance. It’s wrong.”Asked for comment by Reuters on Saturday, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, did not directly address the candidate’s inflammatory rhetoric which had not reportedly been included in Trump’s scripted remarks.Cheung, who has previously dismissed criticism of Trump’s language as “nonsensical”, turned instead to the controversy over how US colleges are managing campus protests, and accused the media and academia had given “safe haven for dangerous antisemitic and pro-Hamas rhetoric that is both dangerous and alarming”. More

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      A house divided: 2023 in US politics books, before Trump v Biden part II

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      The US is a house divided. The presidential election is set to be a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. But as 2023 draws to a close it leaves a legacy in print, in books about the US political scene that help explain the crises that engulf us.February brought The Lincoln Miracle, Edward Achorn’s in-depth examination of the 16th president’s quest for the Republican nomination in 1860. Beautifully written, Achorn’s book reminds us that outcomes are not preordained and that elections bring consequences. Achorn also shows that the battle between red and blue America is now more than 160 years old.The party of Lincoln, however, is no more. Jonathan Karl, chief Washington correspondent for ABC News, had two books on Trump behind him before Tired of Winning. Well-paced, meticulously sourced and amply footnoted, Karl’s latest shines another light on how the Republican party has been recast by a man now under multiple felony indictments.Steve Bannon, Trump’s brain and muse, a leading voice of the far right, talked on the record. He stressed that as long as Trump lives, the party belongs to him. Confronted by a grandee who suggested Trump play less of a role in the run-up to the 2022 midterms, Bannon unloaded: “Have you lost your fucking mind?” If Trump defeats Biden, Bannon may well return to the West Wing.Loyalty to Trump has emerged as a cardinal tenet of Republican life. In Enough, Cassidy Hutchinson, the White House aide who became the lead January 6 witness, offers a persuasive, dispiriting tale of political degradation. Hutchinson “isn’t crazy”, a Trump White House veteran confided before her first public appearance in front of the January 6 committee. But she is a “time bomb”. True on both counts.McKay Coppins’s Romney: A Reckoning is a must-read for anyone interested in how the Republican party became a Trumpian mess. Picking up where he left off in The Wilderness, his earlier look at the GOP, Coppins, a veteran Romney-watcher now at the Atlantic, offers an engaging read, the product of 30 interviews with the 2012 presidential nominee, access to aides and friends and also the senator’s emails and diaries. Coppins offers a scorching critique, capturing Romney strafing Trump and Newt Gingrich, Ted Cruz and Mike Pence.Adam Kinzinger represented a Republican Illinois district in the US House for six terms. He voted to impeach Trump for the January 6 insurrection, and with Liz Cheney was one of two Republicans on the investigating committee. Like Cheney, from Wyoming, Kinzinger earned the ire of Trump and the GOP base. Both are no longer in Congress. Renegade, Kinzinger’s memoir, written with Michael D’Antonio, biographer of Pence, is a steady, well-crafted read.In the year of the Republican shadow primary, before voting begins next month, presidential aspirants past and present gave their spin too. Mike Pompeo, ex-congressman, CIA director and secretary of state, wrote Never Give an Inch. Tart and tight, filled with barbs, bile and little regret, it was an unexpectedly interesting read. Pompeo did give an inch to reality, though, accepting there was no point mounting a run.On the other side of the aisle, with The Last Politician, Franklin Foer provides a well-sourced look at Biden. A staff writer at the Atlantic and former New Republic editor, Foer captures successes and cock-ups. The 46th president is caught wondering why John F Kennedy was not so tightly handled by his aides – or “babied”. Less than a year from election day, Biden trails Trump at the polls.Chris Whipple’s The Fight of His Life is a flattering portrait of Biden. Ron Klain, his first chief of staff, hails “the most successful first year of any president ever”, adding: “We passed more legislation than any president in his first year.” Many remain unimpressed. Inflation scars remain visible. The retribution impeachment looms. Hunter Biden is under felony indictment.With Filthy Rich Politicians, Matt Lewis skewers both sides of the aisle. A senior columnist at the Daily Beast, Lewis performs a valued public service, shining a searing light on the gap between the elites of both parties and the citizenry in whose name they claim to govern. The book is breezy and readable. The Bidens and Clintons, the Trumps and Kushners, right and left – all are savaged.Michael Waldman ran the speechwriting shop in Bill Clinton’s White House and now heads the Brennan Center at NYU. The Supermajority, his book about the conservative bloc that dominates the supreme court, is written with great verve. He takes the Citizens United decision to task for allowing unlimited political spending. He also argues that the court has become a serious threat to American democracy.Religion in politics garnered its share of attention this year, particularly evangelical Protestants. Sunday attendance is down but the movement retains political clout. In Losing Our Religion, the Rev Russell Moore, conservative but a Trump critic, laments the growing interchangeability between cross and flag, and the paganization of Christianity. “The step before replacing Jesus with Thor is to turn Jesus into Thor,” he writes. Like the caesars of old, Trump is deified by his minions.In The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, Tim Alberta poignantly and painfully captures the metamorphosis of US evangelism. A writer at the Atlantic and the son of a Presbyterian minister, Alberta lays bare his hurt over how Christianity has grown ever more synonymous with those who fervently wave the stars and stripes. He takes us back to summer 2019. The Rev Richard Alberta died suddenly. At his funeral, a church elder delivered to Alberta a one-page screed expressing his disapproval of the author for not embracing Trump. Alberta also delivers a deep-dive on the disgraced Jerry Falwell Jr and Liberty University.The media and the Murdochs remained in the spotlight too. In Network of Lies, Brian Stelter, the former CNN host, captured the Murdochs’ struggle to make money, keep their audience happy and avoid liability. It wasn’t easy: Fox News coverage of the 2020 election led to a $787.5m settlement of a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems. Other litigations remain.Stelter had competition. In The Fall, Michael Wolff gave the Murdochs and Fox the treatment he gave Trump, memorably with Fire and Fury and two sequels. Wolff says he may be “the journalist not in his employ who knows [Murdoch] best”. Quotation marks abound – whether the author was an actual witness is another matter. But The Fall is full of digestible dish.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionElsewhere in the media, Marty Baron led the Washington Post as executive editor for eight years, retiring in 2021. Newsrooms he led won 17 Pulitzer prizes, 10 at the Post. Baron has stories to tell. The actor Liev Schreiber even played him in Spotlight, winner of the best picture Oscar in 2016. Collision of Power, Baron’s first book, carried a tantalizing subtitle: “Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post”.“Trump and his team would go after the Post and everyone else in the media who didn’t bend to his wishes,” Baron writes. From the beginning, as Baron saw close up, Trump “had the makings of an autocrat”.In finance, with Going Infinite, Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, The Big Short and other bestsellers, wrote about Sam Bankman-Fried, crypto and the scandal that saw the one-time billionaire convicted on seven counts of fraud. To politicians, as well as to profilers, Bankman-Fried had allure. Exactly why he continues to puzzle. Money doesn’t explain everything, but it does shed light on plenty.Foreign policy impinged on domestic politics too, of course. Last spring, Israel marked its 75th anniversary, roiled by internal divisions. On 7 October, Hamas mounted a barbaric binge of rape, murder, plunder and hostage-taking. Israel’s response continues.In May, Isabel Kershner of the New York Times painted a masterly and poignant portrait with The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel’s Battle for Its Inner Soul. Attempting to make sense of a “national unraveling”, she spoke with members of competing and clashing tribes. Wisely, she offered no sense of immediate resolution. None is on the horizon.Back home, Trump stands ready to plunge a knife into US democracy. A year ago, he called for terminating the constitution. More recently, he said he would be a dictator “on day one” of a second term. He is the “most dangerous man ever to inhabit the Oval Office”, Liz Cheney writes in Oath and Honor, her own memoir.The former congresswoman, a member of the Republican establishment, adds: “This is the story of when American democracy began to unravel. It is the story of the men and women who fought to save it, and of the enablers and collaborators whose actions ensured the threat would grow and metastasize.”The book is well-timed. Iowa and New Hampshire vote next month.“We cannot survive a president willing to terminate our constitution,” Cheney adds. Promoting her book, she warned that the US was “sleepwalking into dictatorship”. In 11 months, we will find out how fast. More

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      Biden will have ‘LBJ moment’ and not run for re-election, Cornel West says

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      Joe Biden will “have an LBJ moment” and decide not to run for re-election next year, the leftwing academic and independent presidential candidate Cornel West has predicted.“I’m not even sure whether I’ll be running against Biden,” West told Politico. “Biden – I think he’s going to have an LBJ moment [and] pull back.”West was referring to the moment on 31 March 1968 when Lyndon B Johnson, in office since the assassination of John F Kennedy in November 1963, announced that he would not seek re-election.Johnson cited the war in Vietnam and divisions at home. His former secretary, George Christian, said health was also a factor: Johnson was only 59 but had suffered a heart attack 13 years before. He had a fatal heart attack five years later.Already the oldest president ever sworn in, Biden is 81 and would be 86 at the end of a second term. In polling, clear majorities say he is too old.West told Politico he might end up running against a “B team” of younger Democrats including Gavin Newsom, governor of California, and Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, because Biden was “running out of gas”.He did not mention Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice-president.At 70, West is seven years younger than the most likely Republican candidate, the former president, 91-time criminal indictee and adjudicated rapist Donald Trump.Trump, West said, was a “bona fide gangster, neo-fascist Pied Piper leading the country for a second civil war”.But he called Biden “a milquetoast neoliberal with military adventurism, possibly leading the world toward world war three”.“I’m more concerned about Trump domestically,” West said. “I’m more concerned about Biden in terms of foreign policy.”The Biden campaign did not comment. A Trump spokesperson misspelled West’s name (“Cornell”) and said he should “go back to liberal academia instead of playing pretend politics. He still hasn’t graduated from the kids table.”West does not perform as strongly in polling as another independent seen as a potential spoiler in favour of Trump, the attorney and campaigner Robert F Kennedy Jr.West told Politico: “I don’t accept the spoiler category. A vote for Biden, a vote for Trump is a vote for Biden and a vote for Trump.“There might be slices of people [who say], ‘If I didn’t vote for West, I would have voted for Biden.’ But that’s not to me a spoiler. If you’re in a race, and you make a case, and they vote for you, how do you become the spoiler?”Polling indicates Biden’s weakness against all Republican candidates. West said he campaigned for Biden in 2020 but did not vote for him.“When I got in there,” he said, “I don’t know if it was the Holy Ghost [but] something hit me: I said, ‘Naw, I can’t vote for this gangster.’”West was linked to the People’s party and the Green party before becoming independent. He was, he said, “trying to touch that 38% who don’t vote at all and young people more and more wrestling with cynicism of various sorts”.Polling shows declining support for Biden among Black voters.West said: “If you are concerned, primarily and solely, with your president being married only one time, I’m not the one for you. And I’m certainly not the Black man for you.“But if you’re looking at somebody who has a record that encompasses a whole host of things, politically, intellectually, over time and space, alongside my personal life then I might in fact, be somebody you consider very seriously.” More

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      Would the US survive a second Trump presidency? – podcast

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      Last week, Donald Trump was asked whether he would use power as retribution if he were to win a second term in the White House. The former US president responded that he would in fact abuse his power – but only on his first day in office. He followed up by saying: “After that, I’m not a dictator.”
      So what would a Trump presidency 2.0 look like? Would a second term be as catastrophic as the critics believe? And what would be the impact of a Trump sequel not only on the US but on the world?
      This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, whose latest issue is dedicated entirely to a single topic: If Trump wins

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More