Wednesday Reads: Super Tuesday Edition

Good Day!!

Yesterday was Super Tuesday, but there were few surprises. Oath-breaking insurrectionist Donald Trump will most likely face President Joe Biden in November unless something happens to either of these old guys. Trump continued his pattern of losing 30-40 percent of the Republican primary votes, and Niki Haley won a second primary–in Vermont. This morning, she withdrew from the race without endorsing Trump.

Although Trump appears to be slightly ahead of Biden according to the polls, it’s clear that Trump’s support among Republicans is weak. The Daily Beast: Alyssa Farah Griffin: Even in Defeat, Haley Exposed Trump’s Demographic Weaknesses.

On the heels of Super Tuesday and Nikki Haley’s departure from the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump is poised to officially be the GOP nominee for president—despite 91 felony counts, four separate indictments, and being found liable for sexual assault.

In poll after poll, most recently a New York Times/Siena College poll, Trump dominates Joe Biden head-to-head, as well as with key demographics. But those polls seem to be missing a flashing red warning sign for Trump in a general election: his disapproval with Republican voters.

Niki Haley suspends campaign

Haley’s quixotic race for the GOP nomination exposed Trump’s flawed and weakened standing within the Republican Party, but more broadly with the American electorate. A new Associated Press survey found that two in ten Iowa primary voters, a third of New Hampshire Primary voters, and a quarter of South Carolina Republican voters would refuse to vote for Trump in the fall.

voters, 78 percent would not commit to voting for the Republican nominee in November. In California, 69 percent of Haley voters said they wouldn’t vote for Trump in November, according to an NBC News exit poll. Even more striking were exit polls out of North Carolina that found 81 percent of Haley voters would not commit to voting for the eventual GOP nominee.

These numbers are remarkable if you consider that GOP primary voters are historically among the most intense of voters—meaning they will turn out and skew strongly more to the right than the average general election voter.

Read the rest at the link.

I didn’t watch Trump’s speech last night–I can’t stand to watch or listen to him, but here’s a report from David Smith at The Guardian: Trump’s Super Tuesday victory speech: grim visions of an American apocalypse.

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….

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 was 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….

“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.”

Ugh.

On Thursday, Biden will get his turn as he delivers the State of the Union address. Katie Rogers at The New York Times: Biden Preps for the State of the Union Speech and Rowdy Republicans.

Fueled by throat-soothing tea, guided by teleprompters and surrounded by six aides and one historian, President Biden spent hours at Camp David last weekend honing a State of the Union speech that will be watched by one of his biggest audiences before the November election.

So the pressure is on.

Mr. Biden, it should be noted, had with him at Camp David a copy of “Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict,” a book by William Ury, an international negotiation expert.

“You’ll hear me on Thursday,” Mr. Biden said when reporters asked on Tuesday about his preparations.

White House officials have not said what topics the president will address, or whether he will mention Donald J. Trump, his likely 2024 challenger, by name. But Mr. Biden is almost certain to talk about the war in Ukraine, the war between Israel and Hamas, China, abortion, immigration, trade and other topics in a speech he and his aides have been working on since December.

The final speech, which aides say will be edited up until Mr. Biden gives it, will be delivered by a president under pressure to reassure voters that he is not too old for the job and, more than at any point in his tenure, guard against political outbursts that have become commonplace during such speeches. Mr. Biden’s aides say he has prepared for Republicans to heckle him, as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene did last year.

Getting the speech into shape played out, in true Biden fashion, inside a circle of aides who have been around the president for years and treat such proceedings like a state secret.

The Camp David weekend group included Bruce Reed, the White House deputy chief of staff, who helped guide policy-related additions to the speech; Mike Donilon, the aide who has the best understanding of Mr. Biden’s voice; Anita Dunn, who oversees communications strategy for the White House; and Jeffrey D. Zients, Mr. Biden’s chief of staff. Rounding out the group was Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president and a longtime friend, and Vinay Reddy, Mr. Biden’s speechwriter.

The historian Jon Meacham, who is called upon to add historical heft, was also there.

In other Super Tuesday news, Adam Schiff beat out two other Democrats to win the California primary for the U.S. Senate, along with Republican and former pro-baseball player Steve Garvey.

Kate Riga at Talking Points Memo: Schiff Beats Out Split Progressives On Glide Path To California Senate Seat.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), using ruthless tactics belied by his cherubic face and upstanding public persona, has won the California Senate primary, according to the Associated Press.

Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player, is projected to come in second almost entirely thanks to Schiff’s maneuvering. The millions Schiff spent on ads boosting Garvey’s profile with Republican voters helped edge out Reps. Katie Porter (D-CA) and Barbara Lee (D-CA), both of whom would have posed an actual threat to Schiff in the general election (California’s jungle primary lets two candidates of the same party go through to the general). 

Porter — Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) protegé, who gained a national profile by taking CEOs to task at committee hearings, armed with her omnipresent whiteboard — and Lee — famous for being the only member of Congress to vote against authorizing military force after 9/11 — are both considered more progressive than Schiff. But a lack of left-wing consolidation around either woman, as well as the lack of involvement by key groups like EMILY’s List, left the progressive flank of the party split. Schiff got the moderate lane to himself. 

Schiff has also been incredibly successful in riding his high-profile role in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial to national fame, becoming omnipresent on cable news. It didn’t hurt that he won the endorsement of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), a famed fundraiser. 

Schiff will virtually certainly win the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in the fall, taking over for Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-CA) who was, ironically, appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) so a Black woman would again represent the state. The state will now be without a woman in either of its two Senate seats for the first time in over 30 years. 

While Schiff lacks the progressive bona fides of Porter and Lee, he does meet what will be a key Democratic litmus test for candidates for the upper chamber from here on out: He supports ending the filibuster, along with more expansive proposals to nix the Electoral College and expand the Supreme Court.  

In Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema announced, in a whiny, narcissistic speech, that she won’t be running for reelection to the U.S. Senate. That’s good news for Democrats and specifically for Ruben Gallego. Again from Kate Riga at Talking Points Memo: Kyrsten Sinema Drove Herself Out Of Politics.

In a video replete with her own accomplishments — “I believe in my approach. But, it’s not what America wants right now” — she on Tuesday delivered her constituents a final “it’s not me, it’s you” farewell. 

The senselessness of her trajectory is thrown into even starker relief next to that of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), inextricably linked to her throughout Joe Biden’s first two years in the White House due to the pair’s devotion to the filibuster and eagerness to buck their party. Manchin comes from one of the Trumpiest states in the country. He’s the last generation of a dying breed, as red state Democrats and blue state Republicans drop or are forced out of their parties.

Sinema’s state, in contrast, has only trended bluer. While certainly still battleground territory, it’s a more comfortable get for Democrats than at any other time in recent history. Had she acted like a normal Democrat — look no further than fellow Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) — she’d be preparing for her reelection right now, relieved to have the kooky Kari Lake to run against, and swimming in a helpful current of money funneled by the national party organs. 

But she habitually took loud, splashy stands on issues that not only set her apart from her party, but did so on issues central to its very ideology (she’s now an independent, though never stopped caucusing with the Democrats). This was not taking some swings to look tough on the border, or to distance herself from super lefty proposals. It was curtseying while voting down an increased federal minimum wage, threatening the Inflation Reduction Act over preserving a tax loophole for hedge fund managers and law firm partners, limiting the lift of the corporate tax rate….

Ruben Gallego

She did all of this with a rare disrespect for norms around the Hill, one of the very few senators who refused to do hallway interviews, even when she was a deciding player on major legislation, leaving the public to learn her views through other sources or rare sit-downs she’d grant to friendly press. It helped keep her a cypher to political observers: a lawmaker who’d come up through very liberal politics, who’d been open and admirably proud about her bisexuality, suddenly tacking to the corporate right and infuriating those who’d supported her rise and who she’d need to run again in the process. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), essentially running in her stead, was drafted by Democrats wholly alienated by her decisions. 

This means that Ruben Gallego will face insane conspiracy theorist Kari Lake in November. Here’s hoping he wins.

One more down-ballot race of note, a truly crazy candidate won the primary for governor of North Carolina. Molly Olmstead at Slate: Whew, North Carolina’s Winning GOP Nominee for Governor Sure Has Said Some Things.

Mark Robinson, who easily won North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, has the misfortune of having spent years on Facebook without thinking about his future political career. The current lieutenant governor of the state—and the first Black man to hold the position—was a furniture manufacturer who was launched into politics in 2018 when he gave a viral pro-gun speech at a city council meeting in the wake of the Parkland school shooting. Two years later he was elected to his current office. He will face Democrat Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general, in the general election in November. The race is expected to be extremely close.

Mark Robinson

He has not, in the time since his profile rose, worked to purge his social media of controversial content. Nor has he played things safe when speaking at churches and other public events in recorded sermons and speeches. So it doesn’t take a lot of probing to find how Robinson really feels about certain hot-button issues.

Robinson, who is also into conspiracy theories, has voiced enough offensive comments for a full accounting to be too unwieldy. But even a sampling of his views like the one below—not a comprehensive list—showcases just what kind of candidate North Carolina Republicans just selected to be their standard-bearer this November.

Abortion
“I don’t care if you’re 24 hours pregnant. I don’t care if you’re 24 weeks pregnant. I don’t care. If you kill that young’un, it is murder.” (Robinson has said he paid for an abortion in 1989 and maintained that that decision was “wrong.”)

Climate Science
“… pseudoscience, junk science that has not proven a single solitary thing.”

The Media
“See through their lies and look at the big picture of their TRUE intent, which is to push US towards their new world order.”

Jewish People
He voiced agreement with a pastor who claimed the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” are the CIA, China, Islam, and the Rothschild family of “international bankers that rule every single … central bank.”

Also, regarding Black Panther: “It is absolutely AMAZING to me that people… can get so excited about a fictional ‘hero’ created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic marxist. How can this trash, that was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets, invoke any pride?”

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Read more examples at the Slate link.

I’m going to end there. What do you think? What stories are you following today?