2024 election

Had you blindfolded me yesterday morning, led me to the front lawn of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, removed my blinder and asked me to guess where we were, I would have said, “A James Taylor benefit concert for NPR.” In the crowd on this sunny fall day was a heavy contingent of the boomer delegation, of various stripes and checks. There were even some traditional tweed, and, with blazers out in full force, on both men and women, paired mostly with denim — though late-season red chinos and season-rushing corduroys were on display, too — and invariably some statement eyewear, leather dress shoes, and baseball caps keeping flowy silver hair tamed and sun-spotted skin safe. It was plain from their collective style that this group was at least self-aware.

Abortion was the single biggest issue that led to Donald Trump winning the 2016 election. It may be the single biggest issue that leads him to lose in 2024. The death of Antonin Scalia in Texas in February of 2016 set the presidential election in stark relief. Effectively, voters were asked not just to name the next president, but to decide simultaneously the immediate future of the Supreme Court. Elect Hillary Clinton and you get a Court that will enshrine abortion for eternity; elect Trump and the possibility that Roe v. Wade could be reversed in the decade to come stays alive. This is one of the reasons that Trump, a lifelong limousine liberal on issues like abortion, went so hard into the paint on the topic.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin America’s front-runners share a winning debate strategy: don’t turn up. Much as Joe Biden is dodging the chance to share a stage with Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — because why would you? — Donald Trump opted to skip out on the Republican National Committee and Fox News’s first debate in Milwaukee.  Trump is still aggrieved by what he perceives as the network’s ill treatment of him, both in its “early” — but correct — call of Arizona in the 2020 election and its coverage since: there is a palpable yearning among executives to “move on” from Trump.

The Republican National Committee confirmed late Monday night the presidential candidates who would face each other in Wednesday night’s debate. They are: North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, former vice president Mike Pence, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina senator Tim Scott. Former president Donald Trump, who leads every poll comfortably, will not be in attendance. Trump had hoped to send surrogates to vouch on his behalf in the spin room — which, in an apparent tribute to Watergate, will be in the players' parking garage of the Fiserv Forum.

The list of attendees for the first GOP presidential primary debate keeps getting longer. Former vice president Mike Pence has apparently just succeeded in reaching the 40,000 unique donor milestone, granting him a spot in Milwaukee on August 23 alongside Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie and a governor from one of the Dakotas (not the one you like looking at). Trump may or may not attend, but whatever he chooses, Cockburn expects him to be at the center of the debate. The RNC also gave candidates some prompts about what to expect: some pre-taped questions from student members of the Young America's Foundation, one minute for answers, thirty seconds for follow-ups, forty-five seconds for closing statements, no opening statements.

I wonder if Ron DeSantis’s favorite mot these days is from Mark Twain: “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Maybe so. But let’s face it, the reports are many and deafening.  They are also damaging. Consider, to take one recent example, the report, conveyed by Semafor, on the DeSantis Meme Team that works under the rubric of “War Room Creative Ideas” on the encrypted message app Signal.   Among the “creative ideas” were videos, insinuated anonymously onto Twitter (as it then was), that smeared Donald Trump by including a fascist symbol — get it? Another attacked Trump for pro-LGBT rights comments. Both were instantly attacked by the Trump base.

North Dakota governor Doug Burgum is used to being counted out — and he brought that underdog energy to a meet and greet to Washington, DC, just in time to celebrate his surprising qualification for the Presidential Republican primary debate stage. At the swanky Capitol Hill Club he made his case. He was surrounded by his state’s congressional delegation along with Senator Susan Collins, former senator Norm Coleman and a room of curious onlookers, many of whom told Cockburn they first learned of his campaign when he launched a clever scheme to mail out $20 gift cards in exchange for a $1 donation—a way to reach the 40,000 donor threshold to make the stage.