A new Tyson Group poll in South Carolina finds Donald Trump leading Nikki Haley in the GOP presidential primary, 58% to 31%.
"There have been general election debates during every presidential cycle since 1976, but the debates' status as a hallmark of the election process may be in trouble," Axios reports.
FiveThirtyEight has updated its pollster scorecard. "The New York Times/Siena College, for example, is the most accurate pollster in America. Due to its accuracy and transparency, it and ABC News/Washington Post are also the only two pollsters with a three-star rating."
4Q FUNDRAISING
- CA-40: Young Kim (R-inc): $750,000 raised, $2.5 million cash on hand
- MO-01: Wesley Bell (D): $492,000 raised
- NH-02: Annie Kuster (D-inc): $350,000 raised, $1 million cash on hand
- NY-16: George Latimer (D): $1.4 million raised (in one month)
- PA-10: Mike O'Brien (D): $260,000 raised
- NE-02: Don Bacon (R-inc): $780,000 raised, $1.5 million cash on hand; Tony Vargas (D): $552,000 raised
- PA-10: Janelle Stelson (D): $282,000 raised
- NC-AG: Jeff Jackson (D): $2 million raised (in two months)
MANCHIN. "Sen. Joe Manchin says he 'absolutely' can see himself as president," CNN reports.
"Privately, the West Virginia Democrat has told people that a Joe Biden health scare or a Donald Trump conviction could give him an opening to run as an independent this year."
"If Manchin runs, he would want to do so using state ballot lines being secured by No Labels, a bipartisan group that has asserted itself as the answer for a political moment in which voters keep telling pollsters they don't want a Biden-Trump rematch and are exhausted by the political tribalism."
HALEY. "Nikki Haley blasted the Republican National Committee on Sunday, saying it was not an honest broker in party's 2024 primary race." NBC News reports.
Said Haley: "If you're gonna go in and basically tell the American people that you're gonna go and decide who the nominee is after only two states have voted? I mean, 48 states out there? This is a democracy. The American people want to have their say in who is going to be their nominee, we need to give them that."
Semafor: "Haley's active defense of the anonymous jurors that awarded E. Jean Carroll $83 million in damages after a previous jury found Trump was liable for sexual assault and defamation marked a point of no return."
Said Haley: "I think that they made their decision based on the evidence."
"What stands out about Haley's remarks is not just that it's a Republican taking on Trump over sexual misconduct, something that's almost unheard of since he survived the Access Hollywood tape in 2016. It's that a top rival is actually addressing the core argument of Trump's candidacy: That he is the target of a vast conspiracy that stole the last election and is targeting him now in order to steal the next one."
"These twin premises, which Trump has spent years working to build up and maintain, have made it virtually impossible to attack him. 'Electability' is not an effective angle when losses are not considered legitimate."
New York Times: Haley's dilemma is how to diminish Trump without alienating Republican voters.
"A network of Republican megadonors has invited aides to both Donald Trump and Nikki Haley to make presentations at the group's winter meeting next week, as the wealthy contributors assess the presidential race with just nine months until Election Day," the New York Times reports.
BIDEN. President Biden labelled Donald Trump a "loser" in a campaign speech over the weekend, using the term two times.
"President Joe Biden's campaign is trying to organize a first-of-its-kind fundraiser that officials hope would be lucrative and headline-grabbing, but also energizing for Democratic voters who so far have not shown enthusiasm for the party's 2024 ticket,": NBC News reports.
"The idea is for three Democratic presidents — Biden, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — to appear together at a fundraiser this spring."
"Democrats have no chance of winning South Carolina in November, but the state is pivotal to Joe Biden's reelection anyway," Reuters reports.
"Democrats hope South Carolina's new role as host of the party's first official primary on Feb. 3 will bolster support among Black voters. Top party officials also see it as a springboard to an audacious new strategy: retaking the American South in years to come."
"The Democratic Party has struggled to win elections in the South since the 1960s Civil Rights era. But spiking migration, opens new tab to the region in recent years and a string of statewide wins in Kentucky and North Carolina, as well as Biden's nail-biting win in Georgia in 2020, have raised hopes that it can improve, starting with the general election in November."
Politico: "There was California's governor, in a distant land — 2,700 miles from home and still not adjusted to Wednesday morning's Eastern time-zone change, yet finally in the nerve center of early state presidential politicking. And already, some of his party's most important voters were sizing him up as a White House aspirant — consuming themselves with the distant election when November is still months away. It went beyond his appearance, with some convinced he was too progressive for the South…"
"Newsom wanted to give stump speeches ahead of the state's new, first-in-the-nation Democratic primary, appearing there for the first time as a headliner and getting early exposure to its powerful blocs of Black voters and rural Democrats. They, meanwhile wanted to test his 2028 chops."
"As former President Donald Trump speeds toward the Republican nomination, President Biden is moving quickly to pump energy into his re-election bid, kicking off what is likely to be an ugly, dispiriting and historically long slog to November between two unpopular nominees," the New York Times reports.
"After months of languid buildup in which he held only a single public campaign event, Mr. Biden has thrown a series of rallies across battleground states, warning that democracy itself is at stake in 2024."
"He sent two of his most trusted White House operatives to take the helm of his re-election campaign in Wilmington, Del., after Mr. Trump seized control of the Republican primary race more rapidly than Mr. Biden's advisers had initially expected."
"And other Biden aides are drafting wish lists of potential surrogates, including elected officials, social media influencers and the endorsement of their wildest dreams: the global superstar Taylor Swift."
"Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) met with President Joe Biden's campaign manager last week as the president seeks to patch up relations with key Democratic groups," Politico reports.
"Tlaib has been an outspoken critic of the Biden administration's approach to the Israel-Gaza war. Her district includes the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, which has a large Arab American population."
PHILLIPS. The Columbia State notes Saturday's Democratic party dinner in South Carolina was the first time Rep. Dean Phillips and President Biden "were in the same setting since the Minnesota congressman announced his bid for the White House."
"When Phillips took to the stage, many attendees were working their way to seats and not paying attention to the congressman. At multiple points Phillips asked for the crowd's attention…"
"His call for Biden to pass the torch to the next generation of leaders was met with silence from the crowd."
TRUMP. "He can't be beaten in a primary, but in a general election, I think he's the most flawed candidate in my lifetime. He is damaged goods. He is not as entertaining as he once was. He's more unhinged than he ever was. More extreme, obviously more dangerous across the spectrum of issues."— Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), quoted by MSNBC, on Donald Trump.
"Donald Trump is aggressively courting potential megadonors to his campaign, targeting those who've kept their powder dry so far this cycle and at least one who was the biggest backer of his chief primary rival," Politico reports.
"The former president is set to dine with more than two dozen of the party's biggest check-writers on Thursday evening at the Palm Beach, Florida, home of billionaire investor John Paulson, a Trump ally who has pledged to support his campaign."
Donald Trump, who predicted three years ago that if President Biden won the White House in 2020 markets would crash, said that stock markets hitting record highs were just making "rich people richer," Reuters reports. And then he said that actually, the stock market is so high right now because business leaders are pricing in a Trump presidency and they are so excited. So actually, he said, it was a Trump Stock Market. Which is it? Or is it both? LOL.
TRUMP VEEPSTAKES. Mediaite: "[Tim] Scott's willingness to endure Trump's ritual humiliation of him raises a number of important questions."
"How many Republicans left in the party are willing to tell the truth about Trump? How much further will Scott and his competition go in pursuit of the vice presidency? How much can abasement can any one person take before collapsing in on themselves like a dying star? And, of course, how funny will it be if this ends with Scott earning the same reward Chris Christie did back in 2016? Or, crueler still, a stint as Commerce Secretary?
Time: "As Trump narrows his search for a second in command, some of his staunchest allies are mobilizing against Scott… They cite the South Carolina lawmaker as among the dozens of Republican Senators who certified the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021."
Said one source close to the former president: "Trump wants loyalty. He wants someone who was with him in the tough times when it mattered. The person who exemplifies what Donald Trump does not want is Mike Pence."
"Other candidates on Trump's short list include New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Scott is the only one of them who voted against Trump's wishes on Jan. 6. Stefanik is the only other contender who was in Congress at the time. She was among the 147 Republicans who voted against certifying Biden's electoral votes from at least one state."
"Senate Majority PAC, Democrats' largest outside group focused on Senate races, is placing its first ad buys for the fall ad campaign in two key states," Politico reports.
"These initial reservations, the first of many to be made in the coming months, include $27 million in Montana and $36 million in Nevada."
"For the first time in their elected runs, none of Nebraska's five-member, all-GOP congressional delegation received an endorsement from the Nebraska Republican Party," the Nebraska Examiner reports.
"Instead, the party's State Central Committee endorsed Republican challengers to three GOP incumbents… The central committee did not endorse candidates in the other two top federal races…"
"Tension has existed between the state party and its top elected officials since Nebraska GOP leadership changed hands in the summer of 2022, from party workers loyal to Ricketts to populists loyal to former President Donald Trump and some former insiders who wanted to diminish Ricketts' influence over the party."
UAW President Shawn Fain gave a "withering" list of reasons why his union gave it's endorsement to President Biden for re-election, the Detroit Free Press reports.
Said Fain: "If you look just at the facts and the body of work of both candidates and both of them, in their own words. Nowhere in history has Donald Trump ever stood for the American worker. He stands against pretty much everything we stand for."
He added: "We had to look at a lot of things and overall, you know, we decided our contract fight with the Big Three, our most successful contract in history, President Biden stood there with us on the picket line, unlike President Trump back in '19, when GM was on strike for 40 days and he was completely not existent and silent on the issue. I can go through a list of things, the difference in the candidates. it's very clear to us who stands with working-class people in this country and who stands against them."
Politico: "A national Democratic operative, granted anonymity to speak freely about the 2024 race without angering the party, said Florida has lost its battleground status, and Democrats are coming to the state simply to raise money — not campaign for Florida Democrats or attempt to flip the state."
"House Democrats are officially announcing their first 17 candidates to take on Republicans in competitive districts Monday, launching the 'red-to-blue' program as part of a quest to regain control of the chamber this fall," NBC News reports.
"The candidates hail from districts that were hotly contested in the 2022 election and are likely to decide the majority in November. Some, but not all, were carried by President Joe Biden in 2020."
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