Campaign Report
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Campaign Report
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Trump, Senate GOP friction grows
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Former President Trump is upping pressure on Senate Republicans to investigate President Biden, his finances and his family, even as members of the party remain guarded over the idea of probing the president.
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Over the weekend, Trump argued that any Senate Republicans up for reelection who didn’t move to investigate the Biden family’s business dealings should be primaried next year.
As our Alex Bolton reports this morning, while House Republicans have made investigating Biden and his family a focus in the majority, Senate Republicans have offered a stark contrast.
House Majority Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has suggested that an impeachment inquiry could be on the table over Biden family’s finances, but the Senate has taken a more wary approach.
Impeachment “ought to be rare rather than common,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last week, later adding, “and I think this is not good for the country to have repeated impeachment problems.”
What they’re saying: “A good number of Senate Republicans take a more measured approach usually. They don’t knee-jerk to pressure,” Republican strategist and former Senate leadership aide Ron Bonjean told Alex.
Still, Republicans and experts recognize the threat of facing a primary challenger next year could be real. Trump backed Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska’s Senate race for Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) race, but Tshibaka ultimately lost.
“Think of people like Roger Wicker, who is someone who is seen as a pretty solid guy who votes the right way but is not an extremist,” Rutgers University professor Ross Baker told Alex. “There are constituencies that will respond to any demand that Trump puts out who will say, ‘I can’t support [a senator] unless he gets on the impeachment bandwagon.’”
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Welcome to The Hill’s Campaign Report, we’re Julia Manchester, Caroline Vakil and Jared Gans. Each week we track the key stories you need to know to stay ahead of the 2024 election and who will set the agenda in Washington.
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Key election stories and other recent campaign coverage:
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The super PAC supporting presidential candidate Nikki Haley launched its first ad of the 2024 campaign cycle Tuesday, highlighting the former United Nations ambassador’s tough stance on China. “Communist China won’t just lose. Like the Soviet Union before it, Communist China will end up on the ash heap of history,” Haley says in a clip featured in the 30-second ad shared by SFA Fund Inc., the super PAC backing the former South …
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A new ad for former President Trump’s 2024 campaign compares President Biden to a “corrupt third-world dictator” and shrugs off the various investigations Trump faces as politically motivated. “Acting just like a corrupt, third-world dictator, Biden has unleashed a cadre of unscrupulous government bureaucrats he controls to act like rabid wolves and attack his greatest threats,” the ad’s narrator says. The video also pitches …
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Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Monday that former President Trump surrounds himself with “vulnerable people.” Grisham, who served under the Trump administration, claimed the former president’s aides Carlos De Oliveira and Walt Nauta — who have both been charged in the federal classified documents case — have not turned on Trump because they feel like they “owe” him. “I think that this is a design …
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Upcoming news themes and events we’re watching:
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- 74 days until Louisiana’s gubernatorial primary
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98 days until Kentucky and Mississippi’s gubernatorial general
- 461 days until the 2024 general election
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DeSantis, Scott battle for 2nd
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© Tierney L. Cross/Charlie Niebergall, Associated Press
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott are competing to fill the non-Trump lane in the GOP presidential primary as Scott shows signs of rising and DeSantis’s campaign hits some bumps.
The Hill’s Julia Manchester and Caroline Vakil report that while Scott has not yet emerged as the clear alternative to Trump, his campaign has seen some bright spots along the way. The senator has seen some traction in some early state polls and has attracted interest from donors.
When asked whether he thought Scott was a threat to DeSantis, Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said “absolutely.”
“Tim Scott rising speaks more to Ron DeSantis underachieving expectations,” he added.
Scott offered his most pointed criticism of DeSantis last week when he was asked about Florida’s new standards for teaching Black history, including language in the curriculum that says students should be taught that enslaved people “developed skills” that benefited them under the system of American slavery.
DeSantis responded to Scott’s criticism: “D.C. Republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept lies that are perpetrated by the left.”
And on Monday, Scott touted a 15-week federal ban on abortion after the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List attacked DeSantis after he declined to say whether he would back a federal abortion ban in a recent interview. The group called DeSantis’s position on abortion “unacceptable,” several months after he signed a six-week ban in Florida into law.
In a statement to The Hill, the DeSantis campaign maintained the primary is still a two person race.
“No matter how much the media and D.C. elites try to destroy Ron DeSantis, they can’t change the fact that this is a two-man race for the nomination,” said Andrew Romeo, a spokesperson for the DeSantis campaign. “Ron DeSantis is ready to prove the doubters wrong yet again and our campaign is prepared to execute on his vision for the Great American Comeback as we transition into the next phase of winning this primary and beating Joe Biden.”
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Cornel West’s bid gives progressives pause
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Political activist Cornel West’s Green Party run for president is causing concern among progressives that his candidacy could act as a spoiler for President Biden’s reelection prospects.
West has sought to attack the Republican and Democratic establishment during his candidacy so far, but progressives largely have consolidated their support behind Biden.
Hanna Trudo and Mychael Schnell report that while these progressives did not feel the need to share concerns about West’s candidacy when he launched his bid under the People’s Party in June, they have become more vocal since he switched to run for the Green Party nomination.
“I think just right now, given the Electoral College, it’s very difficult to square the very real threat of a Republican presidency … [with] the risk of giving up the very small margin of electoral votes needed to ensure that President Biden wins,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told The Hill last week.
West is respected among many members of the progressive movement, having worked as a top surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign. But Ocasio-Cortez and other liberals like Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) have formally endorsed Biden.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a CPC member, argued that the stakes are too high in the 2024 election for a third-party candidate that could take votes away from Biden, especially if Trump is the GOP nominee.
“I think everybody, including the most progressive elements of our country, need to protect our democracy by stopping Donald Trump and supporting Joe Biden,” he said.
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Branch out with a different read from The Hill:
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Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said he would consider a national TikTok ban if elected, amid bipartisan security concerns about the Chinese-owned video-sharing app. “I am inclined to not want TikTok in the United States,” the Florida governor told The Wall Street Journal. “I think it’s creating a security vulnerability for us. I think they are mining a lot of data.” However, he emphasized he would stop short …
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Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) announced Tuesday that he’s opting against running in Wisconsin’s Senate race against Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), becoming the second Republican to decide against running. “After talking with my family, I have decided to run for reelection in Wisconsin’s Seventh District. While Tammy Baldwin is vulnerable due to her record as a rubber stamp for President Biden, I can make the …
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Local and state headlines regarding campaigns and elections:
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Election news we’ve flagged from other outlets:
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Key stories on The Hill right now:
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A Pennsylvania state judge ruled Monday that an election worker cannot sue former President Trump over statements he made sowing doubt in the 2020 election results while in office, finding the statements are protected by presidential immunity. Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Michael Erdos said Trump’s immunity covered … Read more
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Former President Trump is stepping up his war with Senate Republicans by calling for primary challenges next year against GOP incumbents who do not support investigating President Biden’s family finances. Many Senate Republicans have made clear they don’t want Trump to win their party’s nomination for president, and they’re … Read more
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Opinions related to campaigns and elections submitted to The Hill:
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You’re all caught up. See you next time!
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