2024 U.S. elections primaries & campaign

Inside the collapse of the Trump-DeSantis ‘alliance of convenience’
Behind an apparent close alliance, the two Republicans have racked up years of mutual suspicions fueling a 2024 grudge match
(WaPo) Now, their emerging rivalry is the latest twist on a years-long public alliance that belied private misgivings and suspicions, according to interviews with more than a dozen people, many of whom were present for key decisions and conversations, and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions. Despite basking in each other’s reflected glow, Trump and DeSantis had a relationship based on mutual advantage rather than genuine closeness — “an alliance of convenience,” in the words of one person who knows both men.
Nikki Haley removed the Confederate flag. She sounds different as a candidate.
The former South Carolina governor is using claims that the United States is a racist nation as a foil in her campaign messages
Analysis by Dan Balz, Chief correspondent covering national politics, the presidency and Congress
(WaPo) …in her opening days as a candidate, she has chosen to deal in political hot buttons on racial issues rather than demonstrating the kind of approach she employed at a critical moment during her leadership.
A former governor and a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Haley is the first candidate to formally challenge former president Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. As other prospective candidates hang back — among them Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — Haley is all in. She is self-assured, reminding audiences that she has beaten the odds in the past and declaring that she intends to do so again.

14 February
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announces run for president

5 February
Why Aren’t More People Running for President?
The 2024 field has been frozen by an unusual pairing—a former president who still inspires fear and a sitting president still biding his time.
By Russell Berman
(The Atlantic) Does anyone want to be president?
Typically, by the time a president delivers the State of the Union address at the start of his third year in office, as Joe Biden will on Tuesday, at least half a dozen rivals are already gunning for his job. When Donald Trump began his annual speech to Congress in 2019, four of the Democrats staring back at him inside the House chamber had already declared their presidential candidacies.
Not so this year. The only Republican (or Democrat, for that matter) officially trying to oust Biden is the former president he defeated in 2020.

This should be fun!
Koch network to back alternative to Trump after sitting out recent primaries
The return of one of the biggest spenders in American politics to the presidential primary field poses a direct challenge to the former president’s comeback bid
(WaPo) The network of donors and activist groups led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch will oppose Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, mounting a direct challenge to the former president’s campaign to win back the White House.
“The best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter,” Emily Seidel, chief executive of the network’s flagship group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), wrote in a memo released publicly on Sunday. The three-page missive repeatedly suggests that AFP is taking on the responsibility of stopping Trump, with Seidel writing: “Lots of people are frustrated. But very few people are in a position to do something about it. AFP is. Now is the time to rise to the occasion.”

2022

8 December
Midterms should push both parties to rethink voting reform
By Jennifer Rubin
Before the 2022 midterms, Democrats had reason to be concerned about Republican legislative measures that sought to make voting more difficult. Accordingly, they proposed federal legislation that would guarantee early voting, allow no-excuse absentee voting and same-day registration, as well as make Election Day a national holiday. Democrats also tried to counter partisan attempts to overrule neutral state election officials
As things turned out in November, however, Republican efforts at election manipulation ended up helping Democrats. Now, both parties might want to adjust their priorities for voting reform.

7 December
Trump Is Unraveling Before Our Eyes, but Will It Matter?
By Thomas B. Edsall
(NYT) Does every time that Trump goes off the deep end make him a greater liability for the Republican Party, potentially leading to a second Biden term, the loss of the party’s precarious control of the House and weakening of Republican candidates up and down the ticket, from the U.S. Senate to local school boards?
Will Trump’s wrecking-ball bid for the presidency fracture his party? Will Trump’s extremism prompt the mainstream right — Mitch McConnell, Ron DeSantis, Glenn Youngkin, Nikki Haley and all the rest — to rise up in revolt? How are the worsening intraparty fissures likely to play out over the next two years?
Most of the strategists and scholars to whom I posed these questions outlined scenarios in which a Trump candidacy is mainly helpful to the Democratic Party and its candidates. They often cited the hurdles confronting those seeking to nominate a more mainstream candidate
What the Georgia Runoff Revealed
Democrats hold a key advantage in the five states that will decide the next presidential election.
By Ronald Brownstein
(The Atlantic) With Warnock’s victory over Republican Herschel Walker, Democrats have defeated every GOP Senate and gubernatorial candidate endorsed by Donald Trump this year in the five states that flipped from supporting him in 2016 to backing Joe Biden in 2020: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona.

2 December
Democrats vote to move forward with Biden plan to put South Carolina first on 2024 primary calendar
(CNN) The rule-making arm of the Democratic National Committee on Friday voted to approve a proposal to drastically reshape the 2024 presidential nominating calendar and make South Carolina the first state to hold a primary, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire on the same day a few days later, and then Georgia and Michigan before Super Tuesday.
President Joe Biden this week asked DNC leaders to adopt this early state lineup, which strips Iowa of its first-in-the-nation status. The proposal by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee needs to be approved at a full DNC meeting, which will take place early next year, and states will still need to set their own primary dates.
The DNC rules panel proposed that the 2024 presidential calendar schedule South Carolina’s primary on February 3, Nevada and New Hampshire’s contests on February 6, Georgia’s primary on February 13 and Michigan’s on February 27.

The top 10 Democratic presidential candidates for 2024, ranked
Below are our latest rankings. A reminder that they are in order of the most likely to be the nominee, which takes into account both their likelihood of running and their formidability if they do.
Others worth mentioning: Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.), North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
10. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker: The recently reelected governor was obviously building toward a potential 2024 run even before the gubernatorial campaign concluded. (Previous ranking: n/a)
9. Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania governor-elect. (Previous ranking: n/a)
8. Gretchen Whitmer: If you’re Democrats and Shapiro is looking good to you right now, the Michigan governor might look even better. (Previous ranking: 4)
7. Bernie Sanders: …if Biden doesn’t run? Sanders starts as the leader of the pack from the party’s left flank. (Previous ranking: 7)
6. Gavin Newsom: The California governor (Previous ranking: 5)
5. Amy Klobuchar: … We also tend to think the 2022 election benefited Klobuchar, given that her politics mirror Biden’s in certain ways, and voters seemed to reward Democrats for not having a lightning rod in the White House. (Previous ranking: 6)
4. Jared Polis: The Colorado governor’s stock rose perhaps more than any other Democrat’s in the 2022 election. …. It’s possible we could be talking about two candidates from whom one could be the first gay president. (Previous ranking: n/a)
3. Kamala D. Harris: Politico’s Jonathan Martin … summarizes, “…most Democratic lawmakers, whose dread about 2024 extends from the specter of nominating an octogenarian with dismal approval ratings to the equally delicate dilemma of whether to nominate his more unpopular vice president or pass over the first Black woman in the job.” (Previous ranking: 3)
2. Pete Buttigieg: …simply combines national stature with a studied talent for messaging that we think could do well in a second go-round of running for president. (Previous ranking: 2)
1. President Biden: Democrats have seemingly rallied around Biden after the party’s better-than-expected midterm showing. But that’s not necessarily the case with the base.