2024 - A Blank Canvas

[SaintStan86]

Oh, and before Don Jr.'s announcement, did I forgot to mention we had a gubernatorial race to talk about? Didn't think so...

November 18, 2023
LANDRY DEFEATS FAYARD TO BECOME LOUISIANA'S NEXT GOVERNOR
Republicans declared victory in Louisiana on Saturday night with Attorney General Jeff Landry defeating Democratic attorney Caroline Fayard by a 54 to 46 percent margin to become the state's next Governor, marking a key pickup for the GOP ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Before a crowded watch party in Baton Rouge, Landry declares, "Tonight, the good people of Louisiana have elected a Governor who will fight for them and their families, and I could not be more grateful by the grace of God to be that Governor!" Meanwhile, at her watch party in New Orleans, Fayard thanked her supporters, "While we did not win this election tonight, one thing is definitely clear: Louisiana is truly a two-party state, and one Republicans cannot take for granted!"

The Republican Governors Association spent a significant portion of its resources, already spent defending Tate Reeves in Mississippi and attempting to elect Kelly Craft in Kentucky, to fend off a late-breaking challenge from Fayard, who was endorsed by term-limited Gov. John Bel Edwards despite their obvious differences on key social issues such as abortion. Landry focused attention on tax relief for working families, diversifying Louisiana's economy, and "standing up to the woke mob destroying our shared Louisiana values", while Fayard emphasized healthcare reform, strengthening public schools and mitigating the effects of climate change on the hurricane- and flood-prone state. Though it was a given that Louisiana's gubernatorial reins were set to flip to the GOP, the closer-than-expected race leads some to indicate the state could be remotely competitive in 2024 depending on who the nominees are.

November 26, 2023
CBS ANNOUNCES FIELD FOR JOINT REPUBLICAN DEBATE WITH MTV
On Sunday's edition of Face the Nation, host Margaret Brennan revealed the field for Tuesday night's debate at the University of Michigan, which is to be hosted by MTV as part of their Choose or Lose presidential campaign coverage and simulcast on CBS. Slated to start at 7pm ET/6pm CT, the debate is hosted by the Young Republican National Federation and the College Republican National Committee, and will be held at Crisler Center, the much celebrated on-campus arena for the Michigan Wolverines' basketball teams.

Moderated by Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan and CBS News Streaming anchor Elaine Quijano (who hosts the aforementioned Red & Blue program on the streaming network), both from the Democratic debate of two weeks prior, as well as contributor and former RNC Chairman-turned-early Trump Administration alum Reince Priebus and political commentator Meghan McCain (the daughter of late former Sen. John McCain), the debate is expected to touch on issues of importance to young voters, including economic opportunity, education reform (including the student debt crisis and career pathways), the national debt and healthcare, as well as infrastructure, entitlements, and the role values play when it comes to younger Republicans.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE NOVEMBER 28TH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (MTV/CBS @ Ann Arbor, MI)
Candidate	Avg. (11/26)	Poll A (11/21)	Poll B (11/19)	Poll C (11/15)
PARTICIPATING
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)	17.0	17	17	19
Fmr. Amb. Nikki Haley (R-SC)	14.3	16	13	14
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)	13.3	15	13	12
Fmr. Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)	12.7	13	13	12
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)	5.7	6	6	5
Fmr. Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD)	5.0	5	6	4
Fmr. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo (R-KS)	5.0	5	4	6
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)	4.3	4	6	3
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)	3.7	3	3	5
Fmr. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)	3.3	5	2	3
Commentator Candace Owens (R-TN)	2.7	4	2	2
Businessman Mike Lindell (R-MN)	1.7	2	1	2

To participate in this debate, CBS News and MTV require participants to have either at least an average of 3 percent in three select polls and/or at least 2 percent in two of the three polls. 12 candidates thus far have qualified to participate in the debate, with 10 of the 12 candidates having qualified based on both criterion and 2 others doing so based solely on the latter. With all 12 of the major candidates having qualified, MTV has set the debate to start at 7pm ET/6pm CT, meaning that the debate will begin promptly after Tuesday's broadcast of the CBS Evening News. However, the debate qualification rules are far from the only relaxed rules for the MTV debate. The dress code has also been relaxed significantly for this youth-focused debate, albeit more of a "business casual" type code not only for the debate participants and moderators, but also for those attending as well. While political campaign attire is allowed, offensive or profane clothing (as well as clothing associated with supremacist and skinhead paraphernalia) is strictly prohibited. Various Young Republican and College Republican groups will be attending, along with scores of students from Hillsdale College (noted for its conservative student body and curriculum) and members of such associated groups as Young America's Foundation, Young Americans for Liberty, Turning Point USA and other like-minded groups such as the environmentally conscious RepublicEn and the pro-life advocacy group Students for Life of America.

For the debate, perhaps in regards to the debate being on MTV, not only are Lovesac bean bag chairs substituting podiums (with Camelbak canteens in lieu of glasses of water), but the clothing of the candidates and moderators appears to be more relaxed than expected for a presidential debate. Both Candace Owens and Nikki Haley, as well as moderators Brennan, Quijano and McCain, appear in dresses that look more appropriate for sorority formals and young professional galas than network news, while longtime Wisconsinite Reince Priebus appears to be wearing a chambray shirt with a Wisconsin Badgers tie (a subtle dig at the Wolverines). Many of the other candidates have also dressed down to various degrees, with Ron DeSantis choosing to forego a tie, Mike Pence donning a donegal wool sweater and Larry Hogan and Ben Sasse choosing to wear half-zip sweaters along with several of the candidates wearing khakis and jeans (as well as Ted Cruz donning cowboy boots). Mike Lindell even chooses to forego even wearing any outerwear or a suit, instead wearing just his trademark French blue button-down shirt and donning a pair of his company's MySlippers.

At the 7pm ET start time for the debate, Brennan proclaims, in as hip as possible a tone, "OK kids, it's time to start the debate with 12 Republican candidates all looking to snatch the White House out of the Democrats' hands and become the 47th President of the United States, the Leader of the Free World. Get ready to have the lecture of a lifetime, the most fun one you've ever had, because chances are the future of this country will be in the hands of one of these 12 on stage. It's just like the Hunger Games, but for the real world!"

November 28, 2023
"NOT YOUR FATHER'S DEBATE": REPUBLICANS COURT YOUTH VOTE IN UNCONVENTIONAL MTV DEBATE
On the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor Tuesday night, Republican presidential hopefuls gathered before a crowd of over 13,000 - mostly college youth as well as Republican activists from across Metro Detroit and southeast Michigan - at the Crisler Center in their latest presidential debate that was broadcast on MTV and CBS, drawing attention to issues of importance to young voters that have been a traditionally Democratic constituency. While the debate itself, with its bean bag chairs and casually dressed candidates, was unprecedented in style for an affair as serious as a presidential debate, the substance was as grown up as expected of such an event, and came with its own squabbles included.

Many of the candidates expressed support for reforming the American education system, particularly advocating for aligning education priorities with those of employers. Former Vice President Mike Pence called the skills gap "one of the worst crises facing American education, with the victims being college students who spent thousands of dollars while being steered into careers where job prospects were lacking". Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, himself the president of a small university in Nebraska prior to his election to the Senate, explained "When you see folks with college degrees who are either working two jobs or resorting to being baristas at your neighborhood Starbucks, don't necessarily blame the kid, blame the education bureaucracy that has proven to be unaccountable to taxpayers and to employers who struggle to find qualified workers to fill positions". And businessman Mike Lindell, appearing in his first televised debate since last October, stated "When you spend billions of dollars on useless college degrees that end up producing paper pushers, what do you expect?" Reforms suggested by the candidates included capping degree programs based on regional employer needs, requiring universities that take federal student aid to consult with local chambers of commerce and business groups in developing curriculum, and providing tax incentives to states who make financial literacy a prerequisite for high school graduation.

The national debt also became a point of contention when Sasse called out several of his fellow Republicans for failing to address the matter head on, "One reason why a lot of people are skeptical to back Republicans is because, ever since 9/11, our party has failed us on controlling the deficit and has been trigger-happy to pass on the buck to future generations, and now many in this arena are suffering the consequences of just letting George W. Bush and Donald Trump get away with bankrupting the country without offering any concrete solutions to tackle the deficit, and this is why we need a Balanced Budget Amendment", drawing strong applause from the mostly young audience. Other Republicans, while agreeing with Sasse on such a call to action, called his criticism short-sighted. Former Gov. Chris Christie, for instance, cited "If we were to penny pinch our way through the George W. Bush years, Osama bin Laden would have run us over," only to be greeted with boos and shouts of "Neocon!", while Nikki Haley also stated, "If Ben Sasse has his way, our allies will be left alone in the cold," instead offering to take away tax-free exemptions from billionaires like Jeff Bezos, "People on both sides agree that Jeff Bezos has boosted his fortune at the expense of regular Americans, all while trashing our values and our military".

Gov. Ron DeSantis also chimed in, this time more on Sasse's side, "Say what you will about Sen. Sasse, but if you're criticizing him while taking positions Democrats advocate for, you're really not helping anyone. I showed no fear in keeping my state open when others closed down, slashed outdated regulations and phased out antiquated processing systems for government services, and that is why Florida is the shining state on a hill!", and taking shots at Haley for pandering to "big-government Republicans who routinely betray our principles and our values like Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins". Haley responded with references to Burger King (which is based in Miami), "If you had it your way, and I don't mean your state's beloved Whoppers, the Democrats would be celebrating like they did when John McCain stabbed Trump in the back by voting to keep Obamacare in place".

This response did not sit well with the late Senator's daughter, Meghan McCain (who served as a moderator in the debate), "Ambassador Haley, I respect your service to our country as Ambassador to the UN, but do us a favor and please don't dump on my dad's grave". But Candace Owens, known for savaging Trump-skeptical Republicans like Sasse in her commentaries, half-heartedly defended the Nebraska Senator by paraphrasing an old quote from an election-themed episode of The Simpsons, "I don't agree with Ben Sasse's Trump-hating policy, but I do like his 'starve the beast' policy. The difference is I will say the quiet part out loud and strip the corporate welfare that works against us out of the budget", drawing a standing ovation from the crowd. (Shortly after Haley's controversial response, Burger King responded to Haley on Twitter, "C'mon @NikkiHaley, let @GovRonDeSantis have it his way!")

Haley also drew attention when asked about trans athletes in women's sports by moderator Elaine Quijano, "As President, I am going to make it clear that if you haven't fully transitioned and you haven't undergone the appropriate surgery, you should be staying in your lane, no excuses". Sen. Ted Cruz agreed with Haley, "There should be no excuse for a trans athlete to suddenly switch genders for a competitive advantage, and any school that allows this flagrant violation of Title IX should have their federal research dollars hollowed out to zero dollars and zero cents". While the comments drew applause, there were also heckles from the crowd; "Ted Cruz is a Nazi," shouted one person who was later escorted by police out of the Crisler Center. "I appreciate those words, maybe your professor can stroke your fragile ego," responded Cruz in a matter reminiscent of some of former President Donald Trump's controversial 2016 rallies. Gov. DeSantis called both Haley and Cruz (as well as Pence) "amateurs", citing "As Governor of Florida, I actually protected women's sports by banning trans athletes who haven't transitioned from competing in women's sports, under the threat of Florida potentially losing NCAA championships. And guess what happened? I never backed down, and the NCAA still awarded more championships to Florida anyway".

Both Sen. Marco Rubio and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also drew attention for their calls to enforce "reverse BDS sanctions" on American corporations doing business with the Palestinian government (which also drew heckles from some in the crowd, including members of Metro Detroit's large Arab-American population), while Sen. Tom Cotton vowed to go even further, "Corporations who pander to terrorist regimes should not be getting a single penny from the taxpayers, and this includes companies who knowingly do business with the PLO". When asked by moderator Margaret Brennan if he supports a military draft in the case of a potential war with China, Pompeo responded, "I will do all I can to orient our military resources in the best way possible, but we have more than enough currently serving and willing to serve our country, which means no need for a wasteful military draft". Cotton expressed skepticism of "mass armies" but stopped short of endorsing a military draft, while also proclaiming "As President, I will issue an executive order banning woke curriculum and diversity training from being used in military training regiments".

One unique issue brought up in this debate focused on the environment, traditionally a top-tier Democratic issue but also one gaining salience from younger Republicans. Earlier, Gov. Larry Hogan also emphasized the budget, with a vow to redirect surplus monies not returned to the taxpayers towards "rebuilding our infrastructure - meaning actual roads, bridges and drainage as part of a modern Eisenhower 2.0 plan - and reorienting our priorities at the NIH towards health initiatives that will benefit everyone like cancer research," said the cancer survivor whose diagnosis and journey battling an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma gained national attention during his time as Governor of Maryland. But when asked by moderator Reince Priebus about a "conservative case for protecting the environment", he also drew attention to his efforts to protect the Chesapeake Bay, "I fought to protect the Chesapeake as Governor of Maryland, and as your President I will champion the environmental conservation legacy that Teddy Roosevelt left behind from sea to shining sea!" DeSantis countered with his own response that drew attention, "As Governor of Florida, not only has my state become home to the best economy in America, but it's also the most beautiful as well". DeSantis elaborated by vowing to oppose a blanket ban on fracking (with exceptions for wildlife sanctuaries), create initiatives to protect oceans, and promote free-market solutions to climate and energy challenges (though stopping short of endorsing a carbon dividends plan viewed as more amenable than a carbon tax proposed by Hogan earlier in the debate).

Overall, the debate was true to form with its own share of interesting responses and squabbles. Some media critics argued that the unconventional nature of the debate, with its business casual participants, its bean bag chairs and its overall campy nature, was unbecoming of what one expected out of presidential debates, with one critic calling the debate "an abomination to the body politic", while others viewed the younger-skewing format as "refreshing" and "tailored to the concerns of America's rising majority". Some even expressed criticism over the debate's carefree style compared to CBS's earlier debate with BET (which did not feature the sort of dressed down appearance that the MTV GOP debate had), alleging a racial double standard, "The fact that Black audiences were presented with a buttoned-up Democratic debate while the GOP debate MTV aired looked more like a college football tailgate party shows that even in a more tolerant age, there still exists an aura of the 1950s everyone would rather forget".

[SaintStan86]

November 29, 2023
CNN SETS STAGE FOR 5TH DEMOCRATIC DEBATE IN PHILADELPHIA
Less than 24 hours after the GOP's most recent debate on Tuesday night, CNN revealed the field for the fifth Democratic debate to be held on Friday night at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia (which has been widely regarded as a proving ground for several future Broadway theatre productions over the years), and held in conjunction with Twitter and the Jewish Democratic Council of America. Slated to be held on the weekend before the start of Hanukkah, the debate will be moderated by longtime CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, fellow CNN anchor Erin Burnett and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania). The Chairman of the JDCA, former U.S. Rep. Ron Klein of Florida, announced that the debate will be "the most important debate in this cycle for Jewish Democrats looking to advance a progressive agenda that reflects the views of Jewish America's progressive majority". Issues relating to social concerns such as healthcare and climate change, as well as issues of concern to Jewish voters including Israel and anti-Semitism, are expected to be addressed in this debate.

The selection of the Friday night time slot is controversial in large part due to the debate coinciding with the traditional Jewish shabbat in many parts of the country. Despite's CNN assurances to push the debate to a later starting time of 9pm ET/8pm CT (as well as the selection of Blitzer, who was born in Germany to survivors of the Holocaust, as a moderator for the debate), some Jewish synagogues across the country who hold their weekly services on Friday nights expressed skepticism about whether or not the date is appropriate, especially given that sunset will have already occurred in many parts of the country and begun on the West Coast by the time the debate begins. However, many others who hold their shabbat services on Saturday morning viewed the debate as a "positive teaching moment" that congregations can use to jump start conversations on the upcoming election the morning after the debate. Indeed, many, mostly liberal and Reform, Jewish synagogues have decided to hold watch parties for the debate (though universally not in coincidence with traditional services to avoid potential backlash from more politically conservative adherents).

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE DECEMBER 1ST DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (CNN @ Philadelphia, PA)
Candidate	Avg. (11/29)	Poll A (11/27)	Poll B (11/27)	Poll C (11/19)	Poll D (11/17)
Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA)	32.8	33	33	34	31
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)	24.0	25	24	24	23
Former Sec. Pete Buttigieg (D-IN)	12.8	14	13	12	12
Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC)	6.8	5	6	8	8
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)	6.5	7	7	7	5
Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO)	5.3	5	6	5	5
Former Sec. Gina Raimondo (D-RI)	3.3	3	3	3	4

Notably, Vice President Kamala Harris's numbers have improved from the South Carolina debate, which was targeted towards African-Americans who remain the core of her support base, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren has experienced a slight dip while maintaining her lead among progressives. Former Sec. Buttigieg has experienced a drop in polls after his comments relating to his handling of a Black man's death by police in South Bend, Indiana were not well received, with Govs. Roy Cooper and Jared Polis and Sen. Amy Klobuchar receiving notable boosts from the last debate, mostly from moderates at the expense of Buttigieg. The former South Bend mayor has responded to criticism by boosting outreach efforts to Black voters, even though Buttigieg's numbers continue to pale in comparison to Harris's commanding lead (averaging over 45 percent) amongst Black Democrats in the single digits. The Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, has stated on his MSNBC show PoliticsNation that "this upcoming debate in Philadelphia - a city with a 43 percent Black population - is going to decide whether or not Buttigieg is even a viable contender for President".

The debate is expected to serve as a major test for all the candidates with regards to the important Jewish vote, but most especially so for Warren, who has taken more progressive stances in regards to Israel that clash with overwhelming support by Jews for the Jewish state. Warren's apparent support for the Palestinian-led BDS movement against Israel, a position for which she has vacillated over the years, as well as support for sanctions against Zionist interests and placing conditions on foreign aid to Israel, has been a source of contention for many Jewish voters. Warren has attempted to blunt such criticism, citing her Senate contemporary Bernie Sanders (who himself is Jewish and holds views on Israel similar to Warren's), as well as insisting that any attempt to cancel such movements would amount to a "constitutional crisis".

Forrest Theatre, Philadelphia - site of the December 1st, 2023 Democratic Debate
Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: Beyond My Ken

December 1, 2023
DEMOCRATS TAKE UP ISRAEL, ELECTION REFORM, RUSSIA IN PHILADELPHIA
On Friday night, Democrats debated before a packed audience at the Forrest Theatre in Center City Philadelphia, in a televised debate sponsored by the Jewish Democratic Council of America where issues of importance to the Jewish state and American Jews took center stage. Issues relating to criminal justice reform, a key issue both in Philadelphia and among the city's large African-American population, as well as the alleged involvement of the Russian government in American elections, also became key points of contention among the seven candidates.

When asked by moderator and Annenberg Public Policy Center Director Kathleen Hall Jamieson about her strategy to counter Russian interference in American elections and military operations, Vice President Kamala Harris stated, "There is no greater threat to the sanctity of American counterintelligence and election security than the involvement of foreign actors who seek to undermine our democracy". Harris also called out Republicans as "soft on Russia" and vowed that her experience as second-in-command to President Biden makes her the only candidate qualified to stand against Vladimir Putin. The other candidates took similar stances, though also arguing that Harris's actions have been "more symbolic than sanguine," as said by Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Former Sec. Gina Raimondo singled out Republicans as "puppets of Putin", and vowed to impose sanctions on Russian business elites attempting to circumvent American laws to interfere with sanctions against the Russian Federation, "Those who do the bidding of Tucker Carlson and his audience will have no business with the federal government under my watch as your President".

Turning to criminal justice reform, Klobuchar, herself the former District Attorney for Hennepin County, Minnesota (which is home to Minneapolis), voiced support for continuing reforms to reduce recidivism amongst low-level offenders while acknowledging that "some of my past cases as District Attorney in Hennepin County deserve to be reflected in the rear-view mirror as regrettable decisions, and admitting I have been wrong there is not a bad thing to point out". For instance, Klobuchar regretted not acting on the actions of disgraced former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the years leading up to Chauvin's fatal chokehold on George Floyd, "I always go to sleep every night knowing I passed up the opportunity to stand up to the police unions who defended Derek Chauvin and his actions, and for that my remorse is resolute in saying that as your President, I will make sure that costly oversights like these never happen again". While calling for policing reforms, she emphatically opposed a call to "defund the police", citing "Let us not use the death of George Floyd as an excuse to dismantle our law enforcement agencies because of the actions of a few rogue officers".

The candidates also spent considerable time debating issues relating to urban crime and the aforementioned issues surrounding low-level offenders, particularly in regards to Philadelphia's controversial District Attorney, Larry Krasner. When asked by moderator Erin Burnett about whether or not electing reform-minded progressive DAs like Krasner was worth the short-term challenges of increased crime, Sen. Elizabeth Warren responded, "There is no doubt that the justice system has certainly failed to keep up with the recent uptick in crime, but given that the bail systems and sentencing guidelines that existed in the past have been detrimental to the overall well-being of many otherwise nonviolent offenders, I don't see how returning to the old system will actually make the situation better". Warren attempted to soften the sudden criticism from some in the crowd by pointing out that under Krasner, "nonviolent offenders are less inclined to recommit crimes, and in turn further drain taxpayer dollars that otherwise would have been wasted on overcrowded prisons".

Another critical issue brought up was an issue important to many Jewish voters: Israel. All of the candidates expressed support for the Jewish state, but in response to a question by moderator Wolf Blitzer on whether or not her supporting statements for both the Israeli and Palestinian sides is contradictory, Warren herself came under intense scrutiny over her stances on the Palestinian-led BDS movement targeting companies doing business with the Jewish state. "I do not support the actions of Palestinian activists who seek to boycott Israeli businesses for continuing to do business with Israel, but to oppose them would be an affront to our Constitution and the free exchange of goods, all while creating an unnecessary humanitarian crisis in the region that ultimately motivates the Palestinians to commit suicide bombings against Israel in the first place." While there was applause from more progressive Jews in the audience, traditional Jewish Democrats were not as amused. Vice President Harris, for instance, called out Warren, "Singling out one of our most loyal allies and their right to exist out of concern over the actions of rogue extremists will solve nothing and only put their national security - and ours - at risk".

Former Sec. Pete Buttigieg chimed in, "I do not support the actions of the Zionists who currently control Israel and have been successful in undermining religious freedom in that country, but we must understand why Israel has a right to exist: without it, there is no sanctuary for a group of religious adherents who suffered greatly in the wake of the Holocaust". But Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is himself Jewish, had the most pointed response. "I am a proud Jew and have great admiration for the people of Israel who one day seek to have a special relationship with their Palestinian neighbors free of violence and division", said Polis. "But let it be know that Israel's right to exist should not come at the expense of human rights and peace in the world - something that is sorely lacking in the region because of radical Zionists who take that right to exist too far", pointing to recent moves by Zionists to expand into disputed Palestinian territory.

Election reform was another important issue that came up in the debate, with Gov. Roy Cooper pointing to his successes in defending voting rights for minorities and fair redistricting maps in North Carolina, only to see them diluted after Republicans defeated one Democratic incumbent and gained an open Democratic seat in the 2022 midterms. "As Governor of a state Donald Trump won both times, I fought for and succeeded in electing a Supreme Court that worked for every North Carolinian, defending voting rights and enacting fair maps that represented our state with pride, only to see that progress upended by a partisan legislature and a newly skewed Supreme Court that just unwinded our progress". Cooper responded by expressing support for election and voting reforms, albeit by replacing the failed For the People Act of 2021 with a piecemeal approach, citing "I believe that if every plank of the For the People Act were to be voted on individually, reforms like drive-thru voting and putting congressional redistricting in the hands of independent commissions would pass with flying colors". Harris retorted, "If we were to simply take the approach that Cooper supports, it would give Republicans more time to further dismantle voting rights one plank at a time", defending her failed approach by vowing to go as far as issuing an executive order on election reforms.

Many of the candidates also reiterated their stances on healthcare, ranging from Gov. Polis proposing a blockchain-based approach to "providing universal healthcare for every American regardless of swings in our currency" to Sen. Warren's unabashed stance on supporting a "single-payer healthcare system", with an intent to name the plan in honor of late Michigan U.S. Rep. John Dingell, who was known famously for introducing such a bill at the start of every Congress during his over half-century tenure. Candidates also expressed support for gun control to various degrees, with Gov. Cooper's approach being the most nuanced, "My goal is not to take your guns away, but rather to take the guns away from people who don't need them nor should have them in the first place". While expressing support for the Second Amendment, Cooper vowed to keep guns out of schools and universities that take federal grants for student financial aid and research, a stance also shared by Polis and Buttigieg, while Raimondo said she would explore a federal assault weapons ban via executive order. Overall, the debate was mostly well-received from viewers at home and the audience in Philadelphia, with Warren managing to hold her own among progressives despite getting poor marks from more traditional liberals as well as moderates - both of whom respectively continued to lean towards pluralities for Harris and Buttigieg.

[SaintStan86]

Before I continue with this TL, I shall make note of a few major developments with regards to the Congress and beyond:

• In Oklahoma, longtime Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe announced that he will retire at the end of this Congress. What this means is that there is going to be a special Senate election to be held concurrent with the midterms on November the 8th (including the other Senate seat that James Lankford holds). Already, the two members of Congress that dominate eastern Oklahoma and the Tulsa area in general, Reps. Kevin Hern and Markwayne Mullin, have announced plans to run, with Rep. Stephanie Bice from Oklahoma City, Hern's predecessor and former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, former state house Speaker and 2014 candidate T.W. Shannon and Trump's first EPA administrator Scott Pruitt among the potential candidates on the Republican side, along with the possibility that two of Lankford's primary opponents, Jackson Lahmeyer and Nathan Dahm, as well as Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell, may also run for this seat as well. Inhofe, however, is taking the Richard Shelby approach to retirement by endorsing his former Chief of Staff Luke Holland, but whether or not he prevails against a brand name Republican remains a mystery; as witnessed with the race to succeed Sen. Shelby in Alabama, there is no guarantee he will be the GOP nominee. One thing that is guaranteed, given the current state of the congressional races overall and Oklahoma being one of Trump's best states in 2020 (and for many past Republican presidential nominees over the years as well), is that Inhofe's successor will be a Republican.
• North Carolina has re-done its congressional maps, and the approved map appears to be one that Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper likes, as it creates 7 districts that clearly favored the GOP, 6 that favored Democrats, and one swing seat centered in the suburbs south of Raleigh. And of the six Democrat-favored seats, two of them (Rep. Kathy Manning's 6th District and the new 14th that connects historically Republican south Charlotte and most of Gaston County - and may have in fact gone for Mitt Romney in 2012) might even have a chance of going Republican IRL if the congressional poll trend continues to favor the GOP at current levels. This map will only be around for the 2022 cycle though, and it's very likely a completely different map will come up for 2024 given that Republicans will continue to control the legislature there, as well as the fact that two of the four seats held by Democrats on the state Supreme Court (which ruled in the Democrats' favor) are up for reelection with one retiring. In this TL (and widely expected to be true IRL), the GOP will have undertaken aggressive efforts to win the two seats not only because of the redistricting battle, but also because of many other issues in general including abortion and election laws. This U.S. News & World Report article is just an example of what can be expected IRL with the NC Supreme Court. As for the seats themselves both of Charlotte's existing Republicans are moving eastward: Dan Bishop is now moving out of Charlotte to run for reelection in the new 8th (which future U.S. Sen. Ted Budd is vacating), while Richard Hudson will aim to continue representing Fort Bragg in the new 9th that now straddles exurban areas between Fayetteville, Raleigh and Greensboro. Strangely enough, retiring Democrat David Price's 4th District now includes competitive Alamance County (which is in the Piedmont Triad TV market and whose Republican votes will likely be lost in a liberal district dominated by Durham and Chapel Hill). Retiring Democrat G.K. Butterfield's 1st District also remains competitive as does Madison Cawthorn's western-based 11th; both remain fairly competitive even though there's no guarantee the former's district will stay Democratic nor the latter remain Republican, and Cawthorn is still tied up in litigation over whether or not he should be allowed to run over (IMHO questionable) claims that his role in the events of January 6th disqualify him from running.
• Pennsylvania also has a new congressional map installed, and this new map eliminates one of the GOP's seats in the "T". The eliminated district's incumbent, Fred Keller, is now running in the 9th District of Rep. Dan Meuser, who strangely is still running in the 9th because many expect(ed) him to run against Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright in the 8th District, and I'm sure there are still going to be folks high up in the Pennsylvania GOP convincing him to run against Cartwright since Meuser lives around the corner from the 8th (which is where Meuser defeats Cartwright in this TL). Not much else has changed other than the extension of 4th and 6th districts further out into Berks County (which will make both suburban Philadelphia districts vulnerable if current congressional trends prevail), but while I still have Rep. Chrissy Houlahan losing in this TL, IRL former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain (who is from the 6th) is still running for Governor even though it appears he likely won't be the GOP nominee; like Meuser further north in Wilkes-Barre he too is also stubborn about his intentions when there is a more viable and rewarding opportunity available. IMHO the Pennsylvania GOP, as I have said already, need to put some push to shove to make the dominoes fall in the right place since it appears that Democrats are having somewhat of an advantage in redistricting due to recent litigation as well as some extreme gerrymanders of their own in Illinois and New York. While the Harrisburg-based 10th of Rep. Scott Perry remaining fairly competitive but still favorably Republican does not surprise me, what does surprise me is that the new 12th in what used to be the old Pittsburgh-based 18th is not entirely self-contained within Allegheny County. There is no chance a Republican is going to sweep all of the Pittsburgh area, so I do feel for a lot of the suburban Westmoreland County voters in areas like Murrysville and Irwin (as well as parts of Allegheny County like Bethel Park) that are going to be lost in a safe blue seat that otherwise would have been more beneficial to Republicans in Rep. Conor Lamb's open 17th (which has clearly Democratic Penn Hills and Mount Lebanon) as well as Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler's 14th. Especially considering the new 12th will likely be represented (and in this TL is already represented) by Summer Lee who is likely to become an active member of "The Squad" alongside the likes of AOC and Cori Bush.

It should go without saying that I voted in the Texas primaries just yesterday on the last day of Early Voting, and there are going to be some changes to this TL depending on how the results turn out Tuesday night. It's very likely that a runoff between Christian Collins and Morgan Luttrell is expected in the redesigned 8th (with the GOP establishment pouring in money hand over fist for Luttrell even though Collins would clearly be the better choice long-term for conservatives), but between Dan Crenshaw's infamous spat with a young girl who happens to be one of those Allie Beth Stuckey types, which has led to Jameson Ellis inching up some support in the 2nd (even though I will be shocked if Crenshaw does in fact prevail with less than 60 percent of the GOP vote, let alone forced into a runoff) and Henry Cuellar being raided by the FBI, which likely will doom him in the 28th against his progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros, and potentially set that Tejano-heavy seat up for a potential GOP pickup, there are really no guarantees as to what will transpire. And that's not even counting whether or not Gov. Greg Abbott avoids a runoff (former State Sen. Don Huffines has for the most part been going for broke primaring Abbott) or especially embattled Attorney General Ken Paxton.

I also express my sympathies to the people of Ukraine and those in Russia who are fighting against the tide of Vladimir Putin after what Putin just did all this week. I have already mentioned Putin and Ukraine (including the nightclub disaster on the coast in Odessa) in this TL, and it's fair to say that Republicans are going to be heavily scrutinized over how to deal with anything Vladimir Putin not only given the alleged arguments from Democrats that Trump is "Putin's *****" (as Adam Sandler played out beautifully in his recent Saturday Night Live appearance), with Nikki Haley already angling to attack Gov. Ron DeSantis as "soft" on Putin along with two of her contemporaries on the "hawkish" side of the GOP primary ledger, Sens. Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio (the latter of course already very familiar to DeSantis for one obvious reason). Former Sec. of State Mike Pompeo is also to going be at the center of many questions regarding Putin, given that he is likely to play from the Trump playbook on that matter. I'm not even going to entertain y'all at this point with the Democrats' strategy for Putin, since it will likely be to tie the GOP as completely full of "Putin puppets" regardless of which Republican is the subject, especially with Liz Cheney no longer in Congress + Marjorie Taylor Greene serving on committees in this TL (both possibilities are very likely to be true IRL as well).

Lastly, as mentioned earlier I crossed out the TL references to the SCOTUS vacancy since Breyer will have already retired and I projected in this TL that Ketanji Brown Jackson is Biden's nominee and confirmed. Dates notwithstanding, I have nailed it!...Ketanji Brown Jackson IS Biden's nominee and will likely be confirmed IRL with Kamala Harris's tiebreaker or a few Republican dissenters sending her to the high court. I do predict that two of the three Senators who earlier voted to confirm KBJ to the DC Circuit - Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski - will do so, but if the expected 11-11 tie is turned into a 12-10 clearing to the full Senate by Sen. Lindsey Graham (who has said "the radical Left has won" but did not indicate how he will vote), expect him to face plenty of blowback from conservatives (and since he has already endorsed Nikki Haley in this TL, expect her to be on the hot seat in the debates). So far, Sens. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Ben Sasse have promised thorough vetting from a Constitutional perspective, with Rubio saying he will not confirm a SCOTUS nominee who contradicts his POV of the Constitution. I have yet to see a statement from Sen. Tom Cotton though I do expect he will likely break along the same lines as the other three Senators running in this TL.

[SaintStan86]

Speaking of Tom Cotton, here is some campaign news in the days before the next GOP debate that will have the MAGA crowd scratching their heads...

December 2, 2023
SEN. COTTON PICKS UP KEY ENDORSEMENTS IN PRESIDENTIAL BID
Sen. Tom Cotton received a pair of major endorsements in his dark horse presidential bid on Saturday morning, earning the support of Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. In a statement, Huckabee Sanders called Cotton "a born fighter who has done the people of Arkansas proud throughout his entire life". Huckabee Sanders, who was the most prominent of former President Donald Trump's four press secretaries throughout his presidency. Sen. Hawley, a Trump loyalist and prominent face of the GOP's populist wing that rose in the Trump years, cited Cotton's "unapologetic support for the unborn", "firm commitment to reining in Washington's unchecked bureaucracy and corporate America's woke regimes", and "overwhelming support for our military and police officers and against the corrupt regimes of radical Islamic extremists, as well as dictators in Russia and China who undermine our sovereignty".

Some observers find the endorsements of Cotton, who regularly ranks in the lower tier of presidential candidates, to be precarious, with the endorsements of Cotton by Hawley and Huckabee Sanders, as well as earlier endorsements by Cotton's in-state colleague, Sen. John Boozman, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, viewed as nothing more than "favorite son endorsements". Indeed, one notable exception to Arkansas's entire congressional delegation and its leading statewide GOP figures endorsing Cotton is Huckabee Sanders' father, former Arkansas Gov. and two-time presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses. The elder Huckabee, while praising Cotton as "a powerful conservative voice for the great state of Arkansas", indicated he has not endorsed anyone yet and will make a decision before the Iowa caucuses, "As someone who actually won the Iowa caucuses, it is my obligation to hold off on that decision until it gets close to where it's time to decide". Sen. Ted Cruz, who fended off Donald Trump to win the 2016 Iowa caucuses, remarked "Josh Hawley may be a rather influential voice for conservatives, but he's not the only one that matters. At the end of the day, the people of Iowa decide who's the best choice for Republicans, not one Senator from one of 50 states".

December 2, 2023
IVANKA TRUMP ENDORSES NIKKI HALEY FOR PRESIDENT
In a major development that broke before sunset on the day of the last weekly Jewish shabbat before Hanukkah, Ivanka Trump became the first member of Trump's immediate family to make a presidential endorsement, and one likely to make waves across Trumpworld. In a video announcement posted to her Facebook page from an unknown beachfront location later revealed to be near Miami, the eldest daughter of former President Donald Trump endorsed former Amb. Nikki Haley for President, "It is important that we continue the great legacy that my father has left on America - restoring our economy to greatness, getting effective vaccines and treatments from COVID and other plagues in record time, and restoring leadership in the world where it was needed the most - with a dynamic candidate who will build on the promises that he delivered both here at home and abroad. That candidate is my dear friend, Nikki Haley".

Ivanka's endorsement of the former U.S. Ambassador, who has gained far more support from Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner than from other members of the Trump family, was already seen as unsurprising in many political circles and among Trump loyalists themselves, given Ivanka's conversion to Judaism in the run up to her marriage to Kushner as well as both hers and Haley's outspoken support for Israel. But the move has also left a bitter taste among more hardcore Trump supporters as well as conservative hardliners, including those less predisposed to the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party which has often used Israel as a rallying cry to maintain influence with Republican elites, even as their influence faded during the rise of Trump. Still, former Press Secretary and current Newsmax host Sean Spicer opined, "Ivanka is just one endorsement out of many from Donald Trump's orbit, and at the end of the day it will be the endorsement of the Donald himself that matters more than anyone else's".

December 3, 2023
UNIVISION, ABC SET FIELD FOR SEVENTH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
On Sunday morning's edition of This Week, host George Stephanopoulos revealed the field for Wednesday's upcoming debate at the Knight Concert Hall, located inside the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami. The debate, which will not feature former Clinton administration advisor Stephanopoulos as a moderator, will be moderated by the respective lead anchors of Univision's Noticiero Univision and ABC's World News Tonight, Jorge Ramos and David Muir, along with Calvin Hughes (the lead anchor at ABC affiliate WPLG) and former U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who has not made an endorsement in the race. The presence of Ros-Lehtinen, a former House Foreign Relations Committee Chairwoman and the first Cuban American elected to Congress in a 1989 special election, is likely to draw attention to the role of Hispanics - and particularly Miami's Cuban-heavy Hispanic vote - in the presidential election as well as the future of the Republican Party, as well as emerging issues facing U.S. relations with other sovereign nations and (given Ros-Lehtinen's reputation as a moderate) what role more moderate Republicans may play in the future of the GOP. The spotlight will also be on the two Floridians already running in the Republican primary, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio, the latter of whom has obtained more institutional support within South Florida than the other.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE DECEMBER 6TH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (Univision/ABC @ Miami, FL)
Candidate	Weighted Avg. (12/3)	Poll A (12/2)	Poll B (12/2)	Poll C (11/30)	IA Poll A (12/1)	IA Poll B (11/30)	NH Poll A (12/1)	NH Poll B (11/29)
PARTICIPATING
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)	19.9	21	22	21	11	10	17	18
Fmr. Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)	15.3	15	16	14	17	22	15	12
Fmr. Amb. Nikki Haley (R-SC)	13.0	13	13	12	12	11	17	17
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)	11.8	11	13	11	15	13	12	10
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)	7.2	7	6	7	13	11	6	8
Fmr. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo (R-KS)	4.6	4	5	4	7	9	3	3
Fmr. Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD)	4.3	4	4	5	3	3	5	6
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)	3.5	4	3	3	3	5	4	5
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)	3.0	3	2	4	4	3	3	2
Fmr. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)	3.0	2	3	3	3	2	7	5
Commentator Candace Owens (R-TN)	2.9	3	4	3	2	1	1	1
Businessman Mike Lindell (R-MN)	1.6	2	1	1	4	4	1	1

In addition to the traditional set of national polls between the last debate and the setting of the debate field of candidates, the weighted average (80% based on the national polls) also now includes top-line numbers from two select polls in Iowa and New Hampshire (which each contribute to 10 percent of the weighted average). As a result, the order appears a little different depending on how well certain candidates perform in the early states. For example, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis appear to perform more strongly in New Hampshire than in Iowa, while Ben Sasse and Mike Pence are overperforming in Iowa. The RNC has set the debate participation criteria as meeting at least 3 percent in national polling, 4 percent in Iowa, or 4 percent in New Hampshire, along with certain unique donor requirements that all of the 12 above candidates meet. Based on this criteria, 10 of the 12 candidates except for Chris Christie and Mike Lindell qualify. However, Christie qualifies anyway due to his strong performance in New Hampshire and Lindell due to exactly meeting 4 percent on average in Iowa; as a result, all of the 12 major candidates once again qualify, pushing ABC to start the debate at 8pm ET without much controversy as ABC planned to air an encore block of its sitcoms in the hour before the original 9pm start time.

[SaintStan86]

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: Knight Foundation

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: Josh Hallett

Knight Concert Hall at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, site of the December 6, 2023 Republican presidential debate

December 6, 2023
REPUBLICANS TAKE MIAMI IN HEATED PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
On Wednesday night, Republicans squared off in their latest presidential debate at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami with the Iowa caucus now less than two months away. The debate, televised on Univision and ABC as a joint production between the two networks, was billed as "the most important Republican presidential debate for Latin America" with a direct focus on issues of concern to Hispanics, a fast-growing constituency that has long favored Democrats, but has shown momentum towards the GOP after former President Donald Trump made surprising gains among Hispanic constituencies in his 2020 defeat.

The debate served as an appropriate backdrop for the two Floridians in the race, one of them much more prominent than the other, to discuss the issues as they pertained to their home state, and in particular South Florida. Sen. Marco Rubio acknowledged his hometown crowd in his opening, "It feels great to be back home with the people I know and love...who have stood with me from the very beginning!" Rubio would also use the debate as a backdrop, of course, to highlight how to handle the issue of Cuba, "As a child of Cuban refugees, my story serves as an inspiration to millions of Americans who came here - from the potato famine in Ireland to the rise of Hitler in Eastern Europe, and from the horrors of Vietnam in the 1970s to the tragedy of Ukraine today. It also explains why democracy works, and why we must redefeat Communism once again." Alluding to the culture wars, Rubio also called it "a sad day when refugees coming here are more reflective of America than our own natural-born citizens being taught a different story by ivory tower professors protected by bureaucrats in the form of 'tenure'." Foreign policy was expected to serve as a major topic of the debate, with former U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen serving as a moderator and offering various questions on foreign policy.

Sen. Ted Cruz, the other Cuban-American candidate in the GOP presidential field, also alluded to his Cuban bonafides by bringing back an old line from his 2016 presidential run, "My father came here with nothing more than $100 sewn into his underwear. That $100 went a long way into forging his own path to prosperity, raising myself and others to become leaders in the world, and that lesson forged in the waters leaving Cuba - which led him to the University of Texas at Austin and a rewarding career as a preacher of the Gospel." Cruz also declared himself "the only consistent conservative on this stage who is ready to go to work from Day One for America" and also took a direct shot at those who believed former President Trump's accusation about his father being involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, "As someone who always questions whether or not Jack Kennedy would belong in today's Democratic Party, if you believe that my father played a role in his assassination, I encourage you strongly to leave this building and never come back. You are not Republicans, you are not even real Americans. You are cowards. Just like the mainstream media that spreads these lies to sow division and turn Republicans on each other as Democrats are coming together to bring marxism to America." Both Cruz and Rubio defended maintaining an embargo on Cuba, with the latter pointing out that "while their iron grip is falling apart, as long as the Castros are running the show, we shouldn't be ready just yet to roll out the welcome mat without conditions".

Gov. Ron DeSantis also used the debate setting in Miami to highlight his successes as Governor, "Since taking over as Governor of this great state, Florida has become the vanguard of freedom for America and the world", and also highlighted Miami's central role as "the capital of Latin America". When asked by moderator David Muir about his potential successor, Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez, DeSantis replied, "Lt. Gov. Nuñez is a Miami original. As Governor, she will be a fantastic advocate for the values that we hold dear here in Florida, and you could not ask for a more phenomenal leader who's ready to serve." Going further, "You see her, her husband Adrian and their three children as the embodiment of the American Dream. Hell, I cannot think of how many times their daughter took care of our own kids, treating them as if they were like those baby dolls every parent's daughter dreams of. You know, the ones they feed and change diapers with?", to a lighthearted mixture of applause and laughs.

On Ukraine, DeSantis was asked by moderator Jorge Ramos about his reluctance to acknowledge the struggles of the Ukrainians during their invasion by Russia, "When Ukraine was under attack by Vladimir Putin, you were spending more time bashing our allies over COVID-19 than calling out a brutal dictator whose values are antithetical to the Constitution. Doesn't this make you contradictory to traditional Republican consensus on democracy and freedom?" DeSantis responded: "Of course I am not being contradictory. As Governor of Florida, I have been more focused on protecting the freedoms of Floridians to seek out COVID treatments, run their businesses without interruption, and send their kids to school instead of being forced to use Zoom as a babysitter. It's not that I don't care about what's going on - Putin of course is a bully whose values are entirely undemocratic, and more specifically he's President Xi's BFF. It's just there's so much I can do as Governor of Florida where the affairs of other countries are practically of lesser concern when that was supposed to be President Biden's job - for which his handling of Ukraine and Putin is downright terrible. He essentially outsourced that duty to Hunter Biden."

Former Amb. Nikki Haley responded to DeSantis, "When dealing with foreign adversaries like Russia who seek to undermine the values of the West, what matters is having strong and courageous leadership like what the Ukrainian people showed in their darkest hours. The last thing we need is a President who's asleep at the wheel when democracy is under attack from foreign enemies like Putin and Xi." Sen. Tom Cotton also responded, "America should be in a position to lead when dealing with enemies foreign and domestic. When we are seeing a situation like what happened nearly two years ago in Ukraine, there is no room for playing around. We should not hesitate to intervene when necessary." When Cotton was also asked about his recent endorsement by Sen. Josh Hawley (who opposed allowing Ukraine to join NATO), "Sen. Hawley is a tremendous advocate for freedom in the world, and his calls to block Russia from our energy resources, if Biden took his advice at face value, would have ended the conflict earlier. But he does have a point about NATO - it would just be too dangerous to allow Ukraine to join when NATO itself can't get things straight about Afghanistan and cybersecurity."

Meanwhile, as DeSantis faced criticism from Haley over Ukraine, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan took aim at DeSantis's handling of COVID, "Gov. DeSantis complained about not being able to offer monoclonal antibodies during the Omicron wave. Never mind that there was substantial scientific evidence that those antibodies were useless against Omicron, but Gov. DeSantis chose instead to vilify Dr. Anthony Fauci to gain favor with Fox News hosts whose exposure to science is limited to high school science classes they were required to take." DeSantis blasted Hogan for "taking up MSNBC talking points" and pointed to the comparatively weak economy of Maryland in the post-COVID aftermath, with Hogan retorting "Maybe you should ask yourself why some people call you Gov. 'DeathSantis'. More like the 'Santa of Death'." Hogan's fellow moderate, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, responded to his former gubernatorial colleague, "Gov. Hogan, I do agree with a good deal of what you're saying, but to call Gov. DeSantis out by using nicknames the left uses all the time is a huge stretch." Christie also pointed to his former ABC News colleague Muir, "I know David Muir, I saw him all the time, he knows very well who the players are in the game of silly and pejorative nicknames, and that's not something you say if you're working for Fox News."

While most of the foreign policy discussion centered on Cuba and Ukraine, Candace Owens and Mike Pompeo took different directions by pointing to other countries of interest. Owens, who is of Caribbean descent through her grandmother, gave overtures to Miami's Haitian and Caribbean communities, "While we are here discussing about our future role with Cuba, let us not forget about the struggles of the Haitians escaping autocratic rule, including those who believe in strong family values and economic freedom - something that they don't have over there". Pompeo, meanwhile expressed his support for a free Venezuela, declared that "as President, Nicolás Maduro will not be recognized as President of Venezuela", and expressed his support for the "millions of Venezuelans seeking to become citizens of a country that welcomes them instead of starving them to death". Pompeo also faulted Biden for "choosing to just sit there and leave our border wide open without a credible plan to rein in immigration and deal with migrants that Latin American leaders advised Biden not to take in the way a child would approach a gumball machine", and alluded that if Maduro "attempts to further destabilize his people, I will even explore the possibility of an order to assassinate Maduro if that's what it takes to unchain the Venezuelans from their socialist 'leaders'".

Notably, Gov. DeSantis and Sen. Ben Sasse both chose to debate with open collars, with Sasse even drawing a joke from Vice President Mike Pence about his impromptu work stints at Chick-fil-A along the campaign trail. During a response to a question from moderator Calvin Hughes (the evening anchor at ABC's Miami affiliate WPLG) in which he asked Sasse about "whether or not the current leadership is 'infantilizing' America amounting to micromanaging", Sasse responded, "Both parties are doing a terrible job when it comes to empowering parents to make responsible decisions that everyone can live by. You have Democrats who encourage government welfare and helicopter parenting in the name of Barack Obama and Joe Biden and Republicans who go along with it thinking it will make them immune to primary fears from groups like so-called Religious Right activists who instruct parents to smother their kids instead of actually reading the Bible themselves and leave the judging to Jesus, and who were taught to support and then hate Chick-fil-A all because they abandoned the Salvation Army." Pence responded to Sasse, "Yeah, that's really going to go over well with Dan Cathy. I know the Cathys very well. I know they believe strongly in the values of their company, which has employed millions of great Americans over the years. I know this because Mother knows how to feed her cubs." Sasse retorted, "Do you seriously still hold your mother's hand every time you order at Chick-fil-A?", to an outburst of laughs. Pence returns the favor, "Not necessarily. I just know like Jesus they're not perfect, but at least they're not McDonald's."

During the debate, Pence also defended his role in certifying the 2020 election result for President Biden. "Believe me, I wish I could have done more, but the reality is if Republicans actually worked harder, talked to their neighbors like normal people about the great things President Trump did instead of throwing a bunch of ridiculous car parades that mean nothing, we would be standing here debating about who should be 46 instead of 47." Mike Lindell responded to Pence, "Yeah, so let's tell those who actually showed up and voted instead of filling out a form in the mail they aren't true Americans. Let's also tell those who wanted to show their support for Trump to park their car in the garage and shut up. Sounds very rich of you when working Americans continue to feel like they don't have a voice." Sen. Sasse responded, "Yeah, let's go ahead and throw every man, woman and child in jail for voter fraud. That's really going to put people back to work, isn't it. Never mind that Joe Biden is in bed with Xi and Trump tried to buddy up with him when he should have been defending Hong Kong more forcefully. We're supposed to be the party of freedom, right?"

The candidates also spoke on the environment, with DeSantis continuing to highlight the same environmental stances he brought up in last November's debate at the University of Michigan, "I am not against oil drilling, but I don't think the millions of tourists who come to Florida want to see a bunch of oil rigs out in the distance from our beaches", while Cruz defended his stance in favor of "drilling wherever there is sweet crude" and pointed out "Those rigs you're talking about won't be visible for miles for most beachgoers". On healthcare, Sasse proposed overhauling all federal insurance systems, "Repealing Obamacare, as we have seen, isn't good enough, and we must start over from the beginning to build a healthcare system that works for everyone, and gives you nothing more than the same healthcare that we all get as Senators and congressmen". And when asked by Ros-Lehtinen (who has a transgendered son) about whether or not LGBT Americans are welcome in the Republican Party, Cruz pointed out, "If they happen to be gay or lesbian or what have you, and happen to share our values as a party, then they should be welcomed with open arms", pointing to Caitlyn Jenner who Cruz referred to as "the most patriotic Olympian America has ever seen".

Following the debate, Pompeo drew significant criticism for openly suggesting that Venezuelan President Maduro should be assassinated, a move Pompeo defends by pointing out 1988 presidential candidate Pat Robertson's call to assassinate Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez during the George W. Bush presidency, including from human rights groups who called Pompeo's comments "unproductive" and "divisive". Pence also drew criticism from some Trump hardliners for his continued defense of his handling of the 2020 election results that resulted in the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol, while Haley continued to receive praise from foreign policy hawks for her "sustained defense of Western democracy and American exceptionalism", including from noted Trump critic Bill Kristol (who now identifies as a Democrat due to his neoconservative foreign policy views having become persona non grata in the Trump era).

Attention was also drawn to the exchange between Pence and Sasse over Chick-fil-A, including a viral Des Moines Register political cartoon that featured what appeared to be an adult Ben Sasse in full Chick-fil-A uniform serving what appeared to be a Chick-fil-A kids' meal to a toddler Mike Pence (donning a kids' propeller cap) holding his mother's hand, intended to mock Pence as "supposedly infantile" in comparison to Sasse; this cartoon would make its way to the late-night TV circuit from Stephen Colbert to Greg Gutfeld. Pence responded to the cartoon by highlighting a two-page comparison showcasing all of his accomplishments as Vice President going as far as back as his days as Governor of Indiana, as a Congressman, and even during his days as a talk radio host in Indiana (where he famously called himself "Rush Limbaugh on decaf"), with the other page showing a blank page under Sasse's name, intending to portray Sasse "as a do-nothing Senator"; notably, Sasse's vote to convict former President Donald Trump was omitted from the page.

[SaintStan86]

Before I continue, I will say to those who question the length of my posts (if there are any) that not only is it very easy for me to get lost in the moment of crafting a What-If TL, but there is also fascination as well with regards to what one can dream of when it comes to the future. True, some of what I have stated may have been influenced Law & Order-style (peeled right off the headlines), but sometimes you can't help it when you feel passionate about the moment you're about to write about. After all, if you do in fact happen to be right down the line, even if the dates aren't correct (as evidenced by Biden's nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson which I got correct), you might as well become a legend in Atlasia. To those who appreciate what I have given y'all thus far I thank y'all very much.

This TL is definitely moving forward despite Trump's big CPAC showing, DeSantis's big non-Trump CPAC showing, and the peculiarities surrounding a racist degenerate's so-called "America First PAC" that could very well doom Marjorie Taylor Greene and the NeverTrump-heavy "Principles First Summit" that may be sort of a swan song for Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. There have been so many TLs that flamed out quick when the commitments of real life have come a-knockin', but I am certainly not a quitter and as #HoustonStrong as they come.

Now, on to some very big updates from the carcass of the 2022 Texas primary...

• Greg Abbott won the GOP nomination well ahead of the runoff cutoff, and all points indicate to a 10-15 point win over Beto O'Rourke in November. In this TL, and most likely IRL there will be no U.S. Senate candidacy out of him in 2024, and much of the focus will instead turn to Julián Castro becoming the latest Texas Democrat to be "the one", but with another Democrat (Scott Kelly) lurking in the background depending on whether or not his brother Mark wins a full term in Arizona this year.
• Ken Paxton is going to remain Attorney General. Even if Eva Guzman endorses George P. Bush, there is no way that GPB makes it to victory in the runoff considering that there were a lot of conservatives whose main fault with Paxton was his ethical lapses, and it's safe to say a good chunk of Guzman's supporters (and especially those who voted for Louie Gohmert who dominated East Texas) will be going for Paxton in the runoff. I voted for Guzman in the election and will have to once again convince folks to hold their nose for Paxton again, as I am going for Paxton in the runoff in protest of the dirty campaign George P. Bush ran against Guzman, even using Trump imagery to bully her on the wall (never mind that Paxton, who himself attempted to take down Guzman using false claims that she pushed woke practices in our schools and law enforcement, was endorsed by Trump anyway).
• While I had no doubt that Van Taylor was going to have a competitive primary in the 3rd District after Trump loyalists found fault with his vote for a bipartisan January 6th commission (never mind that he later rejected a Pelosi-crafted January 6th committee after the commission idea faltered when Pelosi chose to throw a fit and not accept Kevin McCarthy's picks for the commission), the late-breaking ISIS Bride scandal in which he was alleged to have had an affair with a woman who escaped the Taliban dealt enough of a fatal blow (on top of not even clearing 50 percent) to his reelection chances. Former Collin County Judge Keith Self (whose former position amounts to the equivalent of a County Executive in Texas) is going to be the district's new Congressman, and is expected to be a reliable conservative vote for the GOP conference; I will not be shocked if he joins the House Freedom Caucus.
• Even if the ISIS Bride scandal didn't hit, there really wasn't much for Taylor to grow on for the future as 2nd District incumbent Dan Crenshaw is the most likely out of Texas's GOP reps to succeed Ted Cruz in 2024 (he is in fact already running in this TL to succeed Cruz), especially after he fended off a late-breaking challenge from a far-right challenger (who is now stirring controversy on social media claiming that he would rather support a Democrat than vote for Crenshaw) and also shepherded two comrades of his own in Morgan Luttrell and Wesley Hunt to November without a runoff in the nearby 8th and 38th districts in the Houston area. Safe to say you can now add Crenshaw to the latest in a long line of legacy names out of the "holy trinity" of Houston Republican politics long personified by the likes of George Bush, Ted Cruz and Dr. Ron Paul, among other Republicans who became national brand names out of the Houston area. Lance Gooden and Chip Roy have more solid conservative voting records than Crenshaw, but they probably won't go as far as Crenshaw will.
• Heading straight to Congress will be Republicans Nathaniel Moran (1st, replacing Gohmert) and Monica De La Cruz (15th, picking up Vicente Gonzalez's soon-to-be former seat from the Democrats; Gonzalez will return in the 34th) in addition to Self, Luttrell and Hunt. However, I will now predict that after she defeats the FBI-tarnished Henry Cuellar, Jessica Cisneros will now be headed to Congress as Republicans did not get much more votes total than Cisneros or Cuellar alone in the 28th; unless a lot of conservative Dems flip to either Cassy Garcia or Sandra Whitten (who are both in the runoff for this district) in November. Cisneros will join two other Democratic newcomers, Jasmine Crockett (30th, replacing the retiring Eddie Bernice Johnson) and Greg Casar (35th, replacing Lloyd Doggett who has moved to the new and long overdue 37th), that will form a trio of "Squad" members from the Lone Star State. Expect these "three C's" to be very influential amongst progressives in the Democratic primary, and very likely a thorn in the side of the Democratic establishment.
• The local election results could very well be seeing a red wave if the primary results hold up, and especially if independents do in fact break for the GOP statewide. In Harris and Fort Bend counties, for instance, Republicans generally got more votes on down ballot races unless there was a contested Democratic primary by about a few thousand votes. In this TL, while it has not been covered yet, Democrats Lina Hidalgo in Harris and KP George will have lost to their respective Republican challengers (which in the case of the latter will be Trever Nehls whose twin brother Troy is a clear favorite to win a second term in the 22nd District - imagine not being able to tell one from the other on national TV!). The big difference compared to past elections (especially before 2008) is that Democrats are all but certain to hang onto Dallas County since a lot of the conservative vote (especially outside of north Dallas and the Park Cities which maintain their conservative character) has definitely shifted out to the suburbs; unless Hispanics really make a big switch in urban Texas like the Tejanos did along the Rio Grande in 2020 and will in 2022, I don't see Dallas County flipping back to red anytime soon - maybe along the LBJ from Irving through Richardson to Mesquite, but other than that not much else.
• Now, for a little fun, former Travis County GOP Chairman (and professional carnival barker) Rob Morrow narrowly lost yet another GOP primary - this time for a State Board of Education seat in the Austin area. In this TL, he will be running for Cruz's Senate seat, and perhaps may draw more attention than even Crenshaw due to what can usually be expected of him (e.g. conspiracy theories, pictures of scantily clad women, false innuendos about his opponents, his famously calling Trump "a child rapist", etc.) and not in a good way.

Outside of Texas, there are also some big updates as well to report. In a big surprise, Fred Keller has decided he won't challenge his fellow Republican Dan Meuser in the 9th which Meuser has decided to stay in anyway instead of moving the 8th to take on Matt Cartwright; Cartwright is projected to and in this TL will lose to his 2020 Republican challenger Jim Bognet. There is a chance Keller may resurface in this TL should Meuser (who is himself independently wealthy courtesy of Pride Mobility) run for the U.S. Senate against his fellow NEPA resident Bob Casey, Jr., but we shall see since Donald Trump, Jr. has already announced in this TL he won't be challenging Casey. In addition, Florida Democrat Ted Deutch has decide he won't be running for reelection and will instead become CEO of the American Jewish Committee - the most prominent Jewish advocacy group in the nation. This likely means that his soon-to-be 23rd District is about to definitely become a competitive battleground in these midterms given it only leans Democratic by single digits. Look for a brand name Republican to stand out against a crowded Democratic primary field in a district that will be the latter party's to lose.

Now, on to the latest updates in this TL...

December 7, 2023
HANUKKAH BOMBINGS IN ISRAEL LEAVES DOZENS DEAD; WORLD LEADERS CONDEMN VIOLENCE
Suicide bombers in Israel committed a series of bombings throughout Israel on the first night of Hanukkah, including synagogues in Tel Aviv and Haifa, leaving dozens dead and hundreds injured. Hamas claimed responsibility for several of the bombings, with some of the bombers being traced to terror cells in Afghanistan that formed after the U.S. withdrew troops from that country in 2021. The victims included several students of a Jewish day school in Miami as well as students at Yeshiva University and New York University in New York City. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis condemned the tragedy, taking a pause from his campaign to reach out to the victims' bereaved families - including attending the victims' funerals. Former U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, now CEO of the American Jewish Committee, did not take too kindly to the news of DeSantis's outreach to victims' families, accusing DeSantis of using the tragedy to "boost his own presidential ambitions" while also pointing blame for the bombings on "the fanned flames of anti-Semitism fueled by provocateurs here in America". Deutch served 7 1/2 terms as a Congressman for a Fort Lauderdale-area congressional district that flipped to the GOP in the 2022 midterms.

In response, members of the Republican Jewish Committee called for a boycott of the AJC, accusing Deutch of "injecting partisan politics into what is supposed to be a nonpartisan Jewish advocacy group". Jewish conservative activist Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in what was then Deutch's district, echoed the RJC's criticism of the AJC, "Ted Deutch doesn't surprise me, but for him to criticize Gov. DeSantis and make it look like he and Donald Trump are responsible for this is nakedly partisan and unbecoming of what one would expect of the supposedly nonpartisan AJC". Criticism is also directed at President Biden, with Sean Hannity remarking "the blood of the victims in Israel on the first night of Hanukkah are coated on the hands of President Biden, Secretary Blinken and their comrades at WestExec Advisors who are now advising Vice President Kamala Harris to do their dirty work".

President Biden and other world leaders including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (among others) condemned the violence. "There is absolutely no place for the kind of violence that Israelis have long endured and continue to endure, especially at a place as sacred as a synagogue on the first night of Hanukkah," Biden said. Former President Donald Trump also condemned the attacks, and called out Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid for being "soft on Hamas", adding that the attacks would not have happened under his watch, and compared Lapid (a former newscaster) to American CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, "both are weak, bland and viewed only by enough people to fit in a broom closet". One of DeSantis's chief rivals, former Amb. Nikki Haley, also reacted, "My heart lies with the victims of these senseless tragedies in Israel. It is our sobering reminder, more than ever, that we must remain vigilant in the face of so much adversity in the world".

December 9, 2023
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS WILL NOT SEEK REELECTION IN 2024
After much consideration, three-term Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described "Democratic Socialist" who sought the presidency in 2016 and 2020, announced on Saturday that he will not seek reelection to a fourth term. In his statement, Sanders remarked "From my humble beginnings as the people's Mayor in Burlington, to my long career as Vermont's independent voice in Congress, to an even more esteemed career in the Senate where I worked to light a fire in the belly of progressives everywhere, I am eternally grateful to everyone who had the honor of voting for me to be the people's voice in Washington." Sanders was first elected to the Senate in 2006, where he succeeded fellow independent Jim Jeffords (who himself was first elected as a Republican in 1988 before switching to independent in 2001) in an open race. Before that, he served as the state's lone Congressman for eight terms, elected as an independent who otherwise caucused with the Democrats. A wide field of Democrats is expected to enter the race to succeed Sanders, though there is also the possibility of the Vermont Progressive Party fielding former Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman, as well as the GOP fielding popular moderate Gov. Phil Scott.

With last week's announcements that Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington will also not be seeking reelection and Republican Sen. John Barrasso's announcement that he will seek a fourth term (and third full one) in 2024, all of the incumbents have now decided what their 2024 plans are. In Washington state, two members of Congress, Democrat Suzan DelBene of the 1st District and Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers of the 5th District, have both filed to run for Cantwell's seat, with McMorris Rodgers taking the extraordinary step of putting her campaign headquarters (along with renting a house nearby) in the Eastside suburbs of Seattle - far away from her political base in Spokane. Other candidates, including a more progressive challenger to DelBene and another Republican candidate more locally centered in the critical Seattle suburbs, are expected, but McMorris Rodgers has already earned the endorsement of first-term Rep. Reagan Dunn (whose 8th includes a large portion of the Eastside in Congress), potentially warding off other potential GOP challengers. In Wyoming, there is a movement by some to urge defeated former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney to run against Barrasso as an Independent, as the state is so strongly Republican that a Democrat cannot conventionally win there, but state GOP officials there have warned that any Republican who attempts to assist in electing Cheney "will face severe sanctions from the Wyoming GOP". Barrasso shrugs off the threat, pointing out that "Liz Cheney's Wyoming support base is limited to the size of a small studio apartment" and vows to run a vigorous campaign should Cheney seek an independent run.

December 13, 2023
PBS SETS FIELD FOR SIXTH DEMOCRATIC DEBATE
On Wednesday's edition of the PBS NewsHour, anchor Judy Woodruff set the field for the sixth Democratic debate on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa. Set to be held at the historic Hoyt Sherman Place - a large mansion for a wealthy Iowa banker that was also built to accommodate a museum and performing arts center, the debate is expected to start at 8pm ET and will be nationally broadcast on PBS. Woodruff will serve as a moderator alongside NewsHour political correspondent Lisa Desjardins, O. Kay Henderson (who hosts the political discussion show Iowa Press for Iowa PBS) and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart (who represents the "liberal" half of Brooks & Capehart on Friday editions of the NewsHour). For this debate, the DNC has set a minimum criteria of 2.5 percent or higher based on an average of four polls and at least three polls with a minimum of 4 percent for candidates to participate.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE DECEMBER 16TH DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (PBS @ Des Moines, IA)
Candidate	Avg. (12/13)	Poll A (12/12)	Poll B (12/9)	Poll C (12/6)	Poll D (12/4)
Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA)	32.5	31	34	35	30
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)	23.0	26	23	21	22
Former Sec. Pete Buttigieg (D-IN)	13.0	14	12	12	14
Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO)	6.5	5	7	7	7
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)	6.3	6	7	6	6
Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC)	5.8	5	6	7	5
Former Sec. Gina Raimondo (D-RI)	3.8	4	4	3	4

Based on the aforementioned criteria, all seven of the major candidates have qualified once again for the debate, with some even speculating that this probably may be the last one with such a low criteria; speculation abounds that the next Democratic debate (January 18th, 2024 in Chicago) will likely set the bar at 5 percent. Because of this, most of the pressure centers on former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who remains mired in last place among the seven despite overt efforts to portray herself as the "pro-business" New Democrat candidate in the Democratic field. The debate is also expected to be a major test for moderates like Buttigieg and Cooper, who have had success in states like Iowa, in appealing to the state's moderate electorate. Iowa is also known for its traditional populist politics, emphasizing such issues as education, healthcare, social issues and the economy with an emphasis towards agriculture and related manufacturing operations, which some speculate may give candidates like Sen. Klobuchar an advantage in this debate.

[SaintStan86]

So, if I'm not mistaken, the following house members are not running for re-election:

Republicans:
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate) - Is Mike Garcia switching to this seat? If not I'd like to see Vince Fong run.
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - Melissa Melendez is running, I believe.
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
TX-02: Dan Crenshaw (running for Senate)
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-21: Chip Roy (running for Senate)
TX-25: Roger Williams (running for Senate)
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate) - Does McKinley go for it again?

Democrats:
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate)
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - Rouda's running here, right?
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - I assume her daughter’s running here, right?
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)

If there's anyone else I missed please let me know. I'd really like a look at the races to replace them in the house

Also, re: Michele Tafoya. I don't see her running in 2024 if Qualls' campaign doesn't at the very least make it through the primary, and even then he should have at least a close race with Walz if he doesn't win. Will you be retconning that for the TL?

A few more things I'd like to see in the timeline:
-Guy Reschenthaler to run for PA-Sen
-A Clark County-based Republican candidate for NV-Sen (Laxalt is from Washoe)

You are definitely correct about the seats you mentioned Tekken. Those seats, and the others I will add so far, are listed towards the end.

I do disagree about Tafoya though; while she is relatively new to the political scene, regardless of whether or not Qualls is the GOP nominee against Walz, a congressional seat is more of a step down compared to a Senate run for someone of her public stature. And even if she were to run for Congress instead of the Senate, where she resides is more Democratic than the rest of the state; Edina is one of the more blue areas of MN-03, which went for Obama even as it continuously sent Erik Paulsen to Congress until Trump's "suburban problem" did him in, and which is where Biden did well enough in 2020 to where Phillips' seat is essentially on the back burner compared to other GOP targets in the suburbs. Yes, Phillips is known for being the stepson of Dear Abby's son and for selling the Talenti gelato brand to Unilever, but he could have run for Senate with the wealth and background he had as an outsider, not unlike Mike McFadden for the GOP against Al Franken in 2014, before he decided to run against and eventually take out Paulsen in the 2018 "blue wave". Do keep in mind also that Tafoya would also have free rein to do well outside of the Twin Cities and in suburbs outside of Hennepin County, especially if she does perform well in the Lake Minnetonka suburbs that define MN-03.

Of course, there are those who bring up Nick Clooney in Kentucky and Clay Aiken in North Carolina, but the reality of the degrees of their fame tells a different story. The only thing people remember about the former is that his son is George Clooney, and the only part of the country where he was really considered a brand name was around Cincinnati where he was a top-rated news anchor competing against the likes of Al Schottelkotte and Jerry Springer (KY-04, which is dominated by Cincinnati's Northern Kentucky suburbs despite GOP incumbent Thomas Massie being from its rural fringes, was where Clooney covered the deadly Beverly Hills Supper Club fire from '77 on live TV - as seen on YouTube - nearly three decades before he made an unsuccessful run in 2004 for that same district when Blue Dog Dem Ken Lucas retired after three terms; other than when Lucas held it, it has been GOP-held since 1966). The latter is far more notable, having finished a very close second to Ruben Studdard on American Idol in 2003, but it's important to note that Aiken was born and raised in Raleigh and is notable enough that he could have been primed for a Senate run in this current cycle (which he chose not to do but may do in 2026), but like most American Idol alums who didn't win - Jennifer Hudson being one exception - has largely faded away from the mainstream. Being high up in a Cabinet post also doesn't guarantee you a long congressional career either - former Clinton HHS Secretary Donna Shalala learned that the hard way when she lost in 2020 to Maria Elvira Salazar in FL-27 after just one term.

I will go into detail about the Senate in a later TL post, but Reschenthaler is not going to run against Casey who is hardly as extreme as his contemporaries in the Senate (at least compared to Fetterman whose Senate victory in 2022 is seen in this TL as "remarkable"), and who already has the independently wealthy Dan Meuser running against him; Republicans are skeptical about dealing with a chaotic and convoluted primary similar to the situation they faced the year before with Dr. Oz and other candidates who stayed in even though most of the latter group's chances of getting past Oz and David McCormick were clearly next to nil, which ultimately made uniting Republicans after the primary challenging. The Nevada race is building up, and yes the likely GOP nominee is going to be from Clark County, but Nevada Dems are going to be motivated to help Jacky Rosen more so than not in this TL after Catherine Cortez Masto lost to Washoe-based Adam Laxalt. At this point in this TL, they're still trying to convince former Gov. Brian Sandoval to run for the seat, but he has made no decision yet and there is a holding pattern of sorts until Sandoval decides.

[SaintStan86]

So, if I'm not mistaken, the following house members are not running for re-election:

Republicans:
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate) - Is Mike Garcia switching to this seat? If not I'd like to see Vince Fong run.
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - Melissa Melendez is running, I believe.
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
TX-02: Dan Crenshaw (running for Senate)
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-21: Chip Roy (running for Senate)
TX-25: Roger Williams (running for Senate)
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate) - Does McKinley go for it again?

Democrats:
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate)
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - Rouda's running here, right?
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - I assume her daughter’s running here, right?
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)

If there's anyone else I missed please let me know. I'd really like a look at the races to replace them in the house

Also, re: Michele Tafoya. I don't see her running in 2024 if Qualls' campaign doesn't at the very least make it through the primary, and even then he should have at least a close race with Walz if he doesn't win. Will you be retconning that for the TL?

A few more things I'd like to see in the timeline:
-Guy Reschenthaler to run for PA-Sen
-A Clark County-based Republican candidate for NV-Sen (Laxalt is from Washoe)

Continuing with Tekken, there are also redistricting changes (most if not all of them announced already in this TL) in Alabama, Illinois, Maryland, New York, North Carolina and Texas (Ohio will not be until 2026). Illinois, New York and Maryland were singled out for their districts not being compact and stretched out into heavily Republican rural and suburban areas under the guise of "increased minority representation", while Texas's map was struck down due to diluted Hispanic voting strength in the Corpus Christi and Dallas-Fort Worth areas where new districts were recommended (a fourth "fajita strip" district plus a second Latino-focused minority opportunity district (MOD) in Dallas alongside the traditionally Black 30th District). Alabama's map, which originally avoided a redraw as the Supreme Court's reasoning was not to disrupt the 2022 filing cycle that was ongoing, finally gets a redraw with the adding of a second Black opportunity district, while North Carolina's redraw is the result of the Republican takeover of the North Carolina Supreme Court (which implemented the previous 2022 map under a slight Democratic majority) that tweaks the maps to improve Republican chances in some of the seats, improve representation for some areas (e.g. moving competitive Alamance County from the heavily Democratic Durham-based 4th to the competitive Greensboro-based 6th) and finally consolidate the 12th entirely into Mecklenburg County.

Alabama's new map (click here)

• 1st: Conservative parts of Mobile and its suburbs including Baldwin County, plus the Wiregrass region including Dothan. Majority White R+54 (based on Nate Silver's scoring) district. Republicans Jerry Carl and Barry Moore are the incumbents.
• 2nd: New minority opportunity district (MOD) with Montgomery and Tuskegee to the east and (most of) Mobile to the west. District leans Democratic (D+3) with a 49-44 Black-White coalition, as Trump only lost here by single digits. A Democrat would be favored here, but it's competitive enough to where a Republican is capable of winning not unlike GA-02 and NC-01.
• 3rd: Remains anchored in Anniston, Auburn, Talladega and the northern suburbs of Montgomery. Trump won two-thirds of the vote here in this R+43 district. Mike Rogers is retiring from the seat, but it's unlikely that Moore will move here given he's from the Wiregrass.
• 4th: Northwest corner of the state including Florence, Decatur, Cullman and Northport (north of Tuscaloosa). Conservative R+61 seat held by the venerable Republican Robert Aderholt.
• 5th: Northeast corner of the state including Huntsville, Gadsden and Fort Payne. R+37 district held by Republican freshman Dale Strong.
• 6th: Based in and around the suburbs and exurbs of Birmingham. R+54 seat that was the most Republican in the nation during the George W. Bush years, now second most conservative in the Trump era. Conservative Republican Gary Palmer is the incumbent.
• 7th: The legacy Black district in the state. Covers Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and Selma. D+31 majority Black MOD represented by Terri Sewell.

Illinois' new map (click here)

• 1st: Combines the core of the old 1st and 7th districts, westward from the DuPage County line through Chicago's West Side and the Loop south to Hyde Park. D+80 Black MOD with a sizable Latino populace. Freshmen incumbents Kina Collins (old 7th, backed by the Squad) and Jonathan Jackson (old 1st, middle son of Jesse Jackson) will face each other in the Dem primary.
• 2nd: Much of the rest of Chicago's South Side (Bridgeport, Englewood, what is called the "East Side") with south Cook County (Calumet City, Homewood, Matteson) and a sliver of Will County centered on Crete. Over 70 percent Black, heavily Democratic (D+75) district held by Robin Kelly.
• 3rd: The new Hispanic district in Chicago is now more discreetly targeted to its targeted demographic, stretching from such Northwest Side neighborhoods as Belmont Cragin through O'Hare International Airport, out to Elmwood Park, Elk Grove Village, Streamwood and Elgin. D+41 Hispanic MOD held by freshman Democrat Delia Ramirez.
• 4th: Chicago's legacy Hispanic district, repped by Democrat Chuy Garcia, remains based on the Southwest Side (including Midway Airport) and such suburbs as Cicero and Lyons, plus a largely Black section including Washington Heights so as not to pack the South Side's Black vote entirely in the 2nd. 60 percent Hispanic D+65 MOD.
• 5th: Covers Chicago's immediate northwest suburbs along the Golden Corridor including Schaumburg, Niles, Arlington Heights and Rosemont, as well as mostly White areas of the Northwest Side (Dunning, Mayfair). Both Democrats Mike Quigley (old 5th) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (old 8th) have been drawn into the new D+19 5th.
• 6th: The new, open 6th is restored to its traditional location exclusively within suburban DuPage County (Wheaton, Naperville, Bloomingdale and Oak Brook among others). Even though the new district is D+14 and voted for Joe Biden by 18 percent in 2020, Mitt Romney was even with favorite son Barack Obama in 2012 here; with neither Obama nor Trump on the ballot, this district is viewed as a prime pickup opportunity for the GOP in 2024.
• 7th: The old 6th's incumbent, freshman Republican Keith Pekau, is the incumbent in the new 7th in Chicago's southwest suburbs (Orland Park and Western Springs in Cook County and Downers Grove and Darien in southeast DuPage County). Like the new 6th, this D+10 seat was narrowly split between Obama and Romney in 2012.
• 8th: Everything old is new again as the late Phil Crane's old northwest exurban Chicago seat is restored, stretching from McHenry County to Palatine, Wauconda, Elburn and St. Charles. This is perhaps the most appropriate district for freshman Republican Catalina Lauf, a Trump-friendly millennial conservative whose new R+3 district barely went for Trump in 2016 but went for Biden in 2020.
• 9th: This remains Chicago's liberal lakeshore district, stretching from the Magnificent Mile, Navy Pier and Wrigley Field out to Evanston and Skokie. This D+66 seat is open as longtime incumbent Jan Schakowsky is retiring.
• 10th: The most Democratic suburban Chicago district outside of the 2nd, this district connects most of Lake County (Waukegan, Grayslake) to a northeast portion of Cook County including Wilmette and Northbrook. Brad Schneider is the incumbent in this D+28 district.
• 11th: Evenly-divided swing seat covering the lion's share of Will as well as Kankakee County. While some speculate that this open seat was designed as a "comeback opportunity" for Never Trumper Adam Kinzinger, Kinzinger has ruled out any interest in running for office. Former Democratic U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, who lost reelection in the old 14th in 2022, is seeking a comeback bid.
• 12th: One of two Southern Illinois districts, this R+17 seat covers the Metro East suburbs of St. Louis plus the college town of Carbondale. Republican Mike Bost is the incumbent.
• 13th: Having won in a linear, gerrymandered seat in 2022, Democratic incumbent Nikki Budzinski now has to run in a more compact, GOP-friendly R+16 district that is being heavily targeted by Republicans.
• 14th: GOP-tilted swing district connecting Aurora and Chicago's southwest exurbs in Kendall and Grundy counties out to Ottawa, Pontiac and Bloomington. Freshman Republican Scott Gryder is the incumbent in this district that voted for Romney in 2012 but voted against Trump twice.
• 15th:The other Southern Illinois district, covering such communities as Centralia, Mattoon, Danville, Harrisburg and Carlinville. Republican Mary Miller is the incumbent in this R+50 district.
• 16th: Stretching across portions of northern and central Illinois from Rockford, Freeport and DeKalb out to Dixon and suburbs of Peoria, this R+13 district favors the GOP. Darin LaHood is the incumbent.
• 17th: After winning a much more competitive version of this district in 2022, first-term Republican Esther Joy King is a safer incumbent in this R+17 district connecting Peoria, Quincy and Moline.

Maryland's new map (click here)

• 1st: R+13 district in the Eastern Shore counties (including Salisbury), Annapolis and such suburbs as Severna Park and Parole. Republican Andy Harris is the incumbent.
• 2nd: Already made more competitive in the last Democratic gerrymander from 2022, with longtime Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger having already announced his retirement, this seat has been turned into a GOP-leaning swing seat that is R+6 on paper, covering Harford and eastern Baltimore counties (Towson, Dundalk, Perry Hall, Hunt Valley) as well as a small section of Baltimore itself centered on the Greektown neighborhood. Prominent Black Republican activist Kim Klacik, whose 2020 bid in the neighboring 7th District was spotlighted at the 2020 Republican National Convention but has drawn more attention lately for her dispute with fellow Black conservative Candace Owens, is running in the new 2nd.
• 3rd: With John Sarbanes running for the U.S. Senate, Republicans sense an opportunity in this D+12 west suburban Baltimore district dominated by Carroll and Howard counties, and stretching southward to Glen Burnie and Olney (in the Washington, D.C. area). Still, while the district may have been evenly divided between Obama and Romney in 2012, Democrats are still favored to hold this seat.
• 4th: D+82 Black MOD located entirely within Prince George's County (including Landover, College Park, Laurel and Hillcrest Heights). Freshman Democrat Glenn Ivey is the incumbent.
• 5th: With longtime House leader Steny Hoyer retiring, this D+26 district is now a Black minority impact district (MID) covering Southern Maryland as well as communities in outer Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties including Bowie, Crofton and National Harbor.
• 6th: This district has been made more competitive in redistricting, now stretching from western Maryland to Frederick County, as well as more conservative parts of Montgomery County including Potomac and Germantown. Democrat and Total Wine co-founder David Trone is the incumbent in this D+3 district.
• 7th: Kweisi Mfume is the incumbent in this 62 percent Black, D+75 MOD which covers most of Baltimore and western Baltimore County including Owings Mills and Woodlawn.
• 8th: Diverse D+63 district in Montgomery County, centered in Bethesda and stretching northward to Gaithersburg and Burtonsville. The incumbent is Jamie Raskin.

[SaintStan86]

So, if I'm not mistaken, the following house members are not running for re-election:

Republicans:
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate) - Is Mike Garcia switching to this seat? If not I'd like to see Vince Fong run.
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - Melissa Melendez is running, I believe.
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
TX-02: Dan Crenshaw (running for Senate)
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-21: Chip Roy (running for Senate)
TX-25: Roger Williams (running for Senate)
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate) - Does McKinley go for it again?

Democrats:
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate)
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - Rouda's running here, right?
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - I assume her daughter’s running here, right?
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)

If there's anyone else I missed please let me know. I'd really like a look at the races to replace them in the house

Also, re: Michele Tafoya. I don't see her running in 2024 if Qualls' campaign doesn't at the very least make it through the primary, and even then he should have at least a close race with Walz if he doesn't win. Will you be retconning that for the TL?

A few more things I'd like to see in the timeline:
-Guy Reschenthaler to run for PA-Sen
-A Clark County-based Republican candidate for NV-Sen (Laxalt is from Washoe)

NOTE: Some of the names below have been changed from earlier posts to reflect new campaign developments as local as the congressional level. Once again, I am going by Nate Silver's partisan leans (e.g. D+6 translates into D+3 if Cook PVI were to be used instead).

New York's new map (click here)

• 1st: Eastern and central Suffolk County (Brookhaven to the Hamptons). R+12 district that had been won narrowly by freshman Republican Anthony Figliola in 2022 in a gerrymandered D+6 district, where he benefited from the presence of incumbent Lee Zeldin on the ballot for Governor. Democrats are still targeting this seat, but this time they will be a clear underdog.
• 2nd: R+7 minority impact district (MID) that is 25 percent Hispanic and 10 percent Black, including southwest Suffolk (Islip, Lindenhurst) and southeast Nassau (Merrick, Massapequa). Andrew Garbarino is the incumbent.
• NY-03: R+1 Trump-Biden district on Long Island's North Shore from Huntington and Smithtown in northwest Suffolk to Oyster Bay, Garden City and Great Neck in northern Nassau. This is an open seat because the Democratic incumbent, Alessandra Biaggi, has been moved out of the district. George Santos, who has lost two consecutive races as the GOP nominee here, is looking to make the third time the charm. Bill Staniford, who narrowly lost in NY-04 in 2022, has moved from Lawrence to Garden City to challenge Santos in the GOP primary.
• NY-04: Now a majority-minority D+23 district with Hispanic and Black voters over one-quarter of the population each. Includes southwest Nassau (Hempstead, Rockville Centre, the Five Towns) and a southeast portion of Queens including the Rockaways and JFK Airport. Freshman Kevan Abrahams, who won both a competitive Democratic primary and a competitive general election in 2022, is heavily favored for a second term in this new district.
• NY-05: D+69 Black-Asian coalition minority opportunity district (MOD) covering a south central portion of Queens (Jamaica, Hollis, St. Albans, Richmond Hill), plus a western part of Nassau in the vicinity of Belmont Park. Gregory Meeks is the incumbent.
• NY-06: D+22 Asian MOD in northeast Queens (Flushing, Bayside, Elmhurst, Glendale). Grace Meng is the incumbent.
• NY-07: Anglo-Latino coalition MID predominantly in Brooklyn - Park Slope, Red Hook, Borough Park, Bushwick, with a small sliver in Queens centered on Ridgewood. With the exception of a few Orthodox Jewish pockets, this is a thoroughly Democratic D+63 district. Longtime incumbent Nydia Velázquez is retiring, paving the way for Colombian-Jewish State Senator Julia Salazar, a self-described Democratic Socialist (think Bernie Sanders), to run in this district.
• NY-08: One of two diverse Black MODs in Brooklyn, this one covering Bedford-Stuyvesant, Canarsie and Sheepshead Bay with a D+56 lean (though more Republican and purple in the Orthodox Jewish-heavy portion west of Flatbush Avenue). The incumbent is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
• NY-09: Asides from purple and conservative-tinged Midwood and New Utrecht (home to sizable Asian and Orthodox Jewish constituencies), Brooklyn's other diverse Black MOD in the heart of borough (also including Crown Heights and Flatbush) is a heavily Democratic D+63 district. Yvette Clarke is the incumbent.
• NY-10: There are two big changes to this Staten Island and southwest Queens district: it has swapped numbers with the old NY-10 (was NY-11), and it has been modified from a D+7 district in the midterms to an R+12 one in 2024 (with the Queens portion now stretching from Fort Hamilton to Coney Island). Second-term Republican Nicole Malliotakis, who survived a brutal reelection against former U.S. Rep. (and predecessor) Max Rose in 2022, is favored in this new iteration.
• NY-11: This west side Manhattan district, stretching from Columbia University and the Upper West Side to Madison Square Garden and Wall Street (as well as the west side of Times Square and the actual crystal Times Square ball), also encompasses the Brooklyn Bridge and includes the Navy Yard and Williamsburg on the Brooklyn side and is D+76 on paper. Venerable incumbent Jerry Nadler is retiring with a crowded Democratic field emerging, highlighted by attorney and former Obama-era State Dept. official Jack Schlossberg, the only grandson of John F. Kennedy.
• NY-12: The famed East Side Manhattan "silk stocking district", containing the Upper East Side, Central Park, the east side of Times Square and the Lower East Side, with the other portion encompassing a western portion of Queens including Long Island City and Maspeth - both separated by Roosevelt Island. Longtime incumbent Carolyn Maloney, who survived fierce primary challenges in her last three Democratic primaries, is retiring; while Republicans are promising to run a well-funded challenger in this very wealthy district (which a Rockefeller Republican represented during the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush years but not since then), the winner of the crowded Democratic field in this D+65 district is heavily favored next November.
• NY-13: Historically Black district in northern Manhattan, covering Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood, and extending northward to Woodlawn and Riverdale in the Bronx as well as southward to Astoria in Queens. Now a D+76 Afro-Latino coalition MOD with a large Dominican presence. Adriano Espaillat is the incumbent.
• NY-14: Split between the Bronx and Queens, with the former containing Parkchester, Eastchester and City Island and the latter containing Jackson Heights, Steinway, LaGuardia Airport, Citi Field and the Rikers Island jail. The incumbent in this D+58 Latino MOD with a one-quarter Black population? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• NY-15: Yankee Stadium is the centerpiece of this south Bronx district, surrounded by such neighborhoods as Morris Heights, Mott Haven, Morrisania and Castle Hill. Ritchie Torres is the incumbent of this majority Latino, 40 percent Black and D+79 MOD.
• NY-16: Dominated by Westchester County including White Plains, Yonkers, New Rochelle and Croton-on-Hudson, with a small section of the Bronx centered on the Wakefield and Eastchester neighborhoods. Incumbent Jamaal Bowman has decided to run for the U.S. Senate, challenging Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand from the left, but the district will have an incumbent as freshman Democrat Alessandra Biaggi (who was drawn out of the old, gerrymandered 3rd) will be running for a second term in this D+43 MOD where Latino and Black voters are the majority.
• NY-17: One of two outer suburban lower Hudson Valley districts, this is the one west of the Hudson (and by that extension, west of the Mario Cuomo Bridge Tappan Zee) including all or most of Rockland, Orange and Sullivan counties. Two incumbents, sophomore Democrat Mondaire Jones and freshman Republican Colin Schmitt, have been drawn into this Republican-tilting R+4 district that narrowly voted twice for Trump and where Orthodox Jewish voters in the community of Kiryas Joel can make or break a candidate's chances.
• NY-18: The other LoHud district - this one mostly east of the Hudson - covers more conservative areas of Westchester (all points north from Harrison, Rye, Valhalla, Chappaqua and Peekskill), as well as exurban Putnam County, southern and central Dutchess County (including Poughkeepsie), southern Ulster County (Wawarsing, Plattekill) and the northeast corner of Newburgh in Orange County. The district is D+5 on paper (D+17 in Westchester, R+3 in the remainder), but is represented by freshman Republican Marc Molinaro.
• NY-19: Covers the remainder of the Hudson Valley, plus most of the eastern and northern suburbs of the Capital District and the Plattsburgh, Glens Falls and Lake Placid areas. R+2 Obama/Trump/Biden district that is D+1 when based on 2012 and 2016. The incumbent is Elise Stefanik.
• NY-20: Albany, Schenectady, Troy and western parts of the Capital District. D+9 district where Paul Tonko is retiring, and where former U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado (who actually grew up in Schenectady) has decided to embark on a comeback bid.
• NY-21: Much of the North Country including Watertown and Massena, as well as the Utica and Oneonta areas. At R+23, it is the most conservative district in all of New York. Claudia Tenney is the incumbent.
• NY-22: Centered on Syracuse and its surrounding suburbs, as well as the surrounding communities of Cortland, Canastota and Seneca Falls, along with eastern suburbs of Rochester. D+2 district represented by freshman Democrat Josh Riley.
• NY-23: This previously eliminated district, primarily centered in the Twin Tiers including Binghamton and Elmira, also encompasses the college town of Ithaca, extending westward to the southern suburbs of Rochester and eastward to Delaware County. R+9 district with a large manufacturing presence.
• NY-24:Northern and eastern suburbs of Buffalo (Amherst, North Tonawanda, Batavia, Warsaw) and Niagara Falls, plus a northern portion of Buffalo itself. Chris Jacobs is the incumbent in this Trump-Biden R+8 district.
• NY-25: D+15 district covering all of Rochester and Monroe County, as well as northern Livingston County. Joe Morelle is the incumbent.
• NY-26: Another Trump-Biden district that is R+4, covering most of Buffalo, its Southtowns suburbs (Orchard Park, Cheektowaga) and the Niagara Frontier from Jamestown to Wellsville. Longtime Democrat Brian Higgins is the incumbent.

North Carolina's new map (click here)

• NC-01: Unchanged D+6 Black MID from 2022 (Greenville and Rocky Mount areas). Erica Smith is the incumbent.
• NC-02: One-quarter Black MID that covers nearly all of Raleigh and is now D+26 on paper. Deborah Ross is the incumbent.
• NC-03: Unchanged R+29 district from 2022 in eastern North Carolina (New Bern, Kitty Hawk, Camp Lejeune). Greg Murphy is the incumbent.
• NC-04: Remains centered in Durham and Chapel Hill, but swaps out competitive Alamance County (which is in a separate TV market) for the relatively blue Raleigh suburb of Cary. Clay Aiken is the incumbent in this D+41 majority-minority Black MID.
• NC-05: R+20 district now covering all of Winston-Salem and most of its suburbs, stretching westward through Wilkesboro to Boone. Virginia Foxx is the retiring incumbent.
• NC-06: D+3 Black MID centered in Greensboro and its surrounding suburbs. Kathy Manning is the incumbent in what is now a blue-tinted battleground.
• NC-07: Unchanged R+16 Wilmington-based district that stretches out to parts of Fayetteville. The incumbent is David Rouzer.
• NC-08: The addition of blue-collar Rockingham and the Democratic stronghold of High Point makes this Fayetteville-based R+11 Black MID somewhat of a target for the DCCC, as incumbent Republican Richard Hudson has decided to move westward to the newly restored 9th to accommodate former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker who made an unsuccessful run for the GOP Senate nod in 2022.
• NC-09: Cabarrus County (northeast Charlotte suburbs) is now fully in this R+36 district that also includes Salisbury, Lexington and over half of Union County including Monroe. Dan Bishop had moved here in 2022 and while the district remains east of Charlotte in 2024, this time with the district reverting back to the 9th, Bishop has been moved into another district (see below). Fellow incumbent Richard Hudson is now the new incumbent.
• NC-10: The most heavily and historically Republican district in the state will now cover all of the Unifour region (including Hickory and Lenoir) along with exurban Charlotte's Iredell and Lincoln counties and the Lake Norman suburbs (Huntersville, Cornelius) in northern Mecklenburg County. The incumbent of this R+39 district is Patrick McHenry.
• NC-11: Unchanged R+16 western North Carolina district anchored in Asheville. Madison Cawthorn remains the incumbent, but is facing several primary challengers after a continued series of controversies that lingered into the new Congress.
• NC-12: This district is now entirely back within Mecklenburg County, taking in most of Charlotte. With the exception of historically Republican south Charlotte which swung hard against Trump in 2016 and 2020, this Black-White coalition district is D+46 on paper. 77-year old Alma Adams is retiring, with 41-year-old freshman Democrat Jeff Jackson all but assured reelection here.
• NC-13: Previously a swing battleground that included southern parts of Raleigh, this R+14 district has expanded further into the southern suburbs of North Carolina's capital city, with Sanford and Pittsboro now joining the likes of Fuquay-Varina and Smithfield. Freshman Republican Bo Hines, a former college football player for NC State and Yale, is the incumbent.
• NC-14: Designed as a favorably Democratic district in south Charlotte and the city's western suburbs in Gaston County, the new 14th now stretches further west to Shelby and Forest City, and now includes a heavily suburbanized western part of Union County (Wesley Chapel, Weddington) in addition to the Ballantyne, Piper Glen and Providence areas of Charlotte and the south Mecklenburg suburbs of Pineville, Matthews and Mint Hill. The district is now R+19 on paper, with the house of Dan Bishop now situated in the modified 14th.

[SaintStan86]

So, if I'm not mistaken, the following house members are not running for re-election:

Republicans:
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate) - Is Mike Garcia switching to this seat? If not I'd like to see Vince Fong run.
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - Melissa Melendez is running, I believe.
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
TX-02: Dan Crenshaw (running for Senate)
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-21: Chip Roy (running for Senate)
TX-25: Roger Williams (running for Senate)
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate) - Does McKinley go for it again?

Democrats:
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate)
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - Rouda's running here, right?
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - I assume her daughter’s running here, right?
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)

If there's anyone else I missed please let me know. I'd really like a look at the races to replace them in the house

Also, re: Michele Tafoya. I don't see her running in 2024 if Qualls' campaign doesn't at the very least make it through the primary, and even then he should have at least a close race with Walz if he doesn't win. Will you be retconning that for the TL?

A few more things I'd like to see in the timeline:
-Guy Reschenthaler to run for PA-Sen
-A Clark County-based Republican candidate for NV-Sen (Laxalt is from Washoe)

Lastly, in this detour from the TL to address the redistricting that has happened, I am going to go a little overboard on Texas since I am from here and know enough on the ground to give a rather detailed assessment...

Texas's new map (click here)

• TX-01: R+52 East Texas district including Tyler, Longview and Texarkana. Freshman Nathaniel Moran is the incumbent.
• TX-02: R+43 district also based in east Texas, stretching from the Piney Woods (Lufkin, Jacksonville, Livingston, Nacogdoches) to the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. Brian Babin is the incumbent.
• TX-03: This traditionally Republican district is once again entirely within Collin County, dominated by Plano, McKinney and Wylie along with several rural areas to the east. After lucking out when the previous incumbent's congressional career went down in an ISIS Bride-induced blaze, freshman Republican Keith Self will be the incumbent of this majority Anglo R+14 district where Asian, Latino and Black voters each make up at least 10 percent of the population.
• TX-04: R+46 district that includes the Dallas suburbs of Frisco and Rockwall, as well as the surrounding communities of Sherman, Greenville, Sulphur Springs and Paris. Pat Fallon is the incumbent.
• TX-05: This R+22 district in the eastern suburbs of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is D+12 in the Dallas County portion (which includes parts of northeast Dallas on opposite ends of White Rock Lake as well as the suburbs of Garland and Mesquite), but is otherwise heavily Republican in the exurban and rural areas of four counties stretching from Terrell to Palestine. Incumbent Republican Lance Gooden is running for the U.S. Senate, with several Republicans vying to replace him including former U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, who briefly served as Director of National Intelligence in the final months of the Trump administration.
• TX-06: Democrats are only competitive in the R+2 Tarrant County portion of the district that includes most of Arlington and Mansfield, as the remainder of the R+19 district in the southern suburbs of the DFW Metroplex is fail-safe Republican. Jake Ellzey is the incumbent.
• TX-07: After being turned into a favorably Democratic seat for the 2022 cycle, gerrymandering concerns resulted in this district being turned into a swing district that is R+4 on paper. The new district is an Anglo-Latino coalition district whose Republican lean is due to Republican-friendly voters in west Houston and the Memorial Villages, with the district stretching from the Galleria and Sharpstown areas out to the Energy Corridor and parts of the Cypress-Fairbanks (Cy-Fair) area along Texas 6/FM 1960. Three-term Democrat Lizzie Fletcher, who had a surprisingly competitive race in 2022, is now one of the GOP's top targets in 2024.
• TX-08: This R+49 district has been pushed even further north of Houston, now stretching from such exurbs as Conroe and Liberty to the College Station and Huntsville areas, going as far north as Crockett and Mexia. Freshman Morgan Luttrell is the incumbent.
• TX-09: Previously making up the core of the old 14th District, the heart of this district has been consolidated into the southeast suburbs of Houston and various communities surrounding Galveston Bay including Galveston, League City, Pasadena, Baytown and Anahuac. Most of this area's current representative, Randy Weber, is retiring, and this open R+30 district is expected to draw a wide field of Republican candidates.
• TX-10: This district remains a suburban/rural district stretching from the western suburbs of Austin (Round Rock, Cedar Park and areas along Lake Travis) to the western fringes of the Houston area roughly along the corridor of US Highway 290. Asides from the more competitive Travis and Williamson County portions, the R+15 district has a distinct Republican lean.
• TX-11: Connects across a large rural swath of west and central Texas, including the Midland, San Angelo and Brownwood areas. August Pfluger represents this R+62 minority impact district that is nearly 40 percent Hispanic.
• TX-12: With her district having been redrawn into a majority-minority district, two-term Republican Beth Van Duyne has been drawn into this suburban DFW district stretching from her political base in the suburbs surrounding DFW Airport (including Irving and Grapevine) to the north and west Fort Worth political base of venerable incumbent Kay Granger. Granger, who is in her final term as the lead Republican on the House Appropriations Committee (currently serving as Chairwoman) and will turn 81 in January, has already announced that she will not seek reelection.
• TX-13: With the exception of the liberal college town of Denton (home to the University of North Texas), this R+56 district is dominated by Republican strongholds in and around Amarillo and Wichita Falls. Ronny Jackson is the incumbent.
• TX-14: This R+23 district anchored in Houston's southern suburbs (now including Sugar Land and Pearland) and stretching out to several rural counties in the southwestern fringes of the Houston area is also a very diverse one, with a plural Anglo majority and a one-quarter Hispanic population, plus Black and Asian voters in the double digits. The district's longtime Republican, Randy Weber, is retiring after six terms.
• TX-15: This historically Democratic South Texas "fajita strip" district, stretching from Weslaco and Mission to Gonzales and Seguin, saw a dramatic shift to the GOP that exceeds its D+6 lean on paper, as freshman Republican Monica De La Cruz is now a slight favorite for a second term in this district that went from voting for Hillary Clinton by 20 points in 2016 to narrowly backing Donald Trump by a mere 2 points in 2020.
• TX-16: This D+37 district remains rooted in El Paso with little if any change. Veronica Escobar is the incumbent.
• TX-17: Many argue that this R+48 district, stretching from Waco to the western suburbs of Fort Worth, was drawn primarily to goad Roger Williams into running for the U.S. Senate, even though Williams had considerations to run for the Senate before incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz decided to solely run for President earlier in the year. There will be an incumbent in this district, as Williams' fellow Republican Pete Sessions will now get a larger part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex that he previously represented in a Dallas-area district for many years.
• TX-18: Historically Houston's Black-majority congressional seat, this district is now an Afro-Latino coalition district that encompasses Houston's Third Ward and Fifth Ward, the Acres Home and North Forest areas and George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Longtime incumbent Sheila Jackson Lee is retiring from this D+53 district, with former Houston City Councilmember and one-time U.S. Senate candidate Amanda Edwards, herself a former aide of Jackson Lee's, believed to have the inside track to succeed her despite the district's growing Hispanic population.
• TX-19: Still a West Texas district encompassing the Lubbock and Abilene areas. Jodey Arrington is the incumbent in this R+55 MID, which is one-third Hispanic.
• TX-20: Joaquin Castro is the incumbent in this heavily Hispanic D+32 district that includes most of central and northwest San Antonio.
• TX-21: This one-quarter Hispanic R+35 district is anchored in north San Antonio, southwest Austin and their surrounding suburbs, stretching all the way to the Texas Hill Country including Kerrville and Fredericksburg. Chip Roy is the incumbent of this one-quarter Hispanic MID.
• TX-22: Historically a Fort Bend County-based district that once elected former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, this district has been pushed further northward into the western exurbs of Houston including the Katy, Cypress, Rosenberg and Fulshear areas. The district, which is now an R+12 Anglo-Latino coalition district where Black and Asian make up at least 15 percent of the population, is represented by Troy Nehls.
• TX-23: This border district still connects the fringes of the El Paso area to north and west San Antonio, and also narrowly voted against Trump twice in 2016 and 2020. Tony Gonzales is the incumbent in this R+1 Hispanic minority opportunity district (MOD). Democrats will be targeting this district in 2024, not unlike it has in the past.
• TX-24: As part of the court ruling for Texas's congressional map, the old 24th was dismantled and turned into a third majority-minority district for the Metroplex, becoming a D+32 Hispanic MOD centered in downtown Dallas and stretching to Hispanic enclaves to the west and east of the city. 2020 candidate Candace Valenzuela, who narrowly lost to Republican Beth Van Duyne in 2020, is running again.
• TX-25: What was the 9th has been restored to its original number (the 25th), still remaining an Afro-Latino district in southern and southwestern parts of Houston (including the Texas Medical Center and the Museum District) and immediate suburban areas including parts of Missouri City and Mission Bend. Longtime incumbent Al Green is retiring from this D+59 district.
• TX-26: Still dominated by Denton County, including Lewisville, Flower Mound and Little Elm, and also encompassing exurban Wise County and Keller in Tarrant County. Michael Burgess is the incumbent in this R+32 district.
• TX-27: This district was the index case for the recent court ruling striking down the previous Texas map, due to its diluted Hispanic voting strength. The end result is a new R+9 "fajita strip" MOD from McAllen to western Corpus Christi that pushes the previous 27th further northeast along the Texas Gulf Coast and is two-thirds Hispanic, while also keeping incumbent Michael Cloud's base in Victoria (which is itself 47 percent Latino).
• TX-28: This three-quarters Hispanic MOD, which extends from Laredo into the eastern suburbs of San Antonio, has already become a top target of the NRCC despite its D+9 lean as Republican Gov. Greg Abbott won it in 2022 and its first-term incumbent, liberal Democrat Jessica Cisneros, is already proving to be a controversial incumbent.
• TX-29: D+32 MOD that is three-quarters Hispanic, connecting north and southeast Houston via downtown Houston, as well as communities along the Houston Ship Channel including Pasadena, Galena Park and Baytown. Sylvia Garcia is the incumbent.
• TX-30: Historically Black district in south Dallas and its suburbs where Black and Hispanic voters constitute at least 40 percent of the vote. Freshman Jasmine Crockett is the incumbent in this D+63 district.
• TX-31: R+20 district stretching from Austin's northern suburbs (Georgetown, Leander) to Bell and Coryell counties including Temple, Killeen, Fort Hood and Gatesville. Longtime Republican incumbent John Carter is retiring.
• TX-32: Previously turned into a fairly safe Democratic district represented by Democrat Colin Allred, this district has now been turned back into an evenly divided district connecting north Dallas and the Park Cities to all or part of the suburbs of Richardson, Garland and Carrollton. The NRCC has made this district a top target.
• TX-33: 40 percent Hispanic MOD with a one-quarter Black population based in Fort Worth, northern parts of Arlington (including Six Flags Over Texas, the home stadiums of the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers and a major GM assembly plant) and a few Metroplex suburbs immediately north of Arlington including Bedford that is D+20 on paper. Marc Veasey is the incumbent.
• TX-34: Though this district is now three-quarters Hispanic with a D+3 lean, Gov. Greg Abbott has won all three times in this district, which now stretches from Brownsville and an eastern sliver of Hidalgo County to eastern portions of Corpus Christi, stretching as far north as Rockport and Refugio. Incumbent Vicente Gonzalez is being heavily targeted by the NRCC, with 2022 challenger Mayra Flores having declared her candidacy against Gonzalez.
• TX-35: This district continues to snake across much of the I-35 corridor across eastern parts of San Antonio and Austin, with pit stops in New Braunfels and San Marcos. It remains a D+32 district on paper, with the incumbent being leading Democratic Socialist Greg Casar.
• TX-36: This district (previously the 2nd) effectively swapped district numbers with the old 36th, but still covers much of the same territory in the northern Houston suburbs, specifically northeast Harris County (including Crosby, Spring and Kingwood - the latter of which is actually part of the city of Houston) and southern Montgomery County (including The Woodlands). The district's high-profile incumbent, Dan Crenshaw, is running for the U.S. Senate seat of Ted Cruz, with former Crenshaw and Cruz advisor Matthew Wiltshire, former Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Mike Sullivan and 2022 GOP primary challenger Jameson Ellis among several Republicans having already entered the race.
• TX-37: D+48 MID that is one-quarter Hispanic, centered in the heart of Austin and Travis County, along with such surrounding areas as Pflugerville and West Lake Hills. Longtime incumbent Lloyd Doggett is retiring.
• TX-38: After initially being drawn as a heavily Republican district in west Houston and Harris County, the courts ordered that both this and the nearby, heavily Democratic 7th be drawn into two equally competitive districts, with the 38th drawn into an R+6 MID that is over 30 percent Hispanic with Black and Asian voters comprising over 10 percent of the population. While the DCCC is targeting freshman incumbent Wesley Hunt in this district that now covers such areas of Houston and Harris County including River Oaks, Bellaire, Spring Branch, the Heights, Jersey Village, Champions and Tomball, Hunt is considered a rising star in the GOP and is widely favored to win reelection.

Since we're talking about Texas to wrap the redistricting changes that have occurred as a result of the mid-decade redistricting that happened in this TL, before I give a list of the retiring incumbents so far based on what Tekken has jotted down so far, let me get back on track with another Texas-centric update:

December 15, 2023
MIKE KNOX ELECTED HOUSTON MAYOR; ELECTION SEEN AS OMINOUS BELLWETHER FOR DEMOCRATS
After a protracted fight over absentee ballots that lingered for a number of days, Republican-endorsed at-large Houston City Councilman Mike Knox defeated longtime Democratic Texas State Sen. John Whitmire by a narrow 50-49 margin. Despite being the most openly conservative and Republican at-large member on the City Council of the nation's fourth-largest city (which went 2-1 for Joe Biden in 2020 and had not elected a Republican Mayor since Jim McConn lost his primary in 1981), Knox had widespread appeal amongst a number of key electoral groups. In addition to dominating conservative and affluent Anglo and Latino voters in west and southwest Houston, as well as the traditional Republican bulwarks of Clear Lake City and Kingwood, Knox also made inroads among Hispanics on the city's East End and its Northside neighborhoods and won a majority of Asian-American voters, many of them concentrated in southwest Houston.

The endorsement by the liberal-leaning Houston Chronicle of Knox, which emphasized Knox's steadfast fiscal conservatism and anti-crime bonafides in contrast to Whitmire's recent shortcomings on legislation relating to criminal justice and infrastructure, pointing out that Whitmire had "become more focused on grievances related to perceived inabilities to govern the Democratic minority in the State Senate instead of working to find common ground like he had done in the past", also may have contributed to Whitmire's narrow defeat despite nearly 50 years of experience in the Texas Legislature. The victory of Knox was widely seen as a bellwether of Democratic chances in 2024, and Knox's victory in the officially nonpartisan race sets off alarm bells within Democratic circles, with the Democratic National Committee urging its candidates to "prove to voters that we are a 50-state party" in a recent email to supporters. In a coincidental twist of fate, Knox will succeed term-limited Mayor Sylvester Turner who served in the Texas Legislature for many years alongside Whitmire in a state house district overlapping a large portion of Whitmire's state senate district, and who ascended to office alongside Knox in 2015.

[SaintStan86]

Based on Tekken's response, these are the House incumbents who aren't seeking reelection so far in this TL:

Republicans
AL-03: Mike Rogers (retiring) - 2022 U.S. Senate candidate Jessica Taylor is running.
AK-AL: Don Young (retiring after a remarkable 52-year career).
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate) - former GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward is running.
CA-01: Doug LaMalfa (retiring)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate)
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - former State Sen. Melissa Melendez is running.
CO-05: Doug Lamborn (retiring)
FL-11: Daniel Webster (retiring) - 2022 FL-07 candidate Anthony Sabatini is running here, but others will emerge.
ID-02: Mike Simpson (retiring)
IN-04: Jim Baird (retiring) - his son, State Rep. Beau Baird, is running to succeed him.
MI-01: Jack Bergman (retiring)
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MO-03: Blaine Luetkemeyer (retiring)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
NJ-04: Chris Smith (retiring)
NC-05: Virginia Foxx (retiring)
OH-01: Steve Chabot (retiring) - Major DCCC target likely to flip blue with former Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley running.
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
OK-03: Frank Lucas (retiring)
OK-04: Tom Cole (retiring)
PA-09: Dan Meuser (running for Senate) - former U.S. Rep. Fred Keller is running.
PA-12: Glenn Thompson (retiring)
PA-16: Mike Kelly (retiring)
SC-02: Joe Wilson (retiring)
TN-04: Scott DesJarlais (retiring) - 2020 U.S. Senate candidate Manny Sethi has moved from TN-05 to run in TN-04.
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-12: Kay Granger (retiring) - Beth Van Duyne has been redistricted from old TX-24 and will run here.
TX-14: Randy Weber (retiring) - old district shifted eastward to new TX-09; open seat is the shifted former TX-27.
TX-17: Roger Williams, current TX-25 (running for Senate) - current TX-17 incumbent Pete Sessions will be running here.
TX-31: John Carter (retiring)
TX-36: Dan Crenshaw, district swapped numbers with new TX-02 (running for Senate) - multiple candidates have filed.
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)

Democrats
AZ-03: Ruben Gallego (running for Senate)
AZ-07: Raúl Grijalva (retiring) - 2022 6th District candidate Daniel Hernández is running.
CA-02: Jared Huffman (running for Senate)
CA-04: Mike Thompson (retiring)
CA-07: Doris Matsui (retiring)
CA-12: Barbara Lee (retiring)
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-16: Anna Eshoo (retiring)
CA-18: Zoe Lofgren (retiring) - former U.S. Rep. Josh Harder, who was defeated in another district in 2022, is running.
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate) - 2020 candidate and commentator Erin Cruz is running for the GOP.
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-31: Grace Napolitano (retiring) - former State Sen. Ed Hernández is running.
CA-32: Brad Sherman (retiring)
CA-38: Linda Sánchez (retiring)
CA-43: Maxine Waters (retiring)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - former U.S. Rep. Harley Rouda is running.
CO-01: Diana DeGette (retiring)
CT-03: Rosa DeLauro (retiring)
DE-AL: Lisa Blunt Rochester (running for Senate) - Ben duPont, son of the late former Gov. Pete du Pont and whose sister-in-law is the wife of Dr. Mehmet Oz, is running on the GOP side.
FL-24: Frederica Wilson (retiring)
GA-13: David Scott (retiring)
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
IL-09: Jan Schakowsky (retiring)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - her daughter, former State House Speaker Hannah Pingree, is running, as is defeated liberal former Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling. More moderate Dems are hoping for better choices here...
MD-02: Dutch Ruppersberger (retiring) - Kim Klacik is running here in this prime GOP target, feud with Candace Owens notwithstanding...
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
MA-01: Richard Neal (retiring)
MA-02: Jim McGovern (retiring) - former Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito is running for the GOP.
MA-08: Stephen Lynch (retiring)
MA-09: Bill Keating (retiring)
MI-06: Debbie Dingell (retiring) - End of an era, indeed.
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate) - state Sen. Julia Coleman, whose father-in-law is former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, has rented somewhere along Lake Minnetonka to run here.
MN-04: Betty McCollum (retiring)
MS-02: Bennie Thompson (retiring)
MO-05: Emanuel Cleaver (retiring)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
NY-07: Nydia Velázquez (retiring) - state Sen. Julia Salazar is running as the Squad-ification of NYC continues...
NY-11: Jerry Nadler (retiring) - multiple Dems running here including JFK's grandson, Jack Schlossberg.
NY-12: Carolyn Maloney (retiring) - very crowded field here.
NY-16: Jamaal Bowman (running for Senate) - Alessandra Biaggi is the new incumbent (see below).
NY-20: Paul Tonko (retiring) - former U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado is running here.
NC-12: Alma Adams (retiring) - incumbent U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson is running here.
OR-03: Earl Blumenauer (retiring)
SC-06: Jim Clyburn (retiring)
TN-09: Steve Cohen (retiring)
TX-18: Sheila Jackson Lee (retiring) - former Houston City Councilmember Amanda Edwards is running here.
TX-25: Al Green, old TX-09 (retiring)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)
WA-02: Rick Larsen (retiring)
WA-09: Adam Smith (retiring)

In addition, mid-decade redistricting has resulted in the following:
AL-01: Jerry Carl (old AL-01) vs. Barry Moore (old AL-02)
AL-02: OPEN (Barry Moore redistricted to AL-01)
IL-01: Jonathan Jackson (old IL-01) versus Kina Collins (old IL-07) in race pitting the old Black guard (Jackson, whose father is Jesse Jackson) against the Squad (Collins)
IL-05: Mike Quigley (old IL-05) versus Raja Krishnamoorthi (old IL-08)
IL-06: OPEN (Keith Pekau redistricted to IL-07)
NY-03: OPEN (Alessandra Biaggi redistricted to NY-16)
NY-17: Mondaire Jones (old NY-17) versus Colin Schmitt (old NY-18)
NY-23: OPEN (eliminated GOP-held district restored)
NC-08: OPEN, swaps with old 9th (Richard Hudson is relocating to the new 9th). Former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker is running here.
NC-09: OPEN, swaps with old 8th - Richard Hudson is relocating here from the old 9th.
NC-14: OPEN (Jeff Jackson running in NC-12) - incumbent U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop is running here.
TX-02: Brian Babin (swapped district numbers with new TX-36)
TX-09: OPEN (shifted northward from previous TX-14) - State Sen. Mayes Middleton has already declared.
TX-24: OPEN (Beth Van Duyne redistricted to TX-12) - 2020 Democratic nominee Candace Valenzuela is running here.

Also, while neither open nor home to a retiring incumbent, TX-27 will look radically different as the previous TX-27 was singled out for diluted Hispanic voting strength by the courts. The new TX-27 still has Michael Cloud as the incumbent, but with his Victoria base now serving as the district's northern end; his now majority Hispanic district now includes the western half of Corpus Christi and goes all the way down to McAllen.

[SaintStan86]

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: C.A. Tucker

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: Janet Mootz

The historic Hoyt Sherman Place west of downtown Des Moines, Iowa, site of the December 16, 2023 Democratic presidential debate.

December 16, 2023
DEMOCRATS TACKLE HEALTHCARE, FARM ISSUES IN IOWA DEBATE
On Saturday evening, Democrats debated before a packed audience at the historic Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, where the candidates tackled issues of importance to Iowa voters from healthcare to agriculture. Broadcast on PBS, the seven candidates on stage defended President Biden's accomplishments on domestic and economic policy, including his signature infrastructure package, while also emphasizing the need for a more progressive (and populist) approach to the needs of working families. They also took turns lambasting the Republican congressional majority as (in the words of Pete Buttigieg) "beholden to the interests of Donald Trump and his billionaire fat-cats who sold out American farmers while giving tax breaks to corporations who squeezed our workers dry and tainted our food supply".

The debate was seen an opportunity for Sen. Amy Klobuchar of neighboring Minnesota to make her case for a "farm-fresh Democrat who rises with the sun to lead". During the debate, Klobuchar vowed to "ensure that our federal food supply is 100 percent controlled by American farmers" and took aim at Republicans for "favoring foreign corporations who take our beef, our chicken and our vegetables, ship them to China, and send them back on boats as if nothing happened". She also pledged to work towards "a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, as Hillary Clinton promised in 2016", referring to the landmark campaign finance case (Citizens United v. FEC) that struck down campaign finance provisions in the McCain-Feingold Act, and vowed to offer tax incentives to allow family farmers to "keep their land for generations to come instead of losing them to foreign entities who wish to undermine our farming communities".

The debate was also viewed by many as a major test for another candidate, former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, to try to build up support before next January's debate (for which the DNC is widely expected to tighten participation thresholds) and in anticipation of upcoming major endorsements before next month's caucus in Nevada and primary in South Carolina. When asked by moderator and Iowa PBS public affairs host O. Kay Henderson about what distinguishes her from Vice President Kamala Harris, Raimondo replied, "As someone with experience on Wall Street and hands-on experience dealing with Main Street, the difference is that when it came to small businesses in America who needed a friend in government, I was there for them from the very beginning. That is what's important, especially with the gap between small businesses and large corporations now wider than ever before". Raimondo also took aim at her rivals for their comparable lack of experience in the private sector, of which one, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, responded "Unlike Gov. Raimondo, whose popularity was weak in Rhode Island before COVID hit, I have been consistently popular with Coloradans, pushing business-friendly policies that reduced our social spending, increased prosperity and kept taxes at competitive races, while also respecting the diversity of our great state across racial, religious and sexual barriers. Also unlike the others on stage, I actually have the balls to say that", to laughter from the audience.

Another topic that came up was the lingering issue of the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol. When asked by moderator Lisa Desjardins, a PBS NewsHour political correspondent who was attacked by a rioter during that attack, about whether or not January 6th rioters should be afforded a right to a fair trial, Vice President Harris responded, "Of course I do believe that those who were arrested that day deserve a fair trial. What does matter, however, is that these individuals broke into a sacred institution, driven by false narratives by a tyrant who wanted them to believe that their country was being stolen from them. For that reason, that right to a fair trial will be rooted in facts, not grievances from right-wing extremists who wish to return to the dark holocaust of the Donald Trump years." Sec. Buttigieg also responded, "It's important to bring everyone who broke into the Capitol that day and interrupted what was supposed to be a peaceful transfer of power to justice, but we must also remember that not everyone who was there and is facing or serving jail time is without remorse".

Education was another topic that came about, with moderator Judy Woodruff asking the candidates about their thoughts on "countering the brain drain" affecting Iowa and other Rust Belt states. Sen. Klobuchar pointed to efforts to increase funding for education, "As a Senator, preparing our kids for the future has always been a priority, and as your next President, I will do my earnest so that everyone can reach for the stars". North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, meanwhile, vowed to "become THE Education President", and laid out various proposals for education reform. "What we ought to be taking a look at is how can places like Iowa retain great talent?", and pointed to vocational and skills training as a 'building block of sorts'. He also emphasized an all-encompassing program for trade school graduates including social benefits, vowing to "add 15 million new tradesmen to the workforce in my first term as President", while also providing "guaranteed benefits including workers' protections, medical care and enforced safety regulations so that our tradesmen can focus on their jobs and not sweat about the small stuff".

Sen. Elizabeth Warren reemphasized her call for a national health insurance system, and also vowed to crack down on large corporations taking advantage of farmers and food factory workers, "The quality of the food we eat matters, because the last thing anyone wants is to go hungry because they don't trust that the food will be safe". She also emphasized the need to incentivize farmers who utilize zero-emissions practices, "Not only should our farmers be given an equal opportunity to compete on a level playing field, but we should also ensure that the carbon footprint our farmers leave behind is very low". Buttigieg echoed Warren's sentiment, "The rise of electric trucks and other green methods of transporting our crops and our vegetables is something we should take note of and stick with, as opposed to give in like so many of our Republican colleagues have done already".

While the debate was overall collegial in tone, there were some heated moments. When asked by moderator Jonathan Capehart about past hesitance to support Democratic initiatives on issues such as election reform despite agreeing with most of the legislation's framework, Warren responded "It's not that the policy prescriptions don't work, rather they do not go far enough to put the interests of the people ahead of corporate interests who seek to put profits ahead of people". Harris retorted, "In Elizabeth Warren's world of ideal progressive utopianism, 80 percent of what Democrats want, especially when we never had much in the way of a Democratic majority throughout the Biden presidency, is better than demanding a perfect progressive package that is due to be sabotaged by whichever one or two Senators of ours gets kickbacks from the Republicans". Warren responded back, "At a time when Democrats, more than ever, should stand for progressive change, the last thing we need is a President using GOP talking points to defend short-sighted 'leadership'. Which worked so well for us in the last election."

Harris also took heat from her colleagues over whether or not her personality quirks detracted from her ability to empathize with the American people. When asked in a Q&A session by Buttigieg about "occasional bursts of laughter during serious moments" that resulted in punch-line criticism from Republicans, Harris responded, "Of course, I did not mean to laugh about the issues facing the targeted audience. When I did laugh, it's often in response to the absurdity of the question at hand. Of course, as Vice President I have done nothing but emphasize what can be done to make the situation better whether it's supply chain issues, racial reconciliation, the war in Ukraine and other matters," and added that "if the media spent more time not trying to offend Fox News viewers by actually reporting the truth, I probably wouldn't be laughing at reporters". (Critics ultimately gave mixed reviews of Harris's response, with Fox News host Laura Ingraham remarking the following Monday, "Dismissing the laughter may seem all cutesy and nonchalant, but to millions of Americans struggling to get by the 'new normal' of Bidenflation, Kamala's response is as bossy as it gets.")

Overall reviews of the debate were positive for Warren and Buttigieg, but most especially for Klobuchar (whose experience as a U.S. Senator from Minnesota was viewed as an advantage to potential Iowa voters), while Cooper's ambitious goal of increasing the employment pool for skilled trades drew praise from pundits. As for Raimondo, while her debate performance was noticeably strong, at times calling out the Vice President for shortcomings in the Biden administration, post-debate polling indicated that her performance "may not necessarily be strong enough to get past anticipated thresholds by the DNC to winnow out the field". With Raimondo's cash flow beginning to wane and an expected increased threshold for participation in DNC debates, not to mention the advent of early voting in South Carolina's primary around the corner and Nevada's primary polling for caucuses largely a jockey for first place between Harris and Warren, many speculate that the end may be near for Raimondo. Or is it?

[SaintStan86]

December 17, 2023
SINCLAIR STATIONS TO SIMULCAST SPLIT NEWSMAX DEBATES ON TUESDAY
On Sunday's edition of her Sinclair Broadcast Group-produced Sunday morning talk show Full Measure, anchor Sharyl Attkisson announced the lineups for Tuesday's twin debates at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas. The debates will be primarily broadcast on the cable channel Newsmax, and will also be simulcast on stations primarily owned by Sinclair along with those of other companies including Cox Media Group (which owns WSB radio and TV in Atlanta, among other stations), Gray Television, TEGNA and Entertainment Studios (the latter two of which have direct business ties with Sinclair over the Bally Sports networks); the twin debates have been cleared for syndication in over 90 percent of the country, and come with few if any programming conflicts as most of the stations carrying include those in duopoly markets that can easily shuffle around preempted network programming, mostly encores as most if not all of the Christmas specials and holiday-themed episodes on the networks have already aired. In addition to Attkisson, other moderators will include Newsmax hosts Greg Kelly and Sean Spicer (the latter of whom was Donald Trump's first White House Press Secretary) and conservative Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Victor Joecks.

The two debates will air simultaneously from 7pm-11pm ET and rebroadcast from 11pm-3am ET. The candidates in even-numbered position will go first from 7pm-9pm, while the ones in odd-numbered position will go from 9pm-11pm. In addition to being weighted based on four qualifying national polls, the weighted average also includes weighted toplines from each of the early states.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE DECEMBER 19TH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (Newsmax/Sinclair @ Las Vegas, NV)
Candidate	Weighted Avg. (12/17)	Poll A (12/14)	Poll B (12/12)	Poll C (12/10)	Poll D (11/9)	IA Topline	NH Topline	SC Topline	NV Topline
PARTICIPATING
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)	18.4	20	21	16	20	11	17	11	20
Fmr. Amb. Nikki Haley (R-SC)	15.5	14	13	12	14	12	18	52	16
Fmr. Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)	14.2	15	15	15	13	19	13	8	11
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)	11.8	12	14	10	12	12	11	7	14
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)	7.6	6	6	10	7	14	10	3	8
Fmr. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo (R-KS)	5.8	8	6	5	5	7	4	3	6
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)	4.8	4	5	7	5	5	2	2	3
Fmr. Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD)	4.7	5	4	5	6	3	7	1	3
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)	4.4	5	3	7	3	2	5	2	6
Fmr. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)	3.1	3	2	2	5	2	6	1	5
Commentator Candace Owens (R-TN)	2.5	1	3	3	3	2	2	5	1
Businessman Mike Lindell (R-MN)	1.9	2	2	2	2	3	1	1	1

To participate in the debate, Newsmax has required that each of its candidates either poll on average at least 2 percent or higher on three of four qualifying national polls or poll at least 5 percent on at least two early state topline polls, with those achieving the latter threshold being positioned first followed by any who qualify based on the national polls. Based on this criteria, while all 12 of the above candidates have qualified based on national polls, eight candidates - DeSantis, Haley, Pence, Cruz, Sasse, Pompeo, Rubio and Christie - will be prioritized based on the averages of the early state toplines first, with the others following suit based on the national polling averages. This plot twist creates a somewhat unusual situation based on the strong polling of one particular candidate whose home state happens to be one of the early states.

CANDIDATE POSITIONING FOR FIRST DEBATE (7PM-9PM ET)

Larry Hogan	Mike Pompeo	Ron DeSantis	Ted Cruz	Chris Christie	Mike Lindell
5	5	14.8	11	3.5	2

CANDIDATE POSITIONING FOR FIRST DEBATE (9PM-11PM ET)

Tom Cotton	Ben Sasse	Nikki Haley	Mike Pence	Marco Rubio	Candace Owens
5.25	8.8	24.5	12.8	3.8	2.5

The controversial placement of Haley above DeSantis is in large part due to the former's "favorite daughter" status in South Carolina, where she served in the state legislature and later as Governor before becoming U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under President Trump; this has accordingly resulted in many candidates prioritizing Nevada over South Carolina with regards to the two early states after New Hampshire. DeSantis responds to his placement in the earlier debate, pointing out, "With respect to the former Ambassador and her hometown candidate status, nothing changes the fact that outside of South Carolina and other early states, our campaign is the strongest of any Republican, and it's important to note that more people are watching around 7pm than around 9pm on a weekday." Notably, the debate placement also pits DeSantis against only one former Trump administration alum - former Sec. of State Pompeo, with his other debate contemporaries being Christie and Hogan (both moderate former Governors hoping to appeal to those wishing for a clean break from Trump), Sen. Cruz and Lindell. The other debate will pit Haley against fellow hawks Cotton and Rubio, who have in recent polls benefited at Haley's expense, while giving Pence a more direct opportunity to counter Sasse with regards to Iowa (where the latter has been inching up on the former's lead in that state) and Owens more leeway to challenge her rivals without directly attacking DeSantis (who is thought to have the most support amongst hardcore Trump supporters).

[SaintStan86]

Editor's note: Prayers be with the family of - as well as the people of Alaska - who were blessed to know Don Young over his near half-century of service to the Congress. Depending on what the circumstances are with regards to the special election, I am going to leave Alaska's at-large seat out of the presidential endorsement sweepstakes. But in this TL, Republicans will hold on to the seat, with the stronger-performing Republican having outperformed a united Democratic candidate and possibly an independent candidate as well.

Source: Wikimedia Commons
Author: Neaco
Smith Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Las Vegas, site of the December 19, 2023 Republican presidential debates.

December 19, 2023
REPUBLICANS BATTLE IN DUELING LAS VEGAS DEBATES; LAST DEBATES FOR 2023 SERVE AS LITMUS TEST FOR CRUCIAL NEVADA VOTES
On Tuesday night, Republicans battled in two separate debates that were broadcast on various television stations across the country as well as the right-leaning cable news channel Newsmax TV, mostly on stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group and other companies including local NBC affiliate KSNV, Washington, D.C. ABC affiliate WJLA and dozens of other stations across the country. The debates were split in two based on polling position with one set of six evenly matched candidates participating in an initial 7pm ET debate and another group of six candidates taking part in a 9pm ET debate.

In the first debate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis squared off with outgoing Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas for the votes of conservatives, particularly when the latter was asked by moderator Sean Spicer (former President Donald Trump's first White House Press Secretary) about whether the need to audit the 2020 election was justified. When asked by Spicer if he was willing to audit results in certain states in future elections, Cruz responded "Of course I would. There is no right in the constitution more important than the right to vote. If Florida went for Biden, I would have done just that." DeSantis responded, "I have no doubt that voting irregularities were all over the place, but I'm not certain if I would have resorted to withholding the results when clearly Trump's loss may have more to do with poorly informed and poorly educated voters who fret more about his mean tweets than whatever reservations on principle one may have. Just imagine if those who claimed to be his biggest cheerleaders spent less time in car parades and more time knocking on doors, talking to their neighbors..." Neither one impressed businessman Mike Lindell who stated, "Of course y'all want to play it safe. Ron DeSantis just wants to say that to avoid getting canned, because he knows that if Biden won Florida, he would have done what Brian Kemp did in Georgia," to the dismay of DeSantis.

Other than that, the first debate turned on many of the same issues addressed in prior debates. DeSantis took heat over his handling of COVID-19 in Florida and the post-COVID economy's moderating impact on Florida, while former Sec. of State Mike Pompeo directly proclaimed himself as "more qualified" to handle foreign policy matters than DeSantis, with the latter responding by pointing to his service as a JAG at Guatánamo Bay during the War on Terror, "For someone who is basically a shill of the defense contractor lobby to turn around and imply that I am not as qualified to handle terrorism as he is makes a draft dodger like Bill Clinton look like Gen. Patton". Sen. Cruz also responded to moderator Sharyl Atkisson's question to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on whether his ethics reform stances amount to an "apology tour" for Bridgegate (to which Christie replied 'no'), "Of course Gov. Christie wants to cover his own ass. Because nothing smells swamp more than bottlenecking traffic because your opponent didn't reciprocate your demands". Christie retorted, "Just like when you abetted Trump's supporters breaching the Capitol, right?". Former Gov. Larry Hogan, as the most moderate candidate on stage in the first debate, focused much of his responses around his governance of Maryland from 2015-2023 and largely steered clear of directly confronting his opponents, "Of course everyone wants to pick on Gov. DeSantis. Because obviously you don't have the former Vice President or Nikki Haley here to kick him around".

In the second debate, former Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence traded barbs on various issues, with Haley calling Pence "soft" on the issue of transgendered women in college sports and Pence accusing Haley of "repeatedly calling Trump's bluff while attempting to take credit for his keeping us out of war". Sen. Ben Sasse largely avoided controversy, instead choosing to focus on President Biden, "While other candidates on this stage are fighting over small fries, I'm here to talk about Biggie fries". Except for one particular issue: when asked by moderator Greg Kelly about whether or not his vote to convict Trump disqualifies him as a Republican presidential candidate, Sasse replies "Of course not. There is no litmus test for weeding out a candidate based on one vote out of many, and many of the supporters I have talked to know it and would rather move on that dwell on the past". Not surprisingly, other candidates on stage aren't impressed; fellow Sen. Tom Cotton replied "Regardless of whatever opinion one might have of him, whoever wins the GOP nomination in this election is going to be one that Donald Trump has clear confidence in. Being called "little" by the former President (who mockingly refers to the Nebraska Senator as "Little Ben Sasse") is rather disqualifying".

All of the candidates on stage expressed support for Israel, with Haley proclaiming "The importance of Israel to global democracy and to our standing in the region is too great to completely leave it to chance", highlighting her successes in defending Israel as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, even as most countries sanctioned the nation for its treatment of Palestinians and their government. However, one source of contention was regarding foreign aid. When asked about whether or not withholding foreign aid also applied to the Jewish state by moderator and Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Victor Joecks, Candace Owens replied, "What has spending trillions of dollars in endless wars overseas, butting in to the business affairs of other countries, actually done to benefit Americans? Nothing. It doesn't matter if it's Israel or Ukraine or what have you...what matters is that those trillions we have spent overseas have not benefited regular Americans in the end." Haley responded by arguing "if we were to simply withdraw ourselves from the world because of some belief that Americans should not care what other countries think of us, we are doing more to embolden dictators like Putin and Xi than actually promoting a free society", and argued that "peace through strength" should not translate into "go it alone".

In addition to many of the same themes addressed in prior debates, attention was also focused on such matters important to Nevadans as states' rights, economic diversification and the issue of prostitution. Moderator Greg Kelly, who like Spicer is himself a Newsmax host, also asked Sen. Marco Rubio about whether legalizing prostitution at the federal level is a backdoor channel to "defund the police". Rubio responded by pointing out that matters like prostitution are best left to the states, "What's good for Nevada isn't necessarily good for Florida, and prostitution is certainly something Floridians shouldn't be known for". Sen. Sasse also responded by walking around the issue and pointing instead to the 2014 Bundy land grazing standoff in Nevada, "When you are subjected to a microscope because your animals grazed on land that the federal government isn't even using regularly, that's a bad sign". Sen. Cotton, meanwhile, chided Sasse by saying, "Until your cows have ingested nuclear waste from Area 51, that is." All of the candidates on stage also addressed the need for regional economies that aren't solely dependent on tourism, with Pence promoting the idea of planting a proposed Space Force Academy in Nevada, "Elon Musk is already investing in Nevada, why not move the whole space program and the Space Force academy here?" Not surprisingly, Sen. Rubio (whose home state includes Cape Canaveral) was unimpressed, "You owe me a trillion dollars, Mr. Vice President".

Overall, the debates were nothing spectacular, but signs pointed to Gov. DeSantis being pushed into a more defensive posture, while in-state polling conducted after the debate showed Haley and Sasse gaining some support for their foreign policy and states rights' stances along with Cotton, whose combination of a "strong national defense" and "loyalty to Trump" appeared to play well to the state's large military and defense vote bloc. Both Christie's combative stances when asked about the Bridgegate scandal in New Jersey and Hogan's "nice guy" approach during the debate, while it won them plaudits from more moderate Republicans, failed to produce any new momentum. With the last debate of 2023 now wrapped up, the candidates have largely retired to their home states for Christmas and New Year's, with many major endorsements expected at the dawn of 2024 on both sides.

[SaintStan86]

Editor's note: Jeff Fortenberry is resigning from Congress after being convicted in an FBI corruption trial. Very likely IRL and definitely in this TL, Mike Flood is the new Congressman for the 1st District in Nebraska (Lincoln and the southeast corner of the state).

The holiday season has come and gone with its usual mix of Christmas tree sightings, family dinners, charitable food drives and rescue missions, and campy Christmas advertisements from the candidates. As expected, the Republican candidates in unison wished their supporters Merry Christmas while the Democrats wished their fellow travelers Happy Holidays, with Ron DeSantis's lighted palm trees, Kamala Harris's blended family Chrismukkah, Mike Pence's frequent invoking of Jesus, Elizabeth Warren's Oklahoma holiday getaway, Nikki Haley's Clemson-adorned holiday tidings, Pete Buttigieg's "Happy Gay Holidays" ad with his husband and kids, and Ben Sasse's love for the Nebraska Cornhuskers (despite Sasse himself not being an NU alum himself) being some of the highlights. Oh, and Tom Cotton chopped down a tree to decorate in full frontal flannel out in the Arkansas wilderness!

But as the new year rings in, some highlights of defensive and attack ads on the part of the candidates have started to take center stage. In Iowa, with Sasse threatening Pence's lead in the state and running ads attacking Pence for waddling between "standing on principle" and "being loyal to Trump", Pence has responded with a new no-frills attack ad composed of audio excerpts from a tele-town hall Sasse conducted before the 2020 election in which he criticized Trump. Meanwhile, Nikki Haley has responded to ascending hawk candidates Pompeo and Cotton by attacking both as "inexperienced" and "ineffective" on foreign policy, while Cruz has taken shots at Pence over both the election and certain social issues such as public accommodations for transgendered individuals.

On the Democratic side, Harris faces the largest barrage of attack ads, including being called supposedly "unserious" by Warren, who herself draws criticism from a Harris ad featuring blue-collar Iowans bemoaning about "being starved to death by New England liberals" - with Warren in turn accusing Harris of using "Republican talking points". North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper - to the tune of Bruce Springsteen - completely ignores the other candidates, while also highlighting himself as "a real Democrat who appeals to the everyman in us - the real Americans who make America great" including video shoots with nurses, police officers and steelworkers. Buttigieg, as expected, turns to David Letterman once again to puff up his campaign in his latest ad - including an extended YouTube ad highlighting the "Top 10 Reasons to Vote for Pete Buttigieg".

Meanwhile, the battle for the Senate remains largely unchanged with some shifts to the right. Republicans remain expected to win 53 seats in November with one widely expected pickup in West Virginia, while the House remains projected to remain in Republican hands with either a slight GOP increase or decrease expected. Three notable shifts have occurred in Minnesota, where Michele Tafoya's entry against a competitive DFL field has turned the open race for Amy Klobuchar's seat on its head, in Virginia, where incumbent Democrat and 2016 vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine is now polling within the margin of error against his likely GOP competitor, State Senator Jill Vogel, and in Maine where the retirement of Angus King has suddenly turned Maine into a battleground between leading Republican candidate Rick Bennett and a crowded Democratic field led by U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree and former U.S. Rep. Jared Golden; while Democrats are narrowly favored in recent polling, Bennett has outraised the two leading Democrats combined.

On the debate stage, the remaining GOP debates before and in between the three Super Tuesdays in March have also now been set, kicking off with a successive set of four Republican debates in the run up to the February 5th Iowa caucuses. The RNC has now scheduled two more debates before the Iowa caucuses, on Friday, January 26th from the Aronoff Center in Cincinnati (to be televised by CNBC and Telemundo) and on Wednesday, January 31st from Chrysler Hall in Norfolk, Virginia (to be televised by CNN and co-hosted by Salem Radio with Trump administration alum Sebastian Gorka as a moderator). After the New Hampshire primary, three more debates have also been scheduled by the RNC. The first of these three, from the Peace Center in Greenville, S.C., will take place on Saturday, February 17th and will be televised on CBS one week before the South Carolina primary. The next of these, right before Super Tuesday on Friday, March 1st, will be held from Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco and televised by NBC and Telemundo. The last of these new debates will take place on Saturday, March 16th from Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta, televised exclusively on Fox News.

The rest of the Democratic debates have also been scheduled as well, starting with a debate televised by MSNBC from the North Charleston Performing Arts Center in North Charleston, S.C. on Wednesday, January 24th - three days before the Democrats' earlier-scheduled South Carolina primary the following Saturday, as well as a debate televised on CNN from the J. Scheidegger Center for the Arts on the campus of Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis) on Tuesday, January 30th. After the already scheduled ABC/Univision debate from New Hampshire's St. Anselm College on Friday, February 9th, there will be two additional debates: a debate from the Roadrunner music venue in Boston on Saturday, February 24th to be televised on CBS, and a debate from the Majestic Theatre in Dallas on Friday, March 1st to be televised on NBC. No debates are expected to be scheduled after March 1st for the Democrats, especially given Harris - who holds large leads in several of the first Super Tuesday states - is projected by many sources to be the presumptive nominee after the first Super Tuesday.

Meanwhile, with New Year's resolutions now set to be fulfilled (or broken), there is another debate upcoming...

January 2, 2024
FOX ANNOUNCES FIELD FOR NINTH REPUBLICAN DEBATE IN IOWA
On Tuesday's edition of Fox & Friends, host Steve Doocy announced the field for Thursday's upcoming Republican presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa, which will be televised on Fox News Channel and simulcast on the Fox network. The debate, scheduled to take place at Hy-Vee Hall inside the Iowa Events Center, is expected to have a narrower field with new requirements that candidates either have a national average of 4 percent in weighted polling from three of four qualifying polls and/or a statewide average of 4 percent in two of three qualifying polls within Iowa - each group divided 50/50, with priority given to national qualifiers with the highest statewide average, followed by national qualifiers alone and then statewide qualifiers alone.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE JANUARY 4TH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (Fox News @ Des Moines, IA)
Candidate	Weighted Avg. (1/2)	Poll A (12/31)	Poll B (12/29)	Poll C (12/23)	Poll D (12/20)	IA Poll A (12/29)	IA Poll B (12/23)	IA Poll C (12/20)
QUALIFIED IN IOWA + NATIONALLY
Fmr. Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)	16.3	15	14	15	13	18	19	18
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)	15.6	18	19	19	17	13	14	12
Fmr. Amb. Nikki Haley (R-SC)	13.0	14	13	15	14	13	11	12
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)	11.5	14	11	13	11	10	12	10
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)	11.4	7	9	6	8	15	15	16
Fmr. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo (R-KS)	6.8	6	8	6	9	6	7	6
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)	4.5	5	5	4	5	3	5	5
QUALIFIED NATIONALLY ONLY
Fmr. Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD)	3.5	4	4	5	4	2	3	3
QUALIFIED IN IOWA ONLY
Businessman Mike Lindell (R-MN)	2.9	2	1	1	2	5	3	5
NOT PARTICIPATING
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)	3.4	3	4	3	5	3	3	3
Fmr. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)	2.7	3	5	4	3	1	2	2
Commentator Candace Owens (R-TN)	1.7	2	2	1	3	1	2	1

With the participation requirements having tightened for this debate and future debates expected to follow similar mandates, the lineup is expected to become smaller with the RNC intent on narrowing the field behind a consensus candidate by the first Super Tuesday. As a result, seven of the candidates have qualified on both the national and Iowa level, another has qualified nationally alone, yet another has qualified based on Iowa polling alone, and three have failed to qualify in both groups. However, the stage order - this time prioritizing Iowa toplines over the national averages - once again leaves DeSantis off of #1 due to another quirk with state toplines; whereas DeSantis holds a 4 percent lead with 18.3 percent of the national average, he is third in Iowa with 13 percent on average behind Pence (who is second nationally at 14.3 percent but leads Iowa with 18.3 percent) and Sasse (polling second on average behind Pence in Iowa despite only polling 7.5 percent of the vote nationally), as the "coastal conservative" stereotype being affixed to DeSantis continues to jibe weakly with "middle America" Iowa voters more used to traditionalist and blue-collar-oriented conservatives.

STAGE ORDER OF CANDIDATES FOR JANUARY 4TH REPUBLICAN DEBATE

8. Hogan

6. Pompeo

4. Haley

. 2. Sasse

1. Pence

3. DeSantis

5. Cruz

7. Cotton

9. Lindell

Rubio and Christie both barely fail to qualify based on his average polling just under the 4 percent threshold nationally, with their performance in Iowa being notably worse than the national average, when Owens falls well below the threshold both nationally and in Iowa. None of the uninvited candidates are dissuaded by this latest snub. Rubio points to his campaign "gaining momentum" against like-minded competitors such as Haley, while Christie points out that "I'm not missing anything" and vowed to focus on a strong showing in New Hampshire, where Christie is polling stronger along with Nevada. Owens also vows to proceed forward with her campaign, scheduling a "counter town hall" at Drake University hosted by a group of her supporters on the private university's campus northwest of downtown Des Moines. "A debate is just a debate for whichever mainstream media source wishes to host to their own liking. Town halls are important - because they focus on what the people want, not stuffy suits who continue to ignore mountain movers who choose to fight".

[SaintStan86]

Editor's note: Retiring Democrat Filemon Vela has just resigned from Congress and is now entering the world of post-congressional lobbying according to credible sources. Whoever fills this seat, assuming the Republican candidate (who is already the GOP nominee in the new TX-34) does not clear 50 percent, will be filling the seat for only a couple of months as incumbent Democrat Vicente Gonzalez is not resigning from his current TX-15 to run here. In this TL, this seat is going to be held by Gonzalez, but has been redrawn to be more competitive as already explained.

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: U.S. Department of Agriculture

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: Gage Skidmore

Hy-Vee Hall at Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa, site of the January 4, 2024 Republican presidential debate.

January 4, 2024
DeSANTIS' NATIONAL APPEAL PUT TO TEST IN IOWA DEBATE
Republicans congregated in Iowa on Thursday night, just weeks removed from the state's upcoming presidential caucuses, to debate before a packed audience at the Hy-Vee Hall inside the Iowa Events Center. Televised on Fox News and moderated by Special Report anchor Bret Baier, Fox News primetime host Laura Ingraham and contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy, whose husband is a former Congressman from neighboring Wisconsin, the debate centered on domestic and social issues of importance to Iowa voters and for which Donald Trump seized on its traditional reverence for populist politics to capture the state by a favorable margin in both 2016 and 2020. It also served as an opportunity for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has faced criticism of being a "coastal conservative" insufficiently attuned to the concerns of culturally conservative "middle America voters" in recent months, to silence such criticisms and broaden his appeal to the region of the country responsible for Trump's 2016 victory. While most of the issues at hand during the debate were points already rehashed in earlier debates, there were some breakthrough talking points that came about on the Fox News-televised debate.

Early in the debate, moderator Baier asked DeSantis how his steadfast opposition to "corporate welfare" in regards to policies concerning transgendered individuals has enabled him to avoid severe electoral ramifications that befell other Republicans (such as former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory whose public accommodations legislation became an albatross after it sparked backlash from the business community in North Carolina). DeSantis responded, "The difference is simply I stood by my principles and communicated the legislation I have championed in an authoritative and compelling way so that folks could understand that I was not attacking the workers at Disney and the NCAA, but rather the management that seemed more concerned with bending to a few woke executives who live behind gated mansions and never thought once of appearing on Undercover Boss. And guess what? The NCAA still awarded championships including March Madness events in Orlando and elsewhere to Florida, and Walt Disney World had a record-breaking year. The only feelings we hurt in the end were those few executives and the PR lifeboats they were too eager to please who care more about pleasing everyone than standing for what's right. Something Vice President Pence could never compound."

Former Vice President Mike Pence responded, "Governor, I do admire you for standing you ground in the face of woke mobs, but to say I just folded my cards and went home is ridiculous. When I sought the same thing in Indiana when I was Governor, the NCAA - which is based in Indianapolis by the way - also reacted strongly when our bill was crudely written and still awarded us Final Fours anyway. Clarifying what the bill entailed helped smooth over those issues." But DeSantis wasn't impressed, "Then why did those same sponsors who backed you initially call you a 'sellout'?" Pence tersely responded, "Can't please everyone." Sen. Ben Sasse responded, "At least I have the privilege to a) continue to see the College World Series in Omaha, and b) witness our Olympic swimmers go through Omaha to get to Paris". Pence chided to Sasse, "Just make sure the boys and girls are swimming separately, OK?".

DeSantis also drew reaction when he criticized former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who served as U.S. Ambassador to China under Trump, for "bowing to Big Beef" on farm bills and legislation when he vowed to rein in "excessive spending in our farm bills that don't actually serve the people who need it the most - family farmers, not large corporations who simply don't take pride in the food they serve". Former Ambassador Nikki Haley responded, "I know Gov. Branstad well. I know for one he puts family farmers and workers first. He also went to Tibet and saw firsthand their struggles. I don't particularly care for 'pink slime' either, but you may want to think about it before you go attacking a man who Iowans including their wonderful Gov. Kim Reynolds revered and still rever to this day". Sen. Ted Cruz responded sarcastically, "Looks like we have our first vegan President, and it's not a Democrat!". (During the debate, Google searches on 'pink slime', a reference to a processed beef filler called "lean, finely textured beef" (LFTB) whose product was controversially defended by Branstad during his second tenure as Governor of Iowa, skyrocketed.)

Another issue that certainly weighed on the debate was immigration, which particularly got heated when the issue centered on a recent tragedy in Iowa. When asked by Ingraham about the issue of crime caused by illegal immigration, Cruz brought up the case of Mollie Tibbetts, a University of Iowa student who was murdered by an illegal alien in 2018 while jogging outside her rural Iowa home, "Let us not forget that what happened to Mollie Tibbetts was the end result of an illegal immigrant who should have been deported". Former Gov. Larry Hogan responded, "You are aware that Tibbetts has Hispanic relatives and her family has defended the Hispanic community, right?" Cruz responded, "Well, I am kinda aware, I just don't see how this is a racial thing since we're not talking about lynching". Sasse also reacted, "Senator Cruz obviously has no clue that this was a tragedy where race is something that is best left out of the picture. If I were to boast of her name, like Donald Trump at least did when talking about Kate Steinle in San Francisco, I would consult with her family first". Pence responded to Sasse, "Senator, I do have to give you credit since that's the first time you've at least acknowledged Trump all along."

On foreign policy, Haley expressed her unwavering support for Ukraine in the wake of their ongoing war with Russia while attempting to make a connection to Iowa, "The people of Ukraine deserve the utmost respect for standing up for freedom that Vladimir Putin was so eager to take away, and the fact that Ukraine is essentially Europe's breadbasket is proof that Iowans should be more aware since if it were to be invaded by say China, it would be bad news for America's - and the world's - economy". Former Sec. of State Mike Pompeo responded, "Ambassador, I was there with Donald Trump and Jon Huntsman, Jr. (then the U.S. Ambassador to Russia) when Ukraine became a flashpoint. We worked hard with Zelenskyy to prevent a war with Putin that has since become reality under Joe Biden. Where were you? Giving speaking engagements to hostile media sources and Trump skeptics, that's what." Haley retorted, "Are you sure you weren't there to demand Zelenskyy investigate Hunter Biden?" Sen. Tom Cotton also criticized Haley, "Maintaining a strong military is crucial to protecting America's food supply, as Sen. Josh Hawley and I know all to well. I worked to help fund our defense against Russian rebels. Nikki Haley, on the other hand, chose to walk away", with the latter responding, "I didn't walk away, and I certainly didn't turn on Trump at all. Also keep in mind your foreign policy isn't any different than George W. Bush's," with Cotton responding "I don't know the Bushes, but I do know that they believed - like all Republicans should - in a strong national defense" to mixed applause and loud jeers of "Warmonger!" and "Traitor!" which led Cotton to respond, "I'm a patriot and nothing more!".

Manufacturing and education also became key flashpoints in the debate, with Mike Lindell using Rachel Campos-Duffy's question of "Should education priorities be re-oriented towards training workers who want to make money right out of high school?" Lindell responded, "As the proud employer of hundreds of workers just north of here in Minnesota, I say yes. There are good things you learn in business school or engineering, but I think a career in manufacturing, welding, the trades - you know - is more rewarding because you're actually making high-quality stuff Americans will buy instead of rewarding a hostile enemy". He also strongly condemned critical race theory, as all of the Republicans have done save for Hogan who argued "Critical race theory is not even an issue that affects a large number of voters, so why are we still treating it like it's a Satanic bible, and I don't mean a Harry Potter book?" Cruz responded with the usual spiel that CRT is "divisive, racist and teaches us to ignore MLK's pleas not to judge Americans by race" but also makes a diversion, "On a side note, I enjoy reading Harry Potter. Especially since their author has been canceled by the woke mob." Asides from the "pink slime" discussion, not much else was said on the issue of agriculture, with the same standard GOP spiel on "crafting financially responsible farm bills that favor smaller farmers", "increasing American farm production" and "not risking our food supply with corn subsidies for ethanol".

On other issues, the candidates generally expressed support for "clean infrastructure bills without the wind and solar junk", "constitutional judges who are not radical activists" and "standing up to Russia and China", along with various tradcon positions on abortion, school choice and defense of law enforcement. Overall, the debate was viewed with a mediocre response from the audience at home and in person, with the most positive scores being directed towards Sasse for his "show of decency" on the issue of Mollie Tibbetts, DeSantis for his "steady defense of the infamous 'Don't Say Gay' bill in Florida with being combative or defensive, and Lindell for talking up his manufacturing experience, while most of the negative reactions went to Cruz for his "clumsy handling" of the Mollie Tibbetts example and (from some fringe evangelical circles) suggesting that he liked Harry Potter and Cotton for his support of the "Bush Doctrine", which largely relied on a neoconservative foreign policy that has since been jettisoned by Republicans in the Trump era. Haley and Pence both drew mixed reactions generally; Haley drew praise for comparison of Ukraine's breadbasket status to Iowa's while drawing fire for bringing up Trump's infamous exchange with Zelenskyy that formed the basis for the first impeachment trial, while Pence continued to do well among social conservatives while continuing to draw tepid support from "core Trump voters" for obvious reasons related to the offense that led to the second impeachment trial.

[SaintStan86]

January 8, 2024
WARREN EARNS KEY UNION ENDORSEMENTS; EMILY'S LIST, EVERYTOWN ENDORSES HARRIS
Over the weekend, Democrats earned some key endorsements in the 2024 presidential election that could give an edge to one candidate in the primary. On Sunday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren received the endorsement of the Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas, one of the largest union locals in the country and the largest in a right-to-work state, which employs over 60,000 workers at restaurants, resorts and similar establishments across the Las Vegas metropolitan area as well as Reno. The union's President, Diana Valles, pointed to Warren's strong support for increased wages for workers, a single-payer health insurance system, and "unwavering commitment" to anti-discrimination laws as reasons for endorsing Warren. Hours later, the national AFL-CIO endorsed Warren, with President Liz Shuler pointing to Warren's "long history of standing for workers and other Americans "who need a leg up in a society that systemically favors certain privileged groups at the expense of the common man and woman". The Working Families Party, a progressive political party which has been a key endorsee in several Democratic races primarily in New York and increasingly elsewhere, also endorsed Warren as "the true progressive candidate in the race".

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris won the endorsements of EMILY's List, an organization committed to electing pro-choice women to Congress, and Everytown for Gun Safety, a pro-gun control advocacy group founded by 2020 presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg. John Feinblatt, president of Everytown, pointed to Harris's "steadfast commitment to preventing gun violence in America", while EMILY's List President Laphonza Butler called Harris "a trailblazer for pro-choice women all across America who broke barriers as San Francisco District Attorney, as California Attorney General, as a U.S. Senator from California, and most certainly as Madam Vice President". Two other highly-sought after endorsements, those of the American Federation of Teachers and Giffords PAC (a gun safety advocacy group founded by former Arizona U.S. Rep. and mass shooting survivor Gabby Giffords), have yet to be handed out with the former reportedly viewed as "unlikely to make a direct endorsement despite its affiliation with the AFL-CIO which has endorsed Warren.

With these key endorsements, Harris has distinguished herself as the leading candidate amongst more traditional center-left liberals in the Democratic Party, with a large base of support among African-Americans and much of President Joe Biden's political base, while Warren has become the clear favorite amongst progressive and union voters within the Democratic Party power structure.

January 9, 2024
REPUBLICANS EARN KEY ENDORSEMENTS ACROSS THE SPECTRUM, REGARDLESS OF STATUS ON TRUMP
Over the weekend, the picture of who has endorsed who amongst the wide Republican field began to crystallize as a number of crucial endorsements began to trickle in over the past weeks, with two major conservative commentators lining up their endorsements behind separate candidates.

On Friday, Gov. Ron DeSantis earned the support of Fox News host and talk radio institution Sean Hannity during the latter's Friday night show - a rarity as Hannity usually reserves the Friday night broadcast for guest hosts such as Jason Chaffetz (who is now running for U.S. Senate in Utah against Mitt Romney). Hannity cited "DeSantis's undying commitment to standing up to the media mob and others who would like to see conservatives take their marbles and go home" as the primary reason for his endorsement of the Florida Governor. It is far from the only major endorsement DeSantis has received, with fellow conservative commentator Matt Walsh encouraging his "Sweet Baby Gang to vote for DeSantis in the primaries and caucuses across America" and OutKick kingpin Clay Travis urging his listeners to "score touchdowns" for DeSantis after Thursday's debate. Numerous current and former Florida state legislators and mayors have also endorsed DeSantis, including several who were more familiar with the work of fellow presidential candidate Marco Rubio (who once served as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives) than that of DeSantis.

Meanwhile, former Ambassador Nikki Haley received the endorsement of conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who has invited Haley over many times to his various podcasts and radio shows. In endorsing Haley, Shapiro proclaimed the former Ambassador and South Carolina Governor as "the ultimate weapon against victimhood and cancel culture who won in spite of her diverse background, not because of it", and also pointed to her strong defense of Israel as a primary factor in endorsing Haley. Another Jewish conservative commentator, Dennis Prager, also endorsed Haley recently, calling the former Ambassador to the United Nations "a true friend to Israel who stood tall when other representatives at the UN tried to make her bow against America's closest ally in the Middle East".

Former Vice President Mike Pence earned the endorsement of his fellow Hoosier, Sen. Mike Braun, on Monday, along with those of several other members of Congress including Indiana U.S. Reps. Jim Banks (who serves as House Majority Whip) and Victoria Spartz (who was born in Ukraine). "Vice President Pence has been a steadfast defender of conservative values his entire life, and I am honored to endorse my fellow Hoosier to become the 47th President of the United States", Braun proclaimed in an endorsement letter to his followers on Facebook. Sen. Ted Cruz received the endorsements of several Texas Republicans including influential Houston conservatives Steven Hotze and Gary Polland, as well as U.S. Reps. Pat Fallon, Ronny Jackson (who once served as Donald Trump's White House physician) and Wesley Hunt and former U.S. Reps. Ted Poe, Louie Gohmert and Kevin Brady. Prominent Houston restaurateur Tilman Fertitta, owner of the NBA's Houston Rockets who once flew future Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly to his ailing wife (then U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords) after she was shot in a 2011 mass shooting, recently hosted a $1,000-per-plate fundraiser for Cruz at his Mastro's restaurant in west Houston where he raised well north of $1 million.

Amongst other candidates, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was endorsed by the entire Kansas congressional delegation as well as one-time Trump administration staffer and former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Kansas Gov. Derek Schmidt, while Sen. Ben Sasse earned the endorsement of former U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (who like Sasse is a conservative who voted to convict former President Trump in his second impeachment trial) and his Nebraska colleagues in Congress including fellow Sen. Deb Fischer. Two prominent "Never Trump" groups have diverged on the presidential election with Heath Mayo, who founded the conservative-leaning NT group Principles First, endorsing Sasse and former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who runs Country First PAC, endorsing former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan along with two moderate New England GOP governors, current Vermont Gov. Phil Scott (who has still not decided whether or not to run for Bernie Sanders' open Senate seat) and former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker. Conservative commentator Jack Posobiec, known for aggressively pushing the "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory, has endorsed Mike Lindell.

January 11, 2024
TEXAS GOP SENATE DEBATE MARRED BY INNUENDOS, POLICE CALLS
A chaotic debate at the University of Houston between several Republican candidates running for the nomination for Ted Cruz's open Senate seat became so disruptive that the Houston Police Department had to arrest several dozen members of the audience Thursday night, pushing what was supposed to be a two-hour debate past its time limit. The debate, sponsored by PBS member stations across the state of Texas including UH's own KUHT, lasted for over three-and-a-half hours after being interrupted several times in large part due to the actions of two fringe candidates who (according to recent polling) never even registered in the mid-single digits let alone double digits, but became notorious before and during the debate for various falsehoods and innuendos regarding their better-polling and better-funded rivals.

During the debate, former Travis County GOP Chairman Rob Morrow and InfoWars host Harrison Smith, who are both polling at 2 percent and 1 percent according to the most recent poll by The Dallas Morning News, made various comments whose veracity was being heavily challenged by the debate's moderators, Houston Public Media anchor Ernie Manouse, political reporter Jason Whitely (who works for WFAA-TV in Dallas) and former Harris County GOP Chairman Gary Polland. For example, Morrow (whose various conspiracy theories, false attacks on other politicians including his fellow candidates, and pictures of scantily-clad women across social media have made headlines across Texas recently) accused one of the leading candidates, U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, of being a "closeted twink whom they called Blinky" and became hostile when questioned by Polland about "whether or not Trump really did rape a child" - a point Morrow has repeatedly used in public since the 2016 election, often holding signs proclaiming "Trump is a Child Rapist!" outside Trump events in Texas. Smith, meanwhile, drew fire when he called another leading candidate, U.S. Rep. Lance Gooden, a "terrorist" for "advocating white genocide against Americans" and argued that "those who cry tears for Ukraine are no more American than President Xi", prompting Gooden to respond, "Harrison Smith is a provocateur for fake news, perhaps far worse than any mainstream media source can ever try to accomplish. He also is doing more to inflame tensions with China instead of actually doing something constructive to stand up to the CCP".

While tensions settled down for a moment, the debate reached its most chaotic climax during the second hour after InfoWars kingpin and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, whose outlet recently served as a base for GOP candidate and commentator Harrison Smith, walked into the auditorium drunk and wearing nothing but an American flag fashioned as an adult diaper, calling Crenshaw "a domestic terrorist" and former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd (a Never Trump candidate vying for more moderate votes who is also a straight bachelor) "a deranged gay Black man who exhibits Trump guilt". After Houston police dragged a crying Jones out of the auditorium, the debate was stopped for nearly 30 minutes after a brawl erupted between UH students and other audience members, resulting in more than 50 people being arrested for disorderly conduct, with Jones also being charged with public intoxication and public lewdness in Harris County as well as federal charges for desecrating the American flag. More than 50 people were injured after a tear gas bomb was set off in the building, with over a dozen being taken to the hospital with brawl injuries and inhalation of tear gas.

As for the debate itself, the debate continued for an additional 45 minutes after the audience was cleared out before finally concluding at 10:21pm - nearly 90 minutes after it was supposed to conclude. Houston Mayor Mike Knox, a former HPD officer (and father of another who was killed in the line of duty) who has endorsed Crenshaw, condemned the behavior of the audience members who disrupted the debate, citing "There is no place for this kind of unwarranted civil discourse that does not add to the conversation", while the Houston Chronicle blasted the Republican Party of Texas for "allowing what was supposed to be a civil debate turn into a poor man's version of Morton Downey, Jr.'s 1980s talk show", even threatening to go as far as endorsing the Democratic candidate without any further discussion. Republican Party of Texas Chairman Matt Rinaldi responded to the chaotic debate by announcing that all audience participation in future debates for the U.S. Senate race would be "by invitation only", while stopping short of increasing debate eligibility requirements to exclude low-polling fringe candidates like Smith and Morrow.

[SaintStan86]

(Editor's note: There is going to be a replacement for Devin Nunes who will only be around before the new Congress is sworn in, and in my predictions it will be the venerable Republican Connie Conway who will be eager to cross this off her bucket list, to which we salute her. Also, I am going to resume talking about the Supreme Court now that KBJ is officially a Justice on the high court - only three Republicans voted to confirm her. Of those, Lisa Murkowski has already lost in this TL and Susan Collins won't have her seat up for grabs until 2026 and is widely expected to retire. Mitt Romney will have the most to lose; with Jason Chaffetz running in this TL against him since he has actually voted YEA on KBJ IRL, look for the Utah race to get very interesting now.

I also shall mention that the names in the next two debates coming up are changing in part because of the extremely volatile state of NewsNation - the former WGN America - in real life (Joe Donlon, who was listed in this TL as a moderator for the Republican debate they are hosting, has left the network and has since joined CBS O&O WBBM-TV in the Windy City, so his name has been extracted from here since this is a Nexstar debate with some input from Scripps and NOT a CBS debate). Of course, pitfalls like these can be expected when you are trying to do a realistic TL and real life gets in the way, but that's the beauty of what-ifs - not everything you say eventually becomes true, but it doesn't hurt to think about it when it could potentially happen. This is also NOT an endorsement of what the Q trash fantasize about - those people are insane and IMHO are NOT real Trump supporters, perhaps no different than drunken Alex Jones in this TL.)

January 12, 2024
NEWSNATION ANNOUNCES FIELD FOR DUELING PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES IN CHICAGO
On Friday night's edition of his primetime NewsNation show Dan Abrams Live, ABC News chief legal analyst and host Dan Abrams was joined by Court TV anchor Vinnie Politan, his former colleague at the original Court TV that is now truTV, in announcing the lineup for the network's upcoming debates the following week at the historic Chicago Theatre in Chicago's downtown Loop, which will also involve production and staff from NewsNation parent Nexstar as well as E.W. Scripps and Hearst whom serve as partner companies of sorts. Both debates are set to air nationally on NewsNation and also on local stations owned by the aforementioned companies (including WGN-TV in Chicago) with former NBC News and CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien (who hosts the Hearst-produced Sunday morning public affairs show Matter of Fact) serving as a moderator in both debates.

O'Brien will be joined on Tuesday's Republican debate by NewsNation host Ashleigh Banfield and Court TV primetime anchor Vinnie Politan (both former anchors on the original Court TV) as well as Chris Jones, the editorial page editor for the traditionally conservative-leaning Chicago Tribune. For Thursday's Democratic debate, O'Brien will be joined by Abrams (who also hosts the revived Live PD on NewsNation and once hosted programs on MSNBC), Scripps Washington correspondent Joe St. George and Lorraine Forte, who leads the editorial board for the traditionally more liberal Chicago Sun-Times. To qualify in both debates, candidates must have at least 4 percent of the vote in three of five recent select national qualifying polls, among other qualifying factors, according to rules set by both the RNC for Tuesday's debate and the DNC for Thursday's.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE JANUARY 16TH REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (NewsNation/Nexstar @ Chicago, IL)
Candidate	Avg. (1/12)	Poll A (1/11)	Poll B (1/8)	Poll C (1/5)	Poll D (1/4)	Poll E (1/2)
PARTICIPATING
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)	18.6	19	17	21	29	17
Fmr. Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)	14.2	16	13	14	14	14
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)	13.2	13	14	14	13	12
Fmr. Amb. Nikki Haley (R-SC)	12.8	14	13	12	12	13
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)	7.8	8	7	7	8	9
Fmr. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo (R-KS)	6.8	6	7	6	6	9
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)	4.4	4	4	5	5	4
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)	3.8	4	4	3	4	4
Fmr. Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD)	3.6	4	3	3	4	4
Fmr. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)	3.4	2	4	4	3	4
NOT PARTICIPATING
Commentator Candace Owens (R-TN)	2.2	2	3	2	2	2
Businessman Mike Lindell (R-MN)	2.0	2	2	1	3	2

STAGE ORDER OF CANDIDATES FOR JANUARY 16TH REPUBLICAN DEBATE

9. Hogan	7. Cotton	5. Sasse	3. Cruz	1. DeSantis	2. Pence	4. Haley	6. Pompeo
8. Rubio	10. Christie

As expected, with the early qualifiers excluded, DeSantis returns to the top of the debate heap, followed by Pence. Haley, meanwhile, has fallen to fourth after a middling debate performance and a recent spat with Tucker Carlson on his Fox News show over her relationship with Trump (in which the host even had a L3 that read "Tucker Carlson Takes On Nikki Haley" during the middle of the conversation). Most of whatever supporters she did lose ended up going largely to Pompeo and Cotton, who share much of Haley's foreign policy tack. Cruz and Sasse have maintained their own, as has Hogan, while Rubio and Christie are now back in the loop given their support outside of Iowa is for the most part stronger than not; Rubio and Christie managed to barely qualify due to exactly three polls showing 4 percent support with the other qualifying polls treading below that threshold. Owens and Lindell, who are both polling weakly on a national scale, have been excluded from participating in the debate. Owens once again releases a statement in which she says "I'm not missing anything" and announced plans to hold a town hall at DePaul University with supporters during Tuesday's debate, while Lindell remarks, "What does NewsNation get like, two viewers every night? Our support is much stronger than that!"

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE JANUARY 18TH DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (NewsNation/Nexstar @ Chicago, IL)
Candidate	Avg. (1/12)	Poll A (1/12)	Poll B (1/10)	Poll C (1/7)	Poll D (1/5)	Poll E (1/2)
Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA)	32.2	32	32	31	34	32
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)	24.6	27	28	23	23	22
Former Sec. Pete Buttigieg (D-IN)	12.8	10	13	15	13	13
Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC)	6.4	8	5	5	7	7
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)	6.0	7	7	6	5	5
Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO)	5.4	6	5	6	4	6
Former Sec. Gina Raimondo (D-RI)	3.8	4	3	4	4	4

While not much has changed with regards to the polling on the Democratic side, Warren has received a notable bump after earning the endorsement of both the AFL-CIO and Nevada's Culinary Workers Union, particularly from union and blue-collar voters including some who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. These endorsements have once again brought Warren closer to Harris in the last two polls conducted for the Democrats. Buttigieg, meanwhile, continues to trail both challengers while Cooper, Klobuchar and Polis remain mired around 6 percent of the vote. For Raimondo, whose donor base has plateaued and has barely qualified for this debate, many point to this debate as her "swan song", which the former Commerce Secretary has denied by saying "We are in it for the long haul", even though no campaign events for Raimondo have been scheduled past this debate with the Nevada caucuses coming up the following Saturday.

[SaintStan86]

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: Marlene Calderon

The landmark Chicago Theatre at 175 N. State Street in Chicago's downtown Loop, site of the January 16th, 2024 Republican and January 18th, 2024 Democratic presidential debates.

January 16, 2024
REPUBLICANS TAKE OVER CHICAGO IN 2024 DEBATE AS IOWA LOOMS
On Tuesday night, Republicans made their case to voters in Chicago at the historic Chicago Theatre, in a televised debate that aired locally on WGN-TV and nationally on NewsNation and dozens of other television stations across the country. The debate, which focused on criminal justice and law enforcement issues, as well as the usual Republican smorgasbord of taxes, defense spending, culture wars and the economy, served as one of the last opportunities before the looming Iowa caucuses for Republicans to make their case to voters with critical endorsements set to be made in the coming days that could sink or swim several candidates' chances. As expected, the candidates marveled at the sight of being in the legendary venue, with Vice President Mike Pence calling it "the Sistine Chapel of Presidential Debates".

In regards to drug laws, while the candidates were largely united in seeking to reduce recidivism for repeat offenders, a contentious point came up when Sen. Tom Cotton called for increasing jail sentences for traffickers of cocaine and heroin, and suggested that legalizing recreational marijuana nationwide would be a "tragic mistake". Gov. Ron DeSantis, who legalized medical marijuana in Florida, agreed with the merits of Cotton's proposal but also called it "shortsighted", pointing out that "the so-called War on Drugs has done more to increase the surveillance state in this country than any failed government program or overseas conflict that has left our country with trillions in debt". When asked by moderator Vinnie Politan about whether or not he agreed with "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by the U.S. military at Guantánamo Bay (where DeSantis once served as a JAG), DeSantis pointed out "there are more effective ways to interrogate terrorists and foreign enemies than what was used by the George W. Bush administration" and noted that "when it takes Barack Obama to finally put a bullet through Osama bin Laden after trillions wasted in another country that didn't directly attack us on 9/11, what good does that really do for us?"

Sen. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, appeared to defend the controversial practice of waterboarding, which was used by federal negotiators during the War on Terror to get evidence out of suspects by pouring water over the heads of terrorists draped with towels. "If we were simply to look back and find ourselves guilty of doing many of the tactics we used to root out the architects of September 11th, we are essentially surrendering to the Taliban." Sen. Ben Sasse countered Cruz's comments, "We have already surrendered without getting rid of the practice. Getting out of Afghanistan without doing the job we needed to do is exactly what Joe Biden did, and he did so with disastrous repercussions". The relatively noninterventionist DeSantis is left chuckling, "Y'all make me laugh. This war did not have to extend beyond bin Laden, but because we put ourselves in the hands of radical empire builders, we have made it go on forever. I wouldn't have pulled our troops out the way Biden did, but as your President we're not going to waste our time fighting other people's battles when we can't even fix our own bridges or care for our own veterans".

Meanwhile, when the topic of police reform came up, moderator Ashleigh Banfield asked former Gov. Chris Christie if reforming law enforcement is possible without risking crime increases. Christie responded, "Of course not. Look, I'm a former prosecutor and U.S. Attorney. I know very well what police brutality has entailed and how it comes out of corrupt police unions who don't properly train and manage their own forces. But if our response to every shooting of an unarmed citizen is to cut funding for cops, we are actually undercutting our own safety." Christie also called for public-private partnerships to more effectively manage federal prisons, while denying that he is in favor of handing out excessive sentences for federal drug offenders. Most of the other candidates agreed, but Sasse, Cruz and DeSantis both railed against Christie's proposal. "What our federal prison system needs is a diversion program that does not lock up minor drug and white-collar crime offenders behind bars for life, and to direct these low-level offenders towards long-term probation sentences", noted Cruz.

The debate was briefly interrupted twice. When asked by moderator Soledad O'Brien about whether or not a travel ban similar to the one imposed in the first days of Donald Trump's presidency would be reinstated, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said yes, citing "It was defended with unanimous support from the Supreme Court and did not target followers of a particular religion, for which only a handful of countries out of dozens where it is the majority were targeted". This led to an outburst from activist Linda Sarsour, who apparently walked into the event uninvited and directed obscenities at Pompeo, leading to her arrest by Chicago police who dragged her from the balcony of the theater. Later in the debate, as the candidates were debating plans to lower middle-class taxes while reducing tax loopholes for billionaires, with former Ambassador Nikki Haley floating the possibility of a "Bezos Bill" to remove most tax carveouts for very wealthy individuals who often skirt federal laws, a streaker (adorned with Sharpie markings that spell out "Amazon Starves Workers") stormed the stage and disrupted the debate for nearly 40 seconds, prompting Chicago police and Cook County sheriff's deputies to beef up security around the perimeter of the theater afterwards.

This prompted a response from Cruz, whose own Senate seat's election debate in his hometown of Houston was marred by a brawl and mini-riot that caused injuries and property damage at the University of Houston the previous week. "Look, I understand your passions and concerns for this country, and that is why we fight every day for the American people. But when we resort to these kinds of thuggish and juvenile tactics because we can't learn to have a civil debate, we are playing into the hands of our rivals at home and our enemies abroad. We can't afford that, especially after all the damage that President Biden has caused." Former Gov. Larry Hogan, who drew high marks for calling the "Defund the Police" movement an attack on law enforcement and for his criminal justice reform proposals, responded to Cruz while also alluding to a famous remark at the 2016 Republican National Convention, "Thank you for standing up for truth, Senator. Now can you all do us a favor and promise to follow your conscience like you implored others to do eight years ago?" Cruz responded, "I certainly will, Governor, I certainly will".

On the topic of election reform, Chicago Tribune editorial page editor Chris Jones asked Pence if his vote to certify the election results will certainly doom his chances of becoming President. The former Vice President responded, "Of course not. Voters see the truth of how dangerous the Biden agenda has been for America and Republicans have looked at themselves and realized what they could have done to help Donald Trump in 2020." Pence also went on to commend Trump as "the most consequentially significant President since and even exceeding Ronald Reagan", and vowed to restore many of Trump's initiatives and programs on executive order upon taking office. Pence also took up the mantle on energy policy, "On Day One, I will rescind Biden's order that killed the Keystone XL pipeline, call its developer right away and authorize construction immediately, even invoking our military to hit the ground running".

On foreign policy, while many of the candidates focused on Israel and Ukraine, Sen. Marco Rubio paid special attention to his parents' native Cuba. "As President, I am going to continue the embargo against my parents' native Cuba, but with an aim to stand with those who believe in economic freedom and against the oppressive Castro regime that drove my parents away. The promise of a free and prosperous Cuba is possible, but only through 'peace through strength' will the vision of a Cuba freed from the Castros be realized." When also asked about why he is running for President against his fellow Floridian DeSantis, Rubio replies "Gov. DeSantis is a great guy. He has made Florida a shining state on a hill. No one could have asked for a better Governor in this country. The difference is that there are challenges in this world that require American leadership, leadership that isn't found in a narrow ideological vacuum".

The Republican debate was well received by the audience, but DeSantis appeared to be the bigger winner of the night as his nonchalant stances on drug and terrorism policies, as opposed to what seemed to be a prevalent neoconservative sentiment not unlike that of the George W. Bush era, appeared to perform strongly with conservatives and core Trump supporters. Haley's support for a "Bezos Bill" to close corporate and billionaire tax loopholes that result in progressive tax systems being made ultimately regressive, while drawing fire from some anti-tax purists as well as from the likes of Sasse and Pence, also won positive remarks from audience survey participants. Cotton's unabashed stance in defense of the War on Drugs - a point of contention for conservatives and civil libertarians in recent years - meanwhile has drawn opposition from such groups, with one anti-Cotton activist derisively referring to the Arkansas Senator as "Tom Q. Irontail", a reference to the antagonist "January Q. Irontail" in the Easter classic "Here Comes Peter Cottontail".

January 18, 2024
DEMOCRATS MAKE LAST STAND IN CHICAGO BEFORE FIRST CAUCUSES IN NEVADA
On Thursday night, Democrats gathered at the famous Chicago Theatre as hundreds of Democrats from Chicago and surrounding suburbs gathered to hear from their party's seven presidential candidates in the final debate before the Nevada caucuses on Saturday. It was also the first debate for the Democrats since some of the major national endorsements were handed out with social liberal groups such as EMILY's List backing Vice President Kamala Harris and union activists leaning towards Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Airing nationally on NewsNation and dozens of other TV stations nationwide including Chicago's WGN-TV, the debate emphasized criminal justice and urban development issues along with a whole host of other traditional Democratic issues, with former President Barack Obama (who introduced the candidates on stage and referred to the venue as "the most iconic theater in the world") and his wife Michelle appearing as surprise guests in the audience.

One of the biggest issues that came up during the debate was the matter of how to handle violent crime in urban areas, for which Democrats have often taken blame. When asked if her police reform proposals amount to a backdoor reintroduction of "Defund the Police" by moderator Dan Abrams, Sen. Elizabeth Warren remarked "Our police and firefighters are critical to maintaining order in our communities, and it shall be understood that many of these hardworking men and women are being underpaid and receiving fewer medical and retirement benefits than they deserve. But we also must understand that not every conflict in America necessitates calling the police every time," pointing to alternative diversion programs as a supplement to law enforcement. She also took aim at local governments who bought military and other government surplus solely for the purpose of "turning police departments into quasi-extensions of our military, not unlike the many militia groups that have centered their activities around the same sort of violent and hateful agendas that Donald Trump and his followers have emboldened."

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper responded to Warren by alluding to a famous TV show linked to his home state. "As the Governor of Mayberry, I am thankful everyday to the many men and women who serve as first responders, always on the frontlines. On TV, Andy Griffith may have played a cop and a lawyer on both sides of the judicial docket, but in real life he believed that at the end of the day the cops are more our friends than our enemies. Something the Senator from Massachusetts may want to see herself." Cooper receives a thunderous applause from the crowd, leading Stephen Colbert to proclaim on Twitter that "#DefundThePolice is dead. Long live #DefundThePolice!" Other candidates largely walked a fine line between calling for police reforms and increasing benefits for cops at the same time, but nothing close to the divergent extremes both Cooper and Warren displayed.

During the debate, another question that came up alluded to the future of President Obama's signature legislative package. When asked about how to save Obamacare by moderator Soledad O'Brien, Vice President Kamala Harris responded, "Since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, millions of Americans who never before could afford health insurance now have full coverage - medical, dental and vision - thanks to bipartisan efforts to strengthen and not weaken the system. Which Donald Trump was intent on doing, and which a future Republican President will certainly do to the benefit of corporate donors who are more interesting in dividing each other instead of uniting us as a nation". To buttress the ACA, Harris proposes implementing "Medicare for All" and toughening penalties for corporations who attempt to skirt federal health coverage and paid leave laws. She also vowed to push for gun control measures, arguing "those who believe in unfettered gun ownership without restrictions are on the wrong side of history".

The issue of electability was brought up during the debate as well, with former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo - who has consistently been the lowest polling candidate in the Democratic primary - pointing to her business background and successes navigating challenges related to COVID-19 both as Governor of Rhode Island and in the Biden administration. "When you look at countries like France where economic liberalization has created a sustainable advantage in the global economy, and compare that to countries like Russia who shackle their own people and dissenting voices, there is no apples and oranges comparison. More like comparing an apple to a lemon." When asked by moderator Joe St. George about whether or not her presidential platform is merely a copy of Harris's strategy, Raimondo replies, "Clearly, our Vice President has her own ways of doing things, and so do I. As President, I will work to advance fair play for every American, without creating an economic climate that won't work with a free country like ours", alluding to the successes of the "Third Way" strategy under former President Bill Clinton. Sen. Warren responded, "Secretary Raimondo has been quite helpful in regards to businesses in the wake of COVID, but what about before that?", pointing to Raimondo's own poor approval ratings before the pandemic.

Moderator Lorraine Forte, who serves as the editorial page editor for the Chicago Sun-Times, also brought up the issue of Illinois's economy during the debate, including such matters as diverse as economic development in Chicago's South Side neighborhoods (which have been historically underserved economically) and the safety of food production workers in the Downstate (outside of Chicagoland). Sen. Amy Klobuchar called for stronger protections for both farm and food factory workers as well as incentives for organic and sustainable farming, while former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called for a reformation of federal food stamp and farming appropriations. Warren also vowed to "rein in corporations who knowingly underpay their workers and produce substandard food supplies that ultimately sicken Americans" by calling for corporations who violate federal food safety laws to be barred from receiving federal subsidies for at least 10 years. Gov. Jared Polis, whose state was one of the first to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, also vowed to a rescind any remaining restrictions on marijuana farming in states where the crop is legal, "Name one person in this theater who is offended at the sight of pot brownies?".

The candidates were also united in vowing to undo any remaining parts of the Trump legacy remaining in the Biden presidency, maintaining Biden's ambitious federal fuel and emissions standards, and "finishing the job when it comes to implementing clean energy", with Warren calling for an "exit tax" for corporations who respond to federal tax and environmental regulations by moving operations out of the United States. "It is past time for corporations to start paying their fair share and start treating their workers like family. Because if one corporation doesn't want to adapt to the new realities that President Biden is weaning us towards, there's another entrepreneur willing to do as good if not an even better job than what the turncoat corporation did before", Warren proclaims.

Overall, the debate - much like the Republican version two nights prior - received positive reviews, with Warren continuing to remain steadfast in her progressive economic views and Harris defining herself as the socially liberal "Obama legacy" candidate. Cooper also managed to maintain positive press, with his allusions to his state's favorite son Andy Griffith continuing to win support from increasing numbers of respondents from the South. Raimondo also maintained a positive impression, but pundits argued that for the former Commerce Secretary, it's a matter of "too little, too late"; with Nevada's caucuses taking place on Saturday and Raimondo the weakest performing of the entire bunch, it is widely expected that Raimondo will drop out after the Nevada caucuses. Indeed, in her closing speech, Raimondo remarked, "I thank President Biden for the opportunity to serve as your Commerce Secretary, the American people for putting their trust in me to help pull their businesses through one of the toughest periods of our time, and especially the people of Rhode Island who trusted me to serve as their Governor", with no indication of her campaign definitively continuing.

[SaintStan86]

Editor's note: Two more retirements to note. In Michigan, Fred Upton has now joined Adam Kinzinger, John Katko and Anthony Gonzalez amongst the Republicans who voted to impeach Trump that have decided to call it a career, while in Ohio, Bob Gibbs has decided to retire after six terms. Both districts are expected to remain Republican with fellow incumbent Bill Huizenga expected to coast to reelection in Michigan's new 4th (Kalamazoo and suburban Grand Rapids) and Trump-backed Max Miller believed to have the inside track in Ohio's new 7th (suburbs of Cleveland in Cuyahoga and Medina counties + some rural areas further south including Gibbs' residence). The Michigan map appears to be set in stone, but the one in Ohio stands a good chance of being struck down - though not in time for the primaries, so a new map can be expected in 2024.

ENDORSEMENTS (so far)
Now that the first caucuses/primaries have finally arrived with Nevada Democrats meeting in their own caucuses, here are some key endorsements to note with the candidates ranked by their general polling position:

REPUBLICANS

1. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida

• Lenny Curry, former Jacksonville Mayor
• Sean Hannity, Fox News host and conservative talk radio personality
• Kristi Noem, Governor of South Dakota
• Jeanette Nuñez, Lieutenant Governor of Florida
• Rand Paul, 2016 presidential candidate and U.S. Senator from Kentucky
• Clay Travis, conservative talk radio personality, former Fox Sports host and founder of OutKick
• Matt Walsh, conservative talk radio personality
• Most of Florida's GOP congressional delegation, including Byron Donalds, Kat Cammack, Michelle Salzman, Greg Steube, Daniel Webster and Vern Buchanan

2. Former VP Mike Pence of Indiana

• Mike Braun, U.S. Senator from Indiana
• Dan Coats, former U.S. Senator from Indiana and former Director of National Intelligence
• Mitch Daniels, former Governor of Indiana
• Eric Holcomb, Governor of Indiana
• Todd Rokita, former Secretary of State and former U.S. Rep.
• Bob Vander Plaats, social conservative activist and CEO of The Family Leader
• Todd Young, U.S. Senator from Indiana
• All of Indiana's seven GOP U.S. Reps, including Pence's brother Greg Pence and Ukrainian-born Victoria Spartz

3. Former Ambassador Nikki Haley of South Carolina

• Kelly Craft, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and 2023 gubernatorial nominee
• Jim DeMint, Chairman of the Conservative Partnership Institute, former President of the Heritage Foundation and former U.S. Senator and U.S. Rep. from South Carolina
• Henry McMaster, Governor of South Carolina
• Dennis Prager, conservative talk radio personality and founder of PragerU
• Ben Shapiro, conservative talk radio personality and founder of The Daily Wire
• Ivanka Trump, daughter of former President Donald Trump
• Four members of South Carolina's 8-1 GOP congressional delegation: Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, and Reps. Nancy Mace and Joe Wilson.

4. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas

• Tilman Fertitta, owner of the NBA's Houston Rockets and Founder/CEO of Landry's Restaurants
• Dr. Steven Hotze, social conservative activist and owner of Hotze Health & Wellness Center in Houston
• Gary Polland, former Harris County GOP Chairman and editor of Texas Conservative Review
• Several members of the Texas congressional delegation including Pat Fallon, Ronny Jackson, Troy Nehls and Randy Weber. All of the four running for Cruz's open Senate seat (Dan Crenshaw, Lance Gooden, Chip Roy and Roger Williams) have withheld their endorsements out of respect for Cruz.

5. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska

• Heath Mayo, founder of Principles First
• Scott Rigell, former U.S. Representative from Virginia
• Pat Toomey, former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and former President of the Club for Growth
• All of his Nebraska congressional colleagues: Sen. Deb Fischer and Reps. Don Bacon, Mike Flood and Adrian Smith

6. Former Sec. of State Mike Pompeo of Kansas

• Sam Brownback, former Governor of Kansas, U.S. Senator and 2008 presidential candidate
• Kris Kobach, former Secretary of State, 2018 gubernatorial nominee and Trump administration official
• Derek Schmidt, Governor of Kansas
• All 6 members of Kansas's congressional delegation (including freshman Rep. Amanda Adkins), along with former U.S. Rep. Todd Tiahrt

7. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas

• Josh Hawley, U.S. Senator from Missouri
• Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Governor of Arkansas
• Asa Hutchinson, former Governor of Arkansas
• All of Cotton's 5 congressional colleagues from Arkansas

8. Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey

• Jeff Chiesa, former U.S. Senator from New Jersey
• Kim Guadagno, former Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey and 2017 gubernatorial nominee
• Geraldo Rivera, Fox News correspondent and former tabloid talk show host
• All three of the state's GOP U.S. Reps (Tom Kean, Jr., Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew)

9. Former Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland

• Charlie Baker, former Governor of Massachusetts
• Bob Ehrlich, former Governor of Maryland
• Adam Kinzinger, former U.S. Rep. from Illinois and founder of Country First PAC
• Boyd Rutherford, former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland
• Phil Scott, Governor of Vermont
• Michael Steele, former RNC Chairman and former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland

10. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida

• Lincoln Díaz-Balart, former U.S. Rep. from Florida
• Francis Suarez, Mayor of Miami, Florida
• Entire Miami GOP congressional delegation (Mario Díaz-Balart, Carlos Giménez and Maria Elvira Salazar)

11. Commentator Candace Owens of Tennessee

• Mike Cernovich, conservative political commentator
• Charlie Kirk, conservative talk radio personality and founder of Turning Point USA

12. Businessman Mike Lindell of Minnesota

• Michele Bachmann, former U.S. Rep. from Minnesota and 2012 presidential candidate
• Marjorie Taylor Greene, U.S. Rep. from Georgia
• Jack Posobiec, conservative commentator and "Pizzagate" conspiracy theorist
• Lin Wood, attorney who alleged electoral fraud in 2020 presidential election

DEMOCRATS

1. VP Kamala Harris of California

• Joe Biden, President of the United States
• Jill Biden, First Lady of the United States
• Stacey Abrams, 2018 and 2022 Georgia gubernatorial nominee
• Cory Booker, U.S. Senator from New Jersey
• Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader, U.S. Rep. from New York
• Phil Murphy, Governor of New Jersey
• Gavin Newsom, Governor of California
• EMILY's List, Democratic campaign organization that elects pro-choice women
• Everytown for Gun Safety, pro-gun control organization
• Planned Parenthood, women's health organization
• Many other endorsements too numerous to list, mostly from the traditional liberal and Obama wings of the party along with most of Harris's former congressional colleagues from California

2. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

• Shaun King, Black Lives Matter activist
• Ed Markey, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts
• Most of the Massachusetts congressional delegation
• Virtually the entire progressive "Squad" in Congress, as well as various progressive news sources and commentators including The Young Turks (Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian), Kyle Kulinski and Cornel West.

3. Former Sec. Pete Buttigieg of Indiana

• Joe Donnelly, former U.S. Senator and U.S. Rep. from Indiana
• David Letterman, former late night talk show host and comedian
• Beto O'Rourke, 2020 presidential candidate and former U.S. Rep. from Texas

4. Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado

• Tulsi Gabbard, former U.S. Rep. from Hawaii
• John Hickenlooper, U.S. Senator and former Governor from Colorado and 2020 presidential candidate
• Elon Musk, Founder/CEO of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla (also endorsing an unnamed Republican)
• Trey Parker and Matt Stone, co-creators of South Park and The Book of Mormon (both Libertarians)

5. Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina

• Michael Jordan, owner of the NBA's Charlotte Hornets, NASCAR team owner and NBA Hall of Fame legend
• Heath Shuler, former U.S. Rep. from North Carolina and former NFL quarterback

6. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota

• Tina Smith, U.S. Senator from Minnesota
• Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota

7. Former Sec. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island

• David Cicilline, U.S. Rep. from Rhode Island
• Dan McKee, Governor of Rhode Island
• Jack Reed, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island
• Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island

JANUARY 20, 2024
NEVADA DEMOCRATIC CAUCUSES UNDERWAY; FINAL POLLS REVEAL DEAD HEAT BETWEEN HARRIS, WARREN
It is high noon in the Silver State. While the Hoover Dam is teeming with visitors on a Saturday, casinos and buffets in Las Vegas and Reno fill up with gamblers and diners alike, wide open deserts across the vastly desolate landscape are embarked by globe trekkers, and thousands in hotel rooms on both ends awaken from whatever degree of hangover they may have had, Democrats in Nevada gather in various locations across the state to cast their presidential preferences and dole out the first 36 pledged delegates in a contest where the magic number is 1,885 out of a staggering 3,770. Originally set to take place in February, the caucuses were moved up to January in order to satiate Democratic demands for an earlier primary in states where a sizable minority population - something that is not seen in the traditional bellwethers of Iowa and New Hampshire - is extant, even though the state's presidential preference primary is still set to take place on Tuesday, February 6th - 17 days from today.

While some have criticized the Frankenstein approach Nevada is taking in the face of pressure from Democratic activists, others have viewed the bumped-up Nevada caucuses as a "new bellwether" for the nation that highlights the nation's "patchwork quilt" of ethnic and religious diversity. With Hispanics expected to play a major role in the 2024 presidential election, and a disproportionate number of them working in the state's hotels and casinos (including many members of the influential Culinary Workers Union which has endorsed Sen. Elizabeth Warren), Nevada is expected to serve as the first test of viability for a small Democratic field where only the most viable candidates will have a chance of receiving delegates. At the congressional district and statewide levels, only candidates who have reached the threshold of at least 15 percent of caucus votes will be able to earn national delegates, which is more than enough to potentially make or break at least one low-polling campaign.

According to the latest polls from Nevada, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren are in a virtual tie for first place with about 30 percent of the vote apiece, with the latter having surged in the closing days due to the labor union endorsements - particularly from the Culinary Workers Union - received by Warren, which undercut Harris's sizable lead buoyed by both her support from many of the state's leading Democrats (including former Gov. Steve Sisolak and former U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto) as well as her familiarity to voters due to her being from neighboring California, which itself has lost many residents to the Silver State over the years and even was home to a large number of the victims of the October 2017 mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. The polls also show Pete Buttigieg with just over 15 percent and Jared Polis with just over 10 percent, while the rest of the field is in the low single-digits. However, the caucuses are usually different from primary polls, and are expected to have a greater percentage of dedicated partisan and ideologically liberal activists than the state's upcoming presidential preference primary, which usually attracts a more casual voting audience.

Elon Musk, whose Tesla has major operations and a sizable customer base in Nevada, has made a decision to make an endorsement in both parties. For the Democratic caucuses, he has endorsed Polis, pointing to the Colorado governor's "business-first, people-first mindset that reflects the future that we all wish for", and took shots at both Harris for "standing in the way of freedom" and Warren for "believing that antiquated and ineffective business models that no longer or never made sense just haven't been tried, while ignoring obvious examples overseas that prove their uselessness". Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic U.S. Rep. and presidential candidate from Hawaii who has became a cult favorite of Fox News viewers, has also endorsed Polis.

[SaintStan86]

I'm surprised there isn't anyone running for the dem nomination to the left of Warren, even if they're only getting 2%. People like Kulinski who you have as endorsing Warren here are big critics of her and called her a "fake progressive" in 2020. I'm sure there would be someone like a Nina Turner who would run some doomed campaign.

Except at this point the far left is resigned to going with whichever candidate promises to deliver "the most" for their side, resorting to the sort of tactics that conservative ideologues used in this TL (and very likely are using IRL) to achieve victory. Of course, Warren's Republican past does come up, but it's also important to note that Harris is going to be viewed by the likes of Kulinski, Maddow and others as "corporate Democrats" in this TL. That is the whole crux of their MO, for if Harris is the Dem nominee there is a strong chance that the most far-left of these will likely break away to the Green Party nominee (whoever it may be), just they like did to Jill Stein and Howie Hawkins in recent years. In other words, the best "cure" for Democratic antipathy is to go far to the left, just as in their view the best "cure" for Republican antipathy was to go to the right (though with Donald Trump, the whole Republican math has been scrambled given the pivot constituencies in places like Ohio and Minnesota).

Speaking of "corporate Democrat", the one viewed as the most likely to embrace this stereotype (Raimondo) is trailing well behind and most of the dropout speculation has centered on her at this point. Could this be it for her? We shall see...

[SaintStan86]

NEVADA
DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS

Results of Precinct Viability Caucuses:
Elizabeth Warren - 33.84 perecent (Qualified to earn delegates)
Kamala Harris - 30.80 percent (Qualified to earn delegates)
Jared Polis - 15.11 percent (Qualified to earn delegates)
Pete Buttigieg - 10.21 percent (DNQ)
Roy Cooper - 5.53 percent (DNQ)
Amy Klobuchar - 3.39 percent (DNQ)
Gina Raimondo - 1.12 percent (DNQ)

DELEGATES EARNED
CD1/Las Vegas Strip & Henderson (5 delegates):
Elizabeth Warren 3, Kamala Harris 2
CD2/Reno, Carson City & Elko (6 delegates):
Elizabeth Warren 3, Kamala Harris 2, Jared Polis 1
CD3/Summerlin, Enterprise & Laughlin (6 delegates):
Kamala Harris 3, Elizabeth Warren 3
CD4/North Las Vegas, Pahrump & Tonopah (6 delegates):
Kamala Harris 3, Elizabeth Warren 2, Jared Polis 1
At-Large Delegates (8 delegates):
Elizabeth Warren 4, Kamala Harris 3, Jared Polis 1
Party Leaders and Elected Officials (5 delegates):
Elizabeth Warren 3, Kamala Harris 2

TOTAL PLEDGED DEMOCRATIC DELEGATES
(1,885 needed to clinch without Automatic Delegates)
Elizabeth Warren - 18 delegates
Kamala Harris - 15 delegates
Jared Polis - 3 delegates
Pete Buttigieg - 0 delegates
Roy Cooper - 0 delegates
Amy Klobuchar - 0 delegates
Gina Raimondo - 0 delegates

Despite Warren's win being narrower than that of Bernie Sanders in 2020, much of the reasoning has to do with Harris being viewed as a "more relatable" candidate than Biden was in 2020, albeit with the caveat that Biden's campaign was largely seen as in disarray at the time of the Nevada caucuses in 2020; it would not be until Biden dominated in South Carolina that he instantly became the frontrunner. While Warren performed most strongly among progressives, union voters and blue-collar voters, Harris's strongest performance was found in the largely suburban 3rd District (which does not contain a sizable number of union and Hispanic voters that mostly came out for Warren), and in the 4th District that includes North Las Vegas (which includes the historical heart of Southern Nevada's Black populace) and rural areas closer to Reno where Harris has already been familiar due to her being from neighboring California. Polis gets his three delegates each from his at-large showing across the state, as well as from the Reno-based 2nd District and the aforementioned 4th - both of which have a more libertarian-leaning Democratic base vote than the Las Vegas Valley, with the 2nd also being home to one of Tesla's "gigafactory" sites.

Buttigieg, who won three delegates in 2020 including two in the 2nd and one in the 3rd, failed to win any delegates due to his receiving only just over 10 percent of the vote. In a press statement released shortly after conceding the caucuses, Buttigieg pointed to "highly charged caucuses that are composed of small-minded ideologues who think the way to the White House is to mobilize the Trump playbook of partisan demagoguery", and argued that upcoming primaries, primarily on Super Tuesday as well as South Carolina's open primary, will be a far greater indicator of where the Democratic Party is headed in 2024. Polis, meanwhile, touted his success in Nevada using highly technocratic language "the only way to stop Donald Trump 2.0 from entering through a backdoor like a virus is to elect a President 1.0 who will do so much for the American people that you won't even need a revised version." Cooper and Klobuchar did not focus their efforts on Nevada, with the former preferring instead to focus on South Carolina's upcoming primary where 55 pledged delegates will be handed out while the latter has fixated on a strong showing in Iowa and its 40 pledged delegates. Gina Raimondo, did not release much in the way of press following a weak performance in Nevada, other than a tweet saying "Thank you, Nevada!", but conciliatory social media posts from her campaign staff paint a different picture.

[SaintStan86]

January 20, 2024
RAIMONDO DROPS OUT OF PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ENDORSES KAMALA HARRIS
Following a poor performance in the Nevada caucuses, former Commerce Secretary and Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo announced she was dropping out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. A once unpopular Governor who later drew praise for her handling of COVID-19 in her state and eventually parlayed that and past business connections into her ascendance to Secretary of Commerce in the Biden administration, Raimondo attempted to bring about a more business-friendly center-left approach to governance in the Democratic primary. However, with Vice President Kamala Harris dominating the vote among center-left white liberals and African Americans - two of the most critical Democratic voter blocs, as well as criticism of her pre-COVID gubernatorial tenure and her department's handling of the supply chain crisis leading to scrutiny from conservative talk and television circles, Raimondo struggled to gain traction and had largely become known as the "WTF" candidate by the time the Nevada caucuses came around, as in "Why the f*** is Gina Raimondo still in the race?"

Following her announcement that she was suspending her campaign, Raimondo threw her endorsement to Harris, tweeting "Honored to stand with @KamalaHarris as we fight #ForThePeople and finish the tremendous work that @JoeBiden started!". In accepting the endorsement, Harris thanked Raimondo for "both being a foot soldier in President Biden's historic administration and for running a great campaign that highlighted important issues that affect everyday Americans from women's healthcare to small business recovery". With Raimondo out of the race, the race is down to six Democrats with Harris and Sen. Elizabeth Warren thought of as the frontrunners in the race and most of the momentum being on the side of the latter. Before Raimondo endorsed Harris, Warren also praised the former Rhode Island Governor, "Gina Raimondo served the people of Rhode Island with dignity and worked to help small businesses recover from a pandemic that greatly affected them more than anyone else. I am grateful to have known her a little better in this campaign, and wish her the best of luck in the future".

January 21, 2024
NBC ANNOUNCES FIELDS FOR UPCOMING DEBATES ON CABLE CHANNELS
On Sunday's edition of Meet the Press, anchor Chuck Todd announced the upcoming fields for two upcoming presidential debates that will air primarily on its sister cable channels MSNBC and CNBC. The first of these two, a Democratic debate to be broadcast Wednesday night on MSNBC from the North Charleston Performing Arts Center in North Charleston, S.C., will feature the six remaining Democratic candidates who have all qualified for the debate as they qualify either with at least 5 percent of the vote in national polling or 5 percent of the vote in South Carolina polling. The moderators will be NBC News Senior Washington Correspondent Hallie Jackson, liberal MSNBC host Joy Reid, Today host Craig Melvin (who himself anchored at WIS-TV up the road in Columbia before coming to NBC) and 2022 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Joe Cunningham, who once represented much of the surrounding area in his one term in Congress in 2018.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE JANUARY 24TH DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (MSNBC @ North Charleston, SC)
Candidate	Avg. (1/21)	Poll A (1/20)	Poll B (1/15)	Poll C (1/11)	Poll D (1/10)	Poll E (1/8)
PARTICIPATING
Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA)	30.2	28	31	29	33	30
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)	25.0	25	28	25	22	25
Former Sec. Pete Buttigieg (D-IN)	11.8	12	10	12	13	12
Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC)	7.0	6	8	8	7	6
Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO)	6.2	8	6	6	5	6
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)	6.2	7	5	7	7	5
NOT PARTICIPATING
Former Sec. Gina Raimondo (D-RI)	3.2	3	3	3	4	3

STAGE ORDER OF CANDIDATES FOR JANUARY 24TH DEMOCRATIC DEBATE

5. Polis

3. Buttigieg

1. Harris

2. Warren

4. Cooper

6. Klobuchar

Even though North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper is the only candidate other than Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg to get more than 10 percent in the Palmetto State's "first in the South" primary polling, Jared Polis and Amy Klobuchar also qualify due to their national polling on average being above 5 percent. The debate is seen as the final opportunity for the six remaining Democrats to introduce themselves to South Carolina voters before the pivotal "first in the South" primary, which like the Nevada caucuses were also bumped up to before the traditional Iowa caucuses in part due to South Carolina's sizable Black Democratic electorate. Most of the pressure is reported to be on Buttigieg, who must answer to criticism that he is "not ready for primetime" after his disappointing performance in Nevada yesterday. Raimondo, who dropped out shortly after the Nevada caucuses concluded, was never much of a factor, and would have been barred from participating in Wednesday's night debate due to her weak national performance.

During the second half of Meet the Press, Todd also announced the field for Friday night's Republican debate at the Aronoff Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, which will be broadcast on CNBC and will be moderated by four CNBC personalities, led by former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith (who anchors The News with Shepard Smith on the network), along with Squawk Box anchor Becky Quick, on-air editor Rick Santelli (who famously played an informal role in the rise of the Tea Party movement during the Obama presidency), and the network's White House correspondent, Kayla Tausche. They will also be joined by former Speaker of the House John Boehner, who represented suburbs of the Cincinnati area during his generation-long stint as the Congressman for Ohio's 8th District. The debate will also be simulcast on Telemundo, dubbed in Spanish for its audience with wraparound segments hosted by NBC News/Telemundo anchor José Díaz-Balart. For the Republicans, CNBC has set a threshold of at least four polls with 4 percent of the vote, which in this case reduces the participation level to eight of the 12 Republican candidates.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE JANUARY 26TH REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (CNBC @ Cincinnati, OH)
Candidate	Avg. (1/21)	Poll A (1/20)	Poll B (1/18)	Poll C (1/16)	Poll D (1/13)	Poll E (1/12)
PARTICIPATING
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)	19.8	20	22	20	18	19
Fmr. Amb. Nikki Haley (R-SC)	13.8	13	14	12	16	14
Fmr. Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)	13.2	14	14	13	13	12
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)	11.8	12	11	11	13	12
Fmr. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo (R-KS)	7.8	7	9	10	7	6
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)	7.0	7	8	9	9	8
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)	4.0	4	3	4	4	5
Fmr. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)	3.8	4	4	4	4	3
NOT PARTICIPATING
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)	3.8	4	3	5	4	3
Fmr. Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD)	3.6	4	3	4	3	4
Commentator Candace Owens (R-TN)	2.2	2	1	3	3	2
Businessman Mike Lindell (R-MN)	1.6	2	1	1	2	2

STAGE ORDER OF CANDIDATES FOR JANUARY 26TH REPUBLICAN DEBATE

7. Cotton

5. Pompeo

3. Pence

1. DeSantis

2. Haley

4. Cruz

6. Sasse

8. Christie

DeSantis retains his leading position, but there is a somewhat noticeable shift as Haley is second next to DeSantis on the stage. The other candidates more or less remain in similar positioning. Sen. Marco Rubio, despite being tied with Christie on the national average, only polls at least 4 percent in three of five polls, as does former Gov. Larry Hogan who trails slightly behind. Candace Owens and Mike Lindell continue to underperform, with Owens announcing that she will be hosting a town hall meeting on Twitch during the CNBC debate ("Who even watches CNBC after the bell closes on Friday? Especially when ABC is airing a new episode of Shark Tank at the same time?"). Lindell, meanwhile, is rumored to be exploring a potential third-party candidacy, but in the meantime remains in the GOP primary despite his obviously weak polling numbers.

January 23, 2024
ERNST, REYNOLDS ENDORSE NIKKI HALEY; SASSE GETS REGISTER ENDORSEMENT
On Tuesday, two of the most prominent female Republican politicians in the nation made a major endorsement in the presidential race, endorsing former Ambassador Nikki Haley for the Republican presidential nomination. In endorsing Haley, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds pointed to Haley's "tremendous record of standing up for American values and American interests as our Ambassador to the United Nations", and also stated that "now is the time to elect a proven leader who more than fits the glass slipper and shatters that ceiling, and who unlike Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren will actually work to stand for America!" Hours later, Haley also received the endorsement of Sen. Joni Ernst, who in 2014 became the first female combat veteran to serve in the U.S. Senate. "I have known Ambassador Haley for years, and her leadership as Governor of South Carolina, as Ambassador to the United Nations, and as a trailblazing advocate for conservative women across America and globally is what sets her apart from her opponents".

Ernst and Reynolds were both endorsed by Haley in their 2020 and 2022 reelection bids, leading many to speculate that Haley is merely "returning the favor", a claim that Haley's campaign team is quick to deny. "I am honored to be endorsed by two of America's leading conservative women, who both understand the importance of strong leadership at home and decisive leadership in a dangerous world where enemies seek to undermine our freedoms - and our pride as a country", said Haley in the announcement.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ben Sasse earned a key endorsement from the Des Moines Register, who pointed to Sasse's record as "a steady conservative voice in an era of demagogues and grandstanders", pointing to his calm demeanor during the Supreme Court hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson as well as what the newspaper described as "a clear record of principles over politics, even if it costs him a seat at the Republican 'in crowd' dinner table". The paper also cited Sasse's direct willingness to break with former President Donald Trump, and called his move to convict the former President during Trump's second impeachment trial "an act of courage that deserves more respect from the American people than he's been given". While Sasse conveniently leaves out the parts referring to the second impeachment trial (which dealt with Trump's role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol) in a statement announcing the paper's endorsement, he goes on to call the endorsement "a clear sign that now, more than ever, is the time for steady conservative leadership that inspires a new generation of Americans and strengthens the future for our children and grandchildren". Critics view the endorsement with yawns, with Sen. Ted Cruz pointing out "Who in the Republican caucuses really takes the Des Moines Register seriously? Last I checked, none of their endorsements went on to win the Iowa caucuses."

January 24, 2024
VERMONT GOV. PHIL SCOTT WILL SEEK REELECTION; FORGO U.S. SENATE RUN
After months of speculation and draft movements, popular moderate Republican Gov. Phil Scott announced he will seek reelection to a fifth term as Governor of Vermont and will not run for the open Senate seat of outgoing independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. In a statement, Scott proclaimed "As Governor of Vermont, I have strived to serve as a Governor that all Vermonters can be proud of, and in the last eight years I have accomplished just that. For that reason, I will be seeking reelection for another two-year term." Scott noted that while he was flattered to have been plodded by the NRSC and national Republicans into running for the open seat, which had never before been represented by a Democrat (Republican-turned-Independent Jim Jeffords held the seat until his 2006 retirement paved the way for Sanders), he also pointed out that "the Senate is becoming nothing more than Kabuki theater for those who wish to not turn the Capitol into a partisan football where our shared goals can sometimes be lost in a haze of cable news madness".

Nonetheless, Scott vowed to find a credible Republican candidate to challenge the winner of an auspicious Democratic primary field whose winner is assumed to be "the frontrunner" for the open seat. Two Democrats, former State Senate Majority Leader Becca Balint and state Attorney General T.J. Donovan, have already filed paperwork to run for Sanders' seat, with more Democrats expected to enter the race in the coming weeks and months. Rumors of a potential third-party candidacy from Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman as a candidate for the Vermont Progressive Party have also bubbled recently, with some even speculating that Scott would have benefited from such a split between Democrats and Progressives in the general election. Currently, the race is viewed as a Democratic "pickup", though this is essentially a "pickup in name only" as Sanders has caucused with the Democrats during his entire congressional career (dating back to his first election as the state's lone U.S. Rep. in 1990) and even ran twice for the Democratic presidential nomination - coming in second both times to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.

[SaintStan86]

Source: Charleston Area Convention & Visitors Bureau Author: Unknown

Interior of the North Charleston Performing Arts Center in North Charleston, S.C., site of the January 24, 2024 Democratic presidential debate.

January 24, 2024
DEMOCRATS MAKE FINAL APPEALS IN LAST DEBATE BEFORE SOUTH CAROLINA PRIMARY
In the final debate before Saturday's "first in the South" primary in South Carolina, Democrats made last-minute appeals in a debate that focused on issues of importance to Southern voters as well as African-Americans - a sizable constituency within the Democratic Party, but most especially in South Carolina where they represent a distinct majority of Democratic primary voters and where Vice President Kamala Harris has seen most of her strength in polling. The debate, broadcast nationally on MSNBC from the North Charleston Performing Arts Center north of Charleston, South Carolina, also served as a last-minute opportunity for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to appeal for second place along with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who hopes to use his "next door neighbor" status to potentially enter the top tier of Democratic contenders.

In response to a question from moderator and former South Carolina news anchor Craig Melvin, in which Melvin asked about his case as a "moderate alternative with executive experience" to the Democratic electorate, Gov. Cooper chimed in, "I won twice in a state where Donald Trump won twice at the same time, one where it was very common to find Trump signs and mine next to one another. We both believe in the working man. We both believe in making our communities better. And we both believe in solutions that work for everyone. The difference is that unlike Trump, I'm not going to wade into culture politics the way both sides have tried to frame it, and I'm not going to use Twitter to set the world on fire." Cooper's response generated standing applause from the packed audience in the theater. In addition, Cooper also alluded to his endorsement by NBA legend Michael Jordan (who grew up in Wilmington and now owns the NBA's Charlotte Hornets), "I am proud to be the only candidate endorsed by the GOAT himself, Michael Jordan. I have fight in me, a Carolina toughness that exemplifies true grit and compassion".

Meanwhile Harris, who is viewed as the frontrunner in Saturday's primary, alluded to successes within the Biden administration as well as her support for policies popular with core Democratic voters - a $15 minimum wage, the Green New Deal, etc. - to contrast herself with the more moderate Cooper. "If we're going to be serious about winning in November, we need to take a page from the Republicans who used hard principles they believed in - principles that are actually destructive to working families and beneficial to the privileged few - to wrest control away from the people who put their trust in President Biden after four years of awful policies that took us several steps backwards", said Harris. Warren was not amused, "I think it's funny that Kamala Harris and Roy Cooper like to say how they're for the working man and woman in this country. The truth is common sense policies like a living wage, safeguarding consumers from bank failures, Medicare for All - those all started with my first campaign for Senate in 2012. They can only pretend to stand for them and then compromise with Republicans who take millions from corporations who wish to gut these programs while the average American continues to languish. With me, what you see is what you get".

Another topic that came up was military readiness with regards to foreign conflicts. When asked if military involvement in disputed countries such as Ukraine and Iran is necessary to "prevent attacks here at home" by moderator Hallie Jackson, Harris pointed out "the policies carried out by President Biden to put Vladimir Putin and other dictators in their place by the Biden administration have helped to keep us safe", while Pete Buttigieg (who served in the War in Iraq despite protesting against it in his younger years) stated that "there is no need to send mass armies out overseas, especially since many of us campaigned against what George W. Bush did in Iraq...We'll just stick to sending out diplomats and effective negotiating to keep us out of global conflict, while they opine about whether or not LGBTQ+ soldiers can authentically express themselves and serve at the same time".

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis had a simple response, "Just stay out of it. We must remember that opposing the War in Iraq is what sent Barack Obama to the White House the same year I was first elected to Congress. That's what wins at the ballot box. Not starting more wars to appease lobbyists in DC who cut fat checks to the Pentagon while our soldiers and veterans are left with few if any benefits for their service". Harris responded to Polis, "Staying out of a serious conflict is all well and good, but we must remember that Donald Trump himself thinks that our leadership in the world is benign, while he cozies up to dictators and trashes our allies. There is no excuse for not showing leadership in the world, especially since the difference between George W. Bush and Barack Obama on managing the war in Iraq was clear."

Throughout the rest of the debate, many of the same issues and responses from earlier debates came out, but one unique topic that emerged was the importance of Black farmers - a sizable chunk of the electorate in South Carolina - to federal agricultural policy. When asked by moderator Joy Reid if racial equity in agricultural policy should be mandated in future Farm Bills, Sen. Amy Klobuchar responded, "Expanding the food supply of our nation is critical to promoting our nation's rural economies, reducing hunger and homelessness, and leveling the playing field for families who for too long have struggled with empty pantries and freezers. That is going to end under my administration". The candidates also spoke out in support of a woman's right to abortion as part of Obamacare (Harris's proposal), called climate change "the gravest threat to America and the world" (Polis's words), argued that guaranteeing rights to transgendered individuals is a "game changer for business" (Buttigieg's words), and vowed constitutional amendments to overturn the Citizens United decision as well as any "remaining racist and hurtful policies from the Trump administration" (Warren's words).

Overall, the debate received a mixed reception, with some arguing the debate focused too much on benign issues such as foreign policy and too little on issues of importance to Black voters (such as voting rights which became a flashpoint in neighboring Georgia) despite South Carolina having one of the largest Black populations in the country. However, some pointed out that the Congressional Black Caucus Institute had already sponsored a debate in the state last year (broadcast on CBS from Columbia) and applauded MSNBC for more directly addressing other issues of importance to all South Carolinians such as military policy and climate change (given Charleston's large military presence and culture as well as its vulnerability to tidal flooding) and the issue of whatever degree a Democratic President should entangle themselves in foreign conflicts, pointing to Barack Obama's 2008 victory on the heels of strong sentiment against the War in Iraq.

Harris came under fire from anti-war liberals as well as conservatives in general for her foreign policy statements during Wednesday night's debate, with the latter group also remarking that "the Democrats have became - in the span of the last decade - the War Party", per comments from former Trump White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on his Newsmax program the following night. Later that night on Fox News, Sean Hannity remarked on his show "When even MSDNC is making Kamala Harris look like a poor man's George W. Bush since their ascendance came on the backs of their endless criticism of Bush's handling of the War on Terror, you know very well that the two parties do have large numbers of supporters who are weary of war. The difference is that in one party, the leading candidate is doing the bidding of the same neocons who like Liz Cheney have trashed Donald Trump, trashed conservatives and even trashed George W. Bush, whom at least we should give credit for not wanting to surreptitiously pull us out of Afghanistan the way Cranky Joe did while he was taking his nap".

Source: Cincinnati Arts Association

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: Wikipedia user "Mind meal"

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: Gage Skidmore

Procter & Gamble Hall at the Aronoff Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, site of the January 26, 2024 Republican presidential debate, plus a picture of former House Speaker John Boehner.

January 26, 2024
REPUBLICANS SQUARE OFF IN CINCINNATI WITH FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER AS HOST
On Friday night, eight of the top Republican presidential hopefuls sounded off in their latest debate at the Procter & Gamble Hall inside the Aronoff Center in Cincinnati, broadcast nationally on CNBC with four of their top anchors serving as moderators alongside former House Speaker John Boehner, who helped lead the GOP to rousing success in the 2010 midterm elections and is a lifelong resident of the Cincinnati area. Boehner himself introduced the candidates and opened, "I am honored to be here tonight as the former Speaker of the House, who rose from modest circumstances to help lead Republicans to a majority in the House under Barack Obama and helped to clot the damage that Obama was doing, which I'm certain is worse now with a shell of Joe Biden at the helm". Continuing while struggling to choke back tears (a famous gesture often seen during his tenure as Speaker), Boehner remarked "I am sorry to see how far he has fallen, but with the grace of God the next President of the United States of America will come from this beautiful stage here in Cincinnati to get us back to where we need to be".

Other than a few minor crying spells from Boehner, the debate was mostly full of a few tense moments plus a technical issue with Sen. Ted Cruz's microphone early in the debate. During an answer to a question from moderator Rick Santelli, who during a live report for CNBC in 2009 famously called for a "Tea Party" in the midst of bailouts from Congress and former President Barack Obama, about whether or not the 2024 presidential election amounts to the "return of the Tea Party movement"? Cruz's mic was first inoperable before a loud bang from it finally woke it up, but not without the Senator uttering "f*** whoever is running this show". Santelli responded, "Are you OK, Senator?", to which Cruz responded, "Well, finally I am. I'm just frustrated with why it is always when CNBC does a debate that I get shafted?" After a brief exchange, Cruz finally answered Santelli's question, "Yes, very much so. It paved the way for Donald Trump, and it's going to pave the way for a new President who will finish the job and undo the damage that President Biden has caused this country to suffer". He also vowed to be steadfast in "appointing constitutional judges from the district courts to the Supreme Court" and pointed out, "If we let Biden's handpicked successor fill Clarence Thomas's and Samuel Alito's seats, our country is done, it's over. We've surrendered to China."

Meanwhile, the debate (which focused on business and fiscal issues given its host is the leading cable business news network) also saw a battle between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over whether future health crises similar to COVID-19 would necessitate the sort of lockdowns early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Answering a question from moderator Becky Quick if Christie would have governed more like his blue state GOP counterparts such as former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (who was not invited to this debate and was more supportive of lockdowns and mask mandates) or more like DeSantis (who famously shunned such mandates save for a short-lived lockdown in April 2020), Christie pointed to both examples. "On the one hand, I would have viewed a lockdown as a temporary first step to try to get COVID under control, but on the other hand I would not have closed down gyms and restaurants who are capable of taking care of their customers without needing my successor to force a heavy hand on them", Christie remarked while also criticizing DeSantis for "allowing Spring Break to spiral out of control at the worst possible time while our state shut it down" and spoke of his own struggles with COVID (which he contracted while in close contact with then-President Donald Trump who himself tested positive and like Christie had to be hospitalized) during the beginning of the winter 2020 wave.

Not surprisingly, DeSantis was not impressed. "I'm very grateful you're alive, Governor, and I commend you for your frank honesty in describing your own struggle with this horrible virus. But I can bet you if you were Governor, you would have fallen right in line with Gov. Hogan, with Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, and would have been happy to shut things down like most of the Democrats did their states including yours. If I were Governor of New Jersey, I wouldn't be shutting my residents in, and in fact I'd be convincing New Yorkers and people from Connecticut to come to New Jersey instead". Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also responded, "What's not being said is that while we're debating about what would have been done differently about COVID, keep in mind that the CCP is still acting like they're the big innocent when really they're the most guilty party in all this COVID hysteria", and as President would call for American companies to withdraw operations from China ASAP while funding dissident Chinese citizens and those from breakaway regions like Hong Kong and Taiwan who are fighting Communism in their country.

Another flashpoint came in response to the recent barrage of mudslinging ads in Iowa between former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Ben Sasse, who are both battling for first place in the Hawkeye State with Nikki Haley rising after her big endorsements from Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sen. Joni Ernst. Pence remarked, "While I was a freedom fighter for Donald Trump as his closest companion in the White House, working to Make America Great Again and Keep America Great at the same time, Ben Sasse was being a tattletale treating Donald Trump as if he were R. Kelly," referring to the controversial musician who is now a convicted felon serving a prison sentence for sexually abusing young women including underage ones. Sasse was also unimpressed, "Once again, Mr. Vice President, you're choosing to pick the wrong fight. You could have boldly broken away from Trump by saying publicly you were done after January 6th, but every time you try to you go running back to Tucker Carlson like he's Daddy Warbucks. We need a President that our allies, our enemies and our talking heads can respect and appreciate, not belittle around while our next President is playing patty cake with Hunter Biden, as Tucker did asking him for help getting his kids into an elite private school".

The national debt also became a hot topic during the two-hour debate. When asked by Boehner if the rising deficit is going to finally be brought down to a surplus under her watch, former Ambassador Haley remarked, "Our deficit is a grave threat to our economic security, our national security, our standing in the world. Hell, if we continue to put America in the position we're in, my kids will be lucky to even get Social Security, and they won't be able to even afford those adult diapers that look like the diapers I put them in as kids, which I'm sure in this hyper-weird, hyper-individualized world might be all the rage with them in the future," to loud chuckles and scorn from the audience and candidates. Cruz remarked, "Nikki Haley. Rated NC-17. Only available after dark at some weird hipster bar in Brooklyn", while DeSantis also opined, "I know you're trying to be fun with words and read into our very individualized millennial consumer, but I shouldn't have to resort to the nuclear option", which when asked by Santelli was a complete shutdown of Walt Disney World (which itself was still lingering with controversy from its opposition of DeSantis's anti-LGBT education bill that led to Disney being accused of "coddling sex offenders and child predators", despite Disney having recently parted ways with its controversial CEO after a recent corporate shakeup).

Sen. Tom Cotton also struck a bitter chord during the debate when asked by moderator Shepard Smith if a conservative case for the Fairness Doctrine existed. In response, Cotton remarked, "Getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine was a godsend at a time when there were few voices and none conservatives trusted. Now those same conservative voices are being silenced by woke mobs and woke capital, and I think some rollback of the Fairness Doctrine repeal may be necessary to guarantee conservatives a level playing field". DeSantis boldly rejected Cotton's suggestion, "At the end of the day, louder conservative speech - even if relegated to alternate platforms and obscure late-night TV informercials - may be better for the future of our country and our political discourse versus going back to the dark ages that Sen. Cotton is so willing to embrace. Which is exactly what the Democrats want". Cotton also criticized Haley for being "too soft on China", remarking "China is our biggest enemy and a bigger threat to peace in the world than Russia or any country in the Middle East that wants to obliterate Israel. And those, my friends, are really big threats already", with Haley responding by comparing her "executive experience confronting enemies of the CCP who are also themselves allies of Hamas and the PLO to Sen. Cotton's comparable lack of executive leadership on foreign policy".

In the last question of the night, CNBC White House correspondent and moderator Kayla Tausche also asked the eight candidates about whether or not they would accept or question the results if they were to lose to the Democrat, with all of the candidates vowing to accept the results depending on "whatever level of voter fraud does exist", per DeSantis's words. Pence remarked, "If I were to win the GOP nomination and lose to Vice President Harris or whoever the Democrat nominee is, I would accept the results, but also encourage Republicans to fight for election reform at the same time", with Cruz responding "There's nothing wrong with accepting the results Vice President, but if there was voter fraud on the level of what was experienced with Donald Trump four years ago, I wouldn't be afraid to punt the ball and do a recount without the questionable ballots". Overall, the debate was positively received, with DeSantis's closing line being the most heartfelt moment, "Disagreements aside, I am very sad that Governor Hogan is not here with us in Cincinnati, when he could be here with us tonight. He is a good man, fought cancer, fought against his state's corrupt Democrat regime. I hope he's with us next Wednesday night in Norfolk (where the Republicans are set to have another debate next week)", generating strong applause with Boehner struggling to fight back tears himself.

[SaintStan86]

January 27, 2024
VOTING UNDERWAY IN SOUTH CAROLINA DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY WITH HEAVY TURNOUT, GLITCHED MACHINES REPORTED ACROSS STATE
Voting began early Saturday morning in South Carolina's "first in the South" Democratic primary, which this year has been moved up to before the Iowa caucuses per Democrats' wish to take advantage of voter appeal amongst African Americans - long a key constituency of the Democratic Party and which make up a majority of South Carolina's Democratic voters. With turnout at unprecedented levels in all parts of the state from the Charleston area to the Upstate to around the state capital of Columbia, long lines and reports of glitches have been documented throughout the day including a water main break at one polling place in the West Ashley section of Charleston - a critical voting bloc for the Democrats in that area - that resulted in the polls being closed for nearly two hours. Additionally, requests for paper ballots at some polling places in York County, home to suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina, were denied after those precincts ran out of paper ballots and forced voters to use strictly electronic devices only.

The primary is seen as a huge test for three of the six remaining Democrats in the presidential race. For frontrunner Kamala Harris, it's not a matter of if the current Vice President is capable of winning South Carolina (which is expected given her large lead in the state) but rather one of whether or not Harris can cross 50 percent and shut out her rivals. For Elizabeth Warren, it's a matter of whether or not the Massachusetts U.S. Senator's appeals to progressives and more activist Black voters will make a difference in the primary. And for Gov. Roy Cooper of neighboring North Carolina, it's a key test of both his appeal to more moderate southern Democrats as well as his support from parts of the state that also factor significantly in his own state, particularly the Charlotte and Greenville areas where Western North Carolina politicians already get considerable exposure. Exit polls have shown Harris crossing the 50 percent mark with Black voters, while amongst White Democrats it's a free-for-all depending on what region of the state is in question. 55 pledged delegates will be handed out tonight, with 36 of those to be handed out by congressional district.

SOUTH CAROLINA
DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY

Results of Primary:
Kamala Harris - 42.14 percent (Qualified to earn delegates)
Elizabeth Warren - 22.10 perecent (Qualified to earn delegates)
Roy Cooper - 19.11 percent (Qualified to earn delegates)
Pete Buttigieg - 9.48 percent
Amy Klobuchar - 3.77 percent
Jared Polis - 2.84 percent
Gina Raimondo - 0.36 percent
(Remaining 0.2 percent went to other candidates)

DELEGATES EARNED
CD1/Charleston suburbs, Beaufort & Hilton Head Island (7 delegates):
Kamala Harris 3, Elizabeth Warren 3, Roy Cooper 1
CD2/Columbia suburbs & Aiken (4 delegates):
Kamala Harris 3, Roy Cooper 1
CD3/Anderson, Greenwood & Clemson (3 delegates):
Roy Cooper 1, Kamala Harris 1, Elizabeth Warren 1
CD4/Greenville & Spartanburg (4 delegates):
Kamala Harris 2, Roy Cooper 1, Elizabeth Warren 1
CD5/Rock Hill, Union & Columbia exurbs (5 delegates):
Roy Cooper 3, Kamala Harris 2
CD6/Columbia, Charleston & Orangeburg - incl. majority Black areas (8 delegates):
Kamala Harris 5, Elizabeth Warren 2, Roy Cooper 1
CD7/Myrtle Beach & Florence (5 delegates):
Kamala Harris 2, Roy Cooper 2, Elizabeth Warren 1
Party Leaders and Elected Officials (7 delegates):
Kamala Harris 3, Elizabeth Warren 2, Roy Cooper 2
At-Large Delegates (12 delegates):
Kamala Harris 6, Elizabeth Warren 3, Roy Cooper 3

TOTAL PLEDGED DEMOCRATIC DELEGATES
(1,885 needed to clinch without Automatic Delegates)
Kamala Harris - 42 delegates
Elizabeth Warren - 31 delegates
Roy Cooper - 15 delegates
Jared Polis - 3 delegates
Pete Buttigieg - 0 delegates
Amy Klobuchar - 0 delegates
Gina Raimondo - 0 delegates

While Harris's first place showing in South Carolina was expected, the second place showing diverged depending on the statewide percentages and individual results by congressional district. Both Cooper and Warren received the same amount of PLEO and at-large delegates, but congressional districts told a different story. Warren's strongest performance was in the Charleston and Columbia areas, home to liberal transplants from northern states, more liberal retirees and white liberals working for government and academic institutions - all groups that along with more progressive Black voters were drawn to Warren's staunch liberal power play. Harris, however, dominated among African-American voters in general, winning more than 55 percent of the Black vote in the primary and dominating in the plurality Black 6th District, whose longtime incumbent Congressman Jim Clyburn has endorsed Harris. Cooper also won at least one delegate in every congressional district, even placing first in two districts - a plurality in the mostly White and rural 3rd west of Greenville and north of Aiken and a slight majority in the 5th District, which is centered on the South Carolina suburbs of Charlotte where Cooper has been a constant TV presence since his days as North Carolina's Attorney General. Warren, by contrast, only won delegates in five of South Carolina's congressional districts - only winning more than one in the Charleston-based 1st (3 delegates) and the Columbia-based plurality Black 6th (2 delegates), and was shut out of the suburban Columbia-based 2nd and the aforementioned 5th.

Pete Buttigieg's weak performance across the state continues to give his campaign pause, as many pundits begin to predict that the time for "Mayor Pete" has come and gone. On CNN, when asked by Wolf Blitzer if Buttigieg is done as a presidential candidate, Democratic strategist and pundit Paul Begala remarks, "Most certainly his numbers in Nevada and South Carolina are not encouraging, but it's not necessarily over yet because we haven't gotten to the Midwest where he is expected to perform strongly". Indeed, recent polls have Buttigieg performing competitively with Harris and Warren in Iowa and New Hampshire, with Buttigieg's performance being comparatively worse in western states (where Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is performing above average) and in southern states (which have large Black Democratic voter bases which favor Harris as well as more moderate Democrats who give a sizable amount of support to Cooper in recent polls). While Sen. Amy Klobuchar is performing strongly in Minnesota, her performance is comparatively weaker versus Harris, Warren and Buttigieg, the latter of whom has stronger support in his home state than Klobuchar does.

Fortunately, Buttigieg and Klobuchar see a chance to recoup lost ground the coming week in the Midwest. With South Carolina's primary in the books, the candidates are prepared to head to St. Louis, where the Democrats are scheduled to debate at Lindenwood University in the suburb of St. Charles, Missouri on Tuesday night, followed by what is expected to be an intensive round of barnstorming, endorsement seeking and searching for last-minute votes before February 5th's critically important Iowa caucuses.