The (no longer) much too early 2024 election thread

[Frelga]

Not negligence. It was cold blooded murder.

[N.E. Brigand]

Not negligence. It was cold blooded murder.

Well, even my term "negligence" probably would be a stretch, legally. Abbott didn't personally tell the Texas police to prevent U.S. Border Patrol from helping those six people who were caught in the Rio Grande. It's more like how Donald Trump is responsible for the some of the thousands of people who died in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria and some of the hundreds of thousands of people who died from Covid-19.

And speaking of Trump, he was looking a bit disheveled this evening:

[N.E. Brigand]

Semafor reporter Dave Weigel has spent the past few days in Iowa at various candidate events, including one with Vivek Ramaswamy today:

"A cute kid gets the first question: What would Vivek do first if he becomes president? Vivek says he'd use executive order to kill birthright citizenship."

[N.E. Brigand]

Also in Iowa this weekend, Vivek Ramaswamy's wife Apoorva wanted to learn from her husband's supporters there what they're hearing from neighbors about why they're backing other candidates and not him, and while I don't care for Mr. Ramaswamy, this is just nasty:

One response: "I couldn’t even remember who said it to me, but they mentioned his dark skin and they think he’s Muslim."

Another voter asks her: "How long have you been in the United States, were you born here?"

Vivek Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati to Indian immigrants and, like his parents, he is Hindu.

[RoseMorninStar]

These are the things such voters are concerned about? Just awful.

[N.E. Brigand]

An Iowa poll finds that "almost half of Haley supporters say they would vote for Biden over Trump."

Donald Trump is expected to win the Iowa caucuses with close to 50% of the vote, which would be the largest victory there ever, but this poll finds that only 71% of Iowa Republicans will support him in November (with the rest splitting their votes between Joe Biden, Robert F. Kennedy, or another third party candidate). If that were to hold up, and if it were representative of Republicans nationally ... well, I guess we'll see.

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Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis said tonight that he's upset that there's a mosque in Bethlehem.

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Oh, and Donald Trump said today that he expects to be president "for four years and beyond." He also encouraged his supporters to show up at the caucuses Tuesday even if they fear the weather conditions are too dangerous.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[RoseMorninStar]

This is what happens in a cult.

[Snowdog]

....which is why this election cycle is so damn scary. I lost all faith that the Republican voter had any hint of decency and even a slight bit of common sense after January 6th 2021. And now it comes to this. I can only say I'm glad I don't live there anymore. I still vote, but in Washington state, so I'm solidly Democrat. Not that I'm happy with the Democrats as they are showing their usual tendency to be somewhat incompetent, but there is no other choice if tyranny is to be avoided in the USA.

[N.E. Brigand]

As expected, Trump won the Iowa Republican caucuses by a wide margin, but I think the media made the margin somewhat larger than it otherwise would have been. All mainstream outlets called the race for Trump less than a half hour after caucusing started. The Associated Press violated their own rules in doing so: the AP's handbook says it won't call a race in a given state until all votes are cast, but in more than a few precincts tonight, not only had voting not ended, it hadn't even started (becuase it can take some time for things to get organized and then for the candidates' representatives to make their final pitch). People like to back winners and they don't like voting in lost causes, and yet they could see on their phones, even before they voted, that the race was over.

[N.E. Brigand]

Vivek Ramaswamy has suspended his presidential campaign.

[N.E. Brigand]

Politico: "RFK Jr. is defending his family's involvement in the FBI campaign against Martin Luther King." As one does.

[N.E. Brigand]

Turnout was down tonight. NBC was predicting 130,000 based on entrance polls, but it looks likelier to be about 115,000. It was 182,000 when Trump first ran in 2016 (there were no caucuses in 2020 when he was the incumbent). That's due in part to this being the coldest ever Iowa caucus, with temperatures below zero Fahrenheit, nearly 20 degrees colder than the previous record low for this event.

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"Rapist facing 91 felony charges wins Iowa caucus."

Do Iowa voters not know about this, or do they not care?



With 95% of the vote in, the top four are:
Donald Trump -- 55,838 (51.1%) -- 20 delegates
Ron DeSantis -- 23,175 (21.2%) -- 8 delegates
Nikki Haley -- 20,809 (19.0%) -- 7 delegates
Vivek Ramaswamy -- 8,358 (7.7%) -- 3 delegates

No other candidate received more than a few hundred votes or any delegates.

Trump's 29.9% lead over DeSantis is the biggest margin of victory in Iowa Republican caucus history; the previous record was 11%.

Trump is leading in all but one Iowa county (in Johnson County he's trailing Nikki Haley by just one vote).

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A possible upside of the stomach-turning poll results shared above is that more than 30% of Republican voters in Iowa say they couldn't vote for Donald Trump if he is convicted. If they're not lying, and if a similar number of Republicans in other states feel the same way -- and if Trump is convicted before November -- then he will be crushed in the general election.

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This is interesting: Ken Langone, the co-founder of the Home Depot company, said today on Fox News that he won't vote for Donald Trump in the general election becuase of the "disgusting" way Trump treated people during his presidency.

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I found this amusing, but I will admit that some of the humor is pretty childish and crude. Still: "bewildered by water"! I've watched the last 30 seconds over and over.

[Túrin Turambar]

This year's Republican primaries will be unusual because President Trump is as close to an incumbent as anyone has ever been in the modern primary era without actually being one. That said, I've been surprised at just how solid his support is. Based on the Iowa results and the polling in NH it looks likely he'll win the nomination. I think Nikki Haley is shaping up to be the most-likely runner-up given that Ron DeSantis underperformed in Iowa, which will put her in a good position in 2028 should Trump win the nomination and lose the general.

[N.E. Brigand]

I like this comparison:

Donald Trump got approximately 56,000 votes in Iowa yesterday (51% of 110,000 votes cast). The population of Iowa is 3.19 million, so Trump earned 1.8%.

Nancy Pelosi got approximately 134,000 votes in her district in 2022 (72% of 186,000 votes cast). The district's population is 706,000, so Pelosi earned 16.8%.

[N.E. Brigand]

Also in Iowa this weekend, Vivek Ramaswamy's wife Apoorva wanted to learn from her husband's supporters there what they're hearing from neighbors about why they're backing other candidates and not him, and while I don't care for Mr. Ramaswamy, this is just nasty:

One response: "I couldn’t even remember who said it to me, but they mentioned his dark skin and they think he’s Muslim."
Another voter asks her: "How long have you been in the United States, were you born here?"

Vivek Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati to Indian immigrants and, like his parents, he is Hindu.

Further on some Iowa Republican voters' aversion to Vivek Ramaswamy, who has suspended his campaign after receiving fewer than 10,000 votes:

Iowa voter on Ramaswamy: "I'm not being prejudiced, guys, but I don't like his name. I don't like where he came from. After 9/11, I still harbor a lot of hard feelings."

[N.E. Brigand]

Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, said today that "only thing we're not doing is shooting people" crossing the border because "the Biden Administration would charge us with murder." Well, yes, because that would in fact be murder.

And it appears that Greg Abbott may have killed two children on Friday (via negligence).

Greg Abbot, Republican governor of Texas, also claims to have a very strong Christian faith and has fought, among other things, to have the 10 commandments posted in schools. I really struggle with the hypocrisy.

Not negligence. It was cold blooded murder.

Well, even my term "negligence" probably would be a stretch, legally. Abbott didn't personally tell the Texas police to prevent U.S. Border Patrol from helping those six people who were caught in the Rio Grande. It's more like how Donald Trump is responsible for the some of the thousands of people who died in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria and some of the hundreds of thousands of people who died from Covid-19.

An important update from the Dept. of Homeland Security (which oversees the Border Patrol). The woman and two children who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande were already dead when DHS reached out to Texas officials about accessing that stretch of river and were turned down. DHS had learned about the deaths from Mexican officials, who also informed DHS that two other people were trapped in the river and needed assistance. These are the people whom Texas prevented DHS from assisting. They were able to get back to the Mexico side of the river, where they were treated for hypothermia.

[N.E. Brigand]

There had been a Republican debate scheduled for Thursday night in New Hampshire, but Nikki Haley said she would only participate if Donald Trump did. He's skipped all the debates this cycle and won't be participating in this one, so it's been cancelled.

[N.E. Brigand]

In a special election for the Florida statehouse today, the Democratic candidate, Tom Keen, defeated his Republican opponent to succeed the Republican incumbent who had stepped down to become a university president. That Republican, Fred Hawkins, had won the seat in 2020 and 2022.

[N.E. Brigand]

Also in Iowa this weekend, Vivek Ramaswamy's wife Apoorva wanted to learn from her husband's supporters there what they're hearing from neighbors about why they're backing other candidates and not him, and while I don't care for Mr. Ramaswamy, this is just nasty:

One response: "I couldn’t even remember who said it to me, but they mentioned his dark skin and they think he’s Muslim."
Another voter asks her: "How long have you been in the United States, were you born here?"

Vivek Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati to Indian immigrants and, like his parents, he is Hindu.

Further on some Iowa Republican voters' aversion to Vivek Ramaswamy, who has suspended his campaign after receiving fewer than 10,000 votes:

Iowa voter on Ramaswamy: "I'm not being prejudiced, guys, but I don't like his name. I don't like where he came from. After 9/11, I still harbor a lot of hard feelings."

And The Babylon Bee, a supposed humor website that favors conservative positions, "jokes" that once Donald Trump is back in the White House, he'll put Ramaswamy in charge of the local 7/11 (convenience store). I suppose that could be meant as an attack on Trump's racism, but I doubt it.