by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch
2024 contenders President Biden and former President Trump, buffeted by the latest polls, will fly to western states this week, each hoping to woo supporters who could help with Electoral College math next year.
Biden, who is trying to sidestep the political downsides of economic headwinds and being 80, will talk up the help he says he’s delivered for rural America. He plans Wednesday to visit a farm in Minnesota, while Trump will pass the hat at two red-state Texas fundraisers, appearing as the GOP presidential primary leader in Dallas on Wednesday and Houston on Thursday.
Amid a presidential contest described by some as a repeat of 2020, but with added venom, Trump does not plan a rally while in Texas and won’t appear at next week’s Republican debate in Miami, at which a slowly shrinking lineup of long-shot challengers will spar. The former president, busy of late in courtrooms as a civil and criminal defendant, plans a rally Nov. 8 in Hialeah, Fla., the same night as the debate.
Trump, who leads decisively in polls in Iowa 66 days ahead of the first-in-the-nation GOP caucuses, headlined an event Sunday in Sioux City, Iowa, mistakenly referring to his location as Sioux Falls, in South Dakota.
The New York Times: How 77-year-old Trump’s verbal slips could weaken his attacks on Biden’s age.
Republicans searching for an alternative to Trump may have run out of time, The Hill’s Jared Gans reports. The decision by former Vice President Mike Pence, a Midwesterner, to quit the presidential race was the latest shake-up. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who was part of the Trump administration, is tied in Iowa with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 16 percent, well behind Trump.
- Biden will not be on the New Hampshire primary ballot. What does that mean for voters? … Top New Hampshire Democrats on Monday launched a write-in campaign for the president, days after he passed on putting his name on the ballot.
- A No Labels “Deny Donald” defense may help the Democrats’ bid for a Biden second term.
- The conflict between Israel and Hamas is deepening tensions in the Democratic Party, The Hill’s Niall Stanage writes in The Memo.
The White House insists that Biden’s trip to Minnesota this week was planned well before last week’s announcement by Democrat Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota that he is challenging the president in the primary. The lawmaker has puzzled some Senate Democrats and enraged others in his party who believe that his calls for younger leadership add uncertainty to a contest in which Biden is expected to be the nominee, amid job disapproval near 56 percent.
The White House should be terrified because the president, while he is doing a good job in terms of policy, is looking at plummeting numbers, hemorrhaging support and Democrats who, like me, are sort of scared to go on the record and say what they think but are increasingly terrified,” said one Democratic consultant who requested anonymity.
3 Things to Know Today
- The United Auto Workers reached a tentative deal with General Motors after previously reaching accords with Ford and Stellantis. The four-and-a-half-year GM contract agreement after six strained weeks of negotiations still has to be ratified by UAW members. The headline economics of the deals, such as a 25 percent hourly wage increase, shadowed Ford’s initial deal.
- In Missouri, Democrat Wesley Bell announced Monday he will drop his bid to unseat Republican Sen. Josh Hawley next year and will instead make a run at a House seat held by fellow Democrat, Rep. Cori Bush, in the state’s primary for the 1st Congressional District.
- PBS’s “Frontline” at 10 p.m. traces Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his rise and role in pushing the judiciary to the right.
