United States elections 2024
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Yommie
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Katie Britt is the long shot Trump VP pick showing there's no such thing as bad publicity
Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., is no stranger to controversy. The buzz she generates is enough to earn her a spot in the Trump VP conversation.
www.usatoday.com
Katie Britt is the long shot Trump VP pick showing there's no such thing as bad publicity
Rachel BarberUSA TODAY
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WASHINGTON - As the internet mocked Kate Britt for her dramatic performance during the Republican response to the State of the Union earlier this year, the Alabama senator said she was soaking it all in, excited that Saturday Night Live had chosen Scarlett Johansson to play her just three days later in its opening sketch.
“I actually was pretty pumped about that,” the 42-year-old freshman lawmaker told her colleague, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on his podcast 'Verdict.' “I mean, my crime was like putting too much passion, too much heart and soul behind the issues that I genuinely care about. And they slaughtered me across the airways.”
During her response, delivered from her kitchen in Montgomery, Alabama, Britt criticized President Joe Biden's border policies by telling a harrowing story about a child who was sex trafficked. But the anecdote actually took place in Mexico while President George W. Bush was in the White House.
There was plenty more to get people talking from Britt's 17-minute speech, all of which combined to help get her name trending on Google and where her social media engagement skyrocketed as people fact-checked and reacted to the televised address that some saw as an audition to join Donald Trump as his running mate on the 2024 Republican presidential ticket.
Britt's ultimate chances of getting picked, by all measure, appear to be diminishing. Trump told NBC News before last week's first presidential debate that the person he's picked would likely show up in Atlanta to support him. More than a half dozen prominent Republicans seen as likely VP choices, including Britt's Senate colleagues J.D. Vance, Tim Scott and Marco Rubio, attended a local watch party before fanning out in the spin room at CNN studios to play up the former president's chances of winning back the White House. As for Britt, she sent USA TODAY a supportive statement about Trump but watched the live coverage from Alabama.
Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide
Location aside, there are still legitimate reasons why Britt remains a part of the conversation for a job working for Trump that should make his campaign pay attention. Her Senate campaign, which had received one $60 donation from a large donor the day before her State of the Union rebuttal, collected $16,000 in large donations in the hours surrounding her viral SNL-inspiring moment. Even more money came in for the following month. Britt has also been successful since taking office last year at making friends in high places, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who called her his "favorite freshman" in April.
“I think the sky is the limit for Katie Britt,” Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl told USA TODAY, praising his home state's new senator as someone who can reach demographics the GOP sometimes struggles with by appealing to disengaged voters. “She's young. She's ambitious. She's already shown her capabilities and her effectiveness in DC, and I would not take anything off the table.”
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In an exclusive interview last week, Britt skirted a direction question about her own prospects of landing the job that would put her a heartbeat away from the most important job on the planet. She insisted on keeping her conversations with Trump private but did confirm they have spoken recently.
"I certainly am excited to continue to work with him, before him winning in November," Britt said by telephone. "I feel like I will be a really strong ally in the United States Senate to continue to push for the America First agenda."
Britt's calculated deflection came on the same day several other potential VP contenders were appearing on Fox News with their spouses, playing up their own prospects for the role and even in the case of Vance acknowledging there'd be a "bit of disappointment" if he didn't get picked.
More:Trump's VP options: Sizing up their pros and cons from J.D. Vance to Kari Lake
From 'assistant' to 'America First Warrior'
Britt, a lawyer from Enterprise, Alabama, first turned heads while serving as student president at the University of Alabama. When she graduated, she turned an internship with then-Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., into a full-time job in his Washington office.“I’ve seen you navigate challenging, highly scrutinizing waters with the campus press. If you can duplicate that up here, you’ll be just fine,” Britt recalls Shelby saying in her 2023 memoir “God Calls Us To Do Hard Things.”
She served as his deputy press secretary and then press secretary on Capitol Hill and later went back to the University of Alabama for law school before working a few years for a private law firm in Birmingham. In 2015, Britt returned to Shelby's orbit as his campaign communications director and deputy campaign manager, before serving as his chief of staff from 2016 to 2018. She also did a stint as president and CEO of the Business Council of Alabama from 2019 to 2021 before launching her Senate campaign when Shelby announced his retirement.
In the Alabama Senate GOP primary, Britt ran against Rep. Mo Brooks, a conservative who had Trump’s early endorsement. In that heated race, the former president issued a statement a month after Britt launched her campaign calling her a “RINO,” or Republican in name only, and Shelby’s “assistant.”
“She is not in any way qualified and is certainly not what our Country needs or not what Alabama wants,” Trump said in July 2021, noting as well Shelby was a "close friend of Old Crow Mitch McConnell."
Britt replied two days later in a video, saying that the former president's comments did not scare her and that people want someone “fighting for Christian conservative values and putting Alabama first.” In the months following, Britt’s success fundraising and in the polls appeared to earn her Trump's respect. In March 2022, he pulled his endorsement from Brooks and started supporting her campaign.
In a statement, Trump accused Brooks of going “woke” after the congressman said Republicans should put the 2020 presidential election that Biden won behind them. Britt would say she believes there was “fraud” involved in the 2020 election.
“Katie Britt, on the other hand, is a fearless America First Warrior,” Trump said during the 2022 race. “Katie is an Incredible Fighter for the people of Alabama.”
Trump's presidential campaign website has also removed its original July 2021 statement criticizing Britt, replacing it with a "404" message that included a short GIF video of Biden falling down the stairs while walking to Air Force One.
Speaking with USA TODAY last week, Britt said she and her husband first met Trump when he visited Alabama while she was on the 2022 campaign trail.
"We knew that we were best to push forward the very things that President Trump fought for," Britt said. "As we continued to tell our message, I am grateful that that message also resonated with President Trump."
More:A look into the VP vetting process, what it might mean for Trump
An appeal from a young mom
After winning the Senate race in 2022, Britt became Alabama’s first female senator and the youngest Republican woman ever elected in a chamber where seniority had long been considered the lynchpin to success. She's now just one of three millennials in a 100-person legislative body that remains dominated by Baby Boomers and a growing core of Generation Xers.True to the times and the partisan siloed media landscape, Britt has not been shy about courting controversy. In May, she proposed the MOMS Act, which would create a government website with resources for pregnant women and an opt-in database of them. Fact-checkers had a field day with her bill. Democrats blocked it.
In a campaign season where restoring abortion rights is central to Democratic strategies, Britt describes herself as “100% unapologetically pro-life." She is a proponent of in vitro fertilization, a stance that made headlines after theAlabama state Supreme Court upended fertility practices with a ruling that frozen embryos are legally protected as children earlier this year.
On Capitol Hill, she's been in the middle of several recent high-profile fights over bills that have no chance of becoming law but are sure to be used in party messaging to voters. Alongside Cruz, she co-sponsored an alternative to the The Right to IVF Act, a Democrat-backed proposal that failed in the Senate without GOP support. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., called the Britt-Cruz legislation “a PR tool, plain and simple.”
Britt also joined Republicans in rejecting The Right to Contraception Act, although she said she supports a women's right to birth control. Because birth control is already available across the country, she argued to USA TODAY that what the Democrats were pushing was just part of their "summer of scare tactics."
"It's hard to get unanimous agreement that the sky is blue in Washington, D.C.," Britt said. "It's been an interesting 18 months, but I feel like I have found my way through those things and in a way that ultimately gives Alabama an even better seat at the table."
More:VP Final Four? Donald Trump seeks info from Burgum, Rubio, Vance, and Scott
A 'star' for the GOP
Being a conservative Christian mom of school-aged children, Britt told USA TODAY, informs her decisions in the Senate."I don't have to ask people what it's like to raise a family right now," she said. "Or what is it like to run carpool or what is it like to deal with social media."
That's the perspective she was trying to get across to the country when she addressed kitchen-table issues while delivering her widely-mocked State of the Union response to Biden.
Her performance won praise from Trump, who in a Truth Social post afterward called the Alabama senator a "GREAT contrast to an Angry, and obviously very Disturbed ‘President.'"
“She was compassionate and caring, especially concerning Women and Women’s Issues. Her conversation on Migrant Crime was powerful and insightful," Trump added.
If Trump did select Britt as his running mate, she would be the second woman to join a Republican presidential ticket after Sarah Palin. If they were to win in November, she would become the country's second female vice president after Kamala Harris.
While the Palin nomination was risky for then-Sen. John McCain's presidential bid and ultimately unsuccessful, it generated headlines (and a recurring SNL character played by Tina Fey). It’s also not uncommon for presidential candidates to choose a running mate who “balances” them out, though it’s not clear if Trump picking Britt would help him court younger Americans and women, said Julia Azari, a political science professor at Marquette University.
“I think it’ll still attract a fair amount of media coverage, although the novelty may be kind of wearing off. It’s not totally clear that is what the coalition is crying out for,” Azari said. “It's likely that there will be a lot of smoke and not a lot of fire around the age issue.”
At this point, even if Britt is not selected to join the Republican presidential ticket this November, she has convinced some of her colleagues she has a bright future in the GOP. Britt “could and should do anything she wants," said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.
“She is the sort of face of the Republican Party I would love to see all over the place,” added Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. “I would be a rubber stamp for any administration appointment she would be put forward for.”
Fellow Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville said in an interview that Britt would “be good” in a future Trump administration. But the former college football coach-turned-lawmaker said that living in Washington full time probably wouldn't be something Britt gets "fired up about" given that she is also raising young children.
“I think she’s in a good position right now in the Senate,” Tuberville said. “She’s young – she's got a lot of time left.”
Vance, thought to be at the top of Trump’s vice-presidential short list, is also raising young children.
Speaking with USA TODAY, Britt said she is happy where she currently is in the Senate. A newly-elected official at a time when both the current and most recent former presidents are both nearly twice her age, Britt acknowledged she has a long career ahead.
"I am so excited to have the opportunity to represent the people of Alabama. I mean, this is truly an honor of a lifetime," she said. "I will obviously serve in whatever capacity, meaning, I'm going to work diligently to move President Trump's agenda forward and do whatever I can to put America back on track."
Yommie
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9 out of 10 voters say there are important differences between Biden and Trump. Here’s what they see as the biggest ones
By Ariel Edwards-Levy, CNN
5 minute read
Published 7:00 AM EDT, Thu July 4, 2024
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
AP, Getty Images
CNN —
If there’s one thing that American voters overwhelmingly agree on, it’s that this year’s presidential election presents a stark choice. In the latest CNN poll conducted by SSRS, 91% of registered voters say they see important differences between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, dwarfing even the 77% of voters who said last fall that there were significant divides between the Democratic and Republican parties. Even among the so-called “double haters” – those with unfavorable views of both Biden and Trump – only 20% say that the two candidates are pretty much the same.
To get a broader image of how voters view the stakes of the election, CNN asked voters to name the single most important difference they saw between the two candidates. As the results highlight, the contrasts that most stick in voters’ minds are often not about policy issues at all. While some voters mentioned the topics that often top voters’ lists this year when asked to pick their most important issues – the economy, immigration or a commitment to democracy – others were more focused on character and personal traits, with honesty, ability to handle the job and perceived motivations among the traits most mentioned as distinguishing factors.
Among those who saw significant differences between Biden and Trump, the most frequently mentioned distinctions were honesty and integrity (17%), ability to handle the job or mental fitness (15%), love for the country or patriotism (10%), perceived self-serving or egotistical motivations (10%) and effectiveness or performance in office (8%). Another 8% talked about protecting democracy or the Constitution, with 7% mentioning immigration and 6% the economy. Voters’ answers to the questions often spanned multiple topics, and a not insignificant share offered vaguer answers, with some simply noting that each candidate’s beliefs or policies were different.
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Backers of each candidate offered significantly different characterizations of the race. Voters who supported Biden in a head-to-head matchup against Trump often cast the distinction in terms of character. Among those who saw significant differences between the candidates, 31% mentioned honesty or integrity, with about 18% citing self-serving or egotistical motivations, typically on Trump’s part, and 15% noting Trump’s criminal conviction or the other charges currently facing the former president.
“Trump is a low down lying scoundrel who only cares about himself; Biden, I think, really does care for the American people,” wrote one Biden supporter who responded to the poll, a South Carolina voter in her 70s.
Another Biden supporter, a Florida voter in her 20s, wrote, “One is a convicted felon. If I would never date a felon why would I vote one for president[?]”
Polling this year, including this survey, has consistently found concerns about democracy ranking high as an election issue for Biden supporters. Many also see support for democracy as the crucial defining factor between him and Trump: 16% of Biden supporters who see differences between the two candidates cited democracy and the Constitution as the most meaningful difference. Others raised concerns about fascism or said they saw Trump as uniquely dangerous to the country.
“Biden supports and defends our constitution, democracy and rule of law whereas Trump actively works to undermine and destroy our constitution, democracy and rule of law,” a Californian in his 70s wrote. “Trump wants to remove all checks on his power so that he will have unchecked absolute power to do whatever he wants to do to whomever he wants to do it.”
Trump’s supporters, by contrast, most frequently characterized the contrast between the two candidates as one of mental fitness, or ability to handle the job, topics mentioned by about 24% of those who saw important differences between Trump and Biden.
“Joe Biden is the first President in my lifetime who is mentally unfit to be our President,” wrote one Texan in his 70s who said he’s committed to supporting Trump this fall. “In my opinion he has no [idea] on what is going on in this country and is not capable of making a sound decision in regards to the best interest of the USA.”
Another 15% cited love for the country, patriotism or America First sentiments, with 11% mentioning effectiveness or performance in office.
“Trump saw that as people in this country of USA, needed help and he went out of his way to help,” wrote one Connecticut Trump supporter in her 30s. “I didn’t like Trump at first but once we got Joe, we have only suffered.”
Roughly 11% of Trump supporters who saw differences between the two candidates mentioned the economy or immigration, respectively. Both topics have reliably topped Trump supporters’ lists when asked to choose the election issues they find most important.
“Under [T]rump my gas and groceries were cheaper,” wrote one New York woman in her 20s. “Under Biden I can’t afford to live.”
Some voters described the contrast between Biden and Trump in terms that were less than flattering to either candidate.
“They are both awful but in very different ways,” wrote a New Mexican in his 30s who said he plans to support independent candidate Cornel West. “Biden needs to be forced into retirement and Trump needs to be put away in prison.”
Some voters were similarly disparaging even if they’d opted to support one of the main-party candidates.
“Biden is a senile, old, fool. Trump is a lout, but has a clear mind,” responded one Virginia man in his 70s, who said he was supporting Trump largely as a means of opposing Biden.
And a Californian in his 20s who said he backed Biden mostly as an anti-Trump vote wrote, “One is a coherent liar, one is an incoherent truther.”
Yommie
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Biden moves into tie with Trump in new survey
BY NICK ROBERTSON - 07/03/24 10:00 AM ETSHAREPOST
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President Biden and former President Trump are even in the race for the White House, according to a poll of the race Reuters and Ipsos published Wednesday.
Each candidate received 40 percent support in the poll. That’s a 2-point improvement for Biden, who trailed Trump 41 percent to 39 percent in an identical poll in mid-June. A fifth of respondents were undecided.
A Flourish chartThe results for Biden could lessen concerns about his candidacy after a poor debate performance last week. A rising number of Democrats have called on Biden to leave the presidential campaign and let another candidate lead the ticket in November.
The poll found that 32 percent of Democrats believe Biden should leave the campaign.
Regarding the debate, 83 percent of Democrats and 97 percent of Republicans agreed Biden “stumbled” and “appeared to show his age” during the 90-minute contest, while just 58 percent of Democrats and 11 percent of Republicans said the same of Trump.
Age has taken center stage in the election. Either Biden, 81, or Trump, 78, would be the oldest president in history at the end of a second term.
Biden has rejected calls to step down and has characterized his debate performance as a one-time flub.
Vice President Harris has been a top target of Democrats who have called on Biden to bow out of the presidential race, though she has backed the president publicly.
The poll found Harris 1 point behind Trump, with 42 percent support to the former president’s 43 percent, well within the poll’s margin of error.
The Reuters and Ipsos poll surveyed about 1,000 voters, with a margin of error of 3.5 percent.
Yommie
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Donald Trump destroys Kamala Harris in new poll
The poll also highlights an ongoing issue for the Democratic Party in that Harris is considered less popular among voters than President Joe Biden.
www.newsweek.com
Donald Trump Destroys Kamala Harris in New Poll
Published Jul 05, 2024 at 5:59 AM EDTUpdated Jul 05, 2024 at 1:48 PM EDT01:02
Donald Trump Destroys Kamala Harris In New Poll
By Ewan Palmer
News Reporter
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Donald Trump would easily beat Vice President Kamala Harris in a presidential election, according to a new poll.
A DailyMail.com survey of 1,000 likely voters found that Trump would defeat Harris by 11 percentage points in a head-to-head race (49 percent to 38).
The poll took place amid ongoing speculation that Harris could replace President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party's 2024's nominee following his poor performance in the CNN debate with Trump on June 27.
Biden and his team have dismissed suggestions that he could end his reelection bid—essentially the only way Harris could conceivably replace him as the 2024 nominee. Harris has also repeatedly stated she is backing Biden to recover from the debate performance and go on to beat Trump in November.
Right, Donald Trump reacts during the CNN Presidential Debate at the CNN Studios on June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. Right, Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the University of Maryland on June 24, 2024. A... More JUSTIN SULLIVAN/ KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES
The DailyMail.com poll also highlights an ongoing issue for the Democratic Party in that Harris is considered less popular among voters than Biden. The poll suggests that Trump would beat the president by a margin of five points (47 percent to 42).
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Those taking part in the survey were asked to sum up the vice president in one word. The most common response was "incompetent."
The survey says other Democrat figures seen as possible replacements for Biden—such as California Governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg—would also lose to Trump by double figures.
However, pollster James Johnson suggests that these names have a better chance of improving their image on a national scale than the vice president does.
"Kamala Harris has a high name ID, which means her brand is harder to change," said Johnson, who conducted the DailyMail.com survey. "Unlike other candidates who are a blank slate to voters and can more easily define themselves, Harris brings a lot of baggage."
The offices of Harris and Trump have been contacted for comment via email.
The poll also suggests that former first lady Michelle Obama would perform better than Harris against Trump in a hypothetical 2024 race, losing to the Republican by five points.
However, Obama has stated for years that she has no intentions of following her husband into politics, meaning there is next to no chance she will put herself in the running to replace Biden.
A video has recently emerged showing Trump attacking Harris as "pathetic" amid suggestions she could replace Biden as the Democrats' 2024 nominee.
The footage shows Trump on a golf course suggesting Biden will drop out of the race, adding "and that means we have Kamala."
"She's so bad. She's so pathetic," Trump said. "She's just so f****** bad."
READ MORE
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"What is bad is assaulting women, what is bad is not paying your taxes, what is bad is rooting for our economy to fail, what is bad is telling people to inject bleach, what is bad is praising neo-Nazis, what is bad is separating families, what is bad is your jobs record—the worst in modern history, what is bad is committing 34 felonies."
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