If it’s Thursday … President Biden travels to Philadelphia … Vice President Harris travels to Indianapolis … Former Trump aide who was with him on Jan. 6, 2021 testifies in front of grand jury … Congress considers Defense Authorization … Robert Kennedy Jr. testifies at House Select Subcommittee on government “weaponization” … and the Army private who intentionally crossed into North Korea had been grieving and struggling with personal issues, his family said.
But FIRST ... With New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu announcing Tuesday he wouldn’t run for re-election next year, Republicans move even closer to losing an endangered species.
The ranks of the moderate Republicans have been thinning as the party reorients itself around former President Donald Trump, and punishes those who criticize or oppose him.
We’ve seen it with the high-profile, Republican governors who have taken a stand against Trump — Sununu himself opened the 2024 election cycle drawing his line in the sand against Trump, former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker decided last cycle not to run for another term, and former governors like Maryland’s Larry Hogan and Arizona’s Doug Ducey have so far bucked party recruitment efforts to get them back into the game and run for Senate.
The drift has certainly been even more pronounced in Congress, where GOP primaries often serve as a referendum on a candidate’s fealty to Trump (often to the detriment of the party in key races), creating pressure on Republican lawmakers to fall in line or step aside.
And it’s propelled Trump acolytes into positions of power at the state level, leading in some cases to turmoil and under performances on Election Day.
“We should be concerned about this as Republicans. I’m having more ‘rational Republicans’ coming up to me and saying, ‘I just don’t know how long I can stay in this party,’” Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski told The Hill for a story on the rise of Republican populism.
“Now our party is becoming known as a group of kind of extremist, populist over-the-top [people] where no one is taking us seriously anymore.”
With Trump’s GOP primary polling lead showing no signs of letting up, Republicans like Sununu are faced with deciding if it’s worth running on the same ballot as the former president yet again, forced to answer for every Truth Social post, campaign rally utterance, or controversy.
But they’re not the only ones facing questions this cycle about where they stand in an increasingly self-sorting American political landscape.
Three of the Democrats’ top Senate incumbents on the ballot next year — Montana’s Jon Tester, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin — have also been unicorns in their own states, and they face tough sledding as they ask voters in red states for another term. So far, their ability to appeal to voters from the other party has been a key asset, one that has kept them bucking the trends in their states.
When the dust settles on 2024, how many of these unicorns will be left?
Headline of the day
Data Download: The number of the day is … 3
That’s how many federal statutes were mentioned in the letter special counsel Jack Smith sent Sunday to former Donald Trump, informing the former president that he is the target of an investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. The statutes mentioned include “deprivation of rights, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and tampering with a witness,” NBC News’ Adam Reiss and Rebecca Shabad report.
“The context surrounding the statutes cited in the target letter is unclear, and their inclusion in the letter doesn’t necessarily mean Trump will be charged with related counts or that an indictment would be limited to only those three statutes,” Reiss and Shabad write.
Other numbers to know
54%: The portion of Republican and Republican-leaning voters who told a new Quinnipiac University survey that Trump is their first choice in the 2024 Republican primary.
$1.1 million: That’s how much Tennessee State Rep. Justin Jones raised in the months since he was briefly expelled from the state house in April for leading a protest in favor of gun control.
7: The number of years that a Jan. 6 rioter was sentenced for after he was convicted on nine charges involving him rushing at police with a wooden pallet and concealing a weapon.
21: The number of people wounded in southern Ukraine in the third straight night of air attacks from Russia.
101: The number of Republicans and the number of Democrats in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, a tie, after one Democrat resigned on Wednesday to pursue higher office.
4: The number of main parties, two leftist and two right-wing, competing for power in Spain’s elections this weekend.
16: The age of a Guatemalan boy who died in an accident at a poultry plant in Mississippi.
54: The number of years since the first moon landing, when U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong declared “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
$1.5 million: The amount that California is fining one school district that voted against including a curriculum that includes a short biography of gay rights leader Harvey Milk.
Eyes on 2024: Bidenomics back on the campaign trail
President Biden is headed to Philadelphia Thursday to tout his “Bidenomics” agenda, hoping once again to make early headway with voters over economic issues.
Inflation was a top issue for Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections, but Democrats’ position on abortion following the fall of Roe v. Wade helped them overperform, ensuring the party held all but one governor’s mansion and expanded their Senate majority.
That’s not to say kitchen table issues aren’t pivotal. And for now, Biden has a chance to tout his economic agenda and successes while his potential Republican presidential challengers are bogged down, either in a battle for second place or by the potential of another looming indictment.
Biden can stand to significantly improve his standing with voters on the economy. In April’s NBC News poll, 41% of Americans approved of the job Biden is doing as president and just 38% of American adults approved of Biden’s handling of the economy. And more recently, Monmouth University found Americans divided on his handling of jobs and unemployment, but significantly underwater on his handling of inflation (34% approve and 62% disapprove).
In other campaign news …
Boxed in: NBC News’ Jonathan Allen and Allan Smith explore why Trump’s rivals are not inclined to criticize the former president ahead of another potential indictment.
Knowing Mike Pence: While Pence may be struggling in national GOP primary polls, he still has plenty of support in his hometown, NBC News’ Sarah Dean reports from Columbus, Ind.
Going Greene: President Joe Biden’s campaign has honed in on making Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as “an avatar” for the MAGA-wing of the Republican Party, highlighting her in a recent tweet and in some recent speeches, per NBC News’ Mike Memoli.
Trump trials: Trump had a pair of losses in two different trials on Wednesday. One federal judge denied his request to move his case regarding alleged hush-money payments from a New York State court to a federal court, and a different federal judge denied his request for a new trial in a civil sexual assault and defamation case involving writer E. Jean Carroll.
Burgum-mentum: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum’s campaign announced Wednesday that he had received contributions from more than 40,000 individual donors, meeting one threshold to qualify for the first GOP presidential primary debate.
Ohio referendum: NBC News’ Adam Edelman reports that conservatives opposed to an Ohio ballot measure that would protect abortion rights are trying to turn the debate into one on transgender rights.
Sitting out: Trump has informed GOP Reps. Alex Mooney of West Virginia and Matt Rosendale of Montana that he is not likely to endorse their Senate bids (Rosendale has not yet jumped into the race), per CNN. That could be a blow to both Republicans as they take on (or consider running against) primary candidates who have support from GOP leaders.
Raking it in: Nevada Republican Sam Brown raised $400,000 in the first week of his Senate campaign, Politico reports.
ICYMI: What ELSE is happening in the world:
Israeli President Isaac Herzog addressed a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, highlighting the “true friendship” between the U.S. and Israel.
Meanwhile, President Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging him to pause a plan for judicial changes that have divided the Israeli public.
A federal grand jury will hear testimony Thursday from a former Trump aide who was with him on Jan. 6, 2021.
