The 24 Seven: Decisions, Decisions Edition
24sight News’ twice-weekly newsletter highlighting the seven most important stories shaping the race for the White House
1 Disillusioned ‘Deciders’
A new Washington Post poll of 3,500 swing state voters who may very well decide the outcome of the 2024 presidential election is not the feel-good read of the summer.
“I just hate both of the candidates and there’s no third-party candidate that stands a chance,” one 20-something Las Vegas resident complains of the rematch between incumbent President Joe Biden and newly convicted felon Donald Trump.
The malaise mushrooms from there for this potentially powerful group — defined by these pollsters as voters who are between 18-25 years old, have not yet committed to voting for either of the major party candidates, and have flip-flopped their political support during the last two presidential cycles — spread throughout the battleground states of Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona.
With control of the GOP-led U.S. House (218-213) and Democratically-controlled Senate (51-49) up for grabs this fall, this sliver of sporadic voters sees very little to root for right now.
“There’s a sense that there’s something important happening but nobody is particularly motivated to do anything about it,” Mark J. Rozell, dean of the George Mason University program that helped administer the poll, told the Post.
2 Immigration nation
Biden is working to shore up support for his reelection bid by creating a path to legal citizenship for nearly half-a-million undocumented migrants already married to American citizens.
The Associated Press reports that the administrative action, expected to be formally announced Tuesday, will give 490,000 undocumented spouses the chance to apply for a “parole” program that would stave off immediate deportation and assist with securing legal work permits, so long as they have resided stateside for over a decade.
The policy change marks the latest entry in an ideological battle that’s kept Congress tied up in knots for decades. Trump blew up a mostly enforcement-based Senate deal earlier this session to deny Biden a legislative win, a political play that Senate Republicans like bipartisan dealmaker Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma vehemently disagreed with.
3 Facing desperation
“This is what abandonment looks like,” reads the first line of a Vanity Fair photo essay illustrating what refugees go through as they risk life and limb to make their way across the U.S.-Mexico border.
“These vivid photos depict the moment when the odyssey has seemingly ended—when people have finally arrived in the United States. What greets them: nothing,” Dara Lind writes of the heartbreaking images.
4 Tax schmutz
Progressive Democrat and Senate Finance Committee member Elizabeth Warren wants her colleagues to steel themselves for a defining tax fight next year.
“If Democrats take the coward’s way out and sign our names to a half-baked deal that lets the wealthy off the hook, it will be a huge failure — and one the American people cannot afford,” the Massachusetts Democrat said Monday in a speech drawing a line in the sand against renewing the brunt of Trump’s 2017 tax package.
The Huffington Post reports that Warren would rather debate ways to effectively tax the rich than swallow a continuation of Republican tax priorities projected to cost $4.6 trillion through 2034. In addition to re-upping the expiring tax breaks, Trump has recently floated trimming the corporate tax rate to 20% and eliminating taxes on employee tips as part of his 2024 platform.
5 Hogan’s heroes
In his latest attempt to distance himself from an unwanted Trump endorsement, Maryland Senate hopeful Larry Hogan has released an ad touting the “strong, independent leaders” he most admires.
The former Maryland governor mentions his father (supported Richard Nixon’s impeachment), late Sen. John McCain, former President John F. Kennedy, and himself.
“Sometimes, party loyalty demands too much,” Hogan says, quoting Democratic icon JFK.
6 All Good
Warring Republican factions will learn who’s got the most juice in rural Virginia later today as GOP primary voters let Rep. Bob Good know whether he’ll still be the one defending their conservative values this fall.
Good, who chairs the far-right House Freedom Caucus, finds himself in a MAGA maelstrom after helping to oust short-lived Speaker Kevin McCarthy last fall AND initially supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary contest Trump sewed up in early March.
He’s since incurred the wrath of Trump fans like Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who the New York Times reports campaigned against him on his home turf, and fellow Freedom Caucus member Warren Davidson of Ohio, who endorsed Good’s challenger — Trump-backed Virginia state senator John McGuire — over the weekend.
7 Dunking on Youngkin
Meanwhile, Politico examines the missteps that have covered Virginia’s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in battle scars since taking the reins of the Old Dominion.
“He remains torn between the main current of his party today, Trumpist grievance politics, and being the pragmatic governor of a Democratic-leaning state; between keeping his virtue intact for a future presidential primary and amassing a record to have something to sell by the time he gets to Iowa,” Jonathan Martin writes of the diminished 2021 star.
Youngkin, who some pundits expected to challenge Trump in the 2024 GOP primary, has suffered a series of defeats including failing to gain full control of the Virginia legislature in 2023, losing to Maryland in a regional tug-of-war for a new government-funded FBI headquarters, and failing to lock in a $2 billion sports complex deal that would have lured fans of Washington’s professional basketball and hockey teams across the river for decades.
Virginia governors are limited to serving just one term in office, which means Youngkin is out of job next fall.
Excellent.