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New Poll Reports Unexpected Candidate Could Topple Trump

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Gage Skidmore Flickr

This could be interesting…

Obama could be the only Democrat that could defeat Donald Trump this November- Michelle Obama that is.

A recent survey, conducted by Reuters/Ipsos, found that Obama was the only Democrat to surpass Trump in a hypothetical matchup, garnering 50 percent support to his 39 percent. Only 4 percent of respondents said they would not vote at all.

The Hill has more:

Meanwhile, the poll found that in a head-to-head matchup, President Biden and Trump are neck-and-neck. They each received 40 percent of the vote, while 8 percent said they would vote for someone else, and another 8 percent said they would not vote.

Other Democrats floated as potential replacements to Biden in the poll included Vice President Harris, who received 42 percent in a head-to-head match-up with Trump, who received 43 percent. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) trailed Trump by 3 percentage points, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) trailed by 5 points in a hypothetical contest with the presumptive GOP nominee.

Obama was the top choice among Democrats to replace Biden on the 2024 ticket, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released in February. Despite her popularity, the former first lady has repeatedly said she will not be pursuing a bid for the White House.

FLOTUS at Fayetteville, N.C. -The Arts Center speech Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian

“As former First Lady Michelle Obama has expressed several times over the years, she will not be running for president,” Crystal Carson, the director of communications for Obama’s office, said in a statement in March.

Obama “supports President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ re-election campaign,” Carson said.

House Democrat Becomes The First To Publicly Call On Biden To Withdraw

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President Joe Biden delivers remarks in National Statuary Hall on the one-year anniversary of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Thursday, January 6, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith)

There’s no going back now…

On Tuesday, Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D) became the first sitting Democrat U.S. Congressman to call on Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential contest.

“Instead of reassuring voters, the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies,” Doggett said in a statement.

“I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson. Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw,” he later said. “President Biden should do the same.”

Doggett, who is 77, praised the president’s legislative achievements in his years in Washington but argued that now is a moment to pass the torch in the Democratic Party.

“While much of his work has been transformational, he pledged to be transitional,” Doggett said. “He has the opportunity to encourage a new generation of leaders from whom a nominee can be chosen to unite our country through an open, democratic process.”

“My decision to make these strong reservations public is not done lightly nor does it in any way diminish my respect for all that President Biden has achieved,” he continued.

“Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so.”

On Monday, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D) seemed to signal support for the idea of Biden stepping away from the race and seemed to promote himself as an alternative candidate. (RELATED: Potential Biden Replacement Pitches Himself After ‘Very Bad’ Debate)

Watch:

Democrats Turn On Biden After Embarrassing Debate

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The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance has Democrats in full panic mode.

Biden’s shocking debate showing has spurred more Democrats and political experts to publicly plea for the senior President to drop out of the race.

Several leading columnists for the New York Times are urging President Biden to drop out of the race, citing his poor performance during Thursday night’s debate.

“President Biden is a good man who capped a long career in public service with a successful presidential term. But I hope he reviews his debate performance Thursday evening and withdraws from the race, throwing the choice of a Democratic nominee to the convention in August,” Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote.

Thomas Friedman, another Times columnist, made a similar argument.

“I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime,” he wrote, saying Biden “a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election.”

Despite the pleas for change the Biden campaign is committed to pushing forward.

President Biden is “not dropping out” of the 2024 race, a campaign official said following a shaky debate performance late Thursday that spurred talk among some Democrats of whether he should be replaced atop the ticket.

“Of course he’s not dropping out,” Biden campaign spokesperson Seth Schuster said in a text message.

The president himself brushed off talk over whether he should bow out during a stop at a Waffle House following the debate.

“No. It’s hard to debate a liar. The New York Times pointed out he lied 26 times,” he said, referring to former President Trump.

Republican Governor Admits He Did Not Vote For Trump In Primary

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Georgia National Guard from United States, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

An unexpected response…

Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp recently disclosed he did not vote for Donald Trump in the state’s primary.

Kemp in an interview with CNN’s Kaitlin Collins on Wednesday, said he didn’t vote for anyone in the state’s primary because the GOP’s presidential race had already been decided.

“I voted, but I didn’t vote for anybody. I mean, the race was already over when the primary got here,” Kemp told Collins. “Well, it would be, for me, personally, politically, I mean it would be interesting if I had’ve voted for him, it would be interesting if I didn’t, it would be interesting if I didn’t vote at all.” 

Watch:

During his interview with Collins, Kemp said Trump should not focus on the 2020 or 2022 election during the debate. 

“I think that hurts him with swing voters. I mean from what I’m hearing from people, they are not focused on what happened in 2020 or 2022,” he said. 

Kemp and Trump have had a rocky relationship since Trump’s last year in office. In 2018, Kemp won the governor’s mansion partly because of a Trump endorsement. 

In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, where Biden defeated Trump in Georgia by 12,000 votes, Kemp pointedly pushed back against Trump’s election fraud claims, leading Trump to call him a “clown” and a “fool.” 

Kemp endorsed Trump in March in a short statement, saying, “I think he’d be better than Joe Biden. It’s as simple as that.”

Polling Expert Gives Candidate 66% Chance Of Winning Election

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Bad news for Biden…

Polling expert Nate Silver is predicting Donald Trump finds himself back in the White House.

Silver was acclaimed in 2012 for correctly picking the winner of every state between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and confidently forecasting an Obama victory. He was bullish on Hillary Clinton in 2016 but cautioned Trump had a reasonable chance.

“The candidate who I honest-to-God think has a better chance (Trump) isn’t the candidate I’d rather have win (Biden),” Silver, who formerly ran polling analysis website FiveThirtyEight, wrote in his “Silver Bulletin” substack

Silver’s forecast model, based on 40,000 simulations, found Trump had a 65.7% of winning the electoral college, compared to Biden, who had a 33.7% chance. However, Biden is slightly favored to win the popular vote. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 but won the presidency with a slew of narrow swing state wins.

“If the Electoral College/popular vote gap looks anything like it did in 1 or 2020, you’d expect Biden to be in deep trouble if the popular vote is roughly tied,” Silver wrote.

The data expert wrote that there was still time for Biden to turn things around and suggested the president give the nomination to Vice President Harris or someone else at the Democratic convention. However, he wrote, “Disclaimer: that also might be a terrible idea.”`

Donald Trump Jr. Shreds Potential VP Pick

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Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

Donald Trump Jr. is sharing his two cents about his father’s ongoing search for a vice president…

Don Jr. tore into former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley who is also rumored to be one of Trump’s contenders for vice president.

“Nikki Haley, who served as the puppet of Democrat billionaires and warmongerers, would be a wonderful choice is [sic] my dad wants to get impeached within about 7 seconds of being sworn in,” wrote Trump Jr. “She’s they’re [sic] last hope!”

According to Mediaite, the eldest son of the former president has been “pushing” for Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) behind the scenes. In January, Trump Jr. told Newsmax that he’d “love to see a J.D. Vance” on the ticket with his dad  because he’s “principally in alignment” with his dad as well as “a fighter.”

The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Haley, the last challenger to drop out of the GOP presidential primary earlier this year, declined to endorse Donald Trump immediately after leaving the race. However, Haley eventually came to her senses and endorsed the former president.

The former president already dismissed speculation last month that he would choose the former United Nations ambassador as his vice president.

“Nikki Haley is not under consideration for the V.P. slot, but I wish her well!” former Presidnt Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in May.

Campaign Manager Bluntly Throws in the Towel in Florida

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Ron DeSantis via Gage Skidmore Flickr

A pointless pursuit…

Despite Democrats’ attempts to make a dent in Florida, President Joe Biden’s campaign manager knows when it is time to call it quits.

In an interview that Puck’s John Heilemann described as a “rare and candid conversation,” Jen O’Malley Dillon was asked about the Biden team’s strategy for 2024, including what states the campaign viewed as true battlegrounds they could win.

Mediaite has more:

Heilemann: If you boil it down, what you’re saying is that 2020 was a national election; there were battleground states, but you ran the campaign like a national referendum on Trump. But in 2024, you’re running a half-dozen targeted state campaigns—which gets us to the topic of your paths to victory. I named six states [Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia]. You’d agree those are battlegrounds, yes?

O’Malley Dillon: Yes.

And you’re saying you see North Carolina also as a battleground state?

Yes.

Florida?

No.

Thank you. I was afraid you were going to lie.

“The job of the campaign is to keep as many battleground states in play for as long as possible so we can navigate any flexibility in the race,” O’Malley Dillon explained, pointing out how Biden had won Georgia and Arizona in 2020 despite those states not being “in play at all at this point” in the election cycle, “and certainly were not traditional battleground states.”

O’Malley Dillon’s comments come just days after Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison visited Tallahassee for a Florida Democratic Party (FDP) rally and told reporters there he viewed the state to be “in play.”

In 2020, Biden successfully won 270 Electoral College votes without Florida and it seems his campaign may be forced into a similar approach.

Trump To Deliver Remarks In Chesapeake, Virginia

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Gage Skidmore Flickr

Donald J. Trump plans to deliver remarks in Chesapeake, Virginia on Friday, June 28th at 3 pm.

Trump released a statement:

Joe Biden’s America is expensive. Bidenflation has spiked the cost of goods by more than 20% under Biden, costing Virginia households more than $27,000. 

It costs more to eat, drive, and live under Joe Biden. Virginians have spent $9,173 more on transportation, $4,210 more on energy, $3,115 more on food, and $5,547 more on shelter on average since January 2021. 

It’s not only more expensive to live in Virginia thanks to Joe Biden, but also more deadly. Biden’s pro-criminal and open border policies have caused a 22.8% increase in fentanyl overdoses from 2020-2021 and another 1,951 Virginians killed by fentanyl poisoning in 2022. 

Virginia, a place that President Trump loves, has been decimated by weak Joe Biden. 

President Trump will ease the financial pressures placed on households and re-establish law and order in this country! We can Make America Great Again by tackling lawlessness head-on, ceasing the endless flow of illegal immigrants across our southern border, and reversing the detrimental effects of inflation by restoring people’s wealth. 

Want to register for tickets? Click HERE!

Doors open at 11 am and Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks at 3 pm at Historic Greenbrier Farms.

Check back for a live stream of the event below:

Steve Bannon Asks Supreme Court to Intervene in Effort to Avoid Prison

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Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

He’s pulling out all the stops…

Steve Bannon filed an Emergency Application with the Supreme Court asking for intervention in his four-month prison term for defying a Congressional subpoena from the House Select Committee investigation of the events of January 6th.

The application comes just hours after an appeals court denied his request for a bid to delay his prison sentence.

Bannon’s legal team argued the sentence would impede his role as a top adviser to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Prosecutors dismissed this claim and said Bannon’s “role in political discourse” is irrelevant to the case, stressing the principle of “equal justice under the law.”

“There is no dispute that Mr. Bannon ‘is not likely to flee or pose a danger to the safety of any other person or the community if released’—indeed, he has been out on release for years now without incident.” reported CBS’s Scott McFarlane who read the application.

American Liberty News has more:

“There is also no denying the fact that the government seeks to imprison Mr. Bannon for the four-month period immediately preceding the November presidential election,” McCotter added. “There is no reason for that outcome in a case that presents substantial legal issues.”

Late Thursday, a federal appeals panel denied Bannon’s efforts to stay out of jail in a 2-1 decision. The majority opined that Bannon “knew what the subpoena required yet intentionally refused to appear or to produce any of the requested documents.”

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Justin Walker — an appointee of former President Trump — wrote that Bannon should not be incarcerated before the Supreme Court considers the appeal of his conviction.

“Applicant Mr. Bannon seeks the narrow relief of continued bail pending completion of his further appeals—relief that Judge Walker would have granted below, as explained in his dissent,” McCotter wrote. 

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

Biden Wins Debate Coin Toss, Trump To Deliver Closing Remarks

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CNN Headquarters via Wikimedia Commons

One more week…

The first presidential debate is nearly here and the details are being finalized.

On Thursday, CNN announced former President Trump will have the final word in next week’s first presidential debate after Joe Biden won the coin toss.

The Biden campaign won the coin toss, selecting tails, and choosing to pick the president’s standing position instead of reserving a speaking slot. Biden will stand on the right side of the stage from the viewer’s perspective, and Trump on the left.

Trump’s campaign decided to select to speak last, meaning Biden would be the first to give his closing argument.

Biden and Trump will be the only two candidates on the debate stage next Thursday night in Atlanta, CNN announced. Anchors Dana Bash and Jake Tapper have been selected as the moderators. Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not qualify for the debate stage

It’s the first of two debates agreed to by the candidates and will feature a number of new rules.

CNN said there will be two commercial breaks during the debate, and candidates will not be allowed to consult with other members of their campaign during that time.

The network also noted that candidates’ podiums and positions will be determined by a coin flip, their mics will be muted outside of speaking time, and they will only be provided with a pen, a notepad and a bottle of water.

There will be no opening statements. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will each have two minutes to answer questions — followed by one-minute rebuttals and responses to the rebuttals. Red lights visible to the candidates will flash when they have five seconds left, and turn solid red when time has expired. And each man’s microphone will be muted when it is not his turn to speak.

Candidates will not be allowed to bring props or prepared notes.

Additionally, for the first time in recent history, the debate between presidential contenders won’t have a studio audience.