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There are a few reasons to think that President Biden might lose his bid for re-election next year, even if Donald Trump is once more for the third straight time the Republican nominee.

Theres the Electoral College, which could still favor the Republican Party just enough to give Trump 270 electoral votes, even if he doesnt win a popular majority. Theres Bidens overall standing around 43 percent of Americans approve of his job performance which doesnt compare favorably with past incumbents who did win re-election. Theres the economy, which may hit a downturn between now and next November. And even if it doesnt, Biden will still have presided over the highest inflation rate since the 1980s. Last, theres Biden himself. The oldest person ever elected president, next year he will be at 81 the oldest president to ever stand for re-election. Bidens age is a real risk that could suddenly become a liability.

If Biden has potential weaknesses, however, it is also true that he doesnt lack for real advantages. Along with low unemployment, theres been meaningful economic growth, and he can point to significant legislative accomplishments. The Democratic Party is behind him; he has no serious rivals for the nomination.

But Bidens biggest advantage has to do with the opposition the Republican Party has gotten weird. Its not just that Republican policies are well outside the mainstream, but that the party itself has tipped over into something very strange.

I had this thought while watching a clip of Ron DeSantis speak from a lectern to an audience we cant see. In the video, which his press team highlighted on Twitter, DeSantis decries the woke mind virus, which he calls a form of cultural Marxism that tries to divide us based on identity politics.

Now, I can follow this as a professional internet user and political observer. I know that woke mind virus is a term of art for the (condescending and misguided) idea that progressive views on race and gender are an outside contagion threatening the minds of young people who might otherwise reject structural explanations of racial inequality and embrace a traditional vision of the gender binary. I know that cultural Marxism is a right-wing buzzword meant to sound scary and imposing.

To a normal person, on the other hand, this language is borderline unintelligible. It doesnt tell you anything; it doesnt obviously mean anything; and its quite likely to be far afield of your interests and concerns.

DeSantis is a regular offender when it comes to speaking in the jargon of culture war-obsessed conservatives, but hes not the only one. And its not just a problem of jargon. Republican politicians from presidential contenders to anonymous state legislators are monomaniacally focused on banning books, fighting wokeness and harassing transgender people. Some Republicans are even still denying the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, doubling down on the election-related conspiracies that hobbled many Republican candidates in the midterms.

Not only do Americans not care about the various Republican obsessions in a recent Fox News poll 1 percent of respondents said wokeness was the most important issue facing the country today but a large majority say that those obsessions have gone too far. According to Fox, 60 percent of Americans said book banning by school boards was a major problem. Fifty-seven percent said the same for political attacks on families with transgender children.

It is not for nothing that in Bidens first TV ad of the 2024 campaign, he took specific aim at conservative book bans as a threat to freedom and American democracy.

And yet theres no sign that Republicans will relent and shift focus. Just the opposite, in fact; the party is poised to lurch even farther down the road of its alienating preoccupations. On abortion, for example, Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, says candidates need to address the issue head-on in 2024 that they cant be uncomfortable on the issue and need to say Im proud to be pro-life.

But the Republican Party has veered quite far from most Americans on abortion rights, and in a contested race for the presidential nomination, a head-on focus will possibly mean a fight over which candidate can claim the most draconian abortion views and policy aims.

Theres more: DeSantis is in the midst of a legal battle with Disney, one of the most beloved companies on the planet, and House Republicans are threatening the global economy in order to pass a set of deeply unpopular spending cuts to widely used assistance programs.

Taken together, its as if the Republican Party has committed itself to being as off-putting as possible to as many Americans as possible. That doesnt mean the party is doomed, of course. But as of this moment, it is hard to say its on the road to political success.

As for Joe Biden? The current state of the Republican Party only strengthens his most important political asset his normalcy. He promised, in 2020, that he would be a normal president. And he is promising, for 2024, to continue to serve as a normal president. Normal isnt fun and normal isnt exciting. But normal has already won one election, and I wont be surprised if it wins another.

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Opinion | The 'Woke Mind Virus' Is Eating Away at Republicans' Brains - The New York Times

Its been a long time since Kentucky was a competitive state in national politics: Bill Clinton carried it twice in the 1990s, but Republicans have won it by double-digits in every election since 2000, including then-President Donald Trumps 26-point win in 2020. But Gov. Andy Beshears narrow victory in 2019 and enduring popularity since taking office means ticket-splitting may still be alive and well.

This months primary will only determine Gov. Andy Beshears November opponent, not the fate of his governorship.|Timothy D. Easley/AP Photo

This months primary will only determine Beshears November opponent, not the fate of his governorship. But the primary marks key demographic and strategic drivers of politics in the state, foreshadowing the dynamics of the looming general election. Here are five key numbers to know:

Just like Saturdays Kentucky Derby, the race started off with a clear favorite: State Attorney General Daniel Cameron broke strongest from the gate among the dozen candidates for the GOP nomination and has Trumps endorsement. But Kelly Craft, who served separate stints as Trumps former ambassador to Canada and the U.N., has been mounting a late charge.

Back in January, a Mason-Dixon Polling and Research survey found Cameron well ahead of Craft, 39 percent to 13 percent. There hasnt been much public polling since, but an Emerson College/WDKY-TV poll last month had a much closer race, with 21 percent of voters still undecided.

Camerons allies dispute that the race has closed, circulating their own internal poll showing him still comfortably leading but with 19 percent undecided.

Like horse races, primaries break late, since the voters and the candidates are mostly ideologically aligned. Cameron and Craft, the top two GOP hopefuls, will be angling for those voters still waiting to make up their minds.

If Craft cant catch Cameron on the May. 16, it wont be for a lack of financial resources.

Kelly Craft, who served separate stints as Trumps former ambassador to Canada and the U.N., has been mounting a late charge.|Timothy D. Easley/AP Photo

Craft, the wife of billionaire coal magnate Joe Craft, has already spent or booked $5.8 million in TV advertising, according to data from AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm. Shes also been boosted by $1.4 million in ads from Commonwealth PAC, an outside group funded largely (though not entirely) by Joe Craft, though those ads arent on the air anymore. That means shes spent at least $7.2 million on the primary alone.

Cameron, by contrast, has spent or booked only $564,000. He does have an outside group, Bluegrass Freedom Action, which has added $2.1 million to help him close the gap. The group is running ads touting Trumps endorsement.

The spending advantage has been a double-edged sword for Craft. Shes come under attack from Cameron for relying on her familys money in the primary, but she can also offer Republicans the prospect of a blank check to fund an expensive and grueling general election against Beshear.

Kentucky Republicans finally did it last year: They eclipsed Democrats in voter registration for the first time in history, a key milestone in the states rapid red shift.

Four years ago, Democrats still retained a significant registration advantage, 49 percent to 42 percent. Thats already reversed: Republicans outnumber Democrats in registration heading into this primary, according to the state Board of Elections, 46 percent to 44 percent.

The erasure of Democrats ancestral registration advantage has been rapid. Twenty-four years ago, when Republicans chose Peppy Martin for an ill-fated run against Democratic Gov. Paul Patton, Republicans accounted for only 32 percent of registered voters, outnumbered almost 2-to-1 by Democrats (61 percent). When Beshears father, former Gov. Steve Beshear was first elected in 2007, Democrats had a 20-point registration advantage, 57 percent to 37 percent.

This year, more voters can participate in the Republican primary for the first time.

Despite the states rightward shift, Beshear remains popular.

How popular? According to Morning Consults quarterly tracking, Beshear has the highest approval rating of any Democratic governor at 63 percent. He outpaces governors in solidly blue states like Massachusetts, Maryland, Hawaii, California and New York.

Beshears sky-high approval rating isnt an artifact of Morning Consults methodology or long field period, either: The January Mason-Dixon poll gave him a similarly high, 61 percent positive job rating.

Republicans have started the process of trying to knock down Beshears popularity. An outside group affiliated with the Republican Governors Association began running culture war-tinged TV ads late last month hitting the Democrat for allow[ing] sex changes for children as young as 8- or 9-years-old.

So exactly how does Beshear cobble together a winning coalition in a state thats become so Republican?

It involves a lot of crossover Trump voters.

According to a POLITICO analysis of election results, Trump in 2020 outran then-Gov. Matt Bevins 2019 performance in each of Kentuckys 120 counties. In one rural county, Beshear won it by 20, and the next year Biden lost it by 51. The result is an unheard-of 72-point gap between those two races.

In the bluer population centers, the differences were significant, but relatively modest: Beshear won Fayette County, home to Lexington, by 33 points in 2019, while President Joe Biden carried it by 21 points a year later. In Louisville, Beshear won by 35 points, but Biden won by 20.

The gap between the two races was greatest outside the cities especially in Eastern Kentucky, where Democrats once dominated but now barely register in presidential races. Take tiny Elliott County, where Trump beat Biden by a three-to-one margin, 75 percent to 24 percent, in 2020. Beshear actually won it over Bevin and it wasnt particularly close: 59 percent to 39 percent.

The same phenomenon is evident in other surrounding, conservative counties. In Boyd County, home to Ashland the largest city in Eastern Kentuckys coal region Beshear won by 6 points in 2019, but Trump carried it by a whopping 33 points a year later.

Whoever wins this months GOP primary will undoubtedly try to nationalize the race to depress Beshears appeal in these solidly red areas though its worth noting that Bevin pursued the same strategy in 2019 and ended up losing.

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Republican voters return to the polls for the first time since their 2022 ... - POLITICO

After counting votes until after 11 p.m. Saturday, the Republican Party of Chesapeake announced N. Baxter Ennis as the winner of a firehouse primary. Ennis will run as the Republican nominee for the House of Delegates District 89 race.

Ennis beat out Chesapeake City Council member Don Carey III and political newcomer Jason Woolridge from Suffolk.

District 89 includes Chesapeake and parts of Suffolk. Ennis will run against Democrat nominee Karen Lynette Jenkins, a Suffolk school board member.

Im just so honored to get the chance to be the Republican nominee for the House District 89, and Im just really looking forward to a great campaign, Ennis told The Pilot. I look forward to the opportunity to go to Richmond if Im so lucky as to win in November and help Governor Youngkin with his conservative agenda.

Ennis, 70, described himself as a fiscal conservative and wants to make law enforcement and first responders his priorities. He said he values education and wants students to be prepared for college, a technical career or a career in the military.

The firehouse primary used rank choice voting to select the Republican nominee, which means voters ranked the candidates against one another. Votes are counted until one candidate gets 51%. If a candidate doesnt have 51% of first choice votes, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and second choice votes are redistributed to the remaining candidates.

Woolridge was eliminated after the first round with 25.7% of the votes against Careys 30.8% and Ennis 43.5%. Results from the first round were posted at 10:37 p.m. Saturday on the Republican Party of Chesapeake Facebook page. In the second and final round, Ennis had 57.7% of the votes and Carey had 42.3%. Results from the second round were posted at 11:12 p.m.

Carey and Woolridge both agreed with the election results Sunday.

We ran a campaign and came up short against Ennis, Carey said.

Woolridge said he won the majority of the votes in Suffolk, but his campaign couldnt get through the wall of money in Chesapeake.

Story continues

Carey raised $95,000 in donations as of March 31, according to campaign finance data from the Virginia Public Access Project. Ennis raised $42,466 as of March 31 and Woolridge raised $10,018.

Im pretty proud of our effort, Woolridge said. I got all 40 plus volunteers that were on my crew door knocking, phone banking and trying to get the word out about my campaign for the delegate. We did a really good job considering what we were up against.

Cianna Morales, 757-957-1304, cianna.morales@virginiamedia.com

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Baxter Ennis wins Republican nomination for House District 89 race in firehouse primary - Yahoo News

This Press Release was received by East Texas Broadcasting, Inc. on Sunday

It is with much sadness that we the below, 10 members of the 11 member Hopkins County RepublicanParty Executive Committee, call on Representative Bryan Slaton to immediately resign asRepresentative of House District # 2. After reading the report of the House General Investigating Committee, in the matter of Representative Bryan L. Slaton, there is no other recommendation that we can make. While we commend Representative Slaton for much good work, we cannot condone conduct unbecoming a member of the House of Representatives as set forth by the House rules and the laws of the State of Texas. It is our hope that Representative Slaton will heed our call and let the healing process begin with his family, the victim and her family, and all other parties involved. We encourage everyone to continue in prayer and lift all involved up in prayer to God for his loving comfort and healing.Donnie W. Wisenbaker, Hopkins County Republican Chairman

James Thompson, Precinct # 1 Chair Vince Palumbo, Precinct # 2 ChairKaron Weatherman, Precinct # 2A Chair Nancy Swint, Precinct # 3 ChairJohn Allen, Precinct # 3A Chair Debbie Harris, Precinct # 4 ChairDaniel Bobay, Precinct # 16 Chair Jennifer Harrington, Precinct # 17 ChairMelonie Findley, Precinct # 36 Chair

As members of the State Republican Partys Executive Committee, that serves Hopkins County, we support the Hopkins County Republican Party Executive Committee members in their call for Representative Slatons immediate resignation.Christian Bentley, SD-1 State Republican Party Executive Committee, CommitteewomanDonnie W. Wisenbaker, SD-1 State Republican Party Executive Committee, Committeeman

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Hopkins County Republican Party Calls On Representative Slaton ... - EastTexasRadio.com

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican wunderkind running for his partys presidential nomination, would like potential supporters to know he believes in the rule of law and the Constitutions separation of powers though his applications of such principles can seem selective.

After intense study of the Constitution, Mr. Ramaswamy says he believes that the awesome powers of the presidency would allow him to abolish the Education Department on Day 1, part of an assault on the administrative state that his 2024 rival, Donald J. Trump, fell short on during Days 1 through 1,461 of his presidency. Never mind that the Constitution confers the power of the purse on Congress, and a subsequent law makes it illegal for the president not to spend that money.

Mr. Ramaswamy also wants to eradicate teachers unions, though he concedes that they are governed by contracts with state and local governments.

And he says he would unleash the military to stamp out the scourge of fentanyl coming across the Southern border, unworried by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the use of the military for civil law enforcement.

In short, Mr. Ramaswamy, a lavishly wealthy 37-year-old entrepreneur and author pitching himself as a new face of intellectual conservatism, is promising to go farther down the road of ruling by fiat than Mr. Trump would or could.

I respect what Donald Trump did, I do, with the America First agenda, but I think he went as far as he was going to go, Mr. Ramaswamy told a crowd of about 100 on Tuesday night at Murphys Tap Room in Bedford, N.H. Im in this race to take the America First agenda far further than Donald Trump ever did.

Mr. Ramaswamy, a Cincinnati-born son of Indian immigrants, would seem to be the longest of long shots: He has never held elective office and has vanishingly low name recognition. But he is playing to sizable crowds and exudes a confidence that can be infectious. He has already lent his well-appointed campaign more than $10 million and has said he will spend over $100 million if necessary. Recent polling, both nationally and in New Hampshire, shows him on the rise in the Republican field, though at no more than 5 percent.

His overt shots at Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whom he labels a visionless implementer without the courage to venture into the hostile territories of college campuses or NBC News, are intended to clear what he sees as an eventual showdown with Mr. Trump. His brashest criticism of the former president is over Mr. Trumps suggestion that he might skip primary debates, depriving Mr. Ramaswamy of the stage he says he needs to catch his rival.

Mr. Ramaswamy sees a simple path to the White House: score respectably in the Iowa caucuses, win New Hampshire, vault to the nomination and then triumph in a landslide that would exceed Ronald Reagans victory over Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Even as a freshman, he had a similar voice, confident, articulate, very sure of himself, said Anson Frericks, a high school friend of Mr. Ramaswamys and a business partner at the asset management firm they founded to give investors financial options untethered to socially conscious corporations. Confidence builds with success. Its a virtuous cycle.

And though his promises may be legally problematic, they sound correct to many Republicans or at least authoritative.

He seems like he knows what hes talking about, said Bob Willis, a self-described Ultra-MAGA Trump person who was waiting for Mr. Ramaswamy to arrive on Wednesday in Keene, N.H.

Confidence is Mr. Ramaswamys gift. His father, an engineer and a patent lawyer at General Electric, is, the candidate says, far more liberal than his son. His mother is a physician. He attributes his strict vegetarianism to his Indian roots.

A piano teacher began Mr. Ramaswamys political journey with long asides on the evils of government and the wrongs of Hillary Clinton. At Harvard, he majored in biology and developed a brash libertarianism complete with a political rapper alter ego, Da Vek.

Between graduation and Yale Law School, he worked in finance, investing in pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Before getting his law degree, he was already worth around $15 million, he said in an interview, during which he worried about wealth inequality.

I think it fuels a social hierarchy in our country that rejects the premise that were all coequal citizens, he said.

Indeed, Mr. Ramaswamys promises have an overarching theme that the nation especially his generation and younger has lost its spiritual center, creating what the mathematician Blaise Pascal called a God-shaped vacuum in the heart. That hole is being filled, Mr. Ramaswamy says, by secular cults racial wokeism, sexual and gender fluidity, and the climate cult which can be diluted to oblivion only with the rediscovery of the American ideals of patriotism, meritocracy and sacrifice.

Mr. Ramaswamy can say things that stretch credulity or undermine his seriousness. He boasts on the campaign trail of his recent star turn jousting with Don Lemon just before Mr. Lemon was fired by CNN. But his statement in that exchange that Black Americans did not secure their civil rights until they secured their right to bear arms made little historical sense, since the civil rights movement was predicated on nonviolence. Indeed, the arming of the Black Panthers led to a deadly government crackdown.

Mr. Ramaswamy accepts the established science that the burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but his answer is to drill, frack, burn coal and use more fossil fuels. That will supposedly unleash economic growth that will pay for mitigation efforts to shield everyone from climate change.

He also says he is the first presidential candidate to promise to end race-based affirmative action, ignoring that this was the centerpiece of Ben Carsons presidential run in 2016. Mr. Ramaswamy would end affirmative action by executive order, he says.

He would not spend another dollar on aid to Ukraine but would use military force to annihilate Mexican drug cartels.

On Wednesday night in Windham, N.H., Mr. Ramaswamy suggested he would name Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Democratic vaccine skeptic challenging President Biden, as his running mate. On Tuesday in Bedford, he was asked by a woman with a Black son-in-law and a mixed-race grandson to clarify the meaning of anti-woke.

Mr. Ramaswamy the author of Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate Americas Social Justice Scam answered, Ive never used that word to actually describe myself, as aides handed out stickers reading: Stop Wokeism. Vote Vivek.

All of this can be somewhat mystifying to prominent people who worked with him. Mr. Ramaswamys real fortune comes from the pharmaceutical investment and drug development firm Roivant Sciences, founded after the entrepreneur had a brilliant idea, said Donald M. Berwick, a former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama.

Pharmaceutical giants often abandon research efforts after concluding that even if they are successful, the medicinal product might not be profitable. Roivant would then pick up such ventures and bring them to market. Roivants advisory board eventually included Tom Daschle, the former Democratic senator and Senate majority leader; Dr. Berwick; and Kathleen Sebelius, a health and human services secretary in the Obama administration.

Part of the appeal, Mr. Daschle said, was Mr. Ramaswamys commitment to bringing prescription drugs to market at affordable prices.

I just assumed that because he was so interested in doing as much as he was to lower costs, social responsibility and corporate responsibility was part of his thinking, Mr. Daschle said.

Then, after George Floyds murder in 2020, Mr. Ramaswamy began publicly castigating corporations for speaking out on social issues like Black Lives Matter, voting rights and E.S.G. environmental, social and governance investing. Opinion columns in The Wall Street Journal were followed by appearances on Tucker Carlsons now-canceled Fox News show.

I was rather shocked, said Dr. Berwick, who resigned from Roivant on Jan. 12, 2021. Within days, Mr. Daschle and Ms. Sebelius quit. Mr. Ramaswamy soon followed, to write three books, help start the asset management company with Mr. Frericks and run for president.

At this very early stage of the campaign, Mr. Ramaswamy is open about the limits of his appeal. Evangelical Christians who dominate the Republican caucuses in Iowa will need to be brought along to his Hindu faith. His war with Mexico may go over well in South Carolina, but faces resistance among more libertarian voters in New Hampshire, he said.

And New Hampshire cynics dont quite know how seriously to take him. Victoria Gulla, 50, of Spofford, N.H., questioned whether he was part of a back-room deal with Mr. Trump to help take out Mr. DeSantis in exchange for a position in the next Trump administration, in the way she thinks Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, helped take down Senator Marco Rubio in New Hampshire in 2016.

In a statement on Friday afternoon, Mr. Trump fueled that kind of speculation, saying he was pleased to see that Vivek Ramaswamy is doing so well in a recent poll and seems to be on his way to catching Ron DeSanctimonious.

A hundred million dollars in self-funding could keep Mr. Ramaswamy in the race for a long time, and some voters were clearly persuaded by Mr. Ramaswamys nearly messianic appeal for a spiritual and social renewal.

Gregg Dumont, 45, of Manchester, broke into tears in Windham as he praised the candidate for daring to save his children from moral decay and what he called the racism of identity politics.

Mr. Dumont, wearing a T-shirt picturing Mr. Trump in jail as a political prisoner, said Mr. Ramaswamy had his vote over the man on his shirt: All the policies with an upgrade, and none of the personality, he said. Im sick of the narcissism.

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Vivek Ramaswamy, the Wealthy Republican Who Thinks Trump ... - The New York Times