2024 is sure to be a momentous year in American politics, as it will feature a presidential election that could either return Donald Trump to the White House or end his electoral career. Control of both branches of Congress is very much on the table as well, and we’ll see numerous fateful judicial proceedings, from the criminal and civil trials facing Trump to appellate decisions affecting their pace and outcome.
While November is the obvious omega point of 2024’s political developments, this year’s political drama is already getting underway. Here’s what to watch for in the coming weeks:
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Congress: Return of the Government Shutdown Threat
While we had a few serious government shutdown threats in 2023, Congress narrowly kept the government funded — though one shutdown-canceling deal cost Kevin McCarthy his Speaker’s gavel. The last shutdown scare of the year, however, simply delayed the crisis until this January and February, as McCarthy’s successor, Mike Johnson, came up with a two-tiered set of stopgap spending bills that expires on January 19 and February 2. He and his hard-core conservative supporters have vowed not to allow any more stopgap bills to get through the House between now and the end of the fiscal year in September, and in the past they’ve also vowed to demand deep domestic spending cuts before it’s all said and done.
Complicating the early-2024 tensions dividing Republicans and Democrats — and the House and Senate — is an even bigger fight over “supplemental” (i.e., non-budgeted) appropriations, especially “emergency” assistance for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Republicans in both Houses have insisted on this money’s being made conditional on Democratic acceptance of GOP “border security” priorities, including significant changes in policies governing the asylum seekers who have been crowding the southern border in recent months. Despite occasional reports of progress, Senate negotiators over border security have not reached an agreement, and it’s beginning to look like a deal may not happen at all. Assessments vary as to how long Ukraine, Israel or Taiwan can go without a fresh infusion of U.S. funding, and whether some alternative packaging that avoids the border security quagmire is possible. But suffice it to say that this deadlock will affect congressional relations generally and will likely worsen the atmosphere for the kind of spending deal necessary to avoid a government shutdown.
A shutdown, if it happens, could occur in two phases: on January 19, when stopgap spending for government programs normally funded via the Agriculture-FDA, Energy-Water, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, and Transportation-HUD appropriations bills expire; and on February 2, when spending for the rest of federal-government operations (including the Pentagon) will come to an end. Barring a big and politically fraught deal encompassing both parties and both chambers of Congress, it could all come down like a slow-motion riot.
Oh, and by the way: If Mike Johnson winds up needing the support of his entire conference to pass appropriations measures of any kind, he could be in trouble, as his majority has now sunk to two votes, at least temporarily.
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2024 Campaign: Voting Begins in Iowa and New Hampshire
The Republicans’ “invisible primary” is about to become very visible on January 15, when Iowa holds its caucuses, and then on January 23, when New Hampshire holds the nation’s first actual primary.
If Donald Trump wins in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the odds are very high he will win the nomination sooner rather than later — probably in early March, officially, and for all practical purposes by February 24, assuming he dispatches Nikki Haley once and for all in her home state of South Carolina. Should Haley upset Trump in New Hampshire, her odds of surviving South Carolina will go up, but any path to the actual nomination for Haley or for Ron DeSantis (who will probably drop out if he doesn’t edge Haley in Iowa) remains very unclear, given the Trump-loving nature of the national GOP electorate.
In any event, those eight days between Iowa and New Hampshire will be wild, as anti-Trump Republicans search for a way and a candidate to block the 45th president’s coronation. And if DeSantis or Haley survive New Hampshire, the long month before South Carolina votes will be equally intense on all sides, perhaps fracturing the GOP more than all the frictions that developed in 2023 as a whole. Democrats, of course, will be looking on with considerable interest flavored by fear, loathing, and perhaps even hope.
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The Courts: Trump and Democracy Go on Trial
The first of Trump’s criminal trials, involving his federal indictment for charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, isn’t set to begin until March 4 (the day before Super Tuesday, when 13 states will hold Republican presidential caucuses or primaries). But pretrial motions involving this and other Trump criminal and civil proceedings — and Team Trump’s reaction to their disposition — will continue to draw enormous attention whenever they happen to occur.
More immediately and dramatically, the U.S. Supreme Court could address to a greater or lesser degree two constitutional issues with a potentially huge bearing on the 2024 presidential election and perhaps the future fate of democracy. The first (which the Court has refused to consider until it is addressed by a federal appeals court) involves Trump’s claim that his conduct during his presidency is shielded from any sort of criminal and civil liability by executive immunity (and/or by a double-jeopardy issue if trials involve conduct for which he is acquitted by the Senate in either of his impeachment trials). The timing of any action by the Supreme Court could matter nearly as much as what it decides, since it could stall any number of trials until after Trump is renominated or even reelected.
The second huge issue emerged when Colorado’s Supreme Court (followed by election officials in Maine, with similar efforts pending in many other states as well) struck Trump from the state’s March 5 presidential primary on grounds that his participation in an “insurrection” on January 6 bars him from serving as president under a provision of the 14th Amendment designed to keep former Confederates from high office after the Civil War. Colorado Republicans immediately appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which is very likely to take up the case, since it is a federal-constitution issue on which state courts have adopted varying positions. But again, the timing of the Court’s decision-making could be crucial, and delays could cut two different ways politically: The possibility of courts denying MAGA voters the right to vote for their hero could enrage them to a dangerous level, but it could also make more level-headed Republicans prefer a candidate sure to be on 50 state ballots in November.
It’s not just all these hard-to-predict but possibly epochal developments that will make the early part of this year a real political crapshoot and give even the most knowledgeable observers vertigo; it’s also how they interact with one another. Politico Playbook offered a quick summary on January 2 that showed how wild things could get:
Today: Trump reply due in D.C. Circuit appeal of presidential immunity decision … Jan. 9: D.C. Circuit hears oral arguments in Trump immunity appeal … Jan. 10: CNN Republican debate in Iowa … Jan. 15: Iowa caucuses … Jan. 18: ABC News Republican debate in New Hampshire … Jan. 19: Government funding runs out, step 1 … Jan. 21: CNN Republican debate in New Hampshire … Jan. 23:New Hampshire primary … Feb. 2: Government funding runs out, step 2 … Feb. 8: Nevada GOP caucuses … Feb. 13: NY-03 special election … Feb. 24: GOP South Carolina primary … Mar. 4: Scheduled start of Trump trial in D.C. … Mar. 5: Super Tuesday
So a jittery January and a feverish February could give way to a manic March. Hold onto your butts.
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