RNC drops resolution proposal declaring Trump the 'presumptive' nominee; Biden visits Wisconsin: Highlights

In New Hampshire on Tuesday, a whopping 67% of Republican primary voters said they opposed a federal law to ban most or all abortions nationwide, according to the NBC News exit poll.  

That’s in a Republican primary — not a Democratic one (though a sizable share of independents and moderates participated). 

And it only underscores the general election problem the Republican Party faces on the issues. 

Yes, this is New Hampshire, the “Live Free or Die” state, where the GOP governor, Chris Sununu, supports some access to abortion rights. (Indeed, compare that with the 61% of Republican caucusgoers in Iowa who said they supported an abortion ban, per that contest’s entrance poll.)

Yes, neither Trump nor Haley has called for a federal abortion ban. (Trump has said he wanted to “negotiate” in a post-Dobbs world, while Haley has said such a ban can’t pass the Senate.)

Still, when 67% of Republican New Hampshire primary voters say they oppose a federal abortion ban, that speaks volumes about the power of the abortion issue in a quasi-battleground state like New Hampshire, as well as other states, where abortion bans and Roe v. Wade’s overturning remain unpopular.

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Tempers flared today as Republicans battled among themselves over whether to accept or reject a deal for tougher immigration laws, with some pushing back against colleagues who want to bow to Trump’s wishes and kill it.

“The border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem — because he wants to blame Biden for it — is really appalling,” Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told reporters.

Read the full story here.

After weeks of infighting, no one knows who’s in charge of the Michigan Republican Party.

Kristina Karamo, who was elected chairwoman last year, insists she still has the job, even after a sizable group of state party committee members voted to oust her this month. She refuses to leave the post, even as the opposition’s pick to replace her, former Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, issues statements under the state party logo declaring himself the chairman.

The leadership crisis has resulted in chaos and confusion in what’s expected to be a top battleground state for control of the White House and the Senate in 2024.

The anti-Karamo faction has asked a court to settle the matter, and on Wednesday it got some validation from Republican National Committee lawyers, who said an initial review had determined that Karamo had been “properly removed.” But the RNC stopped short of recognizing Hoekstra as the new chair, saying neither he nor Karamo would be credentialed as voting members at the national party’s winter meeting next week in Las Vegas.

Read the full story here.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., was repeatedly pressed during a primary debate tonight about her decision to seek election in a different district.

Boebert did not squarely address criticism about her decision to switch from running in the state's competitive 3rd Congressional District to the solidly Republican 4th Congressional District, saying only that her family needed a "fresh start" after her divorce from her ex-husband.

"I have moved into the 4th District. My boys and I needed a fresh start," Boebert said. "I've tried to put it into a very pretty package and bring my ex-husband lots of honor. But since there is nothing private about my personal life, it is out there, and my boys need some freedom from what has been going on, and this move is the right move for me and for them."

Boebert said she and her children now live in an area of Weld County that is part of the district where she is seeking election. Trump won 57.6% of the vote in that county in 2020.

Boebert scraped by in the 2022 midterms, prevailing over her Democratic opponent, Adam Frisch, a former Aspen City Council member, by just 546 votes.

A group of 24 Pennsylvania state lawmakers is suing Biden over a 2021 executive order he issued titled "Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting."

The Republicans alleged in their complaint — which seeks a declaratory judgment that the executive order is unconstitutional — that Biden's order "contradicts Pennsylvania state election laws" and "usurps the state legislature’s powers and violates the state legislators’ federal civil rights."

The White House has not publicly responded to the lawsuit.

A Republican National Committee member floated, and then withdrew, a resolution to declare Trump the party’s “presumptive” presidential nominee, a source familiar with the resolution said this evening.

The draft resolution from David Bossie, a Maryland national committee member and longtime Trump ally, had been circulating among RNC members ahead of the party’s winter meeting in Las Vegas. NBC News obtained the draft from two sources today.

Read the full story here.

NBC News’ Vaughn Hillyard reports on the candidates’ process for receiving their parties’ presidential nominations. He breaks down what a delegate is and how they are acquired by candidates in each party. 

Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in an interview set to be released tomorrow that she hopes Haley will remain in the GOP presidential primary race through Super Tuesday.

"I hope she stays in the race, you know, as long as she has to. I think certainly, you know, through Super Tuesday," Cheney said in a clip from an interview with "Pod Save America" that was published tonight.

"In a general election, surely, Nikki Haley fares much better than Donald Trump does," Cheney continued, noting the race in November is going to center on a candidate's ability to win over independent voters.

More than two dozen Republican governors issued a statement today backing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott after the Supreme Court ruled this week that Border Patrol agents could remove razor wire installed along the Mexican border.

The group of 25 governors criticized Biden over his administration’s border policies, which Republicans have highlighted as a failure ahead of the presidential election.

“We stand in solidarity with our fellow Governor, Greg Abbott, and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border," they wrote. "We do it in part because the Biden Administration is refusing to enforce immigration laws already on the books and is illegally allowing mass parole across America of migrants who entered our country illegally. "

The statement was signed by all Republican governors from across the 50 states except for Abbott and Phil Scott of Vermont.

Republicans who represent congressional districts Biden won in 2020 are starting to slowly jump on the Trump train. 

One lawmaker, Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., offered his full-throated endorsement last week. He represents a district Biden won by less than 1 point in 2020, according to a Daily Kos Elections analysis.

But other House Republicans in Biden seats seem more hesitant to officially throw their support behind Trump, saying generally that they’ll support the party's eventual nominee. 

Haley's campaign confirmed to NBC News that it has raised $1 million since Trump threatened to blacklist her donors.

Trump wrote on Truth Social last night that anyone who makes a contribution to the Haley campaign “from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp.”

Haley's campaign responded today by selling T-shirts that read: “BARRED. PERMANENTLY.”

Biden made an unscheduled stop at a firehouse in Superior, Wisconsin, today — his third to a local fire department in two months.

The International Association of Fire Fighters — the biggest firefighters union in the country — continues to sit out any endorsement in the presidential election, even though it was the first to endorse Biden’s run in 2020.  

Biden visited Superior Fire Department Local 74 today after his remarks at Earth Rider Brewery. Ever the retail politician, he went to thank the first responders and drop off coffee and baked goods. He spent several minutes chatting with the firefighters and taking selfies.   

SUPERIOR, Wis. — Looking to shore up his support in the upper Midwest, Biden visited the Wisconsin-Minnesota border today to showcase the sort of road and bridge improvements he said his predecessor never accomplished in office.

Biden spoke at a brewery here that stands to benefit from a planned $1 billion project to replace the more than 60-year-old Blatnik Bridge connecting Superior to Duluth, Minnesota.

His visit was a two-for-one proposition, putting him at the junction of two crucial states that he captured in 2020 and will need to win again if he’s to prevail in an expected rematch with Trump in November.

“The Midwest is coming back,” Biden said at Earth Rider Brewery, standing in front of a row of stainless steel cylinders used to ferment beer.

Read the full story here.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold unveiled a package of proposed laws today designed to safeguard elections in the state, including a measure that would tackle the use of artificial intelligence and deepfakes in campaigns, as well as one that would criminalize fake elector schemes.

One proposed bill would require any media featuring the use of AI or deepfakes to feature disclosures.

The bill would also allow any candidate for public office who will appear on the ballot and is targeted by such media to sue any people who publish it for relief or damages.

ATLANTA — Trump moved today to adopt a motion to dismiss the election interference charges against him in Georgia, with his lawyer pointing to an alleged improper romantic relationship between Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade.

Trump’s lead defense counsel for the case requested a dismissal of the indictment against the former president and disqualification of Wade, Willis and her office from the case, while alleging that she “wrongfully inserted racial animus” into the case during a recent speech.

“Although this Court may not have the authority to disbar DA Willis, it certainly does have the power to dismiss the indictment and to disqualify her, the special prosecutors she hired and her office from any further involvement in this case or any related matter, and should do so here,” Trump attorney Steve Sadow said in the court filing.

Read the full story here.

Arizona Republican Party spokesperson Dajana Zlatičanin confirmed to NBC News that Trump will no longer travel to Arizona tomorrow for the state party’s “freedom fest,” which he had been set to headline.

Zlatičanin also said the event is canceled in its entirety.

Jeff DeWit resigned as chair of the Arizona GOP yesterday after an audiotape revealed that he offered Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in the state, lucrative job opportunities to put her political ambitions on ice.

The GOP is stuck in a push and pull between Trump and his allies calling for the party to anoint him the presidential nominee after victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, and Haley and her supporters who want the party to play on. 

Looking back at past nominating fights, one thing is clear: The Republican and Democratic presidential nominees haven’t been effectively set this early at any point since the modern primary/caucus calendar began in 1976. 

The earliest we’ve seen the field set in recent history was in 2004, when Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry became the apparent nominee after his Super Tuesday victories on March 2; his top rival, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, dropped out the following day. Other Democrats, including Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and civil-rights activist and future MSNBC host Al Sharpton, remained in the race, but they only accumulated a small handful of delegates.

SFA Fund Inc., the main super PAC backing Haley, told NBC News it raised $50.1 million in the second half of 2023, narrowly outraising Trump's super PAC over the same time period.

SFA Fund did not provide any donor names or other details about its finances, and it is not possible to confirm the figure until the super PAC files its year-end financial disclosure, which is due Jan. 31.

Earlier today, the pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., told Politico it raised $46 million in the back half of 2023, with the biggest contributions coming from megadonor Timothy Mellon and former Trump Cabinet official Linda McMahon.

The New York Times was first to report SFA Fund's fundraising figures.

Trump took the witness stand in a federal courthouse today in New York City, where he testified for just under five minutes in the damages trial for E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him.

The former president was limited in what he could say but still called Carroll’s accusation “false” — a claim the judge ordered stricken from the record.

Asked whether he ever instructed anyone to hurt Carroll, he said, “I just wanted to defend myself, my family and frankly the presidency.” Asked whether he stood by his claims in a 2022 deposition that her allegations were a hoax, Trump said, “100%.”

His defense rested after the brief testimony, and closing arguments are scheduled for tomorrow morning.

Read the full story here.

Biden is holding an infrastructure-focused event today in Superior, Wisconsin, a Democratic bastion the party desperately needs to hang on to in an otherwise red region of the battleground state. 

Democrats have long found success in three blue-collar counties in northwest Wisconsin — Ashland, Bayfield and Douglas (home to Superior) — even as Republicans have largely swept up the surrounding areas in recent elections. 

Still, Trump has managed to cut into Democrats’ advantage in Superior. Prior to 2016, Democrats routinely won the port city by nearly 40 points in presidential elections. But Hillary Clinton only carried the city of Superior by 18 points, while Biden won it by 20 points four years later. 

Biden’s trip today to Superior, his second as president, underscores how it will be critical for Democrats to at the very least stem their losses in rural, working-class areas across the Midwest that have become core to the GOP base.

Arizona's secretary of state says Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has not yet filed her statement of interest to begin the process of collecting signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Sinema, a moderate who left the Democratic Party to become an independent in 2022, has until April 4 to gather the more than 42,000 signatures she would need to qualify for the ballot as an independent. If she decides to run, Sinema could face a tough re-election campaign against candidates from her former party and the GOP.

The economy grew at a much more rapid pace than expected in the final three months of 2023, as the U.S. easily skirted a recession that many forecasters had thought was inevitable, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services produced, increased at a 3.3% annualized rate in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to data adjusted seasonally and for inflation.

That compared with the Wall Street consensus estimate for a gain of 2% in the final three months of the year. The third quarter grew at a 4.9% pace.

In addition to the better than expected GDP move, there also was some progress on inflation.

Read the full story here.

Fox Corp. must face Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation suit, a New York judge ruled Wednesday, denying a motion to dismiss defamation claims against Fox News’ parent company.

But Smartmatic must also face Fox’s counterclaims that the substantial defamation claims are intended to supress free speech, the judge ruled in a separate order.

The pair of orders — a win for each side — continue the lengthy and costly court battle between Smartmatic, a voting company accused of rigging the election despite being used by just one U.S. district in 2020, and Fox Corp., which has said it covered newsworthy events and individuals surrounding the 2020 election.

Smartmatic sued Fox and some of its hosts and guests in 2021; this case is one of at least 11 ongoing lawsuits over election conspiracy theories.

Read the full story here.

Sarah Matthews, who served as White House deputy press secretary under Trump, said she donated to Haley in the GOP primary.

Matthews shared that she made the contribution in a post on X, retweeting a threat from Trump to "permanently" bar from the MAGA camp anyone who donates to Haley that a reporter had shared.

Matthews testified in 2022 before the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. She told lawmakers that she resigned from the White House on Jan. 6 after Trump refused to condemn the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., announced he raised $5.5 million in the last quarter of 2023 as he prepares for his competitive re-election race.

Tester managed to outpace his leading Republican opponent, businessman Tim Sheehy, whose campaign told Fox News he raised $2.45 million from October through December. A chunk of that — $450,000 — was a personal contribution from Sheehy himself.

The Montana Senate race could determine whether Democrats hold on to their narrow majority or whether Republicans flip the chamber.

Maine’s top court yesterday decided against weighing in on Trump’s ballot eligibility, dismissing an appeal from Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows requesting the high court to consider her earlier ruling that the former president is constitutionally barred from appearing on the state’s primary ballot over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

A judge had put Bellows’ ruling on hold pending the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on a similar case in Colorado that found him ineligible to appear on the ballot, citing a clause in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment that prohibits “an officer of the United States” who “engaged in insurrection” from running for various federal offices applied to Trump.

“The Secretary of State suggests that there is irreparable harm because a delay in certainty about whether Trump’s name should appear on the primary ballot will result in voter confusion,” the Maine Supreme Court wrote in its unanimous decision. “This uncertainty is, however, precisely what guides our decision not to undertake immediate appellate review in this particular case.”

The Florida Supreme Court has agreed to consider a challenge to a redistricting plan pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which eradicated a congressional seat for a Black-majority district, in a filing yesterday.

The challenge was filed by voting rights groups after an appeals court ruled last month that the Florida Legislature didn’t unconstitutionally approve a congressional map that DeSantis sought to dismantle Rep. Al Lawson’s district.

The new map, drawn in 2022, dismantled a congressional seat for a district where 46% of voting-age residents were Black. Lawson, a Black Democrat, represented the district and lost re-election in the newly drawn seat.

Trump will be back Thursday in a federal courthouse in New York City, where he’s expected to testify in his own defense in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him.

Trump was initially expected to testify Monday, but the proceedings were postponed after a juror fell ill and Trump attorney Alina Habba told the judge she’d been exposed to the coronavirus and was feeling sick. Habba and her co-counsel Michael Madaio both tested negative for the virus Monday.

Trump, who defeated Haley in Tuesday’s GOP presidential primary in New Hampshire during the three-day postponement, is likely to take the stand in the early afternoon.