Friday, June 30, 2023

Outside groups working against Trump

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...
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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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Last week FHQ cited reporting that Americans for Prosperity, the political group intertwined with the Koch network, was knocking doors in New Hampshire. The group is presumably circulating the same literature in fellow early state South Carolina as well. That may or may not have been an expense as part of the $70 million the group has raised to spend against Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race.

After all, nothing on that door hanger is particularly anti-Trump, but it does jibe with the initial steps the New York Times reports that AFP is taking in their process:
As they wait for the Republican field to winnow, top network officials are trying to pull off a difficult feat: changing who votes in Republican primaries. The network has a vast army of door-knockers, backed by tens of millions of dollars, who fan out across competitive states each election cycle to support candidates.

During these early months of the Republican presidential primaries, the network is dispatching these same activists to engage voters who are open to supporting somebody other than Mr. Trump. They are beginning a conversation with those voters, collecting data on them and raising doubts about Mr. Trump’s chances of winning a general election. They intend to return to these voters’ doors closer to the primaries to try to persuade them to vote for the network’s preferred candidate.

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South Carolina Senator Tim Scott has made a new ad buy for Christian radio stations across Iowa. The $350,000 expenditure to air the ad, "Sanctity of Life," is meant to play up Scott's record of standing against abortion. 
Scott is competing in a crowded Republican field of 13 candidates including former President Donald Trump. The winner of past Iowa Caucuses gained the support of evangelicals, the largest voting bloc within the Republican base in Iowa. 
“Senator Tim Scott is a Christian conservative who believes that life is a gift from God. Scott has a 100 percent pro-life voting record, and he fought to put three new conservative justices on the Supreme Court, sending Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history,” the ad’s narrator states. “As president, Tim Scott will protect our most fundamental right, the right to life itself.”

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And Colorado has a new/old, totally unsurprising date for its presidential primary. Governor Polis and Secretary of State Griswold set the date of the contest for Super Tuesday March 5 next year in a press release on Thursday, June 29. Polis also placed the primary on Super Tuesday for the 2020 cycle as well, the first for the at-the-time newly reestablished presidential primary.


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On this date...
...in 2015, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie entered the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.



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