March 17 - 2024 campaign updates

Republican businessman Bernie Moreno, who is battling for a chance to unseat Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, said Saturday that Ohioans can rid the state of the “RINO establishment” and give him the opportunity to crack down on undocumented immigrants in America. 

Moreno, who is backed by former President Donald Trump, also gave a firm warning to those who are “in this country illegally.”

“Starting in January of 2025, you will be deported,” Moreno said at a rally just north of Dayton, Ohio, where Trump is set to speak this afternoon. 

Moreno is competing in Tuesday’s GOP primary against Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan.

The Trump-backed candidate had previously been critical of the former president. CNN's KFile found that Moreno deleted tweets in which he called Trump a "fake republican" who stokes “hatred and fear," and said there was “no scenario” in which he would support Trump.

In one of his first moves after taking over the job, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced in November he would release all Capitol Hill security footage from January 6, 2021, that does not contain sensitive information.

GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia is spearheading the Republican-led investigation into the work of the former January 6 select committee, going after star witnesses of the probe and alleging the former select committee withheld witness transcripts from the public to undercut some of their most explosive claims.

That’s earned Loudermilk being called a “hero” by Donald Trump at that rally in Georgia.

Meanwhile, leading Trump ally GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida introduced a largely symbolic resolution last month declaring Trump did not incite an insurrection or rebellion on January 6. More than one-third of the House Republican Conference have signed on.

Some are true believers. Some, said GOP Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, are attached because “I’m sure they are afraid not to.”

Some Republicans argue it’s the Democrats who are keeping the issue alive.

After President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both spent last campaigning weekend in Georgia ahead of the state's primary Tuesday, the rest of the week for the two nominees were very different.

Biden's embarked on a weeklong tour of five electoral battlegrounds. The president encountered swing-state voters at a high school gym, an industrial event space, an indoor tennis court, a Boys & Girls Club and a supporter’s front porch.

But the president came face to face with a relatively small number of supporters – much less undecided voters. The audiences for his speeches numbered in the hundreds, not thousands, and his invitation-only events were mainly intended for the party faithful and friendly local officials.

Advisers say the president’s first order of business is to excite Democrats and ease any concerns about his decision to run. His campaign is planning to dramatically scale up its brick-and-mortal presence in battleground states this month, and Biden is expected to make stops in Nevada and Arizona next week.

Meanwhile, Trump was in a Florida courtroom. The former president tried to get charges dismissed in his classified documents case, arguing that the law prosecutors used to charge him for allegedly retaining national defense records without authorization was too vague to be used against him. However, fewer than three hours after the hearing, Judge Aileen Cannon rejected that claim.

In Trump's separate hush money case in New York, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said it's willing to delay trial for up to 30 days, according to a court filing. The trial is currently scheduled to start on March 25.

Former President Donald Trump has long argued the Commission on Presidential Debates is biased, even though multiple Republicans are involved with it.

The Republican National Committee withdrew from cooperating with the commission in 2022, although Trump has since cleaned house at the RNC, streamlining the organization with his campaign and installing a new chair and his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair.

It remains to be seen if Trump will indeed make use of the commission debates or propose some other platform, or if Joe Biden will agree to debate Trump.

Trump has a history of complaining about debate moderators who he frequently argues are biased. At one point in 2016, Trump suggested debates proceed without moderators. But a candidate would have to be completely confident of victory to forego general election debates altogether.

Read more on the brief history and uncertain future of presidential debates here.

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday said he “cannot in good conscience” endorse presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, a stunning repudiation of his former running mate and the president he served with.

The former vice president, after ending his own presidential bid in October, withheld an endorsement in the 2024 Republican primary, but he previously vowed to back the eventual GOP nominee. Trump had said after Pence dropped out that his former vice president should endorse him, saying, “I chose him, made him vice president. But … people in politics can be very disloyal.”

While he said he is “incredibly proud” of the record of the Trump-Pence administration, Pence argued that the former president has walked away from conservative issues, pointing to Trump’s stance on abortion and US national debt and his reversal on TikTok.

“During my presidential campaign, I made it clear there were profound differences between me and President Trump on a range of issues. And not just our difference on my constitutional duties that I exercised January 6th,” Pence said on “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”

Read more on Pence's comments here.

The rallies start with a recording of January 6 prisoners singing the national anthem. Campaign staff hand out pre-made “Too Big to Rig” signs to supporters. When the candidate takes the stage, he calls the rioters “people who love our country” and “hostages unfairly imprisoned for long periods of time.”

There is nothing subtle about how central Donald Trump has made January 6, 2021, to his campaign. More than just continuing to feed denialism and conspiracies about the 2020 election, he is constantly distorting the reality of what happened that day, preaching vindication to his base of voters.

In ways big and small – but often overlooked because they have become so commonplace at his events – the former president glosses over the violence. He promises pardons for the people who committed it.

On this, Trump and President Joe Biden agree: January 6 itself is a central issue of the 2024 campaign and will be even if Trump’s trials on related indictments get delayed past Election Day.

It’s Biden’s campaign aides who have been surprised how much that’s true.

Whoever emerges from Tuesday’s Republican primary in Ohio, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is in for a tough race in a state that former President Donald Trump twice carried by 8 points. But like Montana Sen. Jon Tester, the other Democrat running in a Trump state this year, he’s done it before.

Republicans need to flip just one or two seats – depending on who wins the White House – to control the Senate, and they’ve already effectively picked up one, assuming West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin follows through on his announcement not to run for reelection.

Key context: The early money laid down in Ohio shows just how competitive both parties are expecting it to be. Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC tied to Democratic leadership, has reserved $65 million for TV ads – by far the most of any of the seven states where it made early reservations. On the Republican side, Senate Leadership Fund and an affiliated group have booked about $80 million.

Campaign resources will also be incredibly important in this race, especially since candidates receive more favorable advertising rates than outside groups.

Donald Trump would normally have little reason to be at a rally in Ohio – a state the presumptive Republican nominee twice carried comfortably – eight months before the November election.

But the former president’s endorsement, the most coveted in a GOP primary, hasn’t yet sealed the deal for businessman Bernie Moreno, who’s locked in a three-way primary that will be this year’s first test of Trump’s cachet in a contested Senate race.

Tuesday’s winner will take on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown – one of two Democrats running for reelection in Trump states whose fates are crucial to Senate control this fall.

Key context: Democrats are carefully eyeing the high-stakes Republican primary, with an outside group running ads that boost Moreno over state Sen. Matt Dolan and Secretary of State Frank LaRose. Their spending suggests they see Moreno as the preferred candidate to go toe-to-toe with Brown in a state that’s been trending red. The state went for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 before swinging to Trump four years later.

Read more on Ohio's Senate race here.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump clinched their parties' presidential nominations Tuesday night, setting up a rematch in November.

Biden and Trump won their parties’ presidential primaries in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington, while Trump also won the Republican caucuses in Hawaii.

In a post to the social media platform X, Biden celebrated his status as his party’s presumptive nominee, calling it “a time of choosing” in a new campaign video.

Trump’s campaign posted a video on X of the former president later Tuesday, shortly after he clinched the nomination.

The shorter slate of elections follows last week’s Super Tuesday, when Biden and Trump dominated across the map, putting both on the cusp of winning a majority of the delegates needed to be crowned their parties’ presumptive nominees. Their rematch – long anticipated, but hardly clamored for – is broadly expected to mirror the 2020 campaign, though Trump will run this time under the specter of 91 felony charges.