HALEY NOTCHES FIRST WIN
Another week of primary elections has ended in a windfall for former President Donald Trump and a first victory for competitor Nikki Haley.
On Saturday, Trump won victories in three state contests: Missouri, Michigan, and Idaho.
That included a resounding 100 percent win in the Missouri caucus, which was only open to state party delegates. In Michigan, Trump won 68.1 percent to Haley’s 26.2 percent; 3 percent said they were uncommitted to any candidate. In Idaho, Trump won 89.4 percent to Haley’s 13.2 percent.
But Haley also achieved a victory of her own—her first thus far—in deep-blue Washington, D.C.’s Republican primary.
In that contest, Haley won 62.8 percent of Washington’s sparse GOP population. 33.3 percent preferred Trump. 2,035 of the total 22,500 registered Republicans in the district voted.
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Still, Washington’s Republican base differs greatly from much of the rest of the GOP electorate, as many occupy powerful positions in law, business, media, and lobbying.
Perhaps for that reason, the Trump team didn’t seem miffed by the loss.
“While Nikki has been soundly rejected throughout the rest of America, she was just crowned Queen of the Swamp by the lobbyists and DC insiders that want to protect the failed status quo,” said Karoline Leavitt, press secretary of the Trump campaign. “The swamp has claimed their queen.”
And Haley’s Washington victory seems unlikely to buoy her floundering campaign for the Republican nomination: this week, in the largest primary day of the political year, 15 states and one territory will vote.
On Super Tuesday, 854 out of the 2,429 Republican delegates will be up for grabs—and all available polls in these states indicate that Trump is on track to sweep all Super Tuesday states by healthy margins.
The delegate count is currently at 244 for Trump and 43 for Haley. While the math shows Trump will not be able to clinch the nomination on Super Tuesday, he appears on track to do so by around mid-March.
With her campaign apparently in its wind-down phase, Haley is now refusing to stand by an earlier commitment to support the eventual nominee, which she agreed to as a condition to appear in the GOP debates boycotted by Trump.
“I’ll make the decision I want to make,” Haley said on Sunday.
Haley has only vowed to stay on until Super Tuesday. It is unclear when she will call it quits.
—Joseph Lord
SPENDING BILLS UNVEILED
After months of punting and delays, congressional leaders have finally unveiled the text of several spending bills to keep the federal government’s lights on.
Coming in at a grand total of $450 billion and 1,050 pages, the proposed spending package includes funding for six sectors of the government: the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development HUD, Veterans Affairs, Justice, Commerce, and Energy.
If this package isn’t approved by Friday, the government will go into a partial shutdown—an eventuality avoided last week by the passage of a one-week stopgap funding bill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has praised key funding and policy aspects of the proposed “minibus” spending plan, which does much that Republicans will like.
For instance, the proposal would ban the Department of Veterans Affairs from contacting the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check, a service that checks eligibility to purchase a firearm, about a veteran’s background or concerns without a judge’s consent.
It would bar the Department of Justice from targeting or investigating parents who speak out at school board meetings.
It would also cut the number of endangered species from official lists, increasing prospects for business activity in forests, lakes, and rivers.
Additionally, the bill would seek to counter China by preventing the sale of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China and strengthening the tracking of foreign-owned land within the U.S.
Johnson also lauded funding cuts in the package: the Environmental Protection Agency is on track to lose 10 percent; there’s a 7 percent cut to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; 6 percent is cut from the FBI’s budget.
“House Republicans secured key conservative policy victories, rejected left-wing proposals, and imposed sharp cuts to agencies and programs critical to the President Biden’s agenda,” Johnson said in a statement.
These are all things Republicans will like—but the bill has also been praised by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“It’s good news that Congress has finally reached a bipartisan agreement on the first six government funding bills that will keep the government open,” Schumer said in a statement. “We are proud to be keeping the government open without cuts or poison pill riders.”
Schumer has also lauded the bill—a fact likely to make House Republicans suspicious.
Still, with Johnson’s backing as well as that of Schumer, the bill is likely to pass through Congress by a strong bipartisan vote.
There is, however, a short timeframe to pass the six bills by the end of the week, with both chambers returning on Tuesday and President Joe Biden’s State of the Union on Thursday evening.
After that, the remaining six funding bills would need to be passed by March 22 to fund the rest of government.
—Joseph Lord
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- The Supreme Court will announce opinions at 10 a.m., which may include a decision on Trump’s appeal of the Colorado ballot disqualification ruling.
- North Dakota holds its GOP caucus.
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