2024 Elections

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-GA) went into Wednesday night's GOP debate knowing he had to stop the bleeding from a rough few weeks on the campaign trail. The effort was not successful, according to some of the party's biggest donors.

Rolling Stone spoke to one wealthy supporter on Wednesday night who said of DeSantis: "He was there."

Rudy Giuliani lashed out at President Joe Biden and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over his prosecution for alleged election interference in Georgia.

During an appearance on Steve Bannon's War Room program on Thursday, Giuliani accused Biden of "100 incidents of violations of people's constitutional rights."

Former President Donald Trump didn't bother to show up for the first GOP debate in Wisconsin, and it seems likely he may end up skipping all of them. But he didn't have to show up, argued Amanda Marcotte for Salon.

The reason: for all the talk by Republican pundits about wanting to move on from Trump and discuss the issues, none of the candidates onstage were capable of doing that.

Chris Christie tried to quiet talk of a Republican president pardoning Donald Trump, saying the former president wouldn't even admit to any wrongdoing.

The former New Jersey governor appeared Thursday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," fresh off the first GOP presidential debate the evening before, and singled out rival Vivek Ramaswamy's promise to pardon the four-times-indicted Trump and called out the rest.

Following the first GOP primary debate of the cycle, former Vice President Pence appeared on CNN for an interview — and became evasive when anchor Victor Blackwell asked him why his own criticism of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy doesn't apply to the ticket he ran on in 2016.

"I want to play a bit of your criticism of him and then ask about it on the other side," said Blackwell, playing a clip of Pence saying, "Now is not the time for on-the-job training. We don't need to bring in a rookie, people without experience." "You say he is a rookie, on-the-job training. Your last boss was a rookie. He had on-the-job training, a businessman who had never been elected, had no foreign policy experience. Why is it disqualifying for Vivek Ramaswamy and not for Donald Trump in 2016?"

Deep blue Dane County went for Gov. Tony Evers in 2022 with more than 78% of the vote and Joe Biden with more than 75% of the vote in 2020, but Republicans here know they don’t need to get to 50 plus one to sway one of Wisconsin’s notoriously close elections, they need to push those numbers up above 30% to take a healthy enough chunk out of the Dane County Democratic advantage to give the more Republican parts of the state a chance to catch up.

These are voters who talk about using their vote strategically, understanding where they fit into the political landscape and have an incentive to find candidates who might be palatable to the convincible Democrats and independents in the county.

Reflecting on Donald Trump's expected trip to Atlanta where he will be fingerprinted and have a mugshot taken as he is booked on racketeering charges, conservative attorney George Conway painted a portrait of a grim future for the former president.

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Conway, whose estranged wife Kellyanne worked as a White House adviser to Trump, predicted the former president stands no chance of avoiding jail where he will likely end his days.

Touching on the Republican Party debate on Wednesday night, Conway began, "They're all going to end up nominating a candidate who, you know, will maybe be a convicted felon, will probably die in prison, and was found by a federal district court to be a rapist. It's crazy."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
"I mean, essentially, he has been playing Russian roulette with the law and has loaded every single chamber," Conway explained. "He's not going to make it through all of this. The only way he can make it through all of this is if, somehow, he wins the presidency and then can declare himself immune from going to jail or being prosecuted."