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Haley sees popularity surge among conservatives after presidential campaign launch: poll

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has seen a boost in popularity after launching her 2024 presidential campaign last week, according to a new Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday.

Six percent of Republican primary voters in the poll said they would support Haley in their state’s primary or caucus — double the share she received in the same poll the week before. 

However, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations remains well behind former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who received 50 percent and 30 percent of GOP primary voters’ support, respectively, in the poll. Haley is also tied with former Vice President Mike Pence at 6 percent.

While her boost in a likely primary match-up was modest, Haley did see a significant increase in popularity, with 62 percent of Republican primary voters saying they have a favorable view of the GOP candidate. This is up 17 percent from before her campaign announcement on Feb. 14.

In a potential general election against President Biden, DeSantis is currently the only Republican candidate polling ahead of the president. While DeSantis holds a 1-point lead over Biden in the poll, Trump stands 1 point behind his former 2020 opponent and Haley remains 6 points behind.

DeSantis has yet to announce his candidacy, but the Florida governor is widely seen as one of Trump’s top competitors for the Republican nomination.

The Morning Consult poll on the Republican primary was conducted from Feb. 17-19 with 3,217 potential GOP primary voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 1 to 2 percentage points, while the hypothetical general election poll was conducted during the same time period with more than 5,000 registered voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.

Morning Consult also polls about 800 Republican primary voters on a weekly or biweekly basis to produce the potential GOP candidates’ favorability ratings, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden calls Putin's New START withdrawal a ‘big mistake’

President Biden on Wednesday said that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to pull out of the New START nuclear arms treaty is the wrong move.

“Big mistake,” he told reporters in Warsaw, after previously saying he didn’t have time to discuss the issue.

The New START treaty, which is the only remaining nuclear arms control treaty with the U.S., is set to expire in 2026. Putin has raised further the prospect of nuclear escalation and the risk of a new nuclear arms race by announcing the suspension of Russia’s participation in it. 

The Kremlin made the announcement in remarks on Tuesday, just hours before Biden made remarks to mark the anniversary of the war in Ukraine. Putin in his speech also rehashed long-held grievances against the U.S., NATO and the government in Kyiv.

Biden on Wednesday spoke briefly to reporters when he arrived at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw for a meeting with the Bucharest Nine, which consists of members of NATO’s eastern flank: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. He was greeted by Polish President Andrzej Duda, President of Slovakia Zuzana Caputová, and President of Romania Klaus Iohannis.

Biden is set to depart Warsaw after the meeting and return to Washington. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Tester running for reelection to Montana Senate seat

Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D) announced Wednesday that he will seek reelection for a fourth term in what will be a key race to determine which party will control the Senate following the 2024 elections. 

Tester said in a statement that people in Washington, D.C. do not understand the challenges facing working families in his state and he is running to defend “Montana values.” 

“I am running for re-election so I can keep fighting for Montanans and demand that Washington stand up for our veterans and lower costs,” he said. “Montanans need a fighter holding Washington accountable and I’m running to defend our Montana values.”

–Developing

Source: TEST FEED1

The Hill's Morning Report — Biden, Putin clash head-on; China in the wings

Editor’s note: The Hill’s Morning Report is our daily newsletter that dives deep into Washington’s agenda. To subscribe, click here or fill out the box below.

President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin faced off in the global arena Tuesday with dramatic speeches that cast war in Ukraine as an epic throwdown for the future of world order (The Hill).

Biden, fresh from a bold appearance in war-torn Kyiv, spoke in Warsaw to restate Western backing for Ukraine and to predict that Moscow’s invasion, now nearly a year old, is destined for failure. 

Hours earlier, Putin addressed Russian parliamentary and military leaders in a cavernous, flag-filled hall to present a nationalist narrative that portrays the U.S. and NATO as aggressors and threats to Russia’s security.

Putin on Tuesday suspended the New START nuclear arms treaty with the United States, forcing both nations into a more volatile era of engagement on weapons of mass destruction. The threat of a nuclear conflict, which Putin has repeatedly raised in the past year, is gauged by analysts to be low. But the latest nuclear saber-rattling from the Kremlin is another sign that Putin is all-in to capture Ukrainian territory, outmaneuver the West and achieve what he sees as reclamation of Russia’s past glories (The Hill). 

Reuters analysis: Putin’s nuclear treaty move raises stakes over China’s growing arsenal.

“Putin chose this war,” Biden said from Warsaw’s Royal Castle Gardens.

The president denounced his Russian counterpart for what he called Putin’s “craven lust for land and power,” which the U.S. maintains has backfired while uniting democracies around the world (The Hill). 

A transcript of Biden’s speech is HERE.

The war in Ukraine has become a defining chapter in Biden’s presidency, reports The Hill’s Brett Samuels. Ukrainian pleas for military aid have put Biden’s belief in bipartisanship to the test. Russia’s aggression has challenged the president’s insistence that democracies must stand together to push back against autocrats. He returns again and again to his boast that the world welcomes the United States in a leadership role. 

At home, Biden faces lawmakers who are second-guessing Uncle Sam’s open wallet for Ukraine ahead of the 2024 election cycle amid domestic economic jitters (The Hill). But China’s reported interest in helping Russia with weapons and supplies against Ukraine could unite members of Congress in their shared antipathy for China’s aggressive posture with the United States and with Taiwan.

In an apparent swipe at the U.S. and NATO on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said Beijing is “deeply worried” that the Ukraine conflict could spiral out of control. He called on countries to stop “fueling the fire” (Reuters), a phrase that repeated Putin’s assertion during his Tuesday address that the West was responsible for “fueling the Ukrainian conflict.”

China sent top diplomat Wang Yi to Moscow, where he met Tuesday with Putin’s top security aide, Nikolai Patrushev. “I want to reaffirm our invariable support for Beijing on the Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong issues, which the West is exploiting to discredit China,” Patrushev told Wang, according to the Interfax news agency (The New York Times). Wang said days ago that China will release a “position paper” by the end of February about ending the war in Ukraine. 

China-Russia relations are “rock solid and will withstand any test in a changing international situation,” Wang told Patrushev in remarks aired on Russian state television. Patrushev called for greater cooperation with China to resist pressure from the West (NBC News).

▪ MarketWatch: Five GOP members from the House Foreign Affairs Committee met Tuesday in Kyiv with President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss Ukraine’s weapons wishlist.

▪ The Washington Post: A year of war has shaped Zelensky’s view that victory is Ukraine’s only answer to Putin’s aggression.

▪ The Washington Post opinion by Michael O’Hanlon, Constanze Stelzenmüller and David Wessel: These charts suggest peace isn’t coming to Ukraine anytime soon. 

▪ Defense News: Republicans push Biden to seek more Taiwan military aid in the next budget.

▪ ABC News: U.S. lawmakers met this week with the head of Taiwan’s legislature as part of a five-day visit to the self-ruled island during a tense period of U.S.-China relations.

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: The United States next year will host NATO members to celebrate 75 years of “the strongest defensive alliance in the history of the world,” Biden says.

▪ CNN: The U.S. military is investigating a leak of emails from a Pentagon server.

▪ Bloomberg News: 🚨Retirees will have to be more reliant on their own savings, which, according to a survey of worldwide investors, need to be at least $3 million. Comfortable retirement is increasingly the domain of the privileged. 

LEADING THE DAY

➤ POLITICS

The special grand jury that investigated election interference by former President Trump and his allies in Georgia has recommended indictments of multiple people on a range of charges in its report, most of which remains sealed. Forewoman Emily Kohrs did not say who specifically the special grand jury recommended for indictment, since the judge decided to keep those details secret when he published a few sections of the report last week (The New York Times). 

Asked whether the jurors had recommended indicting Trump, Kohrs said: “You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science,” adding “you won’t be too surprised.”

NBC News: Georgia grand jury forewoman speaks out on Trump investigation.

When former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announced her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, she highlighted her heritage. She also rejected “identity politics” as divisive. 

“I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants,” Haley, born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa Haley to Sikh parents, said during her campaign unveiling. “My mom would always say, ‘Your job is not to focus on the differences but the similarities.’” 

Haley has a delicate balancing act, write The Hill’s Cheyanne M. Daniels and Sarakshi Rai, one that shows she clearly wants to highlight the importance of her upbringing — a tactic Democrats are known for employing as they push their party’s diversity — without undermining her appeal to conservatives. 

Haley kicked off her run with events in Iowa, where Niall Stanage is reporting from the campaign trail as the 2024 presidential race gets underway.

Vice President Harris will travel to Haley’s home state on Monday to speak about the administration’s efforts to expand affordable high-speed internet nationwide (The Post and Courier).

▪ Des Moines Register: Haley begins Iowa caucuses courtship, tells those considering Trump to “look forward.”

▪ Politico: Older voters balk at Haley’s competency test; it’s one of her hallmark proposals since launching her campaign. It’s also not going over universally well with a key voting constituency.

▪ USA Today: In her 2024 run, Haley touts her role as the first woman of color to serve as governor. She shares the title.

During an appearance on “Fox & Friends” on Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) blasted the Biden administration’s aid to Ukraine as a “blank-check policy” and downplayed the threat that Moscow poses to NATO member countries in Europe, calling Russia a “third-rate military power.” 

As The Hill’s Max Greenwood reports, DeSantis is wading deeper into foreign policy as he prepares for a likely 2024 presidential run, signaling an effort to broaden his reach beyond the culture war issues he’s known for. The 2024 Republican presidential primary — which consists so far of Trump, a former U.S. president, and Haley, a former U.N. ambassador — will include candidates with far more global experience than DeSantis.

▪ The Atlantic: The 2024 U.S. presidential race: a cheat sheet.

▪ CNN: DeSantis’s use of government power to implement agenda worries some conservatives.

▪ NBC News: DeSantis tramples over Trump turf with his outreach to law enforcement.

▪ The Washington Post’s The Fix: DeSantis and Haley highlight 2024 chasm on Ukraine.

👉 For Virginia, it’s history-making: State Sen. Jennifer McClellan (D) late on Tuesday was projected to defeat Republican Leon Benjamin in the special election for Virginia’s 4th Congressional District, becoming the first Black woman to represent the commonwealth in Congress (The Hill).

And speaking of Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) flipped the governorship from blue to red in 2021, capitalizing on voter interests in school choice and parental rights, and potential GOP presidential hopefuls eyeing the 2024 contest are interested in his political success on themes around education.  

Democrats say their public education platform reaches voters, but concede they need to work on messaging to ensure Republican “misinformation” doesn’t define 2024 candidates, writes The Hill’s Lexi Lonas. Democrats have long been vocal advocates of the public education system, defending school budgets and counting on reliable support from teachers’ unions. But Republicans, reacting to COVID-19 restrictions and school closings at the outset of the pandemic, are working to tell concerned families that the GOP supports parental involvement in education, opposes mandates and frowns on curricula focused on LGBTQ identity, racial equity and Black history. 

2024 Senate: Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) officially announced her Senate bid on Tuesday, as expected. She is the third House Democrat to officially seek to succeed Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who says she will retire at the end of her term (Roll Call).

CNBC: Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) urges the Federal Election Commission to require campaigns to send illegal contributions to the Treasury Department.

➤ ADMINISTRATION

Safety & recovery: The Biden administration is stepping into Ohio’s toxic chemical controversy in East Palestine as ferocious GOP criticism and the blame game take root.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, accused by conservatives of not doing enough to attend to the nation’s freight railroads, said he will visit the site of the release of toxic chemicals following a train derailment earlier this month (CNN). On Tuesday, he called for freight rail reforms, urging Norfolk Southern, whose train was involved in the incident in East Palestine, and other freight rail companies to deploy new inspection technologies; phase in new, safer tank cars; and notify state emergency officials in advance if hazardous gas is being transported through their state.

The department will also begin a series of inspections of routes over which trains with large amounts of hazardous material travel and advance a new rule requiring that at least two railroad staff be present for most operations (The Hill).

“Profit and expediency must never outweigh the safety of the American people,” Buttigieg said in a statement. “We at [the Department of Transportation] are doing everything in our power to improve rail safety, and we insist that the rail industry do the same — while inviting Congress to work with us to raise the bar.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency already is on the ground there, as is the Environmental Protection Agency. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent a team to Ohio this week and plans to launch a probe, Politico reported. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) said last week during a visit to East Palestine that he was “very frustrated” with the CDC. 

“We’ve been going back and forth with them for a couple of days, asking them, ‘What are the acceptable levels of contamination here before this becomes endangering to human health?’” Vance said. “We have not yet gotten a good answer, and it’s something we’re going to keep hammering on.”

▪ CNN: Ohio governor drinks the tap water as the EPA demands Norfolk Southern manage all cleanup of a toxic train wreck — or face consequences.

▪ NBC News: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) says his office made a criminal referral in the East Palestine train derailment.

Taxes: The IRS has been given $15 million to produce a report on a free online tax filing system, potentially changing the way millions of Americans file their taxes. The complex tax code has enabled a cottage industry of tax preparers, meaning the US tax system could be in for a major shake-up. As Americans weigh in about what they want, The Hill’s Tobias Burns breaks down what the new free IRS e-filing tax return system could look like.

Immigration: Asylum seekers who cross the U.S. border illegally face a new Biden rule (The Washington Post).

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

As of Sunday, the thousands of international and domestic rescue workers in Turkey and Syria’s earthquake zone were winding down the hunt for survivors after weeks of effort. Then on Monday night, the same region experienced another powerful quake, sending rescuers rushing to newly collapsed buildings where tenants had returned. Rescuers kicked back into action as more buildings collapsed in or near Antakya and at least eight people were killed (The Guardian).

“It’s hard to have hope,” Ahmet Aydanbekar, a volunteer rescuer with the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, a Turkish aid group, told The New York Times. “The first 72 hours are the most important to find people alive. All the people we’ve found alive after 72 hours are a miracle.”

The Feb. 6 earthquake killed more than 41,000 people in Turkey, destroyed more than 100,000 buildings and left more than a million people homeless, according to government officials. In neighboring Syria, more than 5,000 people died, according to the United Nations.

▪ NPR: In quake-ravaged Turkey, lentil soup comes to the rescue.

▪ Reuters: Turkey offers economic support in earthquake zone.

▪ Forbes: Three things that went wrong in Turkey’s earthquake response. 

▪ The New York Times: “Equality of injustice for all”: Saudi Arabia expands crackdown on dissent.

▪ The Washington Post: Brasília, Brazil, celebrates a “Carnival of democracy” in Rio following a COVID-19 break and riot.

OPINION

■ How to tell when a presidential candidate is really running for vice president, by 

Merrill Matthews, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3IjpvYd

■ Marjorie Taylor Greene’s civil war, by Pete Wehner, contributing writer, The Atlantic. https://bit.ly/3kmefm8

WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will hold a pro forma session on Friday at 11 a.m.

The Senate meets in a pro forma session at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday. 

The president is in Warsaw, Poland, where today he greets staff of the U.S. Embassy. He meets with leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a group of eastern flank NATO allies, and with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Later, Biden will depart Poland and return to Washington. 

The vice president will travel to Bowie State University in Bowie, Md., to discuss federal efforts to lower costs for homebuyers, joined at 3:40 p.m. by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge.  

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is participating in a Group of 20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in Bengaluru, India.

First lady Jill Biden is en route to Africa with itineraries through Feb. 26 in Namibia and Kenya.

ELSEWHERE

➤ SUPREME COURT

Supreme Court justices on Tuesday grappled with the scope of a liability shield for internet companies known as Section 230, at times expressing confusion about arguments to narrow the tech giants’ protections when it comes to internet content and potential impacts from proposed changes under law (The Hill).

For nearly three hours, the nine justices peppered attorneys representing Google, the federal government and the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, an American student killed in a 2015 ISIS attack in Paris, with questions about how the court could design a ruling that exposes harmful content recommendations to liability while still protecting innocuous ones. 

How — or if — the court draws that line could have significant implications for the way websites choose to rank, display and promote content to their users as they seek to avoid a litigation minefield (CNN Business). 

Among the takeaways on Tuesday: Some justices are concerned about a potential wave of lawsuits and unintended consequences with a ruling against Google (CNN).

➤ STATE WATCH

🌨️ A massive winter storm is poised to bring a mix of heavy snow, rain and gusty winds to much of the West and North of the country this week, putting more than 40 million people across 22 states under winter weather alerts as of Tuesday. But across the Southeast and up into part of the Midwest, it’ll feel more like early summer, as nearly 150 million Americans will see a high above 70 degrees this week. The winter alerts stretch from the West Coast through the Midwest and to the New England coast. The main impacts Tuesday are expected to be in the West and Upper Midwest (CNN).

NPR: A huge winter storm is about to plague the U.S., even as some areas see record high temperatures.

💡 Physical attacks on the U.S. power grid rose 71 percent last year compared with 2021 and will likely increase this year, The Wall Street Journal reports. Ballistic damage, intrusion and vandalism largely drove the increase, according to a division of the grid oversight body known as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. It also determined physical security incidents involving power outages increased 20 percent since 2020, attributed to people frustrated by the onset of the pandemic, social tensions and economic challenges.

➤ HEALTH & PANDEMIC

More than 60 percent of 20-something men are single, nearly twice the “unpartnered” rate of young women, signaling a larger breakdown in the social and romantic lives of American males. The Hill’s Daniel de Visé reports that voluminous research suggests young men are much more likely than young women to be unattached, friendless, sexually dormant and lonely. Scholars say that an era of gender parity in the home and office has left young men unfocused and adrift, unsure of their place in the world.  

After receiving HIV-resistant stem cells through a bone marrow transplant intended to treat leukemia, a man in Germany who had been diagnosed with HIV has been declared free of the virus. According to research published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, the man was monitored for more than nine years after the 2013 transplant, and there is now “strong evidence” that he has been cured.

While the treatment is unlikely to be used with noncancer patients because of its high risks, the research offers further confirmation that unlike once thought, HIV is not entirely incurable, and offers hope for a future without daily medical treatment for those with the condition (The Washington Post).

▪ The New York Times: Mpox (monkeypox) often leads to severe illness, even death, in people with advanced HIV.

▪ Time magazine: What the Ozempic obsession misses about food and health.

▪ Vox: The pandemic took young people’s present. What will it do to their future?

America has lost the war on drugs. Here’s what needs to happen next, writes The New York Times’s Editorial Board. 

Information about the availability of COVID-19 vaccine and booster shots can be found at Vaccines.gov. 

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,117,838. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 2,838 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

THE CLOSER

And finally … Earlier this month, distracted by balloons and asteroids, we were gazing up. This week, headlines in the capitals of the U.S. and the U.K. sent us looking at the history that lies beneath.

In Washington, D.C., the National Park Service plans construction of a nearly $69 million tourist exhibit space under the Lincoln Memorial, to be completed by 2026 (WUSA9). In the early stages of examining the 15,000 square-foot “undercroft” space, planners uncovered doodles and cartoon figures, including a lively donkey, rouge-cheeked woman smoking a cigarette and a man in a top hat, likely drawn by original workmen among a tall grid of concrete columns holding up the famous monument to the nation’s 16th president. See photos (WTOP).

“This was built during World War I — coming out of the shadow of the Civil War,” Jeff Reinbold, superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, told reporters during a recent tour. “It’s a memorial to unification right as the world is kind of pulling apart.”

In London, foundations of a Roman amphitheater founded in A.D. 74 and upgraded about a half century later were discovered in 1988 beneath what is now known as the heart of the city under Guildhall Yard. For centuries, no trace of the massive structure was found until a spot check by excavators under the town hall revealed secrets buried 20 feet beneath thousands of years of accumulated urban rubble. 

National Geographic, in its latest issue, describes a trapdoor still visible fronting the chambers that once held beasts and gladiators, gleaming green and purple marble, a 23-foot-entryway for the show’s combatants and tiered seating for the ancient audience.

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Most young men are single. Most young women are not.

More than 60 percent of young men are single, nearly twice the rate of unattached young women, signaling a larger breakdown in the social, romantic and sexual life of the American male. 

Men in their 20s are more likely than women in their 20s to be romantically uninvolved, sexually dormant, friendless and lonely. They stand at the vanguard of an epidemic of declining marriage, sexuality and relationships that afflicts all of young America.  

“We’re in a crisis of connection,” said Niobe Way, a psychology professor and founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity at New York University. “Disconnection from ourselves and disconnection from each other. And it’s getting worse.” 

In the worst-case scenario, the young American man’s social disconnect can have tragic consequences. Young men commit suicide at four times the rate of young women. Younger men are largely responsible for rising rates of mass shootings, a trend some researchers link to their growing social isolation. 

Societal changes that began in the Eisenhower years have eroded the patriarchy that once ruled the American home, classroom and workplace. Women now collect nearly 60 percent of bachelor’s degrees. Men still earn more, but among the youngest adults, the income gap has narrowed to $43 a week. 

Scholars say the new era of gender parity has reshaped relationship dynamics, empowering young women and, in many cases, removing young men from the equation. 

“Women don’t need to be in long-term relationships. They don’t need to be married. They’d rather go to brunch with friends than have a horrible date,” said Greg Matos, a couple and family psychologist in Los Angeles, who recently penned a viral article titled “What’s Behind the Rise of Lonely, Single Men.” 

Recent years have seen a historic rise in “unpartnered” Americans, particularly among the young. The pandemic made things worse.  

As of 2022, Pew Research Center found, 30 percent of U.S. adults are neither married, living with a partner nor engaged in a committed relationship. Nearly half of all young adults are single: 34 percent of women, and a whopping 63 percent of men.  

Not surprisingly, the decline in relationships marches astride with a decline in sex. The share of sexually active Americans stands at a 30-year low. Around 30 percent of young men reported in 2019 that they had no sex in the past year, compared to about 20 percent of young women.  

Only half of single men are actively seeking relationships or even casual dates, according to Pew. That figure is declining. 

“You have to think that the pandemic had an impact on some of those numbers,” said Fred Rabinowitz, a psychologist and professor at the University of Redlands who studies masculinity.  

Young men “are watching a lot of social media, they’re watching a lot of porn, and I think they’re getting a lot of their needs met without having to go out. And I think that’s starting to be a habit.” 

Even seasoned researchers struggle to fully account for the relationship gap between young women and men: If single young men outnumber single young women nearly two to one, then who are all the young women dating? 

Some of them are dating each other. One-fifth of Generation Z identifies as queer, and research suggests bisexual women make up a large share of the young-adult queer community.  

Young women are also dating and marrying slightly older men, carrying on a tradition that stretches back more than a century. The average age at first marriage is around 30 for men, 28 for women, according to census figures. 

Heterosexual women are getting more choosy. Women “don’t want to marry down,” to form a long-term relationship to a man with less education and earnings than herself, said Ronald Levant, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Akron and author of several books on masculinity.  

In previous generations, young women entered adulthood in a society that expected them to find a financially stable man who would support them through decades of marriage and motherhood. Over the 1950s and 1960s, that pattern gradually broke down, and today it is all but gone. 

Women are tiring of their stereotypical role as full-time therapist for emotionally distant men. They want a partner who is emotionally open and empathetic, the opposite of the age-old masculine ideal. 

“Today in America, women expect more from men,” Levant said, “and unfortunately, so many men don’t have more to give.” 

The same emotional deficits that hurt men in the dating pool also hamper them in forming meaningful friendships. Fifteen percent of men report having no close friendships, a fivefold increase from 1990, according to research by the Survey Center on American Life.  

“Men are less naturally relational than women,” said Richard Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution whose new book, “Of Boys and Men,” has drawn wide praise.  

Reeves points to a recent Saturday Night Live sketch that reimagined the neighborhood dog park as a “man park,” poking fun at “this reliance of men on women to do the emotional lifting for them.” 

Social circles have been shrinking for men and women, especially since the pandemic, but men struggle more. Thirty years ago, 55 percent of men reported having six or more close friends. By 2021, that share had slipped to 27 percent.  

“Women form friendships with each other that are emotionally intimate, whereas men do not,” Levant said. Young women “may not be dating, but they have girlfriends they spend time with and gain emotional support from.” 

Aaron Karo and Matt Ritter, both in their early 40s, study the male “friendship recession” in their “Man of the Year” podcast. It arose out of an annual tradition of gathering at a steakhouse with several male friends, all close since elementary school.  

“Guys are taught to prioritize career,” Karo said. “Also romantic relationships, although it doesn’t seem like they’re doing a very good job at that. Making friends and keeping friends seems to be a lower priority. And once guys get older, they suddenly realize they have no friends.” 

The podcasters and their friends created the annual gathering as a way to keep their friendship alive. It spawned a year-round group chat and a “Man of the Year” trophy, awarded to the most deserving friend at the annual dinner. 

“We treat friendship as a luxury, especially men,” Ritter said. “It’s a necessity.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden's Ukraine visit exposes GOP fault lines

While President Biden projected that the U.S. is united in backing Ukraine during a surprise visit to Kyiv on Monday and in Poland on Tuesday, the Republican response to his trip exposed division in the party on Ukraine support as the war fighting off Russian invasion hits the one-year mark this week.

That forecasts tricky political dynamics for Republicans when getting any future aid for Ukraine through a divided Congress and GOP majority, as some polls show public support for major U.S. involvement in the war ticking down.

“We’re seeing kind of a rethinking of foreign policy in the Republican Party, in particular, where we’re still trying to sort out what the kind of the new paradigm for Republican foreign policy is going to be,” said John Byrnes, deputy director of Concerned Veterans for America, which has been more skeptical of increased funding and weaponry to Ukraine.

On one end of the spectrum, firebrand Republicans criticized Biden for visiting Ukraine and called for an end to Ukraine funding.

“They need to be encouraging diplomatic solutions,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said of the Biden administration on Fox Business on Tuesday. “They’re going to ratchet it up … You’re going to see more and more people die through violent means.”

Biden’s visit to Ukraine inspired Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to call for a “national divorce,” tweeting that, “We don’t pay taxes to fund foreign country’s wars who aren’t even NATO ally’s.”

On the other end, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) echoed Biden in projecting support for Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference last week, declaring that “reports about the death of Republican support for strong American leadership in the world have been greatly exaggerated.” 

GOP leaders on top committees have also been pressing Biden to provide heavier weapons to Ukraine and emphasizing the strong bipartisan backing for the country.

“We need to throw everything we can into this fight so that they can win,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Mike McCaul (R-Texas) said Sunday on CNN in a joint appearance with House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio), adding that “momentum is building for this to happen.”

A portion of Republicans did not directly criticize U.S. support for Ukraine, but chastised Biden for focusing on the war rather than domestic issues like the East Palestine, Ohio, chemical spill or policies surrounding U.S. border security. 

“I and many Americans are thinking to ourselves, ‘OK, he’s very concerned about those borders halfway around the world. He’s not done anything to secure our own borders here at home,’ ” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Tuesday on Fox News. “We have a lot of problems accumulating here.”

Despite that, Biden asserted Tuesday during a speech in Warsaw, Poland, that Americans are lined up behind Ukraine.

“The American people are united in our resolve as well,” Biden said. “All across my country, in big cities and small towns, Ukrainian flags fly from American homes. Over the past year, Democrats and Republicans in our United States Congress have come together to stand for freedom. That’s who Americans are, and that’s what Americans do.”

Byrnes said public polling “doesn’t scream to me overwhelming support for long-term continued intervention.”

A January Associated Press poll found just 41 percent of Republicans supported sending government funds directly to Ukraine, down from 48 percent in May 2022. 

Overall, 17 percent of U.S. adults said the U.S. should have a major role in the Russia-Ukraine war and 53 percent saying the U.S. should have a minor role, with 23 percent saying no role. That is a decrease in support from May 2022, when 32 percent were in favor of the U.S. having a major role, 49 percent in favor of a minor role, and 19 percent said no role.

“We’d like a realistic conversation about how this war ends,” Byrnes said. “We would love to see the Ukrainian government acknowledge the fact that it has to negotiate its way out of this at some point and see some terms on the table of what they would be willing to accept, just to begin the conversation.”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said last year that there will be no “blank check” to Ukraine, and McCaul echoed that statement when supporting a resolution from Greene last year to audit Ukraine funding. But fractures remain on the issue of sending heavier military equipment to Ukraine or economic and military aid to the country, in general.

Any issue of more aid to Ukraine will likely not be an immediate problem for Republican congressional leaders. Congress approved around $45 billion in aid to Ukraine in December, bringing the total authorized to more than $100 billion.

“For the opposition party to not have a common picture of a foreign policy goal on a major question of the day definitely leaves a lot of uncertainty,” Byrnes said.

But others say that they expect a largely united front, even if there are some GOP squabbles.

“The House is always rough & tumble, but new members are in an educational period now and we’ll see how that shakes out. Now that the administration has to brief House Republicans after ignoring them for the first year of the war, let’s see how the GOP votes,” Peter Rough, senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at Hudson Institute, told The Hill in an email.

While McCarthy would likely strive to get enough GOP support in a slim majority to push through any measure related to Ukraine support without the need for Democratic votes, Democratic support for Ukraine means that he does not have to be completely reliant on his own party to make that happen.

“There will not be a unified Republican view on foreign policy until the party retakes the White House, at which point the new president will set out the next period of Republican foreign policy thought … I’d also caution that some percentage of Republican hesitation on Ukraine will reflect domestic politics more than skepticism of Ukraine,” Rough said.

Source: TEST FEED1

DeSantis wades into foreign policy, Ukraine

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is wading deeper into foreign policy as he prepares for a likely 2024 presidential run, signaling an effort to broaden his leadership chops beyond the culture war issues that he built a national reputation on.

During an appearance on “Fox & Friends” on Monday, the Florida governor and prospective White House contender blasted the Biden administration’s aid to Ukraine as a “blank-check policy” and played down the threat that Moscow poses to NATO member countries in Europe.

“They have effectively a blank-check policy with no clear strategic objective identified,” DeSantis said. “These things can escalate. And I don’t think it’s in our interest to be getting into a proxy war with China getting involved over things like the borderlands or over Crimea.”

It’s a topic that DeSantis has only addressed sparingly in the past, but one that could come up in a 2024 Republican primary contest that is expected to feature a slew of candidates with prior experience on the international stage — including former President Trump, whose “America First” framework largely redefined the GOP’s approach to foreign policy.

“Donald Trump changed the entire world view of the Republican Party when it comes to international affairs and foreign relations,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist and former congressional candidate. “So to an extent, Republican voters are going to want to hear where these other candidates stand; make sure they’re in step.”

Foreign policy isn’t typically seen as major drivers of campaigns, and polls regularly show issues like inflation and immigration topping the list of voters’ concerns. A Quinnipiac University poll released last week found that just 4 percent of voters consider Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to be the most urgent issue facing the U.S. 

But presidential contests are also multifaceted affairs in which candidates are expected to show off their leadership abilities on a variety of fronts, and the list of foreign policy challenges facing the country is long — the ongoing war in Ukraine, rising tensions with China and Russia’s decision on Tuesday to suspend the last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the U.S., to name a few.

What’s more, several current and prospective contenders for the GOP’s 2024 nomination have their own foreign policy records to lean on. 

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R), who last week became the first Republican to challenge Trump for the GOP nod, served as the face of the former president’s foreign policy agenda during her tenure as his ambassador to the United Nations. Another potential candidate, Mike Pompeo, spent nearly three years as secretary of State.

Then there’s Trump himself, whose approach to international affairs helped reshape GOP orthodoxy on everything from free trade to longstanding U.S. military alliances. Earlier this month, Trump went after DeSantis directly, dubbing him a “globalist” and escalating a long-simmering feud with the Florida governor.

That line of attack could play a central role in Trump’s campaign. In a video posted online on Tuesday, the former president decried his rivals as “candidates of war,” and labeled himself a peacemaker.

“Take a look at the globalist warmonger donors backing our opponents. That’s because they’re candidates of war,” he said. “I am the President who delivers peace, and it’s peace through strength.”

DeSantis has at least some experience in the foreign policy sphere. During his three terms in Congress, he served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

And his work as governor has occasionally crossed over into the international realm. Last fall, for instance, he called for state lawmakers to ban the governments of several “countries of concern,” including China, Russia and Iran, from purchasing agricultural land and land near military bases in Florida.

One Republican donor who has given money to DeSantis in the past said that the Florida governor needs to start more aggressively pitching his foreign affairs credentials to a larger audience.

“In what world can you call Ron DeSantis a globalist? I mean, look at his record on China. Look what he just said about Russia and Ukraine,” the donor said.

“The other part of this, though, is that he hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to talk about these big foreign policy issues, because he’s busy being governor,” the person continued. “And I think what you’re seeing now is kind of an introduction — ‘Hey, I’m going to put America first.’ ”

For now, DeSantis appears less concerned with firing back at Trump than going after President Biden. Asked during his appearance on “Fox & Friends” about the president’s surprise visit to Kyiv this week, DeSantis redirected the conversation to some of his typical grievances.

“We’ve had millions and millions of people pour in, tens of thousands of Americans dead because of fentanyl and then, of course, we just suffered a national humiliation of having China fly a spy balloon clear across the continental United States,” DeSantis said. “We have a lot of problems accumulating here in our own country that he is neglecting.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Democrats sound the alarm after McCarthy grants Carlson access to Jan. 6 footage

Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) recent decision to release thousands of hours of Jan. 6, 2021, security footage to Fox News host Tucker Carlson is setting off alarm bells among Democrats, who see inherent security risks in sharing the raw video with a figure who has downplayed the Capitol attack — and a network entangled in a legal battle over false election claims.

Democratic leaders, joined by former members of the House select committee that investigated the riot, are warning that granting Carlson such access could ultimately reveal methods used by law enforcers to defend the Capitol complex — details the investigators say they took pains to obscure. 

“The apparent transfer of video footage represents an egregious security breach that endangers the hardworking women and men of the United States Capitol Police,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wrote Tuesday in a letter to the members of his caucus. 

The office of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was a target of the Jan. 6 rioters and launched the subsequent investigation, also weighed in harshly on Tuesday, characterizing Carlson as “the preeminent Jan. 6 truther” and McCarthy’s decision as “deeply dangerous and irresponsible.”

“If he has handed over sensitive security information, McCarthy is endangering Members, staff, institutional workers and Capitol Police heroes. He is also opening the floodgates for more disinformation about the deadly attack on our Democracy,” Pelosi spokesman Aaron Bennett said in an email.  

“This move is the latest concession by McCarthy to appease the far-right in his conference, many of whom cheered on the insurrection,” Bennett added. “There is a serious question as to whether Speaker McCarthy has the singular authority to release this footage.”

The 41,000 hours of footage shared with Carlson was not released by the select committee as part of its 18-month examination of the Capitol rampage of Jan. 6. 

McCarthy — who refused to participate in the investigation, characterizing it as a partisan witch hunt against former President Trump — has said the public has a right to learn the full story of the events of that day.

“We watched the politicization of this,” he told reporters last month. “I think the American public should actually see all what happened instead of a report that’s written for a political basis.”

Yet his choice of Carlson to access the trove of unreleased data has raised plenty of eyebrows, empowering the popular Fox pundit with access to information that even many members of the congressional committees with jurisdiction haven’t seen. 

Some observers said McCarthy, who has been criticized by Carlson and faced a revolt from conservatives during his Speakership bid, is now trying to curry favor as he seeks to unify a restive GOP conference heading into the 2024 elections. 

“I think the reason McCarthy did it, obviously, is the same reason that has motivated a lot of his decision-making: Trying to solidify himself among the right,” a former GOP aide said Tuesday. 

McCarthy’s office did not respond to a request for comment. 

Some conservative pundits are also criticizing McCarthy’s move, wondering why they weren’t also granted access to the surveillance footage. The answer could be as simple as numbers: Carlson hosts the most-watched show on cable news, and exclusive access all but ensures that millions of viewers will see the findings — through Carlson’s lens. 

The Fox News personality has been a vocal defender of those who stormed into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, suggesting the worst of their crimes was “vandalism” and accusing the investigative committee of lying to the public about what took place. 

His 2021 documentary series, “Patriot Purge,” portrayed the rioters as loyal Americans wronged by a corrupt government, while floating the notion that the rampage was a “false flag” operation orchestrated by Trump’s adversaries.

Democrats are now highlighting that track record as Carlson and his producers sift through the many hours of surveillance footage, with designs to air their findings in the coming weeks.  

“Look, all of this is not in search of the truth — with Kevin McCarthy or with Tucker Carlson. It’s in search of a conspiracy theory,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the Jan. 6 select committee, told MSNBC on Tuesday. “We know that from his three-part miniseries that he put together, Patriot Purge, which asserted it was a false flag operation run by antifa and the FBI. We found no evidence of that.”

Republicans, defending Trump, blasted the select committee from the start, noting that all nine members, including the two Republicans, were hand-picked by Pelosi — a dynamic that empowered the panel to steer the narrative to their choosing. But Jan. 6 investigators maintain that any information they withheld was done so for security reasons, not political advantage.

“There’s thousands of hours of footage that are out there already, but the reason all of it wasn’t released is precisely because it lays out floor design, it lays out evacuation routes, it lays out where the vice president went, it lays out where the senior members of Congress were evacuated and so on,” Raskin said. “So I hope that Kevin McCarthy at least has planned for that.”

One source familiar with the Jan. 6 committee’s operations echoed that message, emphasizing that the panel never fully revealed then-Vice President Mike Pence’s evacuation route.

“We worked with Capitol Police ahead of time to make sure that we weren’t showing the VP’s exit route, the exit route for the Speaker, for the members,” the source said, noting the footage can also reveal the location of security cameras.

“We don’t want to let everyone know the schematics of the Capitol. This is a thing that is very important for the future security at the Capitol.”

The Capitol Police, for its part, said it is obligated to provide information requested by the Speaker. 

“When Congressional Leadership or Congressional Oversight Committees ask for things like this, we must give it to them,” Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said. 

Carlson, meanwhile, said on his show Monday that “the U.S. Congress has held thousands, tens of thousands of hours of closed-circuit camera footage from the public.”

He said the show’s producers are “looking at this stuff and trying to figure out what it means and how it contradicts, or not, the story that we’ve been told for more than two years. We think already that in some ways it does contradict that story.”

The Hill reached out to Fox News for further comment.

The news that McCarthy has granted Carlson access to the surveillance footage, first reported Monday by Axios, came four days after the release of new legal filings in the defamation lawsuit brought against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems, which has accused the network of knowingly promoting false theories that Dominion’s balloting machines were faulty.

The filings revealed the network’s top stars — including Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham — all had strong doubts about Trump’s claims of a stolen election, but nonetheless brought on members of Trump’s legal team to promote the fraud allegations.

The filings also revealed that Carlson was furious when Fox News correctly called Arizona for President Biden. And he wanted to fire a Fox News reporter, Jacqui Heinrich, for fact-checking a Trump tweet that amplified his claims of fraud by citing two Fox News hosts. Carlson worried that that reporting would hurt Fox’s credibility with pro-Trump viewers and harm the network’s ratings. 

“Please get her fired,” Carlson texted Hannity, according to the Dominion filing. “It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”

The behind-the-scenes revelations were remarkable enough that Bill O’Reilly, the ultra-conservative former Fox News host whose slot Carlson filled, weighed in Monday to blast his former employer for lying to its viewers for the sake of ratings. 

“I would never have done … what Fox did on the election fraud,” he said in an interview with NewsNation. “I would rather be fired. I would rather leave the job.” 

“I am not going to sell out for ratings.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Democrats forced to play defense on education

The Democratic Party is increasingly being forced to play defense on education, a dangerous position heading into the 2024 election cycle as Republicans ramp up their rhetoric on the issue. 

Democrats have long been vocal advocates of the public education system, defending school budgets and counting on reliable support from teachers’ unions.

But since the beginning of the pandemic, Republicans have sought to brand Democrats as the party that doesn’t care about parental involvement in education, using mask mandates and school closures as a wedge while also leaning into topics such how LGBTQ identity and Black history are taught.

Glenn Youngkin flipped the Virginia governor’s mansion from blue to red in 2021 with a campaign that made school choice and parental rights its signature issue. Since then, both declared and potential GOP White House hopefuls have regularly gone on the attack on the subject.

Giving the official Republican response to President Biden’s State of the Union address this month, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that, under Democrats, “our children are taught to hate one another on account of their race, but not to love one another or our great country.”

“Here in Arkansas and across America, Republicans are working to end the policy of trapping kids in failing schools and sentencing them to a lifetime of poverty,” Sanders said. “We will educate, not indoctrinate, our kids and put students on a path to success.”

Democrats say their platform on education is strong and still reaches voters, but they need to work on messaging to ensure Republican “misinformation” doesn’t define their platform. 

“I think that’s the wedge where Republicans have done a better job. They created this narrative that parents no longer have any say in their children’s education, which is not true. But there hasn’t really been anything to counter that,” said Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist.

“I think this is more about Democrats being firm about what they stand for and defending their positions. I think it’s about shouting down and correcting misinformation that the Republicans are putting out regarding our stances on education,” Mollineau added.

The overarching accusation Republicans have made against Democrats on education since the pandemic began is that they don’t respect parents’ rights. 

The idea became so popular that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) introduced a parental bill of rights in the House when he was minority leader in 2021.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has aggressively leaned into education issues ahead of a potential presidential bid, was able to pass a statewide parental rights in education bill, known by opponents as “Don’t Say Gay,” last year. 

During the first House Education and Workforce Committee hearing this year, multiple Democrats sought to counter the narrative by directly addressing parental involvement in education.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) recently spoke about her own involvement in her children’s education and schools. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) spent most of her time during the hearing highlighting that there are no laws demanding — or anyone advocating for — parents not to be involved in their children’s education. 

“I just hope that we put this argument that is not based on the actual facts taking place in our communities to rest,” Omar said. 

But Republicans, sensing an advantage, are already trumpeting their education policies ahead of 2024.

Former President Trump, who in November became the first major declared White House candidate in either party, has already put out a video for his education platform almost a year out from the primaries.

In an indication of what could be a race to the right on schools, Trump is making the unusual move of calling for parents to even elect school principals.

“More than anyone else, parents know what their children need,” Trump said in a campaign video late last month. “If any principal is not getting the job done, the parents should be able to vote to fire them and select someone who will. This will be the ultimate form of local control.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who joined Trump in the GOP race last week, dinged DeSantis, saying the already highly controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill in fact doesn’t go far enough. 

“I think Ron’s been a good governor. I just think that third grade’s too young,” Haley said after a New Hampshire event on Thursday. “We should not be talking to kids in elementary school about gender, period.”

“And if you are going to talk to kids about it, you need to get the parents’ permission to do that,” she continued. “That is something between a parent and a child. That is not something that schools need to be teaching.” 

Glenn Youngkin was the first Republican to win the Virginia governorship in more than a decade. (AP Photo/Mike Caudill)

Should they also enter the race, DeSantis and Youngkin would no doubt put their education moves front-and-center, but some Democrats say their policies have not improved schools and could be easy to combat.

Liam Watson, the spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Virginia, said there are no recent substantial advances Youngkin has made that he can tout. 

“I would challenge anyone to point me towards even a single policy that Republicans have implemented that have actually improved learning outcomes in K-12 schools, where they have improved the experience of teachers and students in public schools. I would challenge anyone to come up with even a single solitary example of a time that’s happened,” Watson said.

“Democrats have shown for decades now that we are the party of parents and students and teachers,” he added. “When it comes time to fund schools, it is Democrats that are out front doing that work. When it comes time to ensure that teachers have what they need in their classrooms, to make sure that student learning outcomes are protected, it’s Democrats that are doing that work.”

At least some voters appear to agree. A poll released earlier this month by the National Parents Union reported that 46 percent of parents say they trust Democrats with primary education policy, compared to 38 percent who favored Republicans.

“The average American family is getting squeezed, we’re watching a mental health crisis unfold before our eyes, and significant barriers to a high-quality education, especially for underserved communities, remain in place. Parent voters have run out of patience for politicians that allow poisonous politics to interfere with delivering on their promise of solutions,” National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues said of the survey.

The recent Republican energy toward education has particularly gained momentum at the local level, where they have increasingly made school board elections into partisan fights. Last year, DeSantis got directly involved and endorsed numerous school board candidates in his state.

“I’m proud to release my full slate of pro-parent, student-first school board candidate endorsements. Our school board members are on the frontlines of defending our students and standing up for parental rights,” DeSantis said in a statement when he announced his school board endorsements. “These 29 candidates are committed to advancing a bold education agenda in Florida. Parents can rest easy knowing that these candidates will fully support their right as parents to ensure their children reach their full potential in Florida’s K-12 education system.” 

In order to push back against some of the Republican education gains, Democrats will also have to look toward local mobilization. 

“That’s where the opportunities for Democrats are. That’s why Democrats need to seize on the opportunity and make sure that they are hyper-local. I don’t know that they need to address the issue through specific education and curriculum alternatives. They need to be able to effectively push back on what is being promoted at the local level,” said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist. 

While some Democratic strategists acknowledge that pandemic frustration was a boost to Republicans in education, many believe culture war issues conservatives have clung to such as critical race theory (CRT) in the classrooms could be their downfall now. 

DeSantis has become the prime example of the Republican culture wars in schools as his administration has banned CRT, as well as certain books and the teaching of LGBTQ issues for younger children. 

Although these actions are highly popular among Republicans, it remains to be seen if they will be on a national level. 

“What Democrats believe is parents should have a voice in the classroom and have a role in their children’s education, which we’ve always believed in, but it’s the idea that it’s going to be the likes of politicians who are going to decide what is acceptable and what’s not acceptable for children to learn. I think there will be a significant backlash to that with independent voters as we move forward into a Republican primary and the general election in 2024,” one Democratic strategist told The Hill.

Source: TEST FEED1