CNN
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Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s nominations are now certain, but the jury is out on Tuesday as voters across the country cast their primary ballots and one key state approves Republican-backed election law changes. I was entrusted with this.
Wisconsin is back in the spotlight and its status as a key battleground in the 2024 presidential election will be scrutinized not just for every vote counted, but for deeper meaning and insight into what will happen in November. It meant that.
Outside the Midwest, three northeastern states – Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island – will also vote on Tuesday, and officials in Enid, Oklahoma, a city of about 50,000 people, will be charged with ties to white supremacist movements. It’s planned. Replaced by city council member.
Here are the takeaways from Tuesday’s election.
A day after an Israeli military attack in the Gaza Strip killed seven relief workers on a World Central Kitchen food convoy, more than 45,000 Democratic primary voters in Wisconsin marked their ballots with “no instructions.” Delegation” was checked. This is another warning to Biden over progressive dissatisfaction with his response. Months of conflict.
Activists set a goal of 20,000 people before voting began, but the low bar was quickly crossed once counting began. However, in a close election, there are concerns that one candidate’s support base will be squeezed.
In 2020, Biden won Wisconsin by less than 21,000 votes. Four years ago, Trump won Wisconsin by nearly 23,000 votes. Rough calculations suggest the race could become even more volatile if even half of Tuesday’s “no-mandate” coalition misses the general election or field third-party candidates. .
While Biden remains fundamentally strong against Democrats, progressive protest votes are piling up, along with broader concerns about Biden’s standing with Arab, Palestinian and Muslim-American communities. .
The latest signs of unrest emerged late Tuesday. A Palestinian-American doctor walks out of a meeting with Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and top foreign policy aides after handing the president a begging letter from an 8-year-old orphaned girl in Gaza. , left. Biden has called for “stopping[Israeli forces]from entering” Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians, most of them displaced, have taken refuge.
The gathering was originally planned as an iftar dinner to break the Ramadan fast, but was canceled in favor of a more formal event due to concerns from guests.
Republicans once again warned Trump about party unity and their willingness to vote for him again in November.
Trump circled the Wisconsin race on Tuesday, as he has done in nearly every campaign before he became a prospective candidate, but was still focused on his former rivals Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and others. Chris Christie received a significant number of votes.
As of midnight ET, with most votes counted, President Trump’s approval rating in Wisconsin’s Republican primary was below 80%. More than 70,000 people, or about 12%, voted for Haley, who withdrew from the race but remained on the ballot. DeSantis and “no guidance” combined for about 30,000 votes.
In total, more than 100,000 Badger State Republicans went to the polls Tuesday to check for someone (or something) other than Trump, the former president who won the Republican nomination in three consecutive elections. I put it in.
The Trump campaign will ignore the results — the candidate attacks Biden over border policy, calls perpetrators of illegal crimes “not human” and “animals,” and rallies supporters in Michigan and Wisconsin. The day was spent gathering together the
Meanwhile, the Biden campaign is likely liking its recent decision to cut back on digital advertising targeting Republican suburbanites in battleground states.
“If you voted for Nikki Haley, Donald Trump doesn’t want your vote,” the ad reads.
Voters in Wisconsin approved two amendments to the state constitution backed by Trump’s Republican allies that will change campaign and election rules heading into November.
The first measure would ban the use of private funds to help states administer elections. The cause was first championed after falsely claiming that donations from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan funded a shadow operation to help Biden win the 2020 election. It was a Republican who made a point. In conspiracy theorist parlance, this fund is known as “Zuckerbucks.” ”
The not-so-exciting truth is that the money was part of a grant from an organization Zuckerberg funded to help government agencies and constituents safely navigate the COVID-19 pandemic that year. It was said that it was provided as a department. Grant administrators say all communities that applied for this funding have received it.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, more than 20 states currently “prohibit, restrict, or restrict the use of private and philanthropic funds for election administration.” All laws were enacted after his 2020 election.
Both Wisconsin bills were passed by the Republican-led Legislature, but were vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. After that, Republican lawmakers shifted their focus to voting measures.
The second measure stipulates that “only election officials designated by law” can perform election-related “duties.” Republicans have said they want to prevent private consultants from being involved in election administration.
The backlash against the disastrous 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, resurfaced Tuesday in an unlikely location: Enid, Oklahoma.
Voters may be concerned about his participation in the infamous “Unite the Right” rally, which left one protester dead and dozens injured, and other ties to now-defunct racist online forums. City Commissioner Judd Blevins is expected to be recalled over the issue.
Blevins, an Iraq War veteran who admitted to attending the rally, said at a candidate forum last week that he now stands “against all forms of racial hatred and racism.”
So why go? “I felt it was important to protest the removal of statues of American soldiers,” Blevins said.
“It’s important to me,” he told voters. “It’s our history. It’s our heritage. It’s who we are.”
Asked about his comments in racist online forums, Blevins was less than apologetic, saying, “The issue that got Donald Trump elected in 2016: securing the U.S. border,” the Associated Press reported. , legal immigration reform, and, frankly, pushing back against this anti-white hatred that is so common in media entertainment.”
Blevins’ past was known to anyone who read the local newspapers even before he was first elected in 2023. But activists with the Enid Social Justice Committee ultimately won a recall vote on the ballot.
Cheryl Patterson, a longtime conservative, will serve on the Enid City Council.
CNN’s Fredreka Schouten and Kate Sullivan contributed to this report.
