(WASHINGTON) — Rhode Island’s presidential primary was Tuesday and President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump were the only major remaining candidates, having clinched their parties’ nominations last month.
ABC News reports that Biden and Trump are projected to win the Democratic and Republican races. There were 19 Republican delegates up for grabs, one of the smallest amounts among the states. There were 26 Democratic delegates available to win.
Polling hours varied by county. Voters must have presented a valid photo ID at their polling place.
Mail ballot applications must have been received by March 12 and then returned via mail or at a drop box by 8 p.m. on Tuesday.
Early voting ran from March 13 through Monday.
State significance The presidential primary in Rhode Island, typically held on the fourth Tuesday in April, was moved from April 23 to April 2 to avoid occurring during Passover.
Rhode Island has been solidly Democratic in presidential races for nearly four decades. Biden won the general election in 2020 with 59% of the vote.
(WASHINGTON) — Tuesday was expected to be presidential primary day in Delaware, where former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden are the front-runners, having already clinched their respective parties’ 2024 nominations last month.
However, the Delaware Department of Elections announced in March that the state’s Republican presidential primary would be canceled due to being uncontested.
There had already been no scheduled Democratic presidential primary in the state because Biden was the only candidate who had filed for that ballot, per the Department of Elections.
Sixteen delegates were up for grabs for the GOP, and 19 delegates were on the table for Democrats.
ABC News reports that Trump and Biden are projected to win those.
State significance Delaware’s primary was not anticipated to have major implications for either party.
However, the state holds sentimental value to Biden, who represented Delaware in the Senate for 36 years.
Delaware reliably votes for Democrats in presidential elections
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the cancellation of Delaware’s Republican presidential primary.
(WASHINGTON) — As President Joe Biden ramps up an aggressive reelection campaign schedule — while still facing mediocre early polling and poor approval ratings — he is targeting swing states, fundraising and attacking former President Donald Trump in mocking jabs that mimic some of his rival’s own language.
In the initial phase of a long general election fight to November, Biden has traveled to every battleground state in the month since his State of the Union address with visits to Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Trump has held just two campaign rallies in Ohio and Georgia in the same amount of time, in part because his schedule was complicated by his legal issues (he denies all wrongdoing).
He went back out on the trail on Tuesday, in Michigan and Wisconsin, where he railed against Biden’s “border bloodbath” among other attacks.
The Biden campaign has seized on the differences in their recent scheduling, flipping a criticism back on Trump — about Trump’s absences — that Trump frequently used against Biden during the 2020 campaign amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“His campaign can’t raise money, he is uninterested in campaigning outside his country club, and every time he opens his mouth, he pushes moderate and suburban voters away with his dangerous agenda,” Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer in a statement last week after Trump appeared in New York court for a hearing related to his hush money trial, in which he has pleaded not guilty.
Asked for a response to the attacks about his campaign approach, Trump’s team shot back by arguing that Biden’s incompetence makes him unfit for the job.
The Trump campaign also boasted in a statement to The Hill on Tuesday that “we have the message, the operation, and the money to propel President Trump to victory.”
Trump adviser Chris LaCivita touted Trump’s performance in winning the GOP nomination, too.
“The Trump campaign, after shattering records in primary and caucus wins in both turnout and margin across the country, has locked up the nomination in one of the fastest timelines in modern day political history,” LaCivita said, in part.
In addition to a more bustling schedule, Biden has a campaign cash advantage, having been able to jointly fundraise with the Democratic National Committee. He ended last month with more than twice as much money on hand as Trump, according to campaign financial disclosures.
The Biden campaign has $71 million on hand, according to Federal Election Commission filings; Trump, who up until March hasn’t been able to fundraise with the Republican National Committee because of the contested GOP primary, has $33.5 million, according to the FEC filings.
Former President Barack Obama joined Biden for a “record-breaking” fundraiser on Thursday in New York City, bringing in more money in one night than Trump did last month, his campaign claimed.
That event followed a visit from Obama to the Biden White House last week, where they taped a video to tout 14 years of the Affordable Care Act, among other fundraising content.
Trump soon expects to lap Biden in fundraising in one regard, however.
He and the Republican Party are throwing a joint event in Palm Beach, Florida, this week that has raised at least $33 million, organizers say.
That haul, which cannot be verified until campaign disclosure filings come out, would likely outraise Biden’s New York fundraiser.
In sharpening attacks on Trump, the Biden campaign also says Trump has other problems beyond money — including that his once-loyal No. 2, former Vice President Mike Pence, declined to endorse him, citing differences beyond the Capitol attack on Jan. 6.
“Those who worked with Donald Trump at the most senior levels of his administration believe he is too dangerous, too selfish, and too extreme to ever lead our country again — we agree,” said Biden spokesperson Ammar Moussa in response to Pence’s move to not endorse Trump.
Biden’s reelection effort appears to be outpacing Trump in infrastructure as well. In preparation for the long fight ahead, Biden and Democrats have opened more than 100 coordinated offices in key battleground states, according to the campaign.
In North Carolina, a state Biden narrowly lost to Trump in 2020, Biden’s campaign is opening 10 field offices after opening 44 offices in Wisconsin, 20 offices in Michigan and at least a dozen in Pennsylvania.
“We’re ramping up campaign headquarters and field offices, hiring staff all across the country,” Biden said in a call to grassroots donors last week, flanked by former Presidents Obama and Bill Clinton. “And before Trump and MAGA Republicans haven’t even opened one office.”
A Trump campaign spokesperson did not respond on Tuesday to questions about their amount of field offices.
‘Take the gloves off’ Biden has ramped up some of his anti-Trump barbs in a way that is landing with some voters.
On Friday morning in New York, Biden offered what’s become a recurring laugh line to the Victory Fund National Finance Committee Spring Retreat — a daylong gathering at the InterContinental New York Barclay hotel with 175 top-dollar donors.
“I know not everyone is feeling the enthusiasm. Just the other day a guy came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, I’m being crushed by debt, I’m completely wiped out, I need some help.’ I had to say, ‘I’m sorry, Donald, I can’t help you.'”
At a March fundraiser in Texas, Biden slammed Trump for infamously suggesting Americans might be able to ingest disinfectants and use light to combat COVID-19 early in the pandemic.
“He just kept getting worse. He told Americans, remember when he said inject bleach? I think he must have done it,” he said.
Biden regularly jokes about his own age, which is frequent fodder for criticism by Republicans, but he also uses the topic to segue into an attack of Trump’s ideas as being “old.”
“I’d be happy to compare physical characteristics,” Biden, who is 81, said at a fundraiser last week in North Carolina about Trump, who is 77. “Granted, I don’t have his orange hair.”
Voter Jerome Abron, a registered Democrat and manager of a Bojangles in Raleigh, North Carolina, said he is ready to see more of these types of attacks in public.
“I think he needs to take the gloves off,” Abron said to ABC News last week. “Take the gloves off. Time to be aggressive.”
However, when Biden speaks about how he sees Trump as a serious threat to American democracy, a charge that Trump denies, he often appears to show restraint — wanting to say more, but stopping himself before finishing the thought.
Biden twice stopped himself from going further on Friday morning — when telling donors about Trump embracing dictators and lamenting about his “old ideas.”
“Talking about how Hitler did some good things — I won’t say it,” Biden said at one point — a reference to reports of comments Trump had made, according to his former chief of staff John Kelly.
Biden, a devout Catholic, said at another point: “There’s a lot of focus these days on how old Trump and I are. Well … I shouldn’t say it. I won’t say it. Not for the fact it was Good Friday, I might say it.”
ABC News’ Lalee Ibsa and Soorin Kim contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — At his first campaign event in more than two weeks, former President Donald Trump on Tuesday sought to capitalize on the backlash he faced when warning of a “bloodbath” for the country if he loses the election, as he spoke about the auto industry — but this time he pivoted to warn of President Joe Biden’s “border bloodbath.”
“It’s destroying our country,” Trump, joined by some law enforcement and local officials, said at a press conference-style “messaging event” in Grand Rapids, Michigan, echoing what has become a key campaign attack on his rival’s immigration policies.
“It’s a very bad thing happening,” Trump argued. “It’s going to end on the day that I take office, which will be Jan. 20.”
“Every state is now a border state, every town is now a border town,” he said. “Because Joe Biden has brought the carnage and chaos and killing from all over the world and dumped it straight into our backyards.”
Among other topics, including again denying all wrongdoing as he lambasted his various legal troubles, Trump continued to use critical language to reference migrants who are in the country illegally, particularly accused criminals.
He called out those who are suspected of violent crimes, saying they are “animals,” and he said of unauthorized immigrants more broadly that he doesn’t want them bringing in “diseases” — as he railed against the high numbers of immigrants crossing the southern border.
He also spoke hyperbolically of the public safety dangers from those migrants, repeating a favored label of “migrant crime.”
However, U.S. citizens actually commit crimes at higher rates than unauthorized immigrants, according to a 2020 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Biden administration officials have repeatedly defended their approach to the border while saying Congress should do more to help, rebuffing conservative criticism amid what polling shows is low public approval for the president on the issue.
Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas cited a deal in the Senate to tighten immigration laws that was ultimately rejected by Republicans because they claimed it was insufficient.
“We have a solution at our fingertips,” Mayorkas said in March. “Does it cure all of the challenges? Of course not. But a bipartisan group of senators reached a very significant compromise that it would advance for the first time in decades our work in addressing irregular migration that reaches our borders in a way that we haven’t since 1996. It would resource our department.”
Trump on Tuesday in Michigan used his speech to highlight the recent death of 25-year-old Ruby Garcia of Grand Rapids.
Police have said she was dating the suspect and described the killing as a domestic dispute, according to the Associated Press.
The suspected killer entered the country illegally from Mexico, according to border officials.
Trump called Garcia a “beautiful young woman [who] was savagely murdered by an illegal alien criminal.”
He directly blamed Biden for the death of Garcia, claiming the suspect was deported under his administration but then was let back into the country under Biden.
But an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement spokesperson said in a statement that the suspect actually re-entered the U.S. after deportation “at an unknown date and location.”
Trump also said he had spoken with some of Garcia’s family: “They said she had just the most contagious laughter and when she walked into a room, she lit up that room, and I’ve heard that from so many people.” According to a local Fox report, Garcia’s sister disputed speaking with Trump.
Oddly, Trump appeared to be going back and forth between saying Garcia was 25 years old and 17 years old.
As a part of his border security message, Trump listed other homicide victims in cases where the suspects are known or alleged to be unauthorized immigrants.
While talking about the suspects in these murders, Trump called them “animals,” saying they are “not humans.”
“The Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals, they’re humans,'” Trump said. “I said, ‘No, they’re not humans. They’re not.’ Yeah, they’re animals.”
Touting his use as president of the Title 42 public health authority to rapidly remove migrants during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump again said he doesn’t want unauthorized immigrants bringing in diseases.
“When people are sick, we don’t want them coming into our country with contagious diseases,” he said. “And they have it and all of a sudden you see these contagious diseases spreading and everyone’s saying, ‘I wonder where they came from?'”
Warning of what he described as groups of migrants working in organized crime, Trump told his supporters to vote for him “if you don’t want illegal alien criminals crawling through your windows and ransacking your drawers.”
Trump then attempted to court suburban housewives. “I’m the one that’s going to keep them safe,” he said.
A large-scale solution is needed to address immigration, he vowed, though he did not detail how, specifically, he would execute this.
“I will seal the border and will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in the history of our country,” he said.
“I will shift massive portions of federal law enforcement to immigration enforcement and we will impose a naval blockade on the cartels and we will hit the cartels very hard,” he said.
ABC News’ Luke Barr and Quinn Owen contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Although still confident the risks of avian flu to the human population are low, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention senior official told ABC News they are taking seriously dairy cows being infected in at least 11 farms and, most recently, a human dairy farmer in Texas.
Public health officials have been “working on avian flu and preparing for it [in humans] for 20 years,” the senior CDC official told ABC News. “We’ve invested in our ability to test for it, to prevent it, to treat it.”
“These are the things that reassure me: 20 years of preparation, no genetic changes to this virus, no human-to-human spread and nothing in the virus in terms of adaptations that would make us think it is more adaptive to human spread,” the official said.
The official said the human who contracted avian flu, discovered last week in Texas, works with dairy cows. They “had mild symptoms; they’re doing well and recovering,” the official said.
The official went on to say that the CDC and the U.S. government were “taking this situation very seriously and closely monitoring it.” The federal agency is working with local health departments, state health departments and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and has, over the last two decades, invested in the ability to prevent and treat the disease, the official added.
There is still no evidence of human-to-human transmission of bird flu, called H5N1, within the United States, the official said. The latest evidence shows the virus did not adapt to infect a human.
The fact that the virus does not appear to be passing from person to person is one reason that the CDC feels confident that, at this moment, the risk to the public is low.
The official said current tests and treatments still work, and, if needed, there is a capacity to increase manufacturing of Tamiflu, an antiviral medication, millions of doses of which are in the national stockpile. Additionally, vaccines could be developed in an accelerated timeline, the official told ABC News.
The official dismissed any comparison to the COVID-19 pandemic for reasons including the fact that avian flu is not a new virus, medications already exist to treat it, there is no evidence of human-to-human spread and no evidence of the virus having mutated.
While the sick person in Texas was presumed to have been infected by a cow, it remains possible that a bird was also the culprit as both cows and birds were sick and present on the farm, the official said. Local health departments are set to test symptomatic individuals exposed to infected livestock, a CDC spokesperson confirmed.
Infection can occur between animals and humans due to the virus getting into a person’s eyes, nose, mouth, or if inhaled, according to the CDC. Respiratory transmission in close proximity is believed to be the most likely way the virus is passed on. People who are in close proximity to infected animals may be at greater risk of infection.
There are currently 11 dairy herds with confirmed positive cases in cattle, according to the USDA. This includes seven in Texas, two in Kansas, one in Michigan and one in New Mexico.
(GAZA) — Seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen were killed during an Israel Defense Forces attack in Gaza, the food-relief organization said, adding that it plans to pause its operations in the region.
“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war,” CEO Erin Gore said in a statement. “This is unforgivable.”
WCK identified all seven victims on Tuesday. The youngest was Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, 25.
There were three victims from the U.K.: John Chapman, 57; James “Jim” Henderson, 33; and James Kirby, 47.
The victims also included Damian Sobol, 35, of Poland; Jacob Flickinger, 33, of the U.S. and Canada; and Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, 43, of Australia.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden spoke with WCK founder Jose Andres and “conveyed he is grieving with the entire World Central Kitchen family.”
“The president felt it was important to recognize the tremendous contribution World Central Kitchen has made to the people of Gaza and people around the world,” Jean-Pierre said. “The president conveyed he will make clear to Israel humanitarian aid workers must be protected.”
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby offered the administration’s strongest reaction to the deadly strike.
“We were outraged to learn of an IDF strike that killed a number of civilian humanitarian workers yesterday from the World Central Kitchen, which has been relentless and working to get food to those who are hungry in Gaza, and quite frankly, around the world,” Kirby said. “We send our deepest condolences to their families and loved ones.”
Kirby added, “This incident is emblematic of a larger problem and evidence of why distribution of aid in Gaza has been so challenging. But what — beyond the strike — what is clear is that the IDF must do much more, much more to improve deconfliction processes so that civilians and humanitarian aid workers are protected.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his first comments about the deadly incident as he was leaving a hospital after undergoing successful hernia surgery.
“Unfortunately, in the last day, there was a tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said. “It happens in war, we check it to the end. We are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again.”
Netanyahu later released a second statement, saying, “Israel deeply regrets the tragic incident which claimed the lives of seven humanitarian aid workers.”
“Our hearts go out to their families and to their home countries,” Netanyahu said. “The IDF is conducting a swift and transparent investigation and we will make our findings public. Israel is fully committed to enabling humanitarian aid to reach the civilian population in Gaza and we will do everything in our power to ensure that such tragedies do not occur in the future.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also called Andres on Tuesday to express his condolences. In a statement, Herzog said he conveyed to Andres “Israel’s commitment to ensuring a through investigation of the tragedy.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese demanded accountability for Frankcom’s death while describing her as having “the sort of values that are shown by someone going into a very dangerous place in order to assist mankind, your fellow humans, people who she didn’t know.”
“She just wanted to help out through this charity,” Albanese said. “It says everything about the character of this young woman, and so this tragedy and my sincere condolences and that of the Australian government go to Zomi’s family, to her friends and all who knew her.”
WCK, a non-governmental organization, has been operating in Gaza for months and has said it’s served more than 33 million meals since the start of the conflict. It operates over 60 community kitchens in Gaza with the help of about 400 Palestinians on the ground.
U.S. officials are “heartbroken and deeply troubled” by the strike, Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said in a statement on social media.
“Humanitarian aid workers must be protected as they deliver aid that is desperately needed, and we urge Israel to swiftly investigate what happened,” Watson said.
A representative from the organization said WCK was still gathering details about the incident that took place early Tuesday morning.
According to the WCK statement, the aid workers were traveling in a three-vehicle caravan, including two armored cars, all branded with the WCK logo. Despite coordinating its movements with the IDF, the team was hit as it was leaving Deir al-Balah warehouse in central Gaza, where it had helped unload more than 100 tons of humanitarian aid brought to Gaza on the maritime route, according to the WCK statement.
“This is a tragedy. Humanitarian aid workers and civilians should NEVER be a target. EVER,” the representative said in a statement.
The IDF said in a statement that it was conducting a “thorough review at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident.”
“The IDF makes extensive efforts to enable the safe delivery of humanitarian aid, and has been working closely with WCK in their vital efforts to provide food and humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza,” the statement said.
Also on Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant referred to the tragic nature of the incident and emphasized the importance of conducting a thorough, professional investigation, which will be followed by the implementation of lessons learned. Gallant highlighted the important work undertaken by international aid organizations, as well as Israel’s commitment to working closely with partner countries and organizations and facilitating the distribution of humanitarian aid.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday in Paris that the U.S. has spoken to the Israeli government about the missile strike on the WCK team.
“We’ve spoken directly to the Israeli government about this particular incident we’ve urged the swift, thorough and impartial investigation to understand exactly what happened,” Blinken said.
Blinken said the seven victims “join a record number of humanitarian workers who have been killed in this particular conflict.” At least 196 aid workers, including 175 members of the U.N. staff, have now been killed in the Hamas-Israel conflict, according to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
“I can only say that for so many of us, we extend our condolences to the loved ones, to the families, friends, colleagues of those who lost their lives, or who were injured,” Blinken said. “They have been doing extraordinary, brave work day-in and day-out, and critical work … starting with the most basic thing of all: food. These people are heroes. They run into the fire. They show the best of what humanity has to offer. They have to be protected.”
Officials in the United Kingdom were “urgently working” to verify whether British citizens had been killed, David Cameron, the U.K.’s foreign secretary, said in a statement.
“We have called on Israel to immediately investigate and provide a full, transparent explanation of what happened,” he said.
Andres, the founder of WCK, said he was “heartbroken” and “grieving” for the families and friends of the workers who were killed.
“Today @WCKitchen lost several of our sisters and brothers in an IDF air strike in Gaza,” he wrote on X.
He added, “I am heartbroken and grieving for their families and friends and our whole WCK family. These are people … angels … I served alongside in Ukraine, Gaza, Turkey, Morocco, Bahamas, Indonesia. They are not faceless … they are not nameless. The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon. No more innocent lives lost. Peace starts with our shared humanity. It needs to start now.”
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a taped message that he had spoken with Andres and “expressed the deepest condolences.”
“We will be opening a probe to examine this serious incident further. This will help us reduce the risk of such an event from occurring again,” he said, adding, “We will get to the bottom of this and we will share our findings transparently.”
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this story.
(WASHINGTON) — The bipartisan No Labels movement is facing a self-imposed soft deadline of early April to field a ticket in the 2024 presidential race, despite declaring last month that it would move forward with a third-party independent bid.
The official launch by No Labels in March offered hope to supporters who yearned for a different choice other than the presumptive nominees, incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. No Labels indicated, according to its internal polling, that more than 70% of Americans said they’d be open to another option.
While the group has said there’s no formal deadline for selecting and naming a candidate, No Labels National Convention Chair Mike Rawlings has suggested early April. Chief strategist Ryan Clancy said late last year the group could linger as late as June to decide if they would enter the 2024 election. But as of now, there is no candidate and, therefore, no third choice.
No Labels’ 800 delegates from 50 states met virtually in March to discuss the future of the movement and whether it would enter the 2024 presidential election. “They voted near unanimously to continue our 2024 project and to move immediately to identify candidates to serve on the Unity presidential ticket,” Rawlings said in a statement at the time.
After formally revealing the group would move forward with a White House bid last month, Clancy told ABC News that “any previous names floating around are being put out there by someone else,” which signaled efforts to reclaim the narrative of who might be on a potential “Unity Ticket” — composed of one Republican and one Democrat.
The centrist group then outlined a ceremonial Country Over Party committee tasked with selecting the candidates. It was the committee’s goal to gather information, reach out to prospective candidates and then meet behind closed doors before presenting a ticket to their delegates for a vote, according to Rawlings, who outlined the selection process.
For the past year and a half, No Labels leadership has held private conversations with potential candidates in an attempt to lure in former and current political figures, according to people familiar with the outreach.
It’s unclear how fast or serious the group has been in the past several weeks since their delegates signed off, and No Labels has been tight-lipped when approached about developments. ABC News has reached out to the group several times.
Who has been floated as a potential candidate? A handful of delegates suggested to ABC News they heard a few names floated over the past two weeks, but no one was willing to provide any new names or disclose if they have received updates from the committee.
In conversations with ABC News, these delegates did suggest unicorn names such as Michelle Obama and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. Both have ruled out running for president. When pressed further on potential candidates, delegates suggested there are still candidates being considered.
Adversely, a few former high-dollar donors to No Labels suggested to ABC News they were well-aware the group couldn’t move forward and weren’t surprised by the lack of candidate interest. Some suggested No Labels’ decision to move forward would only create a spoiler.
Several donors had thrown their support behind former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley — who suspended her 2024 campaign last month — but No Labels put that to rest, releasing a statement after Haley’s campaign suspension saying the group will take her “at her word” that she “isn’t interested in pursuing another route to the presidency.”
Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan was also once speculated to be on the ticket, but announced he would run for U.S. Senate instead.
Other names that have been floated by the bipartisan group include former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.
At the end of March, Christie said he won’t run against Trump on a third-party ticket with No Labels in the 2024 presidential race.
“While I believe this is a conversation that needs to be had with the American people, I also believe that if there is not a pathway to win and if my candidacy in any way, shape or form would help Donald Trump become president again, then it is not the way forward,” Christie said at the time.
That same day, No Labels also faced a tragedy when the group’s founding chair, former Sen. Joe Lieberman, died due to complications from a fall.
Where is No Labels on the ballot? No Labels is on the ballot in 19 states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.
No Labels previously claimed it would be on the ballot in 34 states by the end of 2023, later saying it would attempt to get on the ballot in 33 states by the time a candidate was announced. The group has yet to hit these benchmarks.
The group has indicated that once it selects the Unity Ticket and hands over the ballot line, the candidate is responsible for the rest of the states, as well as campaigning.
“Once the Unity ticket is nominated, No Labels’ work is done. The Unity Ticket will assume the task of building a campaign and capturing the hearts and minds of the American people in the 2024 election,” Rawlings said.
The disappearance of No Labels once the ballot line is passed over to a candidate allows the group to remain a nonprofit, and no donor would be disclosed. No Labels could also stay mum on how much money it has raised and where that money might go moving forward if it’s not used for 2024.
No Labels hasn’t indicated its future role if and when a candidate is selected.
Timeline unknown No Labels was slated to hold a Dallas convention on April 14 and 15 to hear from supporters and gauge whether the group would launch a third-party ticket.
That in-person convention turned to a virtual option allowing the group more time to proceed, with Clancy telling reporters they’d linger as late as June to decide if the group would enter the 2024 election.
The convention ended up taking place virtually in March — a month earlier than planned, despite wanting to allow for more time.
Following the delegate vote to move forward in March, No Labels entered a second phase to finalize the group’s candidate selection process. As a final step, No Labels will reconvene and present its candidate to the group for approval.
The “coming weeks” has become a standard phrase given to ABC News when some supporters and delegates have been pressed on whether the group has a candidate yet.
What are No Labels’ exit options? Nancy Jacobson, chief executive and founder of No Labels, previously said No Labels will “either give our ballot line to a ticket with a clear path to victory, or we’ll step aside.”
Over the past year, No Labels has indicated it could cease its operations if they believed their ticket couldn’t win or couldn’t get 270 electoral college votes. The group also said it would exit if they believed they would spoil the election.
No Labels leadership has reiterated claims that they will not spoil the 2024 election.
“We will never fuel a spoiler candidate,” Clancy has said. “We don’t want to fuel any sort of candidacy that’s pulling more votes from one side.”
No Labels has indicated a future ticket would hold the 30 policy proposals introduced at a July event by Manchin and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. in a No Labels policy agenda booklet.
Rawlings also reiterated these qualifications last month, suggesting that in order to represent a No Labels ticket, a candidate must believe in the six core values of No Labels and endorse the policy booklet that was established in July.
“This is a unique American moment where we have a chance to make history. We can leave behind the divisions and dysfunction and finally have leadership in the White House that speaks to and for America’s common sense majority,” Rawlings said at the end of his remarks during the virtual convention in March.
(NAPLES, Fla.) — An alleged space object has appeared to crash through the roof of a family home in Naples, Florida, leaving several questions and a damaged residence in its wake.
Last month, Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, took to X, to share that an “equipment pallet” from space had reentered Earth’s atmosphere, hypothesizing it would likely have reached Fort Myers, Florida.
“The EP-9 equipment pallet reentered at 1929 UTC over the Gulf of Mexico between Cancun and Cuba. This was with the previous prediction window but a little to the northeast of the ‘most likely’ part of the path. A couple minutes later reentry and it would have reached Ft Myers,” McDowell wrote on March 8.
Alejandro Otero, a homeowner in Naples, Florida – about 40 miles south of Fort Myers – responded to McDowell on X and shared several photos of damage to his home, as well as a photo of the alleged space debris.
“Looks like one of those pieces missed Ft Myers and landed in my house in Naples,” Otero wrote on March 15.
Otero said the apparent space object “tore through the roof” and went through two floors of his home, and that the object “almost hit my son.”
Hello. Looks like one of those pieces missed Ft Myers and landed in my house in Naples. Tore through the roof and went thru 2 floors. Almost his my son. Can you please assist with getting NASA to connect with me? I’ve left messages and emails without a response. pic.twitter.com/Yi29f3EwyV
Otero previously claimed he had reached out to NASA for a response but did not hear back. In a statement Tuesday, NASA said the agency “collected an item in cooperation with the homeowner, and will analyze the object at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as soon as possible to determine its origin,” adding, “More information will be available once the analysis is complete.”
In an interview with WINK TV in Ft. Myers, Otero said he was on vacation when the incident took place but that his son was home and called him about the damage, saying, “Something ripped through the house and then made a big hole on the floor and on the ceiling.”
“When we heard that, we were like, impossible, and then immediately I thought a meteorite,” Otero told WINK.
Otero said the object weighs nearly two pounds and appears to be “cylindrical-shaped.”
“It used to have a cylindrical shape, and you can tell by the shape of the top that it traveled in this direction through the atmosphere. Whatever you burned, created in this burn and melted the metal over in this direction,” Otero told WINK.
Upon arrival to his home, Otero said he was “shaking” and that he’s “super grateful that nobody got hurt.”
“I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief,” Otero told WINK. “What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage?” he said, adding, “I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will host a group of Muslim leaders Tuesday evening to discuss “issues of importance to the community,” the White House said, as he faced growing criticism over his response to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
The White House meeting, behind closed doors, will be followed by a small iftar dinner to mark the end of the daily fast during Ramadan with Muslim administration staffers but not with the community leaders.
“He will be joined by Vice President Harris, senior Muslim administration officials and senior members of his national security team,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters about the meeting.
“And to continue the White House tradition of honoring Ramadan, as he did just last month, after the meeting, we will host a small breaking of the fast, prayer and iftar with a number of senior Muslim administration officials,” she added.
The events are a very scaled-down gathering to mark Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month, compared to previous years, when the president would host hundreds for a reception and deliver remarks in front of guests and the press.
Neither the meeting with Muslim community leaders nor the iftar dinner were on Biden’s public schedule.
They are also taking place as tensions remain high between the administration and the Arab American and Muslim communities over Biden’s support for Israel in its fight against Hamas as the war in Gaza approaches the six-month mark after Hamas launched a surprise terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7. More than 1,200 people were killed in that attack, according to Israeli officials.
On Tuesday, Biden is facing another protest vote in Wisconsin, where groups are organizing people to cast their ballot for “uninstructed” in the Democratic primary rather than for Biden. Similar campaigns in protest over the war have unfolded in Michigan and Minnesota.
Both the Biden-Harris campaign and the administration have ramped up outreach to these communities in recent months. One of those efforts, a meeting Biden campaign officials had planned in Michigan ahead of the primary, was rebuffed as local Arab American and Muslim leaders canceled.
Jean-Pierre said the gathering of Muslim leaders at the White House is seen as a “working group meeting” and was decided to be done privately at the “request from members of the community.”
“They thought it would be important to do that and so we did that,” she said. “We listened, we heard, and we adjusted the format to be responsive and so that we can get feedback from them. … This is what they wanted, and we understand that.”
Last month, Biden marked the start of Ramadan by reflecting on the Israel-Hamas war and the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians, including thousands of children,” he said. “Some are family members of American Muslims, who are deeply grieving their lost loved ones today. Nearly two million Palestinians have been displaced by the war; many are in urgent need of food, water, medicine, and shelter.”
“As Muslims gather around the world over the coming days and weeks to break their fast, the suffering of the Palestinian people will be front of mind for many,” he continued. “It is front of mind for me.”
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is celebrating a court ruling that will add an abortion rights measure to the November ballot in Florida, giving voters the chance to undo the state’s current restrictions on the procedure.
That will “help mobilize and expand the electorate in the state” based on how widely supported similar such efforts have been elsewhere, Biden aides argue.
“Protecting abortion rights is mobilizing a diverse and growing segment of voters to help buoy Democrats up and down the ballot,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in a memo on Monday, in part.
Exit polling previously found that the issue of abortion access was a driving factor for some voters in key battlegrounds like Michigan in 2022 — and the inclusion of the ballot initiative in Florida in November is seen by some Democrats and abortion rights advocates as helpful in driving voter turnout.
That optimism challenges recent political history: Florida shifted more conservative in key races since 2020, after years of being seen as one of the biggest battleground states in the country, with elections sometimes decided by mere hundreds of votes.
Former President Donald Trump narrowly won Florida in 2016 and then less narrowly in 2020.
In 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis won reelection by nearly 20 points.
Until 2020, Florida had also voted for the winning presidential candidate every cycle dating back to 1996.
But recent elections indicate the state’s partisanship may be changing. After decades of Democrats holding an official edge with voter registration in the state, that flipped starting in 2021 and there are now nearly 1 million more registered Republicans, data shows.
Rodriguez acknowledged in her memo on Monday that “Florida is not an easy state to win,” but she indicated that Biden’s campaign wouldn’t need to in order to beat Trump, who faces his own challenges of winning back longtime GOP states like Arizona and Georgia.
“Winning Florida requires being strategic with resources, while putting in the work early and often to reach its many diverse constituencies. That’s exactly what Team Biden-Harris is doing,” Rodriguez wrote.
Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Biden allies and aides including Rodriguez reiterated their case for why Florida is not out of reach, despite the GOP’s success.
“Look, we’re clear-eyed about how hard it will be to win Florida,” Rodriguez said.
“But,” she argued, “we also know that Trump does not have it in the bag.”
In her memo, Rodriguez cited what she said was Biden’s support with seniors, a key voting bloc in Florida, as well as the success of some Democrats in local races, like Donna Deegan — who won Jacksonville’s mayoral election in 2023.
Floridians have rejected “MAGA politics” since the 2022 midterms, Rodriguez wrote, and Biden is in a good position to “assemble a winning coalition” of key voter groups in the state: seniors, Hispanic voters, Black voters and voters who previously supported Nikki Haley over Trump in the GOP primary.
Rodriguez also singled out issues like the cost of living, health care access and welfare programs like Social Security.
Biden allies are aiming to make reproductive rights important in 2024, too, including through a new swing state ad that links Trump to — and blames him for — the growing number of restrictive abortions bans in recent years.
“The only thing standing between Americans and a national abortion ban: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and the White House,” Rodriguez said on Tuesday, echoing what’s become a major campaign message. “These are the stakes in November, and we’re going to continue to make sure that every single voter knows them.”
On the trail, Trump often takes credit for naming three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices that voted to overrule Roe v. Wade’s guarantees for abortion access.
“We did something that was a miracle,” he said during a town hall in January, suggesting that the lack of abortions since the court ruling two years ago had “saved” millions of lives.
“Nobody has done more in that regard than me,” he said then.
But Trump has refused to give a consistent, specific response on the limits he now favors.
Trump has voiced public support for three exceptions (rape, incest and life of the mother) and he has privately expressed that he may back a 16-week national abortion ban with those three exceptions, ABC News reported in February, citing two sources.
At the time, the Trump campaign did not deny the reporting but issued a statement that said he would work to find middle ground on abortion.
Trump campaign adviser Brian Hughes said in a statement to ABC News on Tuesday that “President Trump supports preserving life but has also made clear that he supports states’ rights because he supports the voters’ right to make decisions for themselves.”
Hughes went on to knock what he said were Democrats’ far more permissive abortion policies.
ABC News’ Libby Cathey, Fritz Farrow, Lalee Ibssa and Soo Rin Kim contributed to this report.
