Matt McDonald

Milwaukee, Wisconsin “The challenge for Trump,” says The Spectator editorial from this month’s magazine “is to show Americans a steady hand and a normal face.” The normal face the Republican National Convention opted for was that of wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, who took to the stage waving a huge American flag, began his remarks by yelling, "Well let me tell you something brother" and later removed his jacket so he could tear his vest in half to reveal a red "Trump-Vance" tank top underneath. "Let Trumpomania run wild!" he screamed. The Fiserv Forum was exuberant. High up in the stands, Russell Brand was sat a few rows behind me, for some reason. Is this America's new normal? https://twitter.com/jordanuhl/status/1814111040076153156?

Former president Donald Trump was dragged off stage by Secret Service, his face bloodied, after an assassination attempt during his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, tonight. Video footage from the incident suggests multiple shots were fired. Supporters behind him ducked for cover as they rang out. “Glass fragments not a bullet hit Trump,” a source familiar told Axios's Juliegrace Brufke. https://twitter.com/nickfondacaro/status/1812252032272593009?s=46&t=KTzG0soGgiCKUdkuiUQOwA Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger told the Washington Post's Meryl Cornfield that "Trump was grazed by gunfire but is safe. An audience member was killed and the shooter is dead. Another person is in serious condition.

President Joe Biden is the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party after his victory in the Georgia primary pushed him passed the threshold of 1,968 delegates. Donald Trump also passed the threshold of 1,215 delegates to become the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, following his triumphs in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington. "It is my great honor to be representing the Republican Party as its Presidential Nominee," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Our Party is UNITED and STRONG, and fully understands that we are running against the Worst, Most Incompetent, Corrupt, and Destructive President in the History of the United States. Millions of people are invading our Country, many from prisons and mental institutions of other Countries.

Donald Trump is cleaning up in the Republican primaries on Super Tuesday. The 45th president has secured victories in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Nikki Haley's sole victory is in Vermont. President Biden also bagged easy wins in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. The Democrats also held caucuses in American Samoa and Iowa on Tuesday. Biden won Iowa with 91 percent of the vote, but lost American Samoa to unknown businessman Jason Palmer.

Manchester, New Hampshire The Republican and Democratic primaries in New Hampshire are two sides of the same coin. New polls released this morning show the 45th and 46th president leading their respective fields comfortably. The latest Boston Globe/Suffolk survey has Donald Trump on 55 percent, with Nikki Haley on 36 percent and Ron DeSantis on 6 percent. The new CNN/UNH poll is a similar story: Trump on 50 percent, Haley on 39 percent, DeSantis on 6 percent.

The podcast that was the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign breathed its last late Monday evening in Iowa. It had aired in one uninterrupted stream for a little over eleven months. Ramaswamy came fourth in Iowa, securing 7.7 percent of the vote and three delegates, or just over 8,400 people at latest count. He suspended his campaign as the margin of his defeat became apparent: this was more than an edging-out. The biotech millionaire and author of Woke Inc. was always a long shot in the 2024 Republican primaries — Heavens, any candidate not named Donald Trump is a long shot. He announced his campaign on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show in February 2023, back when Tucker Carlson had a Fox News show, and did media appearances more or less continuously from then on.

Republicans nationwide are picking up the pieces after a disappointing election night. A much vaunted, Glenn Youngkin-fronted effort to take full control of the Virginia General Assembly failed devastatingly, as the Democrats held onto the State Senate and flipped the House of Delegates. In Kentucky, incumbent Governor Andy Beshear held off a challenge from Attorney General Daniel Cameron. And in Ohio, voters opted to enshrine the right to an abortion and legalize marijuana, both by a margin of thirteen percentage points. Virginia Republicans pulled off a shock upset in 2021 when they took the House of Delegates and the governor’s mansion. The lanky quarterzip-wearing Carlyle Group executive picked key wedge issues that turned moderate heads.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin America’s front-runners share a winning debate strategy: don’t turn up. Much as Joe Biden is dodging the chance to share a stage with Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — because why would you? — Donald Trump opted to skip out on the Republican National Committee and Fox News’s first debate in Milwaukee.  Trump is still aggrieved by what he perceives as the network’s ill treatment of him, both in its “early” — but correct — call of Arizona in the 2020 election and its coverage since: there is a palpable yearning among executives to “move on” from Trump.