Happening this Thursday: Shooting at celebration for Kansas City Chiefs results in at least one dead, nearly two dozen injured… Russia’s pursuit of space-based nuclear weapon raises concerns in DC… Sources say President Biden — not special counsel Robert Hur — raised the matter of son Beau Biden’s death… Nikki Haley, who stumps in Texas, faces difficult delegate road against Donald Trump… And Trump is expected to attend hearing in New York hush-money case.
But FIRST… Democrats have plenty to celebrate after their special congressional election victory in New York on Tuesday.
They continued their streak of wins in low-turnout special elections; they neutralized the GOP’s immigration message and TV attacks; and, maybe most important of all, they narrowed Republicans’ already paper-thin House majority by another seat — making it even harder for the House GOP to govern.
Yet here’s what we DIDN’T learn: whether anything that happened in New York applies to President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, especially in a general-election contest with Donald Trump on the ballot.
For starters, the same Newsday/Siena College poll that showed Democrat Tom Suozzi ahead by 4 points among likely voters — his victory margin now stands at nearly 8 points — actually showed Trump ahead of Biden by 5 points in the district, 47% to 42%.
Bottom line: The polling found Souzzi outperforming Biden, which is similar to what we saw play out for many Democratic candidates in the 2022 midterms.
Next, while Souzzi was able to blunt the GOP’s immigration attacks on him, that same Newsday/Siena pollfound him trailing Republican Mazi Pilip by 9 points on the immigration issue.
Compare that with Biden’s 35-point deficit on immigration vs. Trump in last month’s national NBC News poll.
And finally, neither Biden nor Trump were fixtures in the TV advertising, message wars or campaign activity in NY-3 — a district that won’t be in a battleground state in the 2024 presidential election.
Ultimately, special elections are different breeds than presidential elections. (In fact, we’re old enough to remember when Democrats, in 2011, lost Anthony Weiner’s congressional seat in New York after his own scandal. But then, of course, they won the 2012 election the next year.)
As our colleague Chuck Todd recently wrote, Biden vs. Trump is shaping up to be a choice/referendum contest between the two men — policy, character/age, and what a second term for either would mean.
But that wasn’t the campaign we just saw in NY-3.
Headline of the day
The number of the day is … 12
That’s the number of Super Tuesday contests in the GOP presidential nominating fight that award delegates with some sort of winner-take-all system for candidates winning a majority of the vote. That reality underscores the challenge former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley faces as she looks for an upset victory over Trump.
Some, like California (the biggest delegate prize of Super Tuesday) will award all its delegates to a candidate who wins the majority of the vote. Others, like Texas (the state with the second-most delegates on Super Tuesday), dole out statewide and congressional delegates separately. So a candidate who wins at least 50% statewide gets the statewide delegates, and a candidate who crosses that threshold in a single congressional district gets all three delegates allocated for that district.
These rules are vastly different from the ones governing the Democratic primary, which awards delegates proportionally, giving candidates like Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2016 and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2008 hope they could amass support through a protracted delegate war.
These Super Tuesday states aren’t true winner-take-all, they only act that way if a candidate hits a certain threshold, usually 50%. But in a one-on-one race, it’s almost a guarantee that one candidate finishes with a majority of the vote. So that means that while Haley is clearly improving, she could see herself with few delegates to show for it unless she’s able to be the one that wins those majorities.
Read more on NBCNews.com.
Eyes on November: Trump talks NATO in South Carolina
Former President Donald Trump doubled down on his comments that he won’t support NATO countries that do not pay their dues at a rally in South Carolina on Wednesday, per NBC’s Jake Traylor and Vaughn Hillyard.
“But one of the heads of the countries stood up and said, ‘Does that mean that if we don’t pay the bills, that you’re not going to protect us?’” Trump recounted during the rally. “I said that’s exactly what it means. Exactly. I’m not going to protect you.”
The Biden campaign quickly condemned the comments, with rapid response director Ammar Moussa saying in a statement, “Donald Trump, who has never been loyal to anyone or anything but himself, would abandon our allies and appease dictators like Putin because he wants to be one. As President Biden said yesterday, this is dangerous, dumb and un-American — and it’s exactly why Trump can never step foot anywhere near the White House again.”
Trump also slammed his primary rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, calling her “absolutely terrible” and saying she would not be his running mate.
Traylor and Hillyard also report that Trump said his recent comments confusing Haley and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi were on purpose to draw their similarities. Haley seized on that apparent confusion as part of her argument that Trump is not mentally fit for the presidency.
Trump’s visit to the Palmetto State comes as polling shows him with a sizable lead over Haley. A new Winthrop University poll released Wednesday finds Trump leading Haley by nearly 30 points among likely Republican primary voters.
In other campaign news …
Slammed on social media: TikTok users are flooding President Joe Biden’s TikTok account with comments calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and supporting Palestinians, NBC’s Alex Tabet reports.
Omaha! Democrats are looking to shore up their “blue wall” in the Midwest after some states lost electoral votes due to congressional redistricting, and the Washington Post reports that Democrats are setting their sights on Nebraska.
RNC worries: Some RNC members are raising concerns that the Republican National Committee could be stuck footing the bill for Trump’s legal battles if his allies take over the party, per Politico.
Primary problems: Donald Trump Jr., on Wednesday floated the idea of former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker launching a primary challenge against Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, days after she voted with Democrats and 21 Senate Republicans to pass an aid package for Israel and Ukraine, per The Hill.
Taking a victory lap: Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Wednesday urged their party to follow former Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi’s playbook on border security, which they say helped him win a special congressional election in New York on Tuesday. But Politico reports that some progressives are cautioning the party against embracing more conservative immigration positions.
A magic carpet ride? Democrats are working to frame top GOP Senate candidates as out-of-state carpetbaggers as they look to replicate a playbook that helped them defeat Pennsylvania Republican Mehmet Oz last cycle, NBC’s Henry J. Gomez reports.
Alsobrooks on the air: Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who is running to be Maryland’s Democratic nominee for Senate, launched her first campaign TV ad on Wednesday, telling voters, “you deserve a senator who understands you and who will fight for you.”
Hogan on abortion: Former Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan, who announced his bid for the Senate last week, told CNN on Wednesday that he wouldn’t support a national abortion ban.
Just like DJ Khaled said: Another retirement: This time, it’s Tennessee Republican Rep. Mark Green who is telling reporters he will retire after this session. Green lamented the culture in Congress to Axios, calling Washington “broken” and saying “making a difference here… just feels like a lot of something for nothing.”
Trying to avoid a shutout: Politico reports that Democrats are scrambling to spend in order to avoid missing their shot in California’s 22nd Congressional District out of fear a divided Democratic field could leave them shut out of the general election (California puts all its candidates on one ballot and the Top 2, regardless of party, advance to the general).
The Real Slim Shady: The RNC is recognizing former Rep. Pete Hoekstra as Michigan’s state GOP chairman after former chair Kristina Karamo refused to step down after she was removed, a situation that has led to both claiming they ran the party.
ICYMI: What ELSE is happening in the world
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is facing a $500 million budget shortfall and could run out of money by May, officials tell NBC News’ Julia Ainsley.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was offered a position as the next president of EMILYs List, but turned it down, NBC’s Jonathan Allen reports.
