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It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy. We think of it as a mini-magazine in your inbox.
THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY IS NOT OVER
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent
“I’m campaigning every day, until the last person votes,” a defiant Nikki Haley declared today in Greenville, South Carolina.
The latest polling shows the former U.N. ambassador an average of 30 points behind her former boss, former President Donald Trump, in the state where Haley was twice elected governor.
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Watch the video in the player above.
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We thought it a good time to take a quick look at the GOP primary race and what Haley and Trump both are hoping for ahead. (As well as how long this will go.) We’ll keep this one simple.
- Delegate count right now: Trump 63, Haley 17.
- Delegates needed for the nomination: 1,215
That sounds like we are a long way from a GOP presidential nominee. But we may actually be weeks away.
Look at the numbers of delegates available in the next month, and the way each state will divvy them up. Haley needs states where delegates are divided up proportionally, rather than winner takes all.
- South Carolina. Saturday. 50 delegates. Winner takes all. Not looking great for Haley.
- Michigan. Feb. 27. 16 statewide delegates available. Proportional.
- Super Tuesday. March 5. 874 delegates available(!) in more than a dozen states. A few are proportional: Alaska, Colorado and North Carolina. A larger group is proportional if Haley keeps Trump below a certain threshold, often 50 percent.
- Georgia, etc.. March 12. 161 more delegates get on the board from primaries in four states this day. Topping the list, for Haley, is the proportional contest in Georgia, which has 59 delegates.
- Florida, etc. March 19. Another 350 delegates are available, led by the 125 from Florida’s primary this day. However, these are all winner takes all. Haley must turbo-charge her campaign to win any delegates in these states.
What does this all mean? Haley, as long as her campaign cash holds out, has every chance to keep picking up delegates for the next few weeks.
But, mathematically, so many states will vote by March 12, that it is possible that Trump clinches the number of delegates needed to win by then.
Could there be another reason to stack up delegates? Yes. Haley and nearly every non-Trump Republican is considering Trump’s legal future and whether courtroom problems could threaten his position as nominee. That would take some dramatic changes in the landscape, but with Trump, twists and turns come with the territory.
Haley, by staying in, is keeping a lot of doors open.
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More on politics from our coverage:
- Watch: How 2020 election denialism, including the conspiracies repeated by former President Donald Trump, became a litmus test for the GOP.
- One Big Question: Could any of the legal cases Trump faces this year meaningfully change the 2024 election? NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter discuss.
- A Closer Look: Why the legacy of the Black Panther Party is one of the most misunderstood and vilified by the white establishment.
- Perspectives: Farmers around the world have launched protests in recent weeks, demanding relief from a crisis driven by climate change policies and more.
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AN ALL-FEMALE CITY COUNCIL
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Watch the segment in the player above.
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By Sam Lane, @lanesam
Producer
In the last election, the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, did something it had never done before: elect an all-female city council.
The state’s capital became one of the largest American cities to hold that distinction. Not only is this the first time that St. Paul elected an all-female city council, but six of its seven members are persons of color in a white-majority city. The oldest member is just 39.
“I think the significance is that we still live in a time where there are so many barriers to women, and women of color especially, being in power,” St. Paul City Council President Mitra Jalali told the PBS NewsHour special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro. “And suddenly, this moment is showing people this is the normal actually that we're fighting for. It shouldn't be notable. It should just be what people have been used to, because what we need to be doing is getting work done for our communities.”
#POLITICSTRIVIA
By Matt Loffman
Deputy Senior Producer, Politics
In South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary this Saturday, former President Donald Trump will face off against Nikki Haley, who served as the state’s governor for six years before serving as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in Trump’s administration.
Our question: How many U.S. presidents have also served as U.N. ambassador?
Send your answers to [email protected] or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.
Last week, we asked: When was the last time a discharge petition was used in the Senate, and on what bill?
The answer: The Export-Import Bank. In 2015, dozens of House Republicans joined Democrats – who were in the minority in the chamber at the time – to revive the Export-Import bank.
Congratulations to our winners: Brenda Radford and John Cleveland!
Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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