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Tag: campaign 2024
Angela Stanton King

RFK Jr. Campaign Director Reveals Her True Allegiance Is To Trump

Angela Stanton King, a far-right commentator working as a director for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign, said on a conspiratorial podcast last month that she loves Trump and that Kennedy is “another option” because her “fear is that they're going to stop at nothing to keep Trump from winning.”

She also said that she's working to take away votes from President Joe Biden and “if Trump or Kennedy gets it, I don't lose either way.”

Stanton King’s remarks resemble those of then-Kennedy official Rita Palma, who argued that the independent candidate’s presence on the New York ballot would help Trump defeat Biden, which she said was her “No. 1 priority.” (Palma was later fired.)

Kennedy has frequently attempted to appeal to right-wing audiences. He has also promoted numerous conspiracy theories as a commentator and has populated his campaign with conspiracy theorists.

Stanton King fits the Kennedy campaign's attempts to cater to right-wing media audiences. She is a far-right speaker, author, and guest on right-wing programming. She has claimed that the election was stolen from Trump, promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, and made bigoted remarks about LGBTQ people.

She works as the Black voter engagement director for Kennedy and has participated in events and door knocking with him. He also recorded a song with her. This past weekend, Stanton King appeared at a campaign event with Kennedy’s running mate Nicole Shanahan.

Stanton King has been a strong supporter of Trump, who pardoned her in 2020 for a 2004 car theft sentence. In 2021, for instance, she said: “Trump can’t be President forever and I know that. But he’s the only one bold enough to fight these evil Demonic Satanic forces from the pits of HELL and I’m standing with him.”

Stanton King is still praising the former president, including while doing surrogate work for Kennedy on the April 20, 2024, edition of Nino’s Corner. That show is hosted by David “Niño” Rodriguez, a far-right podcaster who has said that Biden “stole the election”; 9/11 “was an inside job”; and COVID-19 “was a hoax and vaccines would kill u.” He has frequently promoted QAnon, including offering programming that analyzes “Q drops” and “Q posts.”

During the start of his interview with Stanton King, Rodriguez said: “I will say, I'm one foot in, one foot out with RFK. I'm a Trump supporter. Everybody knows that.” Stanton King replied: “Me too.” She later said that she’s “in a pickle here because I love” Trump and Kennedy and said:

ANGELA STANTON KING: RFK is liked by a lot of people. Like, we love Trump, but we know that RFK is not afraid to stand up to the establishment either. And I think that's what many of us respect about RFK. And for me personally, I made this decision because I was tired of being on one side where all we're doing is constantly fighting, and I was tired of not being able to work with certain people in my community because I was being labeled as a Trump supporter. And I just honestly believe that in order for us to come together that we do have to stop fighting.

She later stated that part of her efforts is to take away votes from Biden:

DAVID RODRIGUEZ: Throughout history, right, it's shown that third-party candidates kind of siphon votes from one or the other. And it looks like in this instance with RFK, he's going to probably take a lot of the votes away from Biden. Correct? I mean, that's what you're looking [inaudible]--?

STANTON KING: Well, yeah, that's true because he, and not to cut you off, but for my community — and you know how it is, you know how the media has created this stereotype that Trump and the Republicans are all racists — so for people in my community that aren't necessarily comfortable with coming over to the Republican Party, this provides a space for them. And to me, I'm like, listen, we've got to get away from the Democrats. So you guys have two options, right? If you don't want to vote for Trump, then Kennedy is a much better option than Joe Biden. And for me, shifting my community is very important. And I think that the independent space provides a safety net for those that are just not comfortable with the Republican Party but want to step away from the Democrats.

Stanton King continued offering Trump-friendly rhetoric during the interview (“I love Trump”), including stating that she loves Trump and views RFK Jr. as “another option” because she fears that “they're going to stop at nothing to keep Trump from winning”:

STANTON KING: My fear is that they're going to stop at nothing to keep Trump from winning. And I don't want to just give it over to Joe Biden. If for some reason we see another 2020, we need to have another option. And I think that RFK may be that. So that's kind of like where I'm at. I love Trump, my Republican friends that have supported me so much, I love them too. But even sometimes when it comes to the Republican Party, we've seen where the Republican Party didn't even stand behind Trump. Like, they let them get indicted four times. We saw what Mike Pence did with the vote. You know what I'm saying? So, I think it's time for us all to put people over party.

She later said that while campaigning with Trump she saw him draw vastly bigger crowds than Biden, asking, “How in the world was Joe Biden able to win or steal or whatever an election from Trump?”

She also suggested that she'd be happy if either Trump or Kennedy wins the election, stating: “If Trump or Kennedy gets it, I don't lose either way.”

STANTON KING: I love them both very dearly. A Trump-Kennedy ticket would mean the world to me because they're both guys that have shown me that not only do they care for me, but they care for my community. So for me, it's the winning ticket. Like I don't lose either way, right? If Trump or Kennedy gets it, I don't lose either way. But for both of them to get in, to me that would be a dream come true. And I don't know what those guys are doing. Trump hasn't picked a VP yet, and I'm thinking like Trump still may want to — if Trump got in and Kennedy didn’t, Trump still may want to pull Kennedy and make him, you know, the director of health administration. There are just so many options here. But I don't think that the Kennedy campaign and the Trump campaign are enemies.

Stanton King later portrayed the 2024 election as “us against the Democrats, either way it goes. It's the Republicans and independents against the Democrat Party. And we've gotta all unite.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Joe Biden

Polls: The More Voters Know, The More They Like Biden

New York Times political analyst Nate Cohn made an astute observation about a new Times/Siena poll, which showed President Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump in most battleground states.

"If there's any consolation [for Biden], it's that the poll is also littered with evidence that folks aren't super tuned in, and disengaged voters remain Biden's weakness," Cohn tweeted.

It's an insight that will likely define the presidential contest moving forward.

In the survey, for example, just 29 percent of registered voters said they are closely following the legal cases against Donald Trump. That means that less than one-third of voters are paying "a lot of attention" to the ongoing trial of a former president who will almost assuredly be the Republican nominee in the 2024 election.

The ancillary to Cohn's observation is that Biden performs better among high information, high propensity voters—or likely voters—a point veteran Democratic strategistSimon Rosenberg has been making for weeks now. A pattern has begun to emerge where Biden performs increasingly better as polling models move from "adults" to "registered voters" to "likely voters."

Rosenberg cites a recent Ipsos poll for ABC News, where Biden trails Trump among adults, 44 to 46 percent, but bests him by a point among registered voters, 46 to 45 percent. And Biden takes a four-point lead among likely voters, 49 to 45 percent. A Marist poll for NPR and PBS NewsHour made a similar finding, with Biden running just two points ahead of Trump with registered voters, 50 to 48 percent, but opening up a five-point lead among likely voters, 51 to 46 percent.

John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, made the same observation about voters ages 18 to 29 in the Siena battleground poll. Among registered youth voters, Biden trails Trump by three points, but among likely youth voters, Biden leads by seven points—a net turnaround of 10 points in the direction of Biden.

"Takeaway: the more you know; the more you vote; the better Biden does. It’s not complicated," he tweeted.

In an interview with Greg Sargent on "The Daily Blast" podcast, Biden pollster Jefrey Pollock said undecided voters make up anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the electorate depending on the state, "which is actually rather large." Those voters are disproportionately young, Black, and Latino.

The Siena poll also included about 20 percent of respondents who either didn't vote in 2020 or who did vote in 2020 but skipped the 2022 midterms.

Both sets of voters—the undecided and the lower propensity voters—are voting blocs that the Biden campaign will be targeting to make up ground in the final months of the election.

Pollock cited Nevada where, every two years, about 25 percent of the electorate consists of voters who have never before cast a ballot in an election.

"That's what makes Nevada so interesting and challenging but also as movable as it is," Pollock explained. "You've got these voters who don't really pay attention to politics, who are just getting into the political scene."

They are going to pay attention to the election much later, Pollock said. "You have to force your way into their lives," he explained, because they are more concerned with their kids’ activities, making sure they have health care, and simply paying their bills.

"We have to force them to pay attention to politics. It's why advertising and campaigns mean so much, particularly in those closing months, because we really do have to find ways to get into those houses," he said.

Biden certainly has the resources and the campaign to help address that information deficit, but whether or not his campaign manages to reach and persuade those voters remains to be seen.

As former Obama White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer wrote in his "Message Box" substack: "My main takeaway from the [Siena] poll is that the more voters know about Biden and Trump, the better it will be for Biden."

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

'Leaner' Republican Party Aims To Partner With Outside Extremist Groups

'Leaner' Republican Party Aims To Partner With Outside Extremist Groups

The Washington Post reported the Republican National Committee describes its 2024 approach as “leaner” and “more efficient” than in previous cycles, and that it intends to operate with a smaller staff and more robust partnerships with outside groups.

One of these outside groups is Turning Point USA, the conservative “youth” organization founded by Charlie Kirk in 2012 that has since grown into a social media juggernaut, with a massive digital footprint, and a major player on the conservative conference circuit. The group has long-standing ties with extremists, and Kirk himself frequently pushes racism on his radio show and weekly podcast.

The Washington Post reports that a weekend fundraiser for the Republican National Committee included meetings between James Blair, political director for both the RNC and the Trump campaign, and representatives from Turning Point and other outside groups. From the report:

Blair praised Turning Point in particular as a group that is doing “great work.”

Turning Point’s founder, Charlie Kirk, has been similarly effusive, recently announcing on social media: “As someone who has been a skeptic of the RNC in the past, I am very encouraged by what is happening.”

“Instead of them being sort of outside allies now, they’re more like partners for us. And we are going to be the battlefield commander,” Blair said. “The new regime is top down. The new regime is, ‘You get in our rowboat and you row. You dance to the beat of our music, or we’ll just simply say who’s not playing ball.’”

Turning Point and its leader Charlie Kirk have spread racism

Of particular concern is Turning Point and Charlie Kirk’s racism and ties to far-right antisemitic, white supremacist movements.

On a April 30 stream on Rumble, Holocaust denier and far-right cult figure Nick Fuentes claimed that Turning Point is being taken over by young extremists associated with his “groyper” movement.

Fuentes said, “Turning Point, we had a big rivalry with them and they hated us, they fired everyone that was associated with me, and then this past year, their CFO Tyler Bowyer said, well, you know, some groypers are OK."

Turning Point Action Chief Operating Officer Tyler Bowyer said that some of Fuentes’ groypers are “OK-ish” and “just want to have an honest debate” while appearing on TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk’s podcast last month to talk about former Daily Wire host Candace Owens. Owens recently left the right-wing outlet following a string of comments against Jewish people. Figures associated with the “groypers” have previously spoken at Turning Point USA events on college campuses.

In November 2022, Fuentes dined with Donald Trump and pro-Hitler rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) at Trump’s Florida resort Mar-a-Lago. Fuentes has repeatedly praised Adolf Hitler and compared himself to Hitler. He has also denied the Holocaust and called for a “holy war” against Jewish people.

Kirk himself has drawn hostility within the conservative movement for his own racist comments. In the last few months, he has remarked on his podcast that if he sees a Black pilot he’s going to doubt his qualifications and launched a campaign to discredit the work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

These comments resulted in significant backlash from conservative commentators and Trump allies. Longtime Trump surrogate pastor Darrell Scott described Kirk’s comments as “bullcrap,” saying, “That boy’s a racist right there.”

In the same NBC article that reported Scott’s comments, an anonymous Trump ally said the former president is “f---ing pissed that Charlie is out causing problems for him in the Black community.”

Kirk’s record of racism and antisemitism is extensive. He has suggested that Black women including Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and MSNBC host Joy Reid “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously” and used affirmative action to “steal a white person’s slot,” said that “Haiti is legitimately infested with demonic voodoo,” and attacked the Democratic Party coalition as “resentful, government-addicted minorities and people that want government benefits."

He has also pushed antisemitic stereotypes in the wake of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, blaming “Jewish dollars” for funding “cultural Marxist ideas” and saying Jews control “not just the colleges; it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it,” among other comments.

Kirk has made negative comments about Trump’s ground game

Kirk has not expressed confidence in the Republicans’ ground game ahead of the 2024 election, going so far as to attack their efforts.

On The Charlie Kirk Show, he said that the Biden campaign has a “superior ground game."

“The bad news,” he added, “is I do not know if we have the infrastructure, if we have the troops, the plumbing to translate the public sentiment into election success."

In another clip posted to X (formerly Twitter) by the Biden campaign, Kirk said, “We are struggling right now to open up the necessary field offices to compete against Joe Biden."

He praised Trump campaign operatives Chris LaCivita, who has been at the forefront of the RNC’s pivot, and campaign senior adviser Susie Wiles, then listed off Biden’s extensive ground operations in battleground states.

He continued, “Thankfully, we at Turning Point Action, we have well over a hundred people now chasing ballots in Arizona, trying to close that gap.”

As The Associated Press reported in October 2023, Turning Point Action, the organization’s political arm, has been fundraising for a $108 million campaign effort to turn out votes for Trump in the battleground states of Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia.

This push comes amid scrutiny. Kirk himself has become a millionaire as a result of his political prominence. Additionally, the group is relying on a mobile app, which will serve as a platform for its get out the vote campaign, developed by the company Superfeed Technologies. Superfeed’s board is chaired by Tyler Bowyer, Turning Point’s chief operating officer, who has suffered financial setbacks in recent years. Bowyer was recently indicted by a grand jury in Arizona for being part of former President Donald Trump’s fake electors scheme to overturn the 2020 election.

Veteran Republican campaign operatives have warned that such a large investment goes far beyond the scope of what is needed for field operations in just three states. Jon Seaton, a former aide to the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), told the Associated Press that “there’s not even enough doors” to knock on in the territory.

Concerns about Turning Point’s connections to extremism, Kirk’s history of racism and antisemitism, and dubious fundraising scheme should ring alarm bells among any political operatives seeking to build a campaign for Trump. Instead, they’re leaning in.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Fascism

Poll Shows Rising Fascism And Extremism Is Top 2024 Voter Concern

A recent Marist poll for NPR and PBS NewsHour surveyed Americans' biggest concerns for the country's future, finding that "the rise of fascism and extremism" topped the list, at 31 percent of U.S. adults.

The partisan breakdown, as usual, was illuminating, with a plurality of Democrats and independents choosing the rise of fascism and extremism, at 47 percent and 32 percent respectively, as their primary concern.

The issue dominated with Democrats—nothing else even broke 20 percent. But among independents, "a lack of values" came in second at 24 percent with "becoming weak as a nation" just behind at 23 percent.

Republicans’ top two concerns were "a lack of values," at 36 percent, and "becoming weak as a nation," at 30 percent, while the rise of fascism was a distant third at 15 percent.

Notably, 35 percent of those who cited rising fascism and extremism as their top concern said they are "definitely voting in November's election." Meanwhile, a lack of values and the nation becoming weak stayed static among “definite” voters at 24 percent and 21 percent, respectively.

Simply put, the rise of fascism and extremism is the most concerning to Americans, particularly those who are "definite" voters, and the feeling is most pronounced among potential Democratic voters (i.e. Democrats and independents). On the other hand, it is not a primary motivation for Republican voters.

Additionally, the survey's findings suggest that abortion could be a more powerful issue than some analysts suggest because of GOP abortion bans sweeping the South. These bans serve as a real-life example of the loss of freedoms and autonomy associated with fascists and autocratic regimes.

While attendees of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference are outright welcoming "the end of democracy," the GOP’s quashing of abortion care in an entire region of the country serves as a tangible reminder of what an end to democracy means.

Among analysts, the economy and immigration are often touted as the two main policy issues driving the election, with abortion lagging, polled separately, or even excluded from the issue polling.

That was also the case in the 2022 midterms, when Democrats were supposed to be swept away by a red wave but instead wildly outperformed expectations.

In October 2022, a Civiqs poll showed exactly why analysts misread the issues that would dominate the election. While 58% of voters overall chose the "economy/jobs/inflation" as their top issue, the partisan breakdown of issues showed that 52% of Democrats chose abortion as their No. 1 issue while 43 percent said "fair elections/democracy" was their No. 2 issue.

These two issues proved to be decisive and incredibly motivating among Democratic voters' and some independents who turned out to beat back the red wave.

The latest Marist polling suggests that anyone who underestimates them in this election does so at their own peril.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.