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South Dakota governor includes bloody tale in campaign volume – and admits ‘a better politician … wouldn’t tell the story here’In 1952, as a Republican candidate for vice-president, Richard Nixon famously stirred criticism by admitting receiving a dog, Checkers, as a political gift.In 2012, as the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney was pilloried for tying a dog, Seamus, to the roof of the family...

Nikki Haley got 21% despite not being on the ballot, indicating level of Republican discontent with TrumpJoe Biden and Donald Trump both won their primaries in Pennsylvania shortly after polls closed.Pennsylvanians had gone to the polls on Tuesday to cast ballots in the state’s primary races – the results provide a window into where voters in the crucial battleground stand roughly six months out...

Far-right representative says Mike Johnson’s speakership is ‘over’ but has not followed through on threat to try to remove himRepublican infighting over the US House finally approving $61bn in military aid for Ukraine continued to roil the party on Sunday as the far-right representative Marjorie Taylor Greene renewed attacks on the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson.Johnson had betrayed his party and was working for the...

Threats lean toward sexual or domestic violence, attacks on their families and criticisms that they can’t do their jobsCarly Koppes kept her pregnancy hidden from the public as long as she possibly could, fearing the potential harassment that could come from those who frequently attack the Republican elections clerk.When Koppes, who runs elections in Weld county, Colorado, did media interviews, she asked the people...

This live blog is now closed. For the latest on Trump’s criminal trial, read our full report:All 12 jurors seated in Trump hush-money trial after two dismissalsJudge Merchan, in directing the press not to use physical descriptors to describe jurors, complained specifically about mentioning one of the jurors had an Irish accent.“We just lost” what would have been a good juror for the case,...

Bridget Thorne, a Republican elected in Fulton county in 2022, has spread election fraud lies and accused county employees of crimesA Fulton county commissioner in Georgia has been operating a private Telegram channel for years, propagating debunked claims about the 2020 election, and spreading accusations of crimes by county employees, including Ruby Freeman, an election worker defamed by Rudy Giuliani in the wake of...

Split reflects GOP’s identity crisis, as Republican politicians struggle to talk about increasingly toxic issue for themRepublicans are nearly evenly divided over the Arizona supreme court’s decision to uphold an 1864 law that would ban almost all abortions, new polling shows.Forty-nine per cent of Republicans strongly or somewhat disapprove of the decision, while 46% of Republicans strongly or somewhat approve of it, according to...

Monday’s day in court indicated that jury selection could take weeks – and that Trump could yet be held in contemptDonald Trump struggled through the opening day of his New York criminal trial on Monday as the jury selection process formally got under way in Manhattan in the first criminal trial of a current or former US president.Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34...

Focus on reproductive rights has yielded big wins and Democrats hope threat of more Republican bans will mobilize votersKamala Harris’s Friday visit to Arizona was planned before the state’s top court upheld a 160-year-old law that bans almost all abortions. But the news galvanized the vice-president’s message, one that has already yielded stunning victories for liberals since Roe v Wade fell nearly two years...

Republican presumptive nominee struggles to articulate position on divisive issue after meeting with House speakerFacing the press alongside the House speaker, fellow Republican Mike Johnson, Donald Trump bragged: “We broke Roe v Wade.”The former president made the stark admission about his dominant role in attacks on abortion rights at the end of a week in which the rightwing Arizona state supreme court ruled that...

Proposal sails through, with one vocal opponent saying gay first cousins do not risk having a child with birth defectsThe Republican-led Tennessee legislature has overwhelmingly voted to send the Republican governor, Bill Lee, a proposal that would ban marriage between first cousins.The statehouse cast a 75-2 vote on Thursday on the bill after the senate previously approved it without any opposition. Continue reading...

Sandra Fish, who has covered politics since 1982, was asked to leave by security about an hour into the state party assemblyA politics reporter from the Colorado Sun was removed from the state Republican party assembly this weekend because the state party chair Dave Williams claimed her reporting on the party was “very unfair”.The reporter, Sandra Fish, who has covered politics since 1982, received...

Letter by secretary of state warns party that Democratic National Convention is scheduled past the deadline to certify candidatesThe Ohio secretary of state has sent a letter to the Ohio Democratic party warning that Joe Biden could be left off the November election ballot in 2024 unless the Democratic National Convention meets earlier or statutory requirements in the state are changed or exempted.According to...

Shasta county’s Kevin Crye fought off recall effort, but a far-right official who pushed election conspiracies lost the race for his seatShasta county voters returned a mixed verdict on the ultra-conservative politics the rural enclave in northern California has become known for, ousting one far-right local official and offering another a political lifeline.County residents on 5 March resoundingly declined to re-elect Patrick Jones to...

Former president sells Trump-endorsed Bible in concert with Lee Greenwood, country singer whose music is played at his ralliesPatriotic, prayerful and rightwing Americans are being offered the chance to purchase – for a mere $59.99 – a Bible endorsed by Donald Trump, in the latest example of the former US president touting wares to the American public.In a post to his Truth Social platform...

Severe criticism followed McDaniel’s hiring as a pundit, after she headed Republican National Committee during Trump yearsThe former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel is on her way out of NBC less than a week after joining the network, NBC announced in a memo from NBCUniversal News Group chair Cesar Conde.Conde said he had listened to “the legitimate concerns” of many network employees. “No...

Timothy Snyder says former RNC chair ‘tried to disassemble our democracy’ and should not have been invited to take up positionThe Republican National Committee chair turned NBC politics analyst Ronna McDaniel “tried to disassemble our democracy” by supporting Donald Trump’s electoral fraud lies and should not be given such a media role, a leading historian said amid uproar over the appointment.“What NBC has done...

Far-right Republican says motion intended as ‘more of a warning than a pink slip’ and stops short of forcing vote to eject himThe far-right Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor-Greene filed a motion to remove Mike Johnson as House speaker on Friday but did not pull the trigger on a move that would probably pitch Congress into a repeat of chaos seen last October, when the...

Congressman once considered a rising Republican star to leave in April, further weakening party’s slim majorityThe Republican majority in the US House of Representatives is set to dwindle further with the early exit of Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, once a rising star of the party.A former US marine who twice deployed to Iraq, Gallagher, 40, is a relatively moderate voice in party at the...

Michele Morrow, the far-right Republican running to oversee public schools in the state, said she is facing ‘radical extremists’A far-right Republican candidate running to oversee public schools in North Carolina decried “extreme agendas that threaten our children’s future”, after being confronted by reporters over tweets in which she called for the executions of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.“Don’t let extreme agendas threaten our children’s...

Ohio Republicans choose their nominee in key Senate race while California seeks to replace former speaker Kevin McCarthyWith a rematch set between Joe Biden and Donald Trump after both candidates crossed the delegate threshold needed to clinch their parties’ presidential nominations, suspense around the next wave of Tuesday primaries shifts to a handful of key down-ballot races.Five states – Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and...

Colorado congressman Ken Buck’s abrupt resignation has left the far-right member with two tough choices, upsetting her re-election plansAs well as further reducing US House speaker Mike Johnson’s already threadbare majority in his legislative chamber, last week’s abrupt departure of Colorado congressman Ken Buck has the potential to significantly damage another prominent Republican figure: Lauren Boebert.The far-right firebrand seized on Buck’s declaration last year...

Louisiana senator expressed disapproval of the former president, saying: ‘Is this a person we want to have an office?’Louisiana’s Republican senator Bill Cassidy has issued new criticisms towards Donald Trump while calling the 2024 presidential race a “sorry state of affairs”.In an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Cassidy expressed his disapproval for Trump’s hostile rhetoric towards migrants, saying that it has...

Judge agrees to month-long postponement after Trump lawyers say they need more time to sift through newly released documentsA judge on Friday delayed Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial until at least mid-April after the former president’s lawyers said they needed more time to sift through a profusion of evidence they only recently obtained from a previous federal investigation into the matter.Judge Juan Manuel Merchan...