“New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan said he’s not concerned about losing first-in-the-nation status,” WMUR reports.
Said Scanlan: “We’ve been through this before in the past with other states challenging our first-in-the-nation status. And we know we’ve always been able to maintain our position and this time around will be no different.”
“Scanlan said he’s confident thanks to a state law that requires New Hampshire to hold its primary a week before any similar election.”
“Given the president’s strong interest in the design of the 2024 primaries, and the dates for them, I think it’s clear that he’s running.”
— James Roosevelt Jr., co-chairman of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee, quoted by the New York Times.
“Nearly 20,000 people in the United States were admitted to the hospital for flu last week, almost double the number of admissions from the week before,” CNN reports.
“The CDC estimates that there have been at least 8.7 million illnesses, 78,000 hospitalizations and 4,500 deaths from influenza this season.”
Mike Pence recounted the first time he spoke to Donald Trump after the January 6 Capitol riot and told Trump he was “angry,” Insider reports.
Said Pence: “When he returned in the months later to the rhetoric he was using before January 6, arguing that I had the right to overturn the election, I just decided it’d be best we went our separate ways, and we have.”
Teddy Schleifer: “I find it very hard to believe that SBF’s giving to Republicans matched his donations to Democrats—he was the second-largest disclosed donor to Democrats in the 2020 cycle at $40 million—and sources close to SBF don’t think this is true, either. In fact, an SBF adviser told a source of mine that the recent claim from SBF was flatly untrue. More likely, SBF was speaking loosely and hyperbolically, as he is prone to do.”
“But it is true that in the sprint, SBF’s aides at FTX and on his personal donor-advisory team began moving major money to G.O.P.-aligned groups, generally to entities affiliated with Republican leadership, I’m told. Some of that money was through disclosed vehicles, like McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund. But some of it was not.”
New York Times: “For weeks during the general election, Herschel Walker was joined on the campaign trail by top Republican senators, party leaders and conservative activists eager to help the former football star’s Senate bid in Georgia. Now, with certain exceptions, he’s often been the only draw at his events.”
“The shift reflects fresh doubts at the top of the Republican Party, where disappointing midterm election results last month have triggered an identity crisis among conservatives reeling from losses in a third consecutive campaign cycle.”
Washington Post: “Republicans have grown increasingly nervous about the final U.S. Senate election of the midterms, a runoff in Georgia that reflects larger concerns over candidate quality, infighting and ties to Donald Trump that loom over the party’s future.”
Elon Musk said Friday that he would release details about what he characterized as Twitter’s “suppression” of a controversial story about Hunter Biden’s laptop that was published before the 2020 election, Insider reports.
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“Donald Trump’s two top White House lawyers appeared before at least one grand jury Friday, visiting the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., amid multiple criminal probes involving the former president,” Politico reports.
“Former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone exited the courthouse just before 2:30 p.m., spending about six hours behind closed doors. His former deputy, Pat Philbin, appeared just before noon and remained inside the grand jury room as of 2:30 p.m.”
“Democrats moved Friday toward the most significant changes in their presidential nominating process in nearly two decades after a key committee backed a plan put forward by President Biden to allow South Carolina to host the first 2024 primary, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire on the same day, Georgia and then Michigan,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The change would dramatically decrease the influence of Iowa, which has hosted the first nominating contest for five decades, while elevating the role of several states that are typically battlegrounds in general elections. It would also reduce the importance of New Hampshire, the traditional host of the nation’s first presidential primary.”
ProPublica: “A private border wall built along the Rio Grande in South Texas could collapse during extreme flooding, according to a federally commissioned inspection report that the government sought to keep secret for more than a year.”
NBC News: “As of Oct. 24, just days after the policy was enacted, there was an 80% drop in Venezuelans crossing the border. According to new numbers that have not yet been made public, however, the policy did not depress the overall daily total of migrants crossing. New nationalities, including Mexicans and Central Americans, took the place of the Venezuelans.”
“CBP agents and officers are now apprehending migrants 7,500 to 8,000 times a day, the sources familiar with the data said, which is at or close to the record levels before Venezuelans became subject to Title 42.”
“Democrats on Friday faced a rebellion from their own leaders in New Hampshire, Nevada and Iowa as party officials in these states said publicly that they were not prepared to accept President Biden’s push for a new presidential nominating calendar in 2024,” the Washington Post reports.
“Biden shocked many in his party on Thursday evening by asking for a complete remaking of the early nominating calendar, with South Carolina going first, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire on a joint date, then a primary in Georgia and one in Michigan. The plan, which is likely to be ratified soon by a key party panel, would eliminate Iowa’s historical role of kicking off the nation’s presidential nomination season by holding its caucuses.”
Wall Street Journal: “The average cost of regular unleaded gasoline fell to $3.45 a gallon on Thursday…That is among the lowest levels since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February and a more than 30% drop from a record above $5 in June.”
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Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA) appeared on a radio show and threw more cold water on Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) bid to become speaker.
Said Cline: “We have to ask what’s going to be different, and if it’s not anything substantive, then why should we be voting for Speaker McCarthy?”
And he had an alternative: “This is the Lee Zeldin majority. Because Zeldin has delivered these New York seats for Republicans in Biden districts.”
President Biden “has signed a deal to avert a potential rail strike after he had pushed for an eleventh-hour agreement between companies and worker unions, angering some of his supporters in the labor movement in the process,” the Financial Times reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.