Nikki Haley landed her first Senate endorsement of the presidential cycle: moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

But Maine Sen. Susan Collins wasn't far behind.

Murkowski's endorsement comes ahead of Alaska's Tuesday presidential caucus and as the former governor and ambassador has lost all contests thus far to former President Donald Trump.

"America needs someone with the right values, vigor, and judgment to serve as our next President — and in this race, there is no one better than her," Murkowski said in a statement.

There are no tigers and elephants; in fact, the only “animal” is an electric dog named Bailey. The clowns are still there, but hardly wear any makeup.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, that self-proclaimed greatest show on Earth, is back seven years after folding up its big top for what was feared to be the last time. The circus, which had toured with scant interruption since Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency, shuttered indefinitely in 2017 as it faced lagging ticket sales in the wake of its decision to stop featuring animals.

Now as the show hits the road again for an initial run of 50 cities, audiences are encountering a human-focused spectacle with a Gen Z tilt that might leave it unrecognizable.

Lauren Irving’s performance of “Proud Mary” serves as a nightly showstopper.Credit...Kate Medley for The New York Times
It’s something of an unlikely comeback for the institution that has faced pop culture shifts, dwindling attendance and accusations of animal mistreatment. The pandemic hit a few years after the pachyderms packed up in 2016 (They retired to a Florida conservation center.), making the return of the one-time touring staple even more of a question.

When Tom Suozzi was in the middle of his political comeback, some strategists in his party encouraged him to stop the constant talk about immigration. He was a Democrat running in a swing district — why was he choosing to play on Republican turf?

To Suozzi, this made no sense. And he proved it by getting reelected to the Long Island seat he had once held, before it was briefly loaned out to George Santos.

...snip...

Suozzi not only won the race, but his campaign seemed to show Democrats a roadmap for taking back purple suburbs where immigration dominates as the issue and Joe Biden is an anchor.

Suozzi was given a hero’s welcome on the floor of the House from Democrats this week — and he even managed to attract some Republican applause with his speech celebrating compromise and warning both parties about the perils of being a slave to the base.

Republican Ted Cruz is neck and neck with his expected Democratic challenger in the race for the Texas Senate seat, according to a poll.

A University of Texas at Tyler (UTT) survey found that incumbent Cruz and Texas Representative Colin Allred, the current frontrunner to be Democratic challenger in November's Senate election, are both tied on 41 percent when potential voters are asked who they may support in the race, with 12 percent saying they are still unsure.

In 2018, Cruz won re-election to the Texas Senate seat following a fiercely competitive race with former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke by just over 2.6 points. Ahead of November's elections, Cruz warned Republican voters in Texas that Democrats will target his Senate seat as the party hopes to keep control of the upper chamber.

The UTT survey also found that Cruz is not as well-liked in Texas as his presumptuous Democratic challenger.

As Ronna McDaniel prepares to leave her post as chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) next week, Republicans are left with a big problem that may end up costing them the 2024 election. Even if the GOP wanted to fix it, it may be too late. The best part: they have only Donald Trump to blame.

Even as voting by mail has become increasingly important to winning elections, it remains a target of Republican derision. Now, the Republican establishment claims to want to reverse this, but former President Donald Trump continues sabotaging them at every turn.

Historically, mail-in voting was seen as an election modernization without a partisan benefit. Its most loyal users were older voters and those in the military or living abroad. White voters preferred it more than Black voters.

In 2016, only 21% of voters cast their ballot by mail. But, with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, more voters than ever took advantage of the safety and convenience of voting from home.

Republican operatives, who had mastered large scale mail-in voter drives initially saw an opportunity. That is, until Trump — seemingly out of nowhere — started attacking mail-in voting at every turn in the lead up to the 2020 election.

https://www.democracydocket.com/opinion/republicans-have-a-mail-in-voting-problem/

This paragraph in the write up struck me as important:

Mr. Trump is winning 97% of those who say they voted for him four years ago, and virtually none of his past supporters said they are casting a ballot for Mr. Biden. In contrast, Mr. Biden is winning only 83% of his 2020 voters, with 10 percent saying they now back Mr. Trump.

That suggests that the main reason Biden is trailing is that his supporters have not come home yet.

It makes some sense. Trump has been formally running for president since he announced just after the 2022 midterms. He’s been indicted four times and each time his base inexplicably rallies around him. He’s had several real challengers in a Republican primary so he’s had to campaign.

In contrast, Biden has spent this time governing the country. His only real primary challenger, Rep. Dean Phillips, finished fourth in a two-man race in Michigan.

It’s a good bet that Biden’s supporters will ultimately come back to him as the campaign heats up.

https://politicalwire.com/2024/03/02/about-that-poll

The group Listen to Michigan did not ask their followers to stay home from Tuesday's Democratic primary. Instead, they asked them to vote for "uncommitted."

All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly spoke to Mitch Landrieu — the national co-chair of the Biden campaign and former mayor of New Orleans — about the Michigan results, the campaign's direction going forward, and how it plans to connect with younger, Arab American and Muslim voters.

Mitch Landrieu: Well, first of all, the president got 80% last night, on top of New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. So the president continues to really hit it out of the park – really, really, really strong night. There's no doubt that there were some folks in Michigan that wanted to send the president a message. He's received that message many, many times. He actually sent a team of high ranking officials out to Michigan to talk to folks about the very difficult issue that the president and the United States is confronting in the war between Israel and Gaza. So that message has been received. The president actually thinks that people ought to voice their opinion, but last night he got 80% of the vote.