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President Joe Biden traveled to South Carolina on Monday to make his case to Black voters — a crucial constituency in the first Democratic primary state and in the general election.
“They tried to steal an election and now they’re trying to steal history,” Biden said of Republicans as he criticized their efforts to dismiss the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack, echoing his speech last week, NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez and Diana Paulsen report from Charleston.
Biden addressed the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where a white supremacist killed nine people in 2015. He “highlighted what he saw as major wins for the Black community during his presidency including reducing the cost of prescription drugs, lowering the income gap between white and black Americans, and celebrating Black history through the designation of Juneteenth as a national holiday,” Gutierrez and Paulsen write.
In other campaign news …
Campaign trail to courtroom: Trump will be in court Tuesday and again on Thursday, just a few days before the Iowa caucuses. But NBC’s Garrett Haake writes that Trump’s campaign and allies see the court appearances “as a boost, not a detriment, to his bid to return to the White House.”
Trump trials: In the federal election interference case, Trump’s team wants the Supreme Court to weigh in on a presidential immunity question. And Trump’s team moved to dismiss the Georgia election interference case on presidential immunity grounds.
He’s back: After saying last month that spending money on TV ads was “idiotic,” businessman Vivek Ramaswamy is back on the Iowa airwaves this week. His campaign launched a TV ad featuring controversial former GOP Rep. Steve King, who recently endorsed Ramaswamy’s campaign. On the campaign trail, Ramaswamy is appealing to potential supporters with events that often feature free beer, NBC’s Alex Tabet and Katherine Koretski report.
Dem drama: The Democratic standoff over New Hampshire’s primary took a legal turn on Monday, with the state’s attorney general sending a cease-and-desist order to the Democratic National Committee, which recently called the state’s Jan. 23 primary “meaningless,” per NBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald.
From Kentucky to the nation: Fresh off of his successful 2023 re-election run, Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear launched a new PAC on Monday called In This Together, which will seek to elect “good people and good candidates” nationwide, the Washington Post reports.
Heating up in Arizona: Arizona Republican Kari Lake, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022, announced that her Senate campaign raised $2 million in the last quarter of 2023, Politico reports. And Arizona Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego’s Senate campaign announced that he raised over $3 million over the same period.
Special election set: California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday set a May 21 special election, with a March 19 primary, to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Targeting voters of color: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee plans to spend $35 million this election cycle to turn out voters of color in House races, NBC’s Suzanne Gamboa reports.
Fired: The Florida Republican Party on Monday voted to remove Christian Ziegler as its chairman, as he faces allegations of rape and video voyeurism, NBC News’ Matt Dixon reports.