Legal problems may be the biggest threats to Trump’s huge lead in Republican polls, as rivals urge voters to leave the drama of the Trump era behind.
Polls show that, so far, Republicans voters have rallied around Trump after a series of indictments in 2023; but he and aides have expressed concern that voters in 2024 may tire of all the drama and start to look at other candidates.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the prosecutions and lawsuits and urged voters to stick with him in upcoming caucuses and primaries.
“Crazy things can happen,” Trump said Tuesday in Waterloo, Iowa.
As Trump and his rivals enter the 2024 election, there are at least three signs of trouble for the front-running former president.
Here are some of the things that can and will happen to Trump as he pursues the presidency again.
Adverse court rulings
The potential of legal trouble is all around Trump, and could pop up any time.
This past Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court stunned the political world by ruling Trump is ineligible for public office because of the insurrection by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.
The decision could conceivably keep Trump off the ballot in Colorado – inspiring other states to follow suit – but Trump attorneys are confident the Supreme Court will reverse the disqualification ruling.
In the meantime, Trump, his lawyers, and his campaign team must prepare for the possibility of as many as four criminal trials in a campaign year.
Two trials – one in Washington, D.C., and the other in Atlanta, Ga. – involved efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election. There is also a New York state case about hush money payments and a Florida federal case about classified documents.
The Trump legal team is seeking to delay all of the criminal trials until after Election Day on Nov. 5, and for good reason: A criminal conviction would transform the presidential race.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll this month reported that “some 31% of Republican respondents said they would not vote for Trump if he was convicted of a felony crime by a jury.”
There is also a potentially damaging civil trial looming against the former president.
“Chaos does follow him,” Haley told Fox News this week.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is banking on a strong showing in Iowa, has also said he would avoid the “chaos” of the Trump years.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is betting his long-shot candidacy on New Hampshire, is Trump’s most outspoken critic on the campaign trail. He says Trump’s legal problems and divisive rhetoric already render him unfit for public office.
Bad voter reaction
The ultimate bad sign for Trump would come from voters.
If Haley does well in Iowa and wins in New Hampshire, “momentum will swing heavily in her favor pre-South Carolina,” said Lara Brown, a political scientist and author of “Jockeying for the American Presidency: The Political Opportunism of Aspirants.”
In that case, Brown said, “both DeSantis and Christie likely will drop out.”
As they walk through a political minefield, Trump and his campaign aides said they are counting on a huge haul of delegates on March 5, the day of “Super Tuesday” primaries in more than a dozen states.
They hope to have enough delegates to clinch the nomination after a March 19 set of big-state primaries that include Florida and Ohio.
Even if he does that – criminal trials still loom.
If Trump is tried and convicted before the start of the Republican convention on July 15, his nomination could conceivably be challenged on the floor.
“Is one of our major parties going to nominate a convicted felon for president of the United States?” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.
“I don’t know and neither does anyone else,” he said. “We haven’t faced this kind of thing before.”
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
