Election 2024 latest news: Biden back in the battleground state of Wisconsin
President Biden is back Wednesday to the battleground state of Wisconsin, where he touted a $3.3 billion investment by Microsoft to build a new artificial intelligence data center in Racine, at the same site where Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn once planned a giant manufacturing campus. While president, Donald Trump heralded that project, which never materialized, as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Biden noted that in his remarks.
Here’s what to know
- Testimony is scheduled to resume Thursday in Trump’s trial in New York related to a hush money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. The court is not in session Wednesday.
- Sen. Mike Braun is projected to win the Republican gubernatorial primary in Indiana, according to the Associated Press. Track the full results of all the state’s Tuesday races here.
2:09 PM: How Trump’s allies amplify his Truth Social messages to the wider world
Election 2024 latest news: Biden back in the battleground state of Wisconsin
On the second day of his civil fraud trial in New York last fall, Donald Trump posted a photo of a young woman, Allison Greenfield, standing next to New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer. Trump claimed falsely that she was “Schumer’s girlfriend” and was “running this case against me.”
Trump’s post about Greenfield, the principal law clerk for New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, received only around 1,400 shares, modest activity for a former president whose Twitter account once had nearly 90 million followers.
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By: Sarah Ellison and Clara Ence Morse
1:50 PM: Biden highlights Trump’s connection to a failed Foxconn deal in Wisconsin
President Biden visits Gateway Technical College in Sturtevant, Wis., on Wednesday.
President Biden on Wednesday highlighted the plan for a Foxconn manufacturing facility in Wisconsin that was touted by former president Donald Trump but that ultimately failed to generate the thousands of promised jobs.
“Foxconn turned out to be just that: A con,” Biden said during a speech in Racine, Wis., where he heralded Microsoft’s $3.3 billion investment to build a data center on the site that had been set aside for Foxconn.
Instead of Foxconn creating 13,000 jobs in Racine in four years during the Trump administration, 1,000 jobs left the area during that time, Biden said. After noting that a Foxconn deal was promoted by Republicans, including Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.), Biden added: “They dug a hole with those golden shovels, and then they fell into it.”
Microsoft’s investment is expected to create 2,000 permanent jobs and 2,300 temporary union construction jobs.
Critics of Trump’s earlier arrangement with Foxconn say it was never meant to become reality. Trump and the GOP were looking for a quick political win, while Foxconn was hoping to placate the Trump administration to prevent it from hiking import tariffs on the iPhones the firm assembles in China, said Gordon Hintz, a Democrat and former minority leader in the Wisconsin State Assembly.
“You had a swing state President Trump needed to win,” Hintz said. “For Foxconn, it was always about evading tariffs.”
Both Biden and Trump see Wisconsin as key to their campaigns. Trump won the state in 2016 but lost it to Biden in 2020.
By: Azi Paybarah
1:27 PM: Analysis: For all the complaints, Trump isn’t campaigning much on trial off-days
Former president Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally on Wednesday in Waukesh, Wis.
As Donald Trump’s New York trial was going through the process of selecting jurors, the former president offered a familiar criticism of the situation.
“They want to keep me off the campaign trail,” he insisted, referring to his perceived oppressors. The trial wasn’t a function of alleged illegality that a grand jury determined should result in an indictment. It was instead, as Trump baselessly asserts, a top-down push by national Democrats to keep Trump from running for president.
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By: Philip Bump
1:07 PM: RFK Jr. says he had parasitic brain worm and undisclosed memory loss
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before the House select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government on Thursday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate who has marketed himself to voters as a younger, healthier alternative to the two major contenders, contracted a parasitic worm that got into his brain years ago and ate a portion of it before dying, his campaign confirmed Wednesday.
The 70-year-old scion of the powerful political family revealed in a 2012 deposition during divorce proceedings from his second wife, which the New York Times obtained and first reported Wednesday, that he had short- and long-term memory loss and described himself as having “cognitive problems, clearly.”
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By: Meryl Kornfield
12:53 PM: Analysis from Cat Zakrzewski, National technology policy reporter
The White House is pitching President Biden’s appearance in Wisconsin as part of his “Investing in America” strategy, seeking to draw a sharp contrast with the president’s predecessor, Donald Trump, who spent Tuesday posting angry messages on social media about his criminal trial for allegedly falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.
12:24 PM: Analysis: What we’re watching on Biden’s trip
President Biden speaks with reporters during a walk to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on April 25.
President Biden is heading to Racine, Wis., to announce that Microsoft will spend $3.3 billion to build an artificial intelligence data center.
Expect Biden to contrast the investment with Donald Trump’s announcement while he was president that the Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn would create 13,000 jobs in the same community. Foxconn ended up hiring only about 1,000 people there.
Biden will later make a campaign stop to talk with Black voters before heading to Chicago for a fundraiser.
He will also do a rare sit-down interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, which will air Wednesday night.
By: Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer
11:59 AM: Analysis: Trump’s classified documents trial blown apart by Cannon
This image, contained in a federal indictment against former president Donald Trump, shows boxes of records being stored on a stage at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.
The facts of the case do not favor former president Donald Trump.
When he reluctantly left the White House in January 2021, it was rushed. His weeks-long insistence that he had not lost the presidential election meant that his team had less time to transition out of the building. He departed Jan. 20, taking boxes of souvenirs and documents with him to Florida. Other boxes went to a transition office in Virginia before being shipped to him at Mar-a-Lago.
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By: Philip Bump
11:37 AM: Georgia court to hear Trump appeal seeking to disqualify Fani Willis
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis attends a hearing on the Georgia election interference case on March 1.
ATLANTA — A Georgia appellate court agreed Wednesday to hear Donald Trump’s appeal of a state court ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) to continue prosecuting the election interference case against the former president and several allies.
In a brief notice, the Georgia Court of Appeals said it had “granted” the request for appeal and ordered Trump and his co-defendants to file a “notice of appeal” within 10 days.
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By: Holly Bailey
11:18 AM: In new ad, Tester aligns himself with Republicans
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 28, 2020.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), whose reelection bid could determine which party controls the Senate, has a new ad aligning himself with Republicans and against the leader of his own party, President Biden, on the issue of border security and immigration.
“Senator Jon Tester, calling out Biden. What’s happening on our southern border is unacceptable,” a woman off-camera says, as viewers see a segment from Fox News about Tester’s position. Later, a narrator says, “Jon Tester is working with Republicans to do whatever it takes to finally secure the border.”
In the ad, Tester says, “I want that border secure”; “the president absolutely could do more” and “should have secured it a long time ago.”
Republicans have sought to make border security the top issue in elections. Former president Donald Trump polls better than Biden on the issue, though Trump’s specific policies are less popular, The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell noted recently.
Tester is facing a challenge from Republican Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and wealthy founder of an aerial firefighting company.
Sheehy has faced scrutiny for discrepancies in describing an injury to his arm that he initially claimed took place while he was in the military. At one point, he told a national park ranger that the injury was the result of accidentally discharging his firearm while inside a park.
By: Azi Paybarah
11:01 AM: Analysis: No, posting is not better political activism than talking to voters
Daecorion Robinson, a 19-year-old volunteer with BLOC (Black Leaders Organizing Communities) community outreach group, goes door-to-door in October 2022 to talk to voters in Milwaukee. (Alex Wroblewski for The Washington Post)
Matt Yglesias is one of the more popular voices on the pro-Biden internet. That’s his framing, not mine; his newsletter “Slow Boring” is targeted to centrist Democrats interested in the nuances of how policy can address the country’s problems or at least people who like to think that they are. To use another metric to establish his bona fides, Yglesias is at the level of a commentator who gets profiled in The Washington Post.
Because he has that influence, his offering Tuesday morning deserves a response. Not because it is too generous or insufficiently generous to President Biden as it attempts to explain to readers how they can best aid Biden’s reelection. Instead, it is because it offers a notably bad assessment of the relative values of posting stuff on the internet vs. talking to actual voters.
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By: Philip Bump
10:39 AM: New Biden campaign ad targets Trump’s efforts to repeal Obamacare
The Biden campaign has released a new television ad targeting former president Donald Trump’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
The ad, which is part of a $14 million buy, will air on television and online across battleground states. In it, audio of Trump calling the ACA a “disaster” and saying he wants to “terminate it” is interspersed with audio from President Biden saying that doing so would cause more than 100 million Americans to lose protections for preexisting conditions.
In a statement, Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said that every time Trump “promises to gut the Affordable Care Act, rip away health care and protections for preexisting conditions, and jack up costs, he reminds the American people that health care is on the ballot this November for tens of millions of Americans.”
“It’s a threat that we have to take seriously because every time he’s had the chance, Trump has gone after Americans’ hard-earned health care,” she said.
By: Mariana Alfaro
10:16 AM: In Arizona, election workers trained with deepfakes to prepare for 2024
Voters at a polling station in Guadalupe, Ariz., in 2022.
The video message from Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes warmly greeted the scores of election workers who had gathered at a Phoenix area hotel in December for a first-of-its-kind drill: “We are very excited that all of you are here,” Fontes, a Democrat, began. “You are on the front lines, and this exercise is a prime opportunity for you to hone your skills by experiencing new challenges as a team.” He wished them luck.
Over two days, the election workers from around the state maneuvered through a training exercise involving the kinds of attacks generated by artificial intelligence that they might face in this politically competitive state during the coming election cycle. They tackled situations that plunged them into AI-generated scenarios ranging from law enforcement operations to attempts to infiltrate technology systems.
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By: Sarah Ellison and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez
9:51 AM: Biden to tout new Microsoft AI center on site of Trump’s failed Foxconn deal
President Biden in the Oval Office at the White House on Tuesday.
President Biden will champion a new Microsoft artificial intelligence investment in Wisconsin on Wednesday — showcasing the failed economic commitments of his political rival Donald Trump, whose promises for a key Foxconn plant in the battleground state never materialized.
The president will appear in Racine, Wis., at the site of the failed Foxconn manufacturing campus, to announce Microsoft’s $3.3 billion investment in data centers to fuel its ambitions to build powerful AI systems, according to the White House.
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By: Cat Zakrzewski
9:39 AM: Analysis from Mariana Alfaro, Reporter on the breaking political news team
Vice President Harris plans to appear at a reproductive rights event in Montgomery County, Pa., on Wednesday alongside actress Sheryl Lee Ralph. After that, she is scheduled to headline EMILYs List’s annual “We Are EMILY Gala” in Washington. She is scheduled to be introduced at the event by Amanda Zurawski, a Texas woman who nearly died after being denied an abortion in the state.
9:17 AM: Race to replace Virginia Rep. Wexton accelerates with start of early voting
A cow bell clanged inside the Rust Library in Northern Virginia, and the 12 Democrats vying for a chance to replace U.S. Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) each moved to a different cluster of voters, hoping to win them over during a “speed dating” candidates forum.
A few days later, three of the four Republicans running in their party’s primary in Wexton’s 10th Congressional District stood before Loudoun County retirees and tried to outflank each other on issues like border security and inflation.
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By: Antonio Olivo
8:59 AM: Fact Checker: RFK Jr.’s ‘history lesson’ on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine flunks the fact test
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a news conference in New York on Wednesday.
A reader asked us to fact-check a four-minute “history lesson” posted by presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on YouTube. International events — and the causes of war — are often open to interpretation.
But Kennedy’s lecture, about how the United States allegedly provoked the Ukraine war, was filled with so much misinformation and Russian talking points that it seems worthy of a detailed look.
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By: Glenn Kessler
8:40 AM: Haley receives nearly 22 percent of Indiana vote
Nikki Haley speaks to staff and supporters announcing that she’ll be suspending her presidential campaign on Daniel Island near Charleston, S.C., on Wednesday.
Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley received nearly 22 percent of the vote in the Indiana Republican presidential primary — despite ending her White House bid months ago.
While former president Donald Trump received about 78 percent of the vote, Haley’s haul is a sign that a portion of the GOP is not enthusiastic about having Trump at the top of the party’s ticket once again.
In April, Haley also received a little over 16 percent of the vote in the GOP presidential primary in Pennsylvania — a swing state that could be crucial in deciding the results of the November election.
When ending her presidential bid in early March, Haley did not endorse Trump, but instead said she hoped he would “earn the votes” of her supporters.
“At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing,” Haley said then.
Trump has not made any concerted public efforts to reach out to Haley voters.
By: Mariana Alfaro
8:20 AM: A stark split screen in the race for president
President Biden speaks at a Holocaust Days of Remembrance ceremony on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
President Biden was in the Map Room at the White House, going line by line over a speech he would soon deliver commemorating the Holocaust, when, a few hundred miles to the north, a prosecutor stood in court and declared, “The people call Stormy Daniels.”
Biden would soon visit Capitol Hill to join some of the country’s top elected officials in memorializing an atrocity that killed 6 million Jews and to pledge repeatedly, “Never again.”
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By: Matt Viser
8:03 AM: Former House speaker Paul Ryan says he won’t vote for Trump
Former House speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) speaks during the unveiling of his portrait in Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill on May 17, 2023.
Former House speaker Paul D. Ryan said in an interview Tuesday that he will not vote for former president Donald Trump in November, adding that he plans to write in another Republican candidate instead.
“Character is too important for me,” Ryan, a former Wisconsin congressman who was Mitt Romney’s 2012 vice-presidential pick, told Yahoo Finance at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles. He added that the presidency “is a job that requires the kind of character [Trump] doesn’t have.”
Ryan, who had a reputation in Congress as a fiscal conservative, left the House in 2019.
Ryan told The Washington Post in February that he is now “in the minority” of the Republican Party.
“I think you can safely argue … that Trump is the establishment and Trump populism is the establishment,” the former speaker added. “And that Trump populism is this more isolationist strain that I think is wrong and dangerous, and I don’t support. But that does represent a large swath of Republican voters. And so, you will see opinions representing that majority, that … current day establishment.”
By: Maegan Vazquez
7:43 AM: Analysis from Mariana Alfaro, Reporter on the breaking political news team
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), the former chairman of the now-defunct House select committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, said the “potential for another Jan. 6 is there.”
In an interview Tuesday night with CBS News, Thompson said the “majority of the people who orchestrated Jan. 6 are now saying, in so many words: ‘I’m not certain that I will accept the findings of the 2024 election.’”
“That speaks volumes,” he said.
7:20 AM: Biden’s trip to Wisconsin is his fourth to the battleground state this year
President Biden walks on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday.
President Biden is heading to Wisconsin on Wednesday to announce a new data center and meet with Black voters, the latest stop in a battleground state as he and Vice President Harris step up some of their travel.
Biden is traveling to Racine, Wis., in his fourth trip to the key state so far this year. He plans to hold an official event there as well as make a campaign stop, according to White House and campaign officials.
He is planning to announce a $3.3 billion investment by Microsoft to build a new artificial intelligence data center in Racine, which the White House says will create 2,300 union construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs. The center will be built on the same site where Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn had once planned a giant manufacturing campus with 13,000 high-tech jobs.
The plant was once touted by Donald Trump — who appeared at a groundbreaking and called the project the “Eighth Wonder of the World” — but it became a symbol of failed promises.
After his remarks, Biden plans to make a campaign stop to speak to Black voters, according to Garren Randolph, the campaign manager for the Wisconsin Democratic Coordinated Campaign. Randolph said the party has 46 offices around the state and has hired more than 80 full-time staffers as part of its coordinated efforts.
Biden’s trip also includes a fundraiser in Chicago.
By: Matt Viser
7:00 AM: Analysis from Patrick Svitek
Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) is the projected winner of the Republican gubernatorial primary in Indiana that also featured Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch. The current governor, Republican Eric Holcomb, is term-limited.
6:40 AM: Ukrainian-born Spartz, criticized for Ukraine votes, wins primary fight
Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), a native of Ukraine, at a news conference in Washington last year.
Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) is projected to win a hard-fought primary for reelection that centered on her record of support for her native Ukraine, according to the Associated Press.
Spartz — the first Ukrainian-born member of Congress — was facing a crowded field of challengers after she reversed her decision to not seek another term and reentered the race this year. Indiana state Rep. Chuck Goodrich stood out, self-funding his campaign with at least $4.6 million and attacking Spartz as a flip-flopper — first on her reelection plans and then on Ukraine aid.
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By: Patrick Svitek
6:30 AM: Stormy Daniels testifies, Trump curses in an angry day in court
Former president Donald Trump arrives to speak to members of the media outside Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday.
NEW YORK — Stormy Daniels, the adult-film actress at the center of Donald Trump’s hush money trial, testified Tuesday about a disturbing sexual encounter she says she had with him, leading to angry, profane muttering from the former president that alarmed the judge.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan called Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche to a sidebar during a midday break to say that Trump was “cursing audibly” and possibly intimidating Daniels, who had begun testifying, according to a trial transcript.
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By: Devlin Barrett, Tom Jackman, Shayna Jacobs and Marianne LeVine
6:15 AM: Judge indefinitely delays Trump’s classified documents trial in Florida
This image, contained in the indictment against former president Donald Trump, shows boxes of records stored in a bathroom and shower in the Lake Room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.
Donald Trump’s Florida trial for allegedly mishandling classified documents and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them has been pushed back indefinitely, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon ruled Tuesday, increasing the chance that the former president’s ongoing New York criminal trial may be the only one to happen before the November election.
The judge had originally set the Florida trial date for late May, but that has seemed unlikely for months, with Cannon still needing to make decisions on a number of key legal issues before a jury can hear the case.
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By: Perry Stein and Devlin Barrett