Summary
That’s it for the US politics live blog! Here is a summary of what happened today:
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris traveled to Philadelphia today and announced $500m that will be used to upgrade water pipes in the region. “Water ought to be something that’s just guaranteed,” said Biden, noting that the US is the richest country in the world.
The Indiana Republican Victoria Spartz said today she will not run for an open Senate seat in 2024 and will also retire from her seat in the US House.
Biden boasted about the better-than-expected latest jobs figures. “Today, I am happy to report that the state of our union and the state of our economy is strong,” said Biden, referring to the over 500,000 jobs that were created in January.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will postpone a scheduled trip to China after yesterday’s discovery of what is believed to be a Chinese spy balloon over the US, sailing above the US and within peering distance of a nuclear weapons installation.
A senior member of Donald Trump’s Wisconsin 2020 election campaign said their team should “fan the flame” of denial about Trump’s key loss in Wisconsin to Biden and and spread the false claim that Democrats were “trying to steal this election”, according to a leaked November 5, 2020 audio clip.
Thank you for reading; have a great weekend!
Updated
The Democratic National Convention will vote on a committee recommendation to alter the presidential primary calendar in 2024 during their upcoming Saturday meeting, reported the Hill.
Biden previously ordered Democrats to change the primary calendar to better support non-white voters.
Here’s more information on Biden’s request from the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt:
Democrats are poised to shake up the way in which they nominate presidential candidates, after Joe Biden said the primary process should better represent the party’s non-white voters.
Biden has reportedly told Democrats that Iowa, the state that has led off the Democratic voting calendar since 1976, should be moved down the calendar, with South Carolina instead going first.
The move would see New Hampshire, which has technically held the nation’s first primary since 1920 (Iowa uses a slightly different system of caucuses, or in-person voting), shunted down the calendar.
Both Iowa and New Hampshire are predominantly white states. Clamor has been growing inside and outside the Democratic party for a different state, with a population more representative of the US as a whole, to be given the first go.
Read the full article here.
