Yearly Archives: 2024

(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court is now being asked to overturn the state’s other political maps after asking for new legislative maps.

The Elias Law Firm, headed by lawyer Mark Elias, asked the state’s high court to redraw Wisconsin’s congressional maps.

Elias has ties to the Hillary Clinton campaign network and has filed several election-related lawsuits across the country.

“Wisconsin’s current congressional map was drawn according to a 'least change' principle that perpetuated and exacerbated the partisan unfairness that has robbed Wisconsin voters of fair congressional districts for over a decade,” Elias Law Group partner Abha Khanna said in a statement.

The “least change” principle kept Wisconsin’s maps largely unchanged in 2021, and once again gave Republicans in the state a majority.

Six of Wisconsin’s eight members of Congress are Republican.

Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming said the lawsuit isn’t about “least change.” Instead, he said it’s about political power.

"The newly bought and paid for liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court faces yet another test of the public's trust: do the right thing by leaving the current, constitutional maps in place or abandon sound judgment by catering to their left-wing out-of-state donors," Schmmining said.

Wisconsin’s new liberal-majority Supreme Court discarded the state’s legislative maps just before Christmas. The court said those maps, also drawn in 2021 and used in the 2022 elections, were too friendly to Republicans.

The court set a March 15 deadline to get new legislative maps so they can be used in this fall’s election.

The Elias lawsuit also asks for new maps for the November election.

(The Center Square) – Public schools in Wisconsin have nine months left before the last of their COVID-19 relief cash expires, and there’s hundreds of millions of dollars still on the table.

The Institute for Reforming Government has been tracking Wisconsin’s $1.5 billion in COVID relief money.

Their latest update shows that $307 million of that haul remains unallocated.

“Before districts spend money, they are supposed to get DPI’s approval. DPI confirms whether their allocations qualify for ESSER III reimbursement. So, districts either lack DPI approval for $307 million or are spending money without DPI approval with no guarantee of reimbursement,” IRG said in its report. “Thirty-nine districts have below 50% allocated, including Green Bay and West Bend. Thirty-five districts have over $1 million left to allocate, including Milwaukee and Fond Du Lac. Eight districts are at $0 allocated.”

IRG first sounded the alarm about unallocated COVID cash in February. At that point, Wisconsin schools were sitting on about $1 billion of unallocated COVID money.

IRG’s report said the unallocated money is likely to add to the fiscal cliff that many schools across the state are facing.

“$512 million over 1.5 years has been allocated to district staff. Various factors contributed to this problem, but Wisconsin schools could confront between 1% and 4% holes in the roughly $14 billion they spend as a result. Schools’ recent 2-year, $1.2 billion increase in spendable authority may disappear more quickly than anticipated,” the report noted.

Making that cliff worse is how many schools are spending their COVID dollars.

“Construction is the 2nd-largest allocation category at 24%. This $284 million could grow from inflation or supply chain delays, which is why the Biden administration ‘strongly discouraged’ it,” IRG stated.

Unallocated doesn’t mean unspent or wasted. IRG said it simply means school boards have not filed the formal paperwork and gotten the proper permission to spend their COVID dollars.

Schools in Wisconsin have until September to make those allocations, even if the money will be spent next year.

The editorial board for one of the nation's leading newspapers called for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to drop out of the Republican presidential primary.

The editorial board for the Wall Street Journal, owned by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp., wrote Tuesday that DeSantis can't win.

"Mr. DeSantis faces no clear path to the nomination. He's well behind Ms. Haley in New Hampshire and South Carolina," the board wrote. "If he believes, as he says, that Mr. Trump can't win in November, he should leave the race and give Ms. Haley a chance to take on Mr. Trump one on one."

Trump won the Iowa Caucuses on Monday evening. The loss was particularly acute for DeSantis. His campaign had invested significant time and money in Iowa. DeSantis garnered about 21% support, compared to Trump, who received 51% of the vote. Even so, DeSantis and Republican former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley both said they would to continue their campaigns.

"Ms. Haley's relative strength in the Granite State speaks to Mr. Trump's weakness in the general election," the WSJ editorial board wrote. "Independents can vote in either party primary in the swing state, and Ms. Haley is attracting these voters who will be crucial in the half dozen states that will be decisive in November. It's also one reason most polls show she defeats Mr. Biden easily while Mr. Trump is barely ahead despite the President's historically low approval rating of 40%."

(The Center Square) – The former head of Wisconsin’s Republican Party and the man in charge of this summer’s Republican National Convention says he doesn’t see anyone but Donald Trump getting the nomination.

Reince Priebus told News Talk 1130’s WISN that after the former president’s resounding win in the Iowa Caucuses, Trump is the presumptive nominee.

“I think that Donaald Trump exceeded expectations,” Priebus said. “I think that he exceeded the mental threshold that Democrats and people that don’t like Trump wanted to out there. ‘Oh, he didn’t get 50%.’ I think it ended up being 51%.”

Trump doubled the vote totals of both Ron DeSantis and Nikki Halley in Monday night’s caucuses.

Priebus said that kind of victory will make it tough for either challenger to find a path forward, especially DeSantis, Priebus said.

“His play is that he is going to get second in South Carolina. That he’s going to talk to donors about whether any of these cases are going to matter, in regard to President Trump, and whether he should stay in to see how things go,” Priebus said. “[But] nothing has panned out in terms of those hopes and wishes.”

Haley, Priebus said, has a slightly different play. But he also doesn’t see it panning out.

“There is a small play that, maybe, Nikki Haley can somehow rally in New Hampshire, and somehow win in South Carolina,” Priebus said. “Her play is that she is going to have this inside straight going through New Hampshire. The reality is that Super Tuesday is March 5. Fifteen states are rolling on March 5. You need to have an enormous amount of money, and an enormous number of volunteers combined to do well in 15 state primaries,”

Priebus said that’s “a tough hill to climb.”

As for Trump’s play moving forward, Priebus said the former president needs to start running as the only Republican in the race and focus that race on President Biden,

“Act like the other campaigns don’t matter to you. Slowly focus on Joe Biden, do all of your speeches about him. Go to New Hampshire and South Carolina and start acting like you are the presumptive nominee. That’s number one,” Priebus said.” Number two, I’d start making demands through your campaign to say ‘I’m the presumptive nominee.’ And I would want the party to call me the presumptive nominee.”

Priebus said it looks more and more like nothing is going to stop the former president from getting the nomination at Milwaukee’s RNC in July.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson ended his bid for the Republican nomination for president after receiving only 191 votes in the Iowa caucuses.

Hutchinson frequently called out former President Donald Trump on the campaign trail.

"Trump not only wants to be above the law, but claims he is the law," Hutchinson said in a pinned post on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

Trump received 51% of the vote in the Iowa caucuses, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with just over 21% and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley with 19.1%.

"My message of being a principled Republican with experience and telling the truth about the current front-runner did not sell in Iowa," Hutchinson said in a statement Tuesday morning. "I answered every question, sounded the warning to the GOP about the risks in 2024 and presented hope for the country's future."

Hutchinson did not endorse another candidate.

Vivek Ramaswamy, who received 8,449 votes, ended his campaign Monday night and endorsed Trump.

The latest The Center Square Voters' Voice poll shows Trump would defeat President Joe Biden in the November election. Trump is ahead of Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, states he lost in the 2020 elections, according to the poll.

New Hampshire voters will make their choice in the GOP primary on Tuesday.

Former President Donald Trump on Monday night easily won the caucuses in Iowa, the first state to vote in a months-long primary process where Republican voters will decide who they want to face the likely Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden, in November.

Based on national polling and Trump's decisive win Monday, it might not take months to decide the GOP nominee.

Iowa has 40 delegates up for grabs, and 1,215 are needed to win the Republican nomination.

Initial results showed Trump winning more votes than all of his opponents combined, though he dropped to about 50% of the total as more votes were counted. The outcome seemed so lopsided early, most major news outlets – including Fox News, CNN, CBS News and ABC News – called the race less than 30 minutes into the caucuses.

Trump's top challengers, former South Carolina Gov. and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, were in a tight battle for second place with thousands of votes still to be counted. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy was a distant fourth.

"Well, that was fast," the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., wrote Monday night on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Thank you Iowa. Now let’s end this nonsense and go after the insanity that is today’s Democrat party. Enough is enough! It’s time to put America first for a change."

The DeSantis campaign lamented the media calling the race so early in the evening.

"It is absolutely outrageous that the media would participate in election interference by calling the race before tens of thousands of Iowans even had a chance to vote," Communications Director Andrew Romeo said in a statement. "The media is in the tank for Trump and this is the most egregious example yet."

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who chairs the House Republican Conference, celebrated the "massive Trump victory" on X Monday evening.

"I have said it before, I will say it again – President Trump is our Republican Nominee for 2024 & he will defeat Joe Biden this November to #SaveAmerica!" she wrote. "Congratulations [Trump] on your huge #TrumpTrain Iowa Caucus win! Choo-choo!!"

Trump leads Biden by four percentage points in the hypothetical general election race, according to the latest The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll.

Iowa Republicans faced snow and below-zero temperatures Monday to cast their vote in the state's caucuses, the first to vote and set the tone for the Republican 2024 presidential primary. Trump’s victory comes as no surprise, but the remaining votes will show how his competitors fared and if one of Trump’s challengers can muscle the others out of the race.

Unlike other states, Iowa caucus-goers attended party meetings at local schools, churches and more later in the evening to choose their candidates.

"I’m asking you to go out, brave the cold and support me in the Iowa Caucus," DeSantis said in a video on X ahead of the vote.

His opponents did the same.

"Bundle up and buckle up!" Haley said on X earlier Monday.

Supporters traveled to Iowa for the big day or took to social media to show their support.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie withdrew from the race last week after lagging in the low single digits in polling. DeSantis and Haley also faced off in a CNN debate last week, one that Trump skipped and for which businessman Ramaswamy did not qualify.

Heading into the Iowa Caucuses, Trump held a hefty lead in the polls, outdistancing his challengers by about 30 points. Nationally, Trump holds an even bigger lead over his GOP rivals.

The Center Square’s Voter Voices poll released last week asked Republican voters, “Which of the following candidates are you most likely to vote for in the 2024 Republican primary?”

Of those surveyed, 61% of Republicans picked Trump.

In the poll, 13% of those surveyed chose Haley while 12% picked DeSantis.

The poll was conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights and surveyed 2,573 Americans. The poll has a margin of error of about 2%.

In the three months after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, antisemitic incidents increased throughout the U.S. by 360%, according to preliminary data published by the Anti-Defamation League.

At least 3,283 incidents were reported between Oct. 7, 2023, and Jan. 7, 2024, according to the preliminary data. This represents a 360% increase from the 712 incidents reported over the same time period in the prior year. It’s also higher than any total tracked in any year in the past decade, except for 2022.

In 2022, the total number of antisemitic incidents were already at a historic high of 3,697, with an 87% increase occurring in the southwest region of the U.S.

With an average of nearly 34 antisemitic incidents occurring every day, 2023 is on track to be the worst year for Jews in America with the highest number of antisemitic acts reported since ADL began tracking this data in the late 1970s. The ADL has yet to release 2023 data for the calendar year.

“The American Jewish community is facing a threat level that’s now unprecedented in modern history,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said. “It’s shocking that we’ve recorded more antisemitic acts in three months than we usually would in an entire year.”

ADL’s Center on Extremism gathers reports and tracks antisemitic incidents in three categories: assaults, harassment and vandalism. This includes criminal and non-criminal acts of harassment and intimidation, which includes distribution of hate propaganda, threats and slurs, vandalism and assault reported by victims, law enforcement and community leaders. In 2022, antisemitic incidents occurred in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The number of incidents is not the same as, and is generally higher than, the number of victims.

After the Hamas attacks and over the three months evaluated, ADL tracked 60 antisemitic assaults and over 500 incidents on U.S. college campuses.

Of the 3,283 antisemitic incidents reported over this time period, ADL tracked 60 physical assault incidents, 553 acts of vandalism, and 1,353 acts of verbal or written harassment.

There were also 1,317 pro-Hamas rallies at which participants engaged in antisemitic rhetoric and expressed support for terrorism against Israel and/or anti-Zionism.

Several incidents occurred in Texas and Florida, whose Republican governors pledged support for Israel. They also met with Israeli leaders, instructed law enforcement officers to crack down on antisemitic acts and beefed up security outside of Jewish schools, establishments and houses of worship. After the Hamas attacks, a south Texas congresswoman’s office was vandalized by Hamas supporters. In Florida, pro-Hamas groups and violent protestors were shut down at state-funded universities. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was also the only governor in U.S. history to fly home stranded Americans from Israel.

“In this difficult moment, antisemitism is spreading and mutating in alarming ways,” Greenblatt said. “This onslaught of hate includes a dramatic increase in fake bomb threats that disrupt services at synagogues and put communities on edge across the country.”

Among the incidents reported to have occurred at school campuses, at least 505 occurred on college campuses; 246 at K-12 schools nationwide.

At least 628 antisemitic acts were committed against Jewish institutions, including synagogues and community centers.

Two-thirds of all incidents reported were directly related to the Israel-Hamas war, according to the report.

ADL also highlighted incidents that occurred in the first few days of the New Year, with the most occurring in California. On Jan. 3, at least six Jewish temples in San Diego County received bomb threats; 91 Jewish houses of worship statewide were targeted.

In 2022, the greatest number of antisemitic incidents occurred in five states: New York (580), California (518), New Jersey (408), Florida (269) and Texas (211). These five states accounted for 54% of all incidents reported.

In 2022, one hostage crisis occurred at a synagogue in the Dallas area and 91 bomb threats were made against Jewish institutions, the highest number recorded since 2017.

Former President Donald Trump is the heavy favorite to win Iowa's Republican presidential caucuses Monday, leading his closest challengers in polls by more than 30 percentage points.

RealClearPolitics Poll Average of major polls across the country shows Trump with more than 52% support in The Hawkeye State. His closest challenger there, former South Carolina Gov. and Ambassador Nikki Haley, shows 18.2% support, a nearly 34% percentage point gap between the No. 1 and No. 2 candidates in the state. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is an even more distant third with 15.6% support.

Monday's caucuses in Iowa – where temperatures are expected to hover just below 0 degrees and wind chills could hit minus 35 degrees or worse – are the first time voters get to weigh in during the Republican primary season.

Unlike a standard primary election where voters simply go to the polls and cast their ballots for the candidate of their choice (or in more recent years, mail in their ballots), voters at a caucus must show up in person and listen to supporters lobby for candidates before choosing sides.

A significant win by Trump in Iowa could all but deflate the candidacies of most – if not all – of the former president's Republican opponents.

Following Monday's caucuses, GOP voters in New Hampshire head to the polls Jan. 23 for the first-in-the-nation primary. Trump also holds a significant lead in polling there with 43.5% support, according to RealClear, but Haley has closed the gap down to about 14 percentage points with 29.3% support.

Trump leads all challengers by large amounts nationally as well. The latest The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll shows Trump with 61% support across the country, with Haley (13%) and DeSantis (12%) far behind.

Nevada follows with a Nov. 8 caucus, followed by primaries on Feb. 24 in South Carolina and Feb. 27 in Michigan (though not all delegates will be awarded on this date in Michigan; more than half will be awarded at the state convention March 2); and caucuses in Idaho March 2 and North Dakota March 4.

On Super Tuesday March 5, Republican voters from 15 states will select the candidate of their choice: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.

Trump could have the nomination locked up by then.

On Iowa, Colin Reed, a Republican strategist, former campaign manager for U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., and co-founder of South and Hill Strategies, told The Center Square: “For Trump, he needs to show a result that’s consistent with his lead in the polls or risk losing the veneer of inevitability,” Reed continued. “For DeSantis, he needs a decisive second place showing or loses a credible rationale to continue on. Nikki Haley placed more of her chips in New Hampshire so she has the least to lose and most to gain. Either way, the events in Iowa have the potential to reshuffle the deck in the eight days between the caucuses and New Hampshire primary.”

DeSantis received the coveted endorsement of Iowa's popular Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, but that hasn't helped him in polling there.

Trump also faces nearly 100 criminal charges across several states as well as ongoing efforts to remove him from the ballot for his role in the Jan. 6 protests at the U.S. Capitol. Translated, those challenges mean Trump’s campaign could be upended later this year and make second place in the GOP primary more important than ever.

If Democrats had a magic wand, they'd put Michelle Obama in the White House.

The former first lady has more political star power than incumbent President Joe Biden and other famous and not-so-famous Democrats ahead of the November election, according to The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll, conducted Jan. 2-4.

The poll, conducted with Noble Predictive Insights, found that if Democrats and Democrat-leaning likely voters could wave a magic wand, 24% would pick Michelle Obama. The former first lady was followed by Biden (20%), U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (12%), someone else (9%), U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (9%), former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (8%), Vice President Kamala Harris (7%), and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (5%).

Three other Democrats didn't have as much appeal: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer got 4%, followed by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (1%) and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (1%).

Michelle Obama, the wife of former President Barack Obama, has strong support among Black and Hispanic Democratic voters, women and people younger than 55, according to the poll. Michelle Obama, who turns 60 on Jan. 17, recently spoke with Jay Shetty for an episode of his "On Purpose" podcast. During the podcast, she said she was terrified about the upcoming election.

"What's going to happen in this next election? I am terrified about what could possibly happen because our leaders matter," Michelle Obama said. "Who we select speaks for us. Who holds that bully pulpit, it affects us in ways that sometimes I think people take for granted."

"You know, the fact that people think that government, eh, you know, doesn't really even do anything and I'm like, 'oh my God, does government do everything for us,' " Michelle Obama said. "And we cannot take this democracy for granted. And sometimes I worry that we do."

Former President Donald Trump holds a significant lead over his challengers in the Republican primary heading into Monday's Iowa caucuses, the first time U.S. voters can officially weigh in on whom the GOP nominee should be. The Obamas have been vocal critics of Trump.

Previous The Center Square Voters' Voice Polls showed similar support for the former first lady.

"Michelle Obama currently has the best of multiple worlds," said David Byler, chief of research at Noble Predictive Insights, which conducted the polling. "She's a celebrity with near universal name recognition. She's beloved by Democrats who remember her years as First Lady. But she doesn’t have the string of failures and missteps that follow anyone who holds formal political office.

"In other words, she has all the goodwill that comes with the Obama brand but no record that a potential opponent could use against her. She's not running for office now – but if she chose to do so in a future cycle, she could be formidable," he said.

The poll with Noble Predictive Insights surveyed 2,573 Americans from Jan. 2-4, including about an even number of Republicans and Democrats along with 266 "true independents," which are independents who indicated they do not lean toward either party. The poll has a margin of error of about 2%.

In other results, Trump surpassed Biden by four percentage points nationally in The Center Square Voters' Voice poll.

(The Center Square) – Milwaukee Public Schools are going back to taxpayers for a quarter-billion dollars.

The city’s school board voted Thursday night to put a $259 million tax hike request on the April ballot.

MPS leaders say they need more money to maintain operations and keep up with rising costs.

"We can’t let our public school system fail," MPS Board vice president Jilly Gokalgandhi told the board.

"How many years are we supposed to keep getting kicked in the face?" board president Marva Herndon asked.

The tax hike request comes after state lawmakers signed off on a school funding increase in June and after voters approved an $87 million tax increase for Milwaukee Public Schools in 2020.

Will Flanders, an education expert at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, told The Center Square it’s unsurprising that MPS is once again asking taxpayers for more money.

“Like death and taxes, low-performing school districts demanding even more money from taxpayers is seemingly inevitable,” Flanders said.

MPS’s CFO told the school board the district will be looking at a $200 million deficit next school year. He warned about layoffs, frozen salaries, closed schools and fewer school buses if the referendum doesn’t pass.

Flanders said MPS already has plenty of money and is in line to get more.

“As it stands, MPS has nearly $19,000 per student. This doesn't even take into account the increases Gov. [Tony] Evers has set the district up for the next 400 years with his partial veto last year. Milwaukee taxpayers should carefully evaluate whether a district achieving less than 20% proficiency in reading and math should be rewarded with even more funding,” Flanders said.

Voters will have their say on the tax increase on the April ballot.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Supreme Court will not reconsider its ruling that tossed out the state’s political maps.

The new liberal-majority court ruled 4-3 against a request from Republican lawmakers to listen to arguments again.

Lawyers for the Republican-controlled legislature also said Friday’s deadline for new maps was too quick of a turnaround.

The liberal-majority court ruled just before Christmas that Wisconsin’s political maps from 2022 were too gerrymandered in favor of Republicans.

The court then ordered new maps for both the Wisconsin Assembly and Wisconsin Senate to be drawn before this spring’s primaries.

Gov. Tony Evers has said he intends to offer input on the new maps, but he said it will likely be up to the court’s experts to decide what the new legislative boundaries will be.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court didn’t offer an explanation with its decision.

The deadline for those maps is 5 p.m. today.

After that, experts hired by the court will either issue a report on new maps or will draw maps of their own.

Those maps are due to the court by Feb. 1. The Supreme Court has said Wisconsin’s new maps must be finalized by March 15 so they can be used in this year’s elections.

(The Center Square) – Less than two weeks after Milwaukee’s new sales tax took effect, city leaders are looking to spend some of that money on pay raises for themselves.

A city council committee approved a 15% pay raise for the mayor, city council members and top city workers like Milwaukee’s police and fire chiefs.

"The approval of these recommendations helps us move past being a stepping stone for other opportunities and instead a choice destination," Milwaukee Employee Relations Director Harper Donahue IV told city council members.

The pay raises would bump Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s salary to more than $169,000 a year. The raises would also increase the base pay for city council members to more than $84,000 a year.

Milwaukee’s police and fire chiefs would see their salaries jump to a little less than $200,000 a year, while the city’s public works boss would make more than $208,000.

The city estimates the raises will cost $1.8 million for the rest of 2024, and at least $2.8 million each year going forward. There is a provision in the pay raise proposal that would guarantee elected officials a 3% raise each year, starting next year, unless frontline city workers get a smaller raise.

Alderman Michael Murphy said city leaders have been making the same salary for the past 15 years.

“I do believe there should be an increase for elected officials. I don’t believe the number 15 is appropriate,” he said.

Alderman Scott Spiker said Milwaukee’s mayor didn’t mention anything about the pay raises when he pitched a new 2% sales tax for the city.

“You just asked for a sales tax and now you’re going to increase salaries for not just electeds but the folks who are most well compensated," Spiker added.

A spokesman for Milwaukee’s mayor said he supports the raises, as does city council President Jose Perez.

"I want the city to be competitive, I don't want to lose talent to other municipalities and even to the private sector, but with any increase I think it's only natural, it's pertinent for us to also increase accountability and fix the systems that are in place that prohibit the best service for our constituents," he said.

The pay raise proposal now goes to the full city council for a vote.

Former President Donald Trump holds a lead over President Joe Biden heading into this presidential election year, the latest poll shows.

The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll, conducted Jan. 2-4, found that among likely voters, Trump holds 45% support compared to Biden’s 41% in a head-to-head faceoff, a lead that's outside of the poll's 2% margin for error with the Iowa Caucuses scheduled for Monday (Jan. 15).

The remaining 14% who responded they were “not sure” could swing the election in favor of either candidate.

The latest poll flips the script on the previous The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll conducted in October, when Biden held a 48% to 44% advantage over Trump. Other recent polls also show Trump with a significant lead over Biden in key swing states.

Trump’s lead is due in large part to his growing support among Hispanic and Black voters, which is higher than Republican presidential candidates have received in the past.

Trump has 10% support among Black voters compared to Biden’s 74%. While 10% is far lower than Biden’s support, it is actually much higher than Republican presidential candidates normally garner.

One portion of the survey allowed Republican voters to share why they prefer Trump over his primary competitors, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, over whom he holds a wide lead.

A Black Trump supporter wrote, “he is really a man of his words and doesn’t have a lot of lobbyists telling him what to do or say.”

Among Hispanics, Trump has 45% support compared to Biden’s 38% support.

One Hispanic Trump supporter wrote, “I love that he isn’t afraid to be who he is.”

Another Hispanic Trump supporter wrote, “the stuff he has been saying and doing really makes me believe he can make an impact on the world nowadays. I mean look at gas prices. They went up 300% ever since Joe Biden got here as President.”

Trump has 49% support among white voters, compared to Biden’s 35% support.

Trump also does better than Biden with male voters, beating Biden 50% to 34%, according to the survey. Biden, though, does better with female voters, beating Trump with 45% support compared to Trump’s 39%.

Trump performs better than Biden across every age demographic except seniors age 65 and older. For that group, Trump and Biden are tied with 42% support. Each age demographic has a large percentage responding they remained “not sure,” ranging between 15% and 20%.

Elevated inflation, a crisis at the southern border, and ongoing overseas conflicts have chipped away at Biden’s support. Millions of illegal immigrants have poured into the U.S. since Biden took office, leading even Democratic mayors to raise the alarm. The chaotic and deadly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan marked a downward turning point for Biden’s approval numbers, from which he has not recovered. Concerns over the U.S.’ role in Ukraine and the potential for the Israel-Gaza war to escalate are also a factor.

Inflation has slowed since spiking during Biden’s first two years as president, but prices still remain nearly 20% higher than when he took office. Mortgage rates peaked over 8%, making it much more difficult for many Americans to afford to buy a home.

Citing some of those concerns, The Center Square Voter’s Voice poll also found that 67% of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction, a tough statistic to overcome for the incumbent president. The poll also found the majority of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, which is consistently a top issue for voters of both parties.

The poll was conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights and surveyed 2,573 Americans from Jan. 2-4, roughly even number of Republicans and Democrats as well as 266 “true independents,” which are independents who indicated they do not lean toward either party. The poll has a margin of error of about 2%.

A panel of the 9th Circuit Court court struck down California’s ban on concealed carry permit users bringing their guns to many places outside the home, following an earlier federal district court’s injunction in December against the ban, then another 9th Circuit judge’s overturning of the injunction.

2023 bill SB 2 took effect on January 1 and banned concealed carry permit holders from bringing their certified firearms to most public places — even privately-owned commercial establishments open to the public unless its operator “clearly and conspicuously posts a sign” indicating license holders may carry their firearms on the property.

California concealed carry applicants undergo thorough background checks that include interviews, fingerprinting, reviews through multiple government databases, and pass a state-certified full-day handgun training program designed for concealed carry permit holders.

“Extremist judges have overturned CA's gun law and are insisting that guns be allowed at our playgrounds, libraries, and hospitals,” said California governor Newsom in a public statement. “This is exactly why we need to pass a US Constitutional Amendment that will put in place common sense reforms like: universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons, [and] raising the age to purchase a gun to 21.”

An injunction against the law was first issued in December by a district court judge who ruled “SB2 turns nearly every public place in California into a 'sensitive place,' effectively abolishing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding and exceptionally qualified citizens to be armed and to defend themselves in public.”

Notably, the lawsuit against SB 2 did not challenge and the injunction did not block “sensitive place” designations regarding school zones, preschools, state or local public buildings, airports, or legislative offices.

California attorney general Rob Bonta appealed against the injunction, first seeking an administrative stay against the district court’s injunction through the 9th Circuit Court, which was granted. An administrative stay typically serves as a “judicial pause” while a court takes time to consider the merits of a case in a more long-term ruling.

As successfully argued by the lawyers representing the concealed carry permit users in their stay appeal, administrative stays are typically used to “preserve the status quo pending a determination of the action on the merits” by serving as a judicial pause, and that the court’s stay was a departure from this legal precedent. With the dissolving of the administrative stay, SB 2’s challenged limitations on concealed carry are no longer in effect.

The 9th Circuit is set to hear arguments for the case in April.