If you missed it when it happened, here’s the Guardian’s Joanna Walters with the news that Mike Pence, Donald Trump’s former vice-president, had decided to end his ailing presidential campaign, further winnowing the Republican field:
Mike Pence, the former vice-president under Donald Trump, has suspended his campaign to become the Republican nominee for president in the 2024 election.
Pence announced at an event held by the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas on Saturday that he was dropping out of the race, in which he has been lagging, along with others, far behind frontrunner Trump.
“I came here to say it’s become clear to me this is not my time, so after much prayer and deliberation I have decided to suspend my campaign for president, effective today,” Pence said.
Pence, 64 and the former governor of his home state of Indiana, after representing it as one of its congressman, had been leading a struggling campaign for a while. He had not yet qualified for the third GOP debate on 8 November, falling short on required donations.
But his announcement on Saturday during an event attended by other prominent candidates for the party’s nomination next year, including Trump and Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, came as a surprise to most.
Donald Trump has led almost every poll of the Republican presidential field for months, and a new survey released today of Iowa, the first state to vote in the party’s nomination process, shows that has not changed:
New NBC/Des Moines Register/Mediacom IA GOP caucus poll (conducted 10/22-26):
Trump 43% (+1% from August poll) DeSantis 16% (-3%) Haley 16% (+10%) Scott 7% (-2% Christie 4% (-1%) Ramaswamy 4% (—) Burgum 3% (+1%) Hutchinson 1% (+1)
The poll was taken before Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice-president turned foe, dropped out this weekend, and shows the depth of the devotion to the ex-president’s cause:
63% of Trump supporters say their minds are already made up and they'll definitely back him, suggesting a depth of support we just haven't seen before. The last GOP candidate w/ a lead this size at this point -G.W. Bush in late '99- had "definite" numbers 20-30 points below this.
At the start of the year, it seemed as though Florida governor Ron DeSantis would mount a strong challenge to Trump for the nomination, but his campaign has struggled to gain traction in recent months, and NBC’s survey shows his weak popularity ebbing further. That said, he has somehow managed to be the most well-liked candidate, even if most respondents plan to vote for Trump:
Despite his failure to move up overall, DeSantis remains *very* popular w/ IA GOP voters - the most-liked, in fact. Favorable/unfavorable scores:
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Donald Trump is steaming ahead with his presidential run despite all the obstacles in front of him, particularly the four criminal indictments he is facing. But if liberal groups have their way, the former president will soon have another legal headache to deal with. This week, judges in two states will consider lawsuits to bar him from ballots for violating the constitution’s insurrection clause by trying to overturn the 2020 election and sparking the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, according to the Associated Press. Proceedings begin today in Colorado, and a judge will start hearing arguments Thursday in Minnesota.
It seems likely these suits will in some form make their way up to the supreme court, which is dominated by six conservative justices, half of whom were appointed by Trump. It’s unclear what will happen then, and we are unlikely to find out anytime soon, but it is possible these cases could become yet another source of legal peril for the former president.
Here’s what else we are watching today:
Joe Biden will at 2.30pm eastern time hold an event dedicated “to advancing the safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of Artificial Intelligence”. After that, he will be hosting trick-or-treaters at the White House.
Kamala Harris’s office is heavily promoting her interview with CBS News’s 60 Minutes on Sunday evening, saying it demonstrates her “invaluable” leadership. You can watch it for yourself here.
War continues in the Gaza Strip, and you can follow our live blog for the latest developments.