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Monday, February 23, 2026

Tag: 2024

haley desantis
September 5, 2023
William Upton
News
Politics

POLL: Haley Ties DeSantis in New Hampshire.

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is now tied with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for second place in New Hampshire’s 2024 Republican presidential primary, according to an 8000-likely New Hampshire voter survey conducted by NMB Research between August 25th and 31st. The data has a margin of error of 3.46 percent.

The poll also shows former President Donald Trump maintaining a commanding lead in the critical primary state with 47 percent support amongst likely Republican voters. Haley and DeSantis both poll at just 10 percent.

The New Hampshire poll echoes recent trends showing former President Donald Trump with a near insurmountable lead over the Republican primary field. A recent Wall Street Journal poll indicated Trump was the top choice for nearly 60 percent of the GOP electorate. The same data found that 73 percent believe that President Joe Biden, 80, is too old to run for re-election. Only 47 percent of voters see Donald Trump, 77, as too old.

The NMB Research offers little in the way of good news for DeSantis, showing no movement for the candidate following the first Republican presidential primary debate at the end of August.

Ed Rollins, who until recently co-chaired the pro-DeSantis ‘Ready for Ron’ SuperPAC, has admitted that Donald Trump is “undefeatable” at this point – citing the former President’s solid political base that has only grown stronger over the course of Biden’s political witch-hunt against him.

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Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is now tied with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for second place in New Hampshire's 2024 Republican presidential primary, according to an 8000-likely New Hampshire voter survey conducted by NMB Research between August 25th and 31st. The data has a margin of error of 3.46 percent. show more

Editor’s Notes

Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.

RAHEEM J. KASSAM Editor-in-Chief
No momentum for DeSantis, either nationally or in critical primary states, is confirmation if you needed it that the DeSantis camp’s bluster of how he “won” the first debate was a total nonsense
for exclusive members-only insights
No momentum for DeSantis, either nationally or in critical primary states, is confirmation if you needed it that the DeSantis camp’s bluster of how he “won” the first debate was a total nonsense show more
for exclusive members-only insights
jeff roe
September 1, 2023
William Upton
News
Politics

DeSantis Chief Demands $50M from Donors, Admits 60 Days Left to Stop Trump.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign is betting the farm on winning the 2024 Iowa Caucuses, according to leaked audio from a meeting between the leadership of pro-DeSantis SuperPAC Never Back Down and donors held just before the first Republican primary debate.

Jeff Roe, DeSantis’s Never Back Down PAC chief strategist, also admitted to donors the campaign has just 60 days to defeat former President Donald Trump and that the SuperPAC would need an additional $50 million before the second Republican primary debate on September 27th.

Never Back Down has also halted its paid door-knocking efforts in Super Tuesday primary states, as well as in the critical early state of Nevada. The SuperPAC’s cost cutting moves come as it shifts resources into Iowa – including a nearly $12 million ad-buy announced earlier this week.

Roe told donors: “If you have an education, if you have higher income, if you read the Bible and if you go to church regularly, you happen to be a DeSantis supporter.”

What the DeSantis campaign considers to be a ‘likely DeSantis supporter’ might explain why the Florida Governor has failed to gain traction in polling and trails former President Donald Trump by double digits in most state primary contests. According to the Pew Research Center the majority of American Catholics and Evangelical Protestants earn less than $50,000 per year. Mainline Protestants are early evenly split with with 49 percent estimated to earn less than $50,000 and 51 percent earning more. Only Mormons and Eastern Orthodox Christians have populations with sizable majority earning over $50,000. As far as education, the Pew data indicates well over 40 percent of Catholics and Evangelical Protestants have only a high school education or less – and nearly 40 percent of Mainline Protestants.

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's presidential campaign is betting the farm on winning the 2024 Iowa Caucuses, according to leaked audio from a meeting between the leadership of pro-DeSantis SuperPAC Never Back Down and donors held just before the first Republican primary debate. show more
desantis
September 1, 2023
William Upton
Health
News
Politics

COVID Restrictions Return… In DeSantis’s Florida!?

COVID-19 pandemic era restrictions appear to be returning in Florida, with the Palm Beach Gardens High School, part of the Palm Beach County school district, announcing its Friday night football game against Vero Beach is postponed until September 6th “out of an abundance of caution.”

The news comes shortly after the Florida Governor took aim at former President Donald J. Trump in absentia, for his pandemic handling from the Milwaukee GOP debate stage.

DeSantis has made his response to the COVID-19 pandemic a cornerstone of his campaign’s message to voters, expressing staunch opposition to new lockdowns, school closures, mask requirements, and vaccine mandates. During debate, he said: “It should have never happened. And in Florida, we led the country out of lockdown, kept our state free and open.”

In 2022, DeSantis pushed back against Florida school districts that sought to reinstate mask mandates and closures during outbreaks of COVID-19, telling the press at the time: “Our schools will be open in the state of Florida… If you’re healthy, you need to be in school.”

Despite his bravado, the latest news from Palm Beach Gardens High School suggests that DeSantis’s fight against pandemic restrictions has been less successful than advertised. The National Pulse previously reported that Governor DeSantis failed to fire his state’s very own Dr. Fauci, Palm Beach County Department of Health director Dr. Alina Alonso.

Dr. Alonso, known as “the face of the COVID-19 pandemic in Palm Beach County,” was given free rein during the COVID pandemic to enforce arbitrary restrictions upon millions of Floridians, including the implementation of mask mandates, establishment of a COVID hotline for lockdown snitches, and even creating an armed COVID compliance police force. In 2023, Dr. Alonso retired, stating her replacement Dr. Jyothi Gunta, “will make a great new director.”

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COVID-19 pandemic era restrictions appear to be returning in Florida, with the Palm Beach Gardens High School, part of the Palm Beach County school district, announcing its Friday night football game against Vero Beach is postponed until September 6th "out of an abundance of caution." show more
trump
August 31, 2023
William Upton
News
Politics

Trump: We Have ‘No Choice’ But to Prosecute Top Democrats, Post 2024.

Former President Donald Trump says he would have “no choice” but to prosecute his political opponents if he retakes the White House in 2024, “…because they’re doing it to us,” adding that his respect for the office of the president may have caused him to underestimate Biden’s role in the weaponized partisan prosecutions against him.

“I never hit Biden as hard as I could have. And then I heard he was trying to indict me and it was him that was doing it,” Trump said in an interview with leading 2016 Never Trump activist Glenn Beck.

Retribution against America’s enemies, both foreign and domestic, has become a central theme for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. In a speech to thousands of conservative activists earlier this year, the former President pledged to end the influence of the Deep State in Washington, D.C, stating:

If you put me back in White House, their reign is over. In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice.’ Today I add, I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.

The Trump campaign’s Agenda47 policy platform includes detailed plans on how President Trump would tackle rogue federal employees and the Deep State. On day one, the former President says he would re-issue his 2020 “Schedule F” executive order that would allow him to more easily fire “rogue bureaucrats” working in sensitive policy areas. Trump also pledged that his administration would establish a “…Truth and Reconciliation Commission to declassify and publish all documents on Deep State spying, censorship, and abuses of power,” and relocate 100,000 federal government jobs away from Washington, D.C.

Reforming the Department of Justice (DOJ) would be a priority if Trump wins the 2024 presidential election. Plans are already underway to establish a new DOJ office dedicated to ensuring election integrity. It is also expected that the Trump White House pursue the appointment of several DOJ special counsels to investigate President Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings, as well as President Biden’s role in DOJ special prosecutor Jack Smith’s witch-hunt against Trump.

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Former President Donald Trump says he would have "no choice" but to prosecute his political opponents if he retakes the White House in 2024, "...because they’re doing it to us," adding that his respect for the office of the president may have caused him to underestimate Biden's role in the weaponized partisan prosecutions against him. show more
christina pushaw
August 30, 2023
William Upton
News
Politics

WATCH: DeSantis Comms Chief Christina Pushaw Caught Doing Yoga During Hurricane, Runs from Camera.

Christina Pushaw – the pro-Ukraine, immigration amnesty “Rapid Response Director” for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s 2024 presidential campaign – ran away on camera when confronted by activist Grant Stern in Miami, Florida, who also caught her appearing to get home from a yoga class just as a major storm was making landfall on the Sunshine State.

Stern quizzed Pushaw, 32, about rumors that DeSantis plans to drop out of the presidential primary. Instead of simply answering, Pushaw – by now a public figure –abruptly retreated back into the building she had just exited, clutching her yoga mat.

The National Pulse previously reported on the rumor that DeSantis – whose campaign has struggled to gain any traction against former President Donald Trump – was considering dropping out of the 2024 Republican presidential primary to instead challenge Florida’s incumbent Republican Senator Rick Scott. DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin called the rumor “fake news.”

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Christina Pushaw – the pro-Ukraine, immigration amnesty "Rapid Response Director" for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's 2024 presidential campaign – ran away on camera when confronted by activist Grant Stern in Miami, Florida, who also caught her appearing to get home from a yoga class just as a major storm was making landfall on the Sunshine State. show more

Editor’s Notes

Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.

RAHEEM J. KASSAM Editor-in-Chief
It’s not really the rapid response you’d expect from a rapid response director
for exclusive members-only insights
It’s not really the rapid response you’d expect from a rapid response director show more
for exclusive members-only insights
assassinating trump
August 30, 2023
William Upton
Culture
News
Politics

Tucker: Democrats Are ‘Speeding Towards Assassinating’ Trump.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said the escalating partisan attacks on former President Trump have left him believing that Democrats are “speeding towards assassination” as a final resort to stop the Republican presidential frontrunner from retaking the White House.

Carlson laid out, during an interview with Adam Carolla, his logic regarding the escalating political conflict between Democrats and Trump:

They protested him. They called him names. He won anyway. They impeached him, twice, on ridiculous pretenses. They fabricated a lot about what happened on January 6th in order to impeach him again. It didn’t work. He came back, then they indicted him. It didn’t work, he became more popular. Then they indicted him three more times. And every single time his popularity rose. So if you begin with criticism, then you go to protest, then you go to impeachment, now you go to indictment – and none of them work, what’s next? I mean, graph it out man. We’re speeding towards assassination, obviously. And no one will say that but I don’t know how you can’t reach that conclusion.

This isn’t the first time that Carlson has broached the possibility that Democrats might foment violence against former President Trump. While the other 2024 Republican presidential candidates debated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on August 23rd, Trump sat down for an interview with Carlson.

The former Fox News host pointedly asked Trump about the possibility of Left-wing inspired assassination plot against him, “Are you worried they’re going to try and kill you? Why wouldn’t they try and kill you?” Trump responded calling his persecutors “…savage animals, they’re people that are sick…” adding, “I’ve seen the lengths that they go to… I think they hate our country.”

Trump brushed off the concern for his life – emphasizing that not all of his partisan opponents are bad people – telling Tucker: “You have great people in the Democrat Party, you have great people that are Democrats. Most of the people in our country are fantastic and I’m representing everybody. Not just Republicans or conservatives. I represent everybody, I’m the president of everybody.

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Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said the escalating partisan attacks on former President Trump have left him believing that Democrats are "speeding towards assassination" as a final resort to stop the Republican presidential frontrunner from retaking the White House. show more

Editor’s Notes

Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.

RAHEEM J. KASSAM Editor-in-Chief
I keep thinking about this, too
for exclusive members-only insights
I keep thinking about this, too show more
for exclusive members-only insights
black voters
August 29, 2023
William Upton
News

Biden Panics Over Black Voter Support. And With Good Reason.

President Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign is facing declining support amongst black voters, amidst growing indications that his likely opponent, former President Donald Trump, is gaining momentum with the same demographic.

Two recent polls from Quinnipiac and Fox News show a significant increase in black support for former President Trump in a 2024 rematch with Biden – with the former President garnering 20 percent compared to just 8 percent in 2020. The Quinnipiac poll also indicates that over a third of the Black electorate – 35 percent – has an unfavorable opinion of President Joe Biden.

These recent polls are reinforcing a fear in the Biden campaign that the President is facing declining enthusiasm among one of his core voter demographics. Biden’s failure to deliver on his 2020 campaign promises has forced Democrats to abandon positive messaging and instead focus on trying to place blame for policy failures on Republicans as well as stoke fear about the future of ‘democracy’.

Appearing at a recent town hall hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus, Vice-President Kamala Harris told attendees, “We are looking at a full-on attack on our hard-fought, hard-won freedoms.” Regarding the 2024 election, Harris added, “So much is at stake, including our very democracy.”

The Biden campaign co-chair, Cedric Richmond, believes the campaign needs to pin much of the President’s policy failures on the U.S. Supreme Court, “It’s the court that just rolled back equity, and we’re going to point to it.” Richmond was referring to the  Court’s recent decisions striking down Biden’s student loan forgiveness program and the landmark ruling against affirmative action.

As for Joe Biden himself, it would seem the President intends to continue to campaign on the state of the U.S. economy, embracing the term ‘Bidenomics.’

Writing in the Washington Post on the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington, Biden stated, “Our plan — Bidenomics — is working…we’re advancing equity in everything we do making unprecedented investments in all of America, including for Black Americans.” According to the Quinnipiac poll, nearly 40 percent of Black voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy.

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President Joe Biden's 2024 re-election campaign is facing declining support amongst black voters, amidst growing indications that his likely opponent, former President Donald Trump, is gaining momentum with the same demographic. show more
vivek eminem
August 28, 2023
William Upton
Culture
News
Politics

Eminem Cries to Lawyers Because Vivek Performs His Songs for Fun.

Republican presidential candidate and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy received a cease and desist letter from rapper Eminem, who is demanding that Ramaswamy stop performing his songs on the campaign trail.

Acting through his music’s license holder, BMI, Eminem informed Ramaswamy campaign lawyers that he is “…objecting to the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign’s use of [his] musical compositions (the “Eminem Works”) and requesting that BMI remove all Eminem Works from the Agreement.”

Ramaswamy, a 2024 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, made a media splash when he performed Eminem’s hit song “Lose Yourself” during an event at the Iowa State Fair hosted by Governor Kim Reynolds.

Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, is no stranger to legal controversies over his nearly 30-year career. In June of 2000 the rapper was slapped with weapons charges after pulling an unloaded gun on an employee of the rival music group, Insane Clown Posse. In July of 2000 he was sued by his now ex-wife Kimberly ‘Kim’ Anne Scott for defamation after he graphically described her attempted suicide in the song entitled “Kim.”

The United States Secret Service has twice investigated Eminem for threatening Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump in his music. In 2016, the rapper released a free-style rap entitled “Campaign Speech” that was highly critical of Donald Trump and in 2020 he authorized the Biden campaign to use “Lose Yourself” – the same song performed by Ramaswamy in Iowa – in a campaign video.

Eminem was once known for railing against the establishment, and censoriousness. That, however, was twenty years and several hundred million dollars ago.

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Republican presidential candidate and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy received a cease and desist letter from rapper Eminem, who is demanding that Ramaswamy stop performing his songs on the campaign trail. show more

Editor’s Notes

Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.

RAHEEM J. KASSAM Editor-in-Chief
Eminem showed us that he fell off when he lost his rap battle to a non-rapper, MGK, to be honest
for exclusive members-only insights
Eminem showed us that he fell off when he lost his rap battle to a non-rapper, MGK, to be honest show more
for exclusive members-only insights
desantis scott
August 28, 2023
William Upton
News
Politics

Trump: DeSantis May Drop Out, Run for Senate.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis may drop “out of the Presidential race in order to run, in Florida, against Rick Scott for Senate,” according to a new post from former President Trump. The “rumor” has been called “fake news” by DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin, who himself is accused of running a number of anonymous pro-DeSantis accounts on X (formerly Twitter).

Polling following the first Republican presidential debate held last week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin has shown little movement among the candidates, with former President Trump continuing to hold a commanding lead – despite declining to participate in the debate. At least one betting odds bookmaker, however, now believes tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy – instead of DeSantis – is the favorite for second place in the Republican primary following his debate performance.

Florida Senator Rick Scott may be vulnerable to a primary challenge from someone like Governor DeSantis. Some of his Republican colleagues in the Senate at least partially blame the Scott’s management of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and its finances for the Republican failure to retake the U.S. Senate during the 2022 mid-term elections. Scott also attempted a failed leadership coup against Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell at the end of last year.

Former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Florida Democrat, has announced her intention to challenge Scott for the U.S. Senate in the 2024 general election.

Rick Scott was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018, after serving for two terms as the Governor of Florida. According to Morning Consult, Scott holds a 72 percent approval rating among Florida Republicans – with 38 percent strongly approving of his job performance, and 34 percent saying they ‘somewhat approve.’

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis may drop "out of the Presidential race in order to run, in Florida, against Rick Scott for Senate," according to a new post from former President Trump. The "rumor" has been called "fake news" by DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin, who himself is accused of running a number of anonymous pro-DeSantis accounts on X (formerly Twitter). show more
August 27, 2023
News

Republican Debate Ratings Couldn’t Compare With 2016.

Roughly 12.8 million people tuned in to watch the first Republican primary debate on Fox News, Wednesday night – in line with expectations for the first debate of the 2024 presidential cycle. However, viewership fell far short of the 24 million people who watched the comparable debate eight years ago.

The debate, held in Milwaukee, saw frequent clashes between newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy and the other presidential hopefuls, particularly former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Despite its lower ratings, Fox News claimed that the debate was the most-watched non-sports cable broadcast of the year.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner with a commanding poll lead, did not participate in the debate but instead had a pre-taped Twitter interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which had earned well over 250 million views as of the time of publication.

In an interview prior to the Fox News debate, co-moderator Bret Baier acknowledged that Trump’s presence may have boosted viewership.

Trump’s absence has impacted Fox News before, as his withdrawal from a Fox-hosted debate in 2016 resulted in lower viewership compared to the first debate of that cycle.

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Roughly 12.8 million people tuned in to watch the first Republican primary debate on Fox News, Wednesday night – in line with expectations for the first debate of the 2024 presidential cycle. However, viewership fell far short of the 24 million people who watched the comparable debate eight years ago. show more