Politics
Early polls show Biden, Dems face uphill fight
President losing support among Latino, Black, young voters

With the holidays behind us and the Iowa caucuses less than two weeks away, the nation’s attention is turning toward this year’s presidential election as new polls suggest President Biden and the Democrats face uphill battles to victory.
On the heels of the new numbers, top Biden-Harris reelection campaign officials hosted a press call on Tuesday to preview some steps they will take as part of what Campaign Manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez called an “aggressive push in early 2024 to mobilize the winning coalition that will reelect” the president and vice president.
According to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released Monday, the president is, as Fox News wrote, “hemorrhaging support from Black, Hispanic and young voters.” Among those first two groups, compared with data from 2020 captured by Pew Research, the poll showed Biden’s support down a respective 29 and 25 percentage points.
Among voters younger than 35, meanwhile, the data showed him trailing former President Donald Trump by four points. The younger demographic was instrumental in delivering him the White House in 2020.
The findings come with important caveats. For example, to the extent that support for Biden has eroded, the numbers suggest a greater embrace of third-party candidates rather than movement in the direction of Trump.
However, 44 percent of Trump voters ranked their enthusiasm for his candidacy at a 10 out of 10, versus just 18 percent of Biden supporters.
A survey released by Gallup at the end of December found Biden’s approval rating hovering around 39 percent.
Gallup notes that former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump had slightly higher ratings heading into the year they sought reelection, 43 and 45 percent, respectively, while all of the other past seven presidents were above 50 percent at this point in their tenures.
Another survey, which was released on Monday by The Washington Post/University of Maryland, found that one-third of U.S. adults believe that Biden was not legitimately elected president of the United States in 2020.
The survey was meant to explore evolving views about the deadly ransacking of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. On that topic, opinion is moving “in a more sympathetic direction to Trump and those who stormed the Capitol” according to the Post.
At the same time, the paper wrote, “most Americans have not bought into that revised version of events” and Jan. 6 remains a political liability for the former president heading into 2024. For example, most Republicans said they believe punishments for those who breached the Capitol were either “fair” (37 percent) or “not harsh enough” (17 percent).
As they gear up for the months ahead, it looks like the Biden campaign is betting that Jan. 6 will be a sticking point for voters, and an illustration of the contrast between the candidates’ visions for America.
Biden campaign focusing on the contrast
“On election day in 2020, Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by more than 7 million votes and got more votes than any presidential candidate in history,” Chávez Rodriguez said. “On Jan. 6 2021, we witnessed a very different vision of America — one defined by revenge, retribution, and a rebuke of our very democracy.”
“When Joe Biden ran for president four years ago, he said we are in the battle for the soul of America,” she said. “And as we look towards November 2024, we still are. The threat Donald Trump posed in 2020 to American democracy has only grown more dire in the years since. There’s less than two weeks until GOP primary voters began casting ballots in Iowa and former President Donald Trump’s extreme and dangerous MAGA agenda continues to define the Republican Party.”
“The choice for voters next year will not simply be between competing philosophies of governing,” Chávez Rodriguez said. “The choice for the American people in November 2024 will be about protecting our democracy and every American’s fundamental freedoms.”
The campaign’s Communications Director Michael Tyler later told reporters, “If reelected, Donald Trump will use all of his power to systematically dismantle and destroy our democracy.”
“He wants to end free and fair elections altogether, is promising to rule as a dictator and use the government to exact retribution on his political enemies, all while he and his MAGA supporters encourage and applaud political violence across the country,” Tyler said.
He noted the Post’s poll about Jan. 6, highlighting that respondents said the insurrection was an attack on democracy that should never be forgotten, and an event for which Trump bore responsibility.
Biden team outlines early 2024 plans
“The threat that Donald Trump posed in 2020 to American democracy has grown even more dangerous than it was when President Biden ran last time,” Principal Deputy Campaign Manager Quentin Fulks said during the call. “That’s why we’re hitting the ground early. We’re running hard this year to bring the message directly to voters who will decide this election.”
This will begin, Fulks said, with an address by Biden on Saturday, Jan. 6 near Valley Forge, Pa., a historic site with important ties to the American Revolution. “There, the president will make the case directly that democracy and freedom — two powerful ideas that united the 13 colonies and that generations throughout our nation’s history have fought and died for, a stone’s throw from where he’ll be on Saturday — remains central to the fight we’re in today.”
Biden will then head to South Carolina on Jan. 8, for a visit to Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, Fulks said, the site where a white supremacist murdered nine Black churchgoers in 2015.
He said Vice President Kamala Harris will also be in Charleston on Saturday for an appearance at the 7th Episcopal District AME Church Women’s Missionary Society annual retreat to discuss the attacks on freedoms in states across the country.
“And on the anniversary of Roe v Wade later this month on Jan. 22, Vice President Harris will kick off her official reproductive freedoms tour in Wisconsin,” Fulks said, “where she’ll highlight the chaos and cruelty created by Trump all across the country when it comes to women’s health care.”
Harris will be joined “in full force,” he said, by “the entirety of our campaign” on that anniversary.
“The rest of 2024 will be no different as we will continue scaling up our operation and taking our message to the American people,” Fulks said. “We’re entering the election year with significant resources thanks to a historic 2023 fundraising operation, including a strong Q4 powered by consistent and stronger than expected grassroots support.”
Fulks said this will mean expanding programs across states, hiring leadership teams “in every battleground state,” and dedicating thousands of staff to “talking to our voters early and often” while implementing new organizing efforts.
Finally, he said, “we’re going to continue to scale up our paid media program including a new paid media investment we will announce ahead of the president’s speech near Valley Forge on Saturday.”
Congress
Top Congressional Democrats reintroduce Equality Act on Trump’s 100th day in office
Legislation would codify federal LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination protections

In a unified display of support for LGBTQ rights on President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, congressional Democrats, including leadership from the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, reintroduced the Equality Act on Tuesday.
The legislation, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, codifying these protections into federal law in areas from jury service to housing and employment, faces an unlikely path to passage amid Republican control of both chambers of Congress along with the White House.
Speaking at a press conference on the grass across the drive from the Senate steps were Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.), U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), who is the first out LGBTQ U.S. Senator, U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (Calif.), who is gay and chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (N.H.), who is gay and is running for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.).
Also in attendance were U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (Del.), who is the first transgender member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (Nev.), U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (Ill.), and representatives from LGBTQ advocacy groups including the Human Rights Campaign and Advocates 4 Trans Equality.
Responding to a question from the Washington Blade on the decision to reintroduce the bill as Trump marks the hundredth day of his second term, Takano said, “I don’t know that there was a conscious decision,” but “it’s a beautiful day to stand up for equality. And, you know, I think the president is clearly hitting a wall that Americans are saying, many Americans are saying, ‘we didn’t vote for this.'”
A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Sunday showed Trump’s approval rating in decline amid signs of major opposition to his agenda.
“Many Americans never voted for this, but many Americans, I mean, it’s a great day to remind them what is in the core of what is the right side of history, a more perfect union. This is the march for a more perfect union. That’s what most Americans believe in. And it’s a great day on this 100th day to remind our administration what the right side of history is.”
Merkley, when asked about the prospect of getting enough Republicans on board with the Equality Act to pass the measure, noted that, “If you can be against discrimination in employment, you can be against discrimination in financial contracts, you can be against discrimination in mortgages, in jury duty, you can be against discrimination in public accommodations and housing, and so we’re going to continue to remind our colleagues that discrimination is wrong.”
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which was sponsored by Merkley, was passed by the Senate in 2013 but languished in the House. The bill was ultimately broadened to become the Equality Act.
“As Speaker Nancy Pelosi has always taught me,” Takano added, “public sentiment is everything. Now is the moment to bring greater understanding and greater momentum, because, really, the Congress is a reflection of the people.”
“While we’re in a different place right this minute” compared to 2019 and 2021 when the Equality Act was passed by the House, Pelosi said she believes “there is an opportunity for corporate America to weigh in” and lobby the Senate to convince members of the need to enshrine federal anti-discrimination protections into law “so that people can fully participate.”
Politics
George Santos sentenced to 87 months in prison for fraud case
Judge: ‘You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.’

Disgraced former Republican congressman George Santos was sentenced to 87 months in prison on Friday, after pleading guilty last year to federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
“Mr. Santos, words have consequences,” said Judge Joanna Seybert of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.”
The first openly gay GOP member of Congress, Santos became a laughing stock after revelations came to light about his extensive history of fabricating and exaggerating details about his life and career.
His colleagues voted in December 2023 to expel him from Congress. An investigation by the U.S. House Ethics Committee found that Santos had used pilfered campaign funds for cosmetic procedures, designer fashion, and OnlyFans.
Federal prosecutors, however, found evidence that “Mr. Santos stole from donors, used his campaign account for personal purchases, inflated his fund-raising numbers, lied about his wealth on congressional documents and committed unemployment fraud,” per the New York Times.
The former congressman told the paper this week that he would not ask for a pardon. Despite Santos’s loyalty to President Donald Trump, the president has made no indication that he would intervene in his legal troubles.
Congress
Democratic lawmakers travel to El Salvador, demand information about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker
Congressman Robert Garcia led delegation

California Congressman Robert Garcia on Tuesday said the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador has agreed to ask the Salvadoran government about the well-being of a gay asylum seeker from Venezuela who remains incarcerated in the Central American country.
The Trump-Vance administration last month “forcibly removed” Andry Hernández Romero, a stylist who asked for asylum because of persecution he suffered because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs, and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.” President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.”
Garcia told the Washington Blade that he and three other lawmakers — U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) — met with U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan and embassy staffers in San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital.
“His lawyers haven’t heard from him since he was abducted during his asylum process,” said Garcia.
The gay California Democrat noted the embassy agreed to ask the Salvadoran government to “see how he (Hernández) is doing and to make sure he’s alive.”
“That’s important,” said Garcia. “They’ve agreed to that … we’re hopeful that we get some word, and that will be very comforting to his family and of course to his legal team.”

Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari traveled to El Salvador days after House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) denied their request to use committee funds for their trip.
“We went anyways,” said Garcia. “We’re not going to be intimidated by that.”
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on April 14 met with Trump at the White House. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) three days later sat down with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador on March 15.
Abrego was sent to the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. The Trump-Vance administration continues to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered it to “facilitate” Abrego’s return to the U.S.
Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari in a letter they sent a letter to Duncan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday demanded “access to” Hernández, who they note “may be imprisoned at” CECOT. A State Department spokesperson referred the Blade to the Salvadoran government in response to questions about “detainees” in the country.
Garcia said the majority of those in CECOT who the White House deported to El Salvador do not have criminal records.
“They can say what they want, but if they’re not presenting evidence, if a judge isn’t sending people, and these people have their due process, I just don’t understand how we have a country without due process,” he told the Blade. “It’s just the bedrock of our democracy.”

Garcia said he and Frost, Dexter, and Ansari spoke with embassy staff, Salvadoran journalists and human rights activists and “anyone else who would listen” about Hernández. The California Democrat noted he and his colleagues also highlighted Abrego’s case.
“He (Hernández) was accepted for his asylum claim,” said Garcia. “He (Hernández) signed up for the asylum process on an app that we created for this very purpose, and then you get snatched up and taken to a foreign prison. It is unacceptable and inhumane and cruel and so it’s important that we elevate his story and his case.”
The Blade asked Garcia why the Trump-Vance administration is deporting people to El Salvador without due process.
“I honestly believe that he (Trump) is a master of dehumanizing people, and he wants to continue his horrendous campaign to dehumanize migrants and scare the American public and lie to the American public,” said Garcia.
The State Department spokesperson in response to the Blade’s request for comment referenced spokesperson Tammy Bruce’s comments about Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador.
“These Congressional representatives would be better off focused on their own districts,” said the spokesperson. “Instead, they are concerned about non-U.S. citizens.”
-
Books4 days ago
Chronicling disastrous effects of ‘conversion therapy’
-
U.S. Federal Courts4 days ago
Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
-
Opinions4 days ago
We must show up to WorldPride 2025 in D.C.
-
District of Columbia4 days ago
Ruby Corado sentencing postponed for third time