By Brakkton Booker

Presented by the Brennan Center for Justice

With help from Ella Creamer, Marissa Martinez, Jesse Naranjo and Teresa Wiltz 

POLITICO illustration/Photo by AP

What up, Recast family! Sen. Cory Booker joins the chorus of lawmakers calling for his fellow New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez to resign, President Joe Biden travels to the Detroit area to join a picket line with striking auto workers and the federal government appears poised for a shutdown in mere days, barring some eleventh-hour compromise. First, we kick things off with a look at Wednesday’s second GOP presidential debate. 

The Republican National Committee announced the seven White House hopefuls who will Debate tomorrow night from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

• Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota
• Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey
• Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida
• Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley
• Former Vice President Mike Pence
• Tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy
• Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina

This group does not include former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas who is the only candidate not to qualify for the second debate after appearing in the first one last month. He’s missing out on this round after the RNC elevated the minimum polling and donor threshold used for the initial debate in Milwaukee.

It changes little for this collection of also-rans looking to emerge from Donald Trump’s ever-growing shadow.

So where does that leave the debate? And why bother to watch, particularly if you are over the novelty that the August debate was the first chance to see what the future of the GOP could look like in the post-Trump era?

“I think we absolutely should care,” Republican strategist Rina Shah tells The Recast, striking an upbeat tone about the debate.

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“This is the most diversity the Republican Party has ever seen. And not just ideological diversity, too,” she explains. “We [didn’t see] this kind of diversity in 2016, with age, experience and racial and ethnic makeup.”

Shah, who has been sharply critical of Trump, believes the debate still offers a glimpse of what the party has to offer when the former president eventually departs the national stage, whenever that is.

Republican 2024 presidential candidates listen to a prayer before the start of the first primary debate Aug. 23, 2023, in Milwaukee. | Morry Gash/AP Photo

So who benefits the most from another Trump absence?

“Vivek is the one to beat,” Shah declares, referring to the wealthy former biotech entrepreneur who has seen a bump in the national polls among Republican voters and in recent surveys in the two early GOP Voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Ramaswamy has elevated his campaign by staking out some outlandish — and unfeasible — positions, such as vowing to abolish the FBI and the Department of Education. And, as we have previously pointed out, he’s called for deporting the children of American-born children of undocumented immigrants, despite the constitutional guarantee of citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil.

Ramaswamy, in an interview with NBC News last week, revealed that only one of his Indian-born parents, his mother, is a U.S. citizen. His father is not. His mother took the U.S. citizenship test and completed the naturalization process after he was born in Cincinnati, contradicting his claims that both his parents took and passed the exam.

Despite — or perhaps because of — these inconsistencies, Ramaswamy will likely be the main draw for the debate. He’s expected to occupy center stage along with DeSantis, whose campaign’s central argument of being a more electable candidate than Trump appears to have receded.

“He’s certainly shown that he [belongs] on a national stage,” says Iowa-based GOP strategist Ryan Rhodes of Ramaswamy.

Ramaswamy speaks to fairgoers after appearing at event at the Iowa State Fair, Aug. 12, 2023, in Des Moines. | Jeff Roberson/AP Photo

Rhodes points out that Ramaswamy emerged as a formidable candidate following the first debate, surprising some with his strong performance and his ability to mix it up and fend off attacks from other candidates.

With that said, he does not expect the tomorrow’s debate to be the ratings juggernaut of the first debate, which snared nearly 13 million viewers, adding that the “novelty” of the August match likely won’t carry over to the second.

To be clear, Rhodes does plan to watch — but only because it’s happening tomorrow, and not another day this week.

“I mean, if Thursday Night Football was on, I’d DVR the debate,” Rhodes says.

He adds that nothing on the debate stage is going to cut into Trump’s 40-plus-point lead in the polls.

Well, Rhodes will watch… as will I, along with a team of POLITICO campaign reporters who will break down the action and offer insights and analysis tomorrow evening.

The debate, which will be carried on Fox Business, will be moderated by Fox News anchors Stuart Varney and Dana Perino and Ilia Calderón of Univision.

All the best,
The Recast Team

A message from the Brennan Center for Justice:

The freedom to vote is in jeopardy. State lawmakers have passed nearly one hundred restrictive voting laws in the decade since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. What’s left of the landmark civil rights law is not enough to fight race discrimination in voting. Every American should have the freedom to vote regardless of race: Congress must swiftly pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

BATTLEGROUND DETROIT

The president greets UAW President Shawn Fain and local lawmakers on Tuesday as he arrives at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Mich. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

We highlighted how the debate is perhaps the last real chance for any GOP candidate to claw their way into relevancy for a Republican electorate that remains enamored of the ex-POTUS. Trump knows that, of course, so he’ll also reprise his efforts to counterprogram it by being a well-publicized no-show.

The undisputed, unquestioned, unbothered frontrunner will again try to divert attention away from his wannabe rivals as he trains his focus on Detroit, where he is expected to deliver a primetime speech to auto workers.

Trump narrowly won Michigan with roughly 11,600 votes in 2016 only to see President Joe Biden flip the state back by a margin of 154,000 four years later.

Trump’s visit comes a day after Biden plans to picket with striking UAW auto workers from General Motors, Stellantis and Ford, who are calling for higher wages from three car giants.

"I marched a lot of UAW picket lines when I was a senator," Biden said through a bullhorn to a smattering of applause from assembled striking auto workers. "But I tell you what: It's the first time I've ever done it as a president."

The auto workers union and Ford Motors appear to be closer to reaching a deal with striking employees than the other manufacturers, though Reuters reports there remain “significant gaps to close" before an agreement can be finalized.

LATINO GOP VOTERS BACK TRUMP OVER OTHER CANDIDATES 

Trump arrives for a Latinos for Trump Coalition roundtable, Sept. 14, 2020, in Phoenix. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

A Univision poll released Monday shows Trump remains overwhelmingly the preferred GOP candidate among Latinos. However, in a head-to-head matchup with the current president, Biden wins.

POLITICO’s Marissa Martinez breaks down the findings.

The survey found that Biden enjoys a nearly 2-to-1 advantage over Trump among registered Latinos voters surveyed, with 58 percent backing the current commander in chief and 31 percent breaking for Trump.

Trump has little resistance from any of his other GOP competitors among the Latinos surveyed, where more than half of all Republican respondents said they’d cast a ballot for him in the primary. Note: Those who said they were undecided in a GOP primary (13 percent) actually edged out DeSantis (12 percent).

No other GOP candidate topped double digits in the survey.

It’s clear from the survey that Latinos, like most of the American electorate, view the economy as the chief concern, with 54 percent saying the high cost of living and inflation are the most important issues heading into the election.

“My personal opinion is that the economy is going to be an enormous factor here,” Republican pollster Daron Shaw says of the GOP potential to swing votes. “Looking beneath the hood a little bit, economic anxiety and the belief that the economy was better under Trump … that perception is kind of sticky.”

Mass shootings (30 percent), health care costs (27 percent) and climate change and extreme weather (21 percent) were also among the chief concerns.

On the issue of whether the country is heading in the wrong direction, 51 percent said it is, compared to 26 percent who said it is heading in the right direction.

Independent Latino voters remain a key demographic for both parties, a share that has grown over the last few election cycles, according to those who conducted the survey. More than a third of those surveyed, 36 percent, said both Republicans and Democrats were to blame for the direction the nation was headed.

The poll surveyed 1,401 Latino registered voters in English and Spanish, including 759 Republicans, with a margin of error of +/- 2.6 points (and +/- 3.6 points for the Republican sample). This constitutes one of the largest samplings of GOP Latinos ever, poll runners said during a press call.

ICYMI @ POLITICO

POLITICO illustration/Photos by Getty Images, AP

Where the Candidates Stand — We’ve already previewed the GOP debate, but get caught up with where the candidates stand on key issues from abortion to Ukraine to education here.

The Younger Menendez — While Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) continues to defy calls to resign, his son, Rep. Rob Menendez (D-N.J.), is vowing to seek another term. More from POLITICO’s Daniel Han. 

Can’t Get Enough Debates — The war of words between DeSantis, a Republican, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, will take place in November… in Georgia of all places. POLITICO’s Kierra Frazier breaks it down.

A message from the Brennan Center for Justice:

THE RECAST RECOMMENDS

In “Land of Milk and Honey” by C Pam Zhang, a chef escapes the smog-cloaked city for a mountaintop “research community” that turns out to be an elite colony for the super rich.

“Law & Order”’s Jesse L. Martin is a psychology professor who helps crack FBI cases in “The Irrational,” streaming today on Peacock.

In “Un Preview,” Bad Bunny swaps his Rolls-Royce for a mechanical horse as he falls in love with a vaquera (a cowgirl).

Kery James, Jammeh Diangana and Bakary Diombera are back playing three brothers in Netflix’s “Street Flow 2.” The Traoré trio fight for a better future in suburban Paris.

The Black Eyed Peas’ latest MV, “Guarantee,” is set in a futuristic, metallic parallel universe.

TikTok of the Day: Manifesting

A message from the Brennan Center for Justice:

The freedom to vote is in jeopardy. This year marks a decade since the disastrous Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Since then, state lawmakers have passed nearly a hundred restrictive voting laws. Racially discriminatory maps have been implemented across the country and racial turnout gaps have increased as a result. What’s left of the Voting Rights Act is not enough to fight race discrimination in voting. Every American should have the freedom to vote regardless of race. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would protect voters from discrimination and strengthen our democracy. A supermajority of voters support the bill and expect action. Congress must swiftly pass the John Lewis Act.

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