| | | | |  | | By Melina Khan | | | |  Former Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen greet supporters during a visit to a Pizza Ranch restaurant on June 8 in Waukee, Iowa. | Scott Olson/Getty Images | SO YOU’RE SAYING THERE’S A CHANCE — It’s been an eventful month for former Vice President Mike Pence. He hired a campaign manager and formally launched his presidential campaign. A Pence-aligned PAC ran its first ad not long after, and its executive director told donors in a memo Tuesday that after just five weeks of being in the field, its canvassers have knocked on over 120,000 doors in Iowa and collected over 20,000 data points. Last week, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, Pence called for a nationwide 15-week abortion ban as “a minimum nationwide standard,” underscoring a key difference with his former boss, former President Donald Trump. Despite all that, there’s a consensus view that he has been slow to gain traction in Iowa and South Carolina, the two essential early states for him due to their high percentages of evangelical voters. Pence, the thinking goes, is already buried before the campaign has even started because he’s spinning his wheels with Christian conservatives. But what if that view was wrong? What if Pence is stronger with evangelicals than he’s given credit for? After all, his comfort level with Christian conservatives was the major reason that former President Donald Trump chose him as his running mate in the first place. The limited polling that is setting conventional wisdom in those states so far isn’t exactly independent — it’s mostly from outfits with connections to other campaigns. The Iowa polling done by Committed to America, the Pence-affiliated PAC, tells a different story. According to their data, Pence is in second-place in Iowa with 19 percent, trailing only Trump. Whether you believe it or not, it’s not an outlandish finding in a state where Pence has spent so much of his time campaigning. He’s kept a steady presence in the pages of the Des Moines Register. He’s a born-again Christian who’s in line with every major issue that is important to evangelicals. He even knows many of the pastors of Iowa evangelical churches. Pence speaks to the evangelicals better than anyone in the field, routinely sharing his personal faith testimony with voters on the trail, quoting from Scripture with the ease of a pastor in the pulpit. What’s more, he has used his book tour to speak Sunday mornings at a number of megachurches in a way that sets him apart from the field. Trump, of course, remains strong in Iowa and South Carolina. And South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who’s making a hard push for faith-based voters, could easily carve out a healthy portion of the evangelical vote in both states. It’s a crowded field, but it’s still early. As evangelical influencer Bob Vander Plaats wrote recently on Twitter, “The Iowa caucuses are wide open.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at melinakhan07@gmail.com or on Twitter at @MelinaGKhan.
| | | | A message from Bank of America: Make everything recyclable: TerraCycle has recycled more than 7.7 billion items since its founding in 2001. Its philosophy? “Everything can be recycled in the end.” This Bank of America partner is working to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. | | | | | — Americans remain divided on gun control as national worry over violence rises, Pew report finds: A new Pew Research study found that while views about gun ownership and gun policy remain starkly divided along party lines, Americans across the political spectrum increasingly see gun violence and violent crime as issues of national concern. Democrats and Republicans agree on little when it comes to gun ownership and gun policies, according to the report released today. Seventy-nine percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents surveyed said they believe that gun ownership increases safety; nearly the same percentage of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the opposite. Only one policy proposal, restrictions on gun purchases for people with mental illnesses, received bipartisan support in the Pew study. — Warren, Yellen at odds over bank mergers: U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is drawing Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) ire over bank mergers. Yellen has signaled an openness to consolidation as the industry recovers from the failures of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic. Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu, appointed to the job by Yellen, has hinted at a similar permissiveness. Warren in a new letter warns Yellen and Hsu that they are taking “exactly the wrong approach.” — Deal on restoring NYC public library cuts reached between Adams, City Council: Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Council have reached a deal to restore funding to public libraries, three people with knowledge of budget negotiations told POLITICO. The accord settles one of the most contentious issues ahead of a handshake agreement on the city’s spending plan, which is expected before the July 1 start of the new fiscal year. Under the pact, the Adams administration and the Council plan to restore $36.2 million — the shortfall facing the city’s three library systems — to the coffers of the book lenders.
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don’t miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY. | | | | | | | | | ON THE ROAD AGAIN — Toward the end of last year, senior aides of Vice President Kamala Harris gathered in the vice president’s ceremonial office and sat around a table to chart out the year ahead. The group presented her with a strategy document. It recommended that Harris get on the road as much as possible and posited that Americans weren’t seeing and hearing from their leaders enough and that they’d be wise to fix that. The plan also called for Harris to lean into issues they felt suited her skill set. The fight to try and shore up abortion rights across the country stood atop the list. Half a year later, the plan is being put into practice, writes POLITICO. As the Biden campaign begins to rev up, the microscope on Harris is intensifying. Republicans have made clear she will be used as a cudgel to go after the president, making the case that his age effectively makes her the head of the ticket. How she performs over the next few months will determine whether those attacks stick. It also will go a long way in sealing the confidence within Biden world about having her in a more public role. INTO THE VOID — Donald Trump is a known quantity. Ron DeSantis is struggling. A plethora of other traditional GOP politicians, some declared and some not, have so far failed to catch on. Into the void has stepped ... Vivek Ramaswamy, reports Vox. The 37-year-old former biotech CEO and first-time candidate has been omnipresent in the media. He’s been campaigning vigorously in the early states. And in recent months, he’s polled comparably with candidates like Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, in the hunt for third place behind Trump and DeSantis — getting between 1 and 5 percent support nationally. Ramaswamy has gotten to this point through a combination of talent, message, and money. After making an estimated half-billion-dollar fortune from his biotech startup ($10 million of which he’s put into his campaign so far), Ramaswamy became an outspoken commentator criticizing “woke capitalism,” frequently spotlighted on Fox News. His pocketbook and networking ability also helped him get onto the conservative groups event circuit.
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Governor of the West Bank city of Ramallah Laila Ghannam, with a white scarf, carries the body of 2-year-old Palestinian toddler Mohammed al-Tamimi on June 5. The Palestinian toddler who was shot by Israeli troops died of his wounds, Israeli hospital officials said. | Nasser Nasser/AP Photo | RARE AGREEMENT — The U.N. Security Council urged Israel and the Palestinians on Tuesday to avoid actions that can further inflame tensions in the volatile West Bank. The statement was backed by both the United States and Russia in a moment of unity on a divisive issue, reflecting the widespread international concern at the escalating violence especially by Israeli forces and settlers. The statement followed what U.N. Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland called “an alarming spike in violence” in the West Bank that led to numerous Palestinian and Israeli casualties. He warned the council that “unless decisive steps are taken now to rein in the violence, there is a significant risk that events could deteriorate further.” Wennesland said he was particularly alarmed by “the extreme levels of settler violence, including large numbers of settlers, many armed, systematically attacking Palestinian villages, terrorizing communities,” sometimes with support from Israeli forces. This year has been one of the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank in years, and last week saw a major escalation in settler violence. At least 137 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank in 2023. As of Saturday, 24 people on the Israeli side have been killed in Palestinian attacks.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | | | Around 178,000 The number of Zimbabweans who will now likely be allowed to remain in South Africa after a South African court ruled against the government today and ordered it to reconsider an order that would have terminated the special permits that allow these Zimbabwean nationals to live and work in the country. The government’s decision was set to force Zimbabweans to return home if they didn’t obtain regular work visas, even if they have children who were born in South Africa and are South African citizens. | | | | SAVED FROM THE FLAMES — In July 1973, a massive fire ripped through the offices of the National Personnel Records Center, destroying between 16 million and 18 million official military personnel records. In one evening, the accounts of huge swaths of American history were lost. But since then, a massive effort has begun to recover the records and revive a bygone history. For WIRED, Megan Greenwell traces the night of the fire, the race to recover records and her personal connection to what’s lost — and what can be recovered.
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On this date in 1919: Allied leaders and officials gather in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles for the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. There to sign the treaty are Allied leaders French Premier George Clemenceau, standing, center; U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, seated at left; Italian Foreign Minister Giorgio Sinnino; and British Prime Minister Lloyd George. | AP Photo | | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.
| | | | A message from Bank of America: TerraCycle has recycled more than 7.7 billion items since its founding in 2001. Its philosophy? “Everything can be recycled in the end.”
This Bank of America partner is working to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal 12. This goal is grounded in the recognition that creating more responsible consumption and production processes will be key to achieving a more sustainable global economy and healthier environment.
“Our mission is not just to manage waste, but to eliminate the idea of waste.”
CEO of TerraCycle Tom Szaky explains how, with Bank of America’s support, the company is reducing waste by making more kinds of products recyclable, and devising ways to integrate recycled materials into new products.
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