Flooded Sarasota, FL roads after Hurricane Ian, 2022

South Florida is still undergoing a days-long, torrential rain storm that has dumped up to 20 inches of water in some areas. In the city of Sarasota on Tuesday evening, eight inches of rain fell in just three hours, something that NBC News stated only happens “every 500 to 1,000 years.”

This record-setting south Florida rain in the first half of June follows what NBC News also said was the warmest May on record in the area. Moreover, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts “above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin this year,” in part due to “near-record warm ocean temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean.” Something is going on, and we know what it’s called: climate change. Incredibly, however, instead of taking steps to fight climate change (such as promoting solar and wind power and electric vehicles), Florida’s Republican state government officials, headed by Governor Ron DeSantis, are hiding their heads in the increasingly wet and eroding sand. Indeed, just last month, during the aforementioned record heat, DeSantis signed a Republican bill “that erases most references to ‘climate change’ from state law.” Meanwhile, insurance companies, which do not have the luxury of denying climate change, are getting out of the home insurance business in Florida, and the ones who stay are charging the highest rates in the nation.

Nimrata “Nikki” Haley, taking on Trump

Nimrata “Nikki” Haley lags far behind Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination. In terms of state primaries and caucuses, while it’s still very early, Trump has won both the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, the first time that a Republican candidate has swept both contests since these states began leading the election calendar in 1976. In Nevada, things got weird with both a primary (pursuant to state law) and a caucus, because state Republicans wanted one just for Trump. There, Haley ran only in the primary and lost to “None of these Candidates.” Trump ran only in the caucus and won all the Nevada delegates, bringing his total thus far to 63 delegates compared to Haley’s 17.

As for the polls, Haley now trails Trump by as much as 60 points in the aggregate. Even in Haley’s home state of South Carolina, where the primary is being held tomorrow (February 24), she is approximately 30 points behind Trump in the polls. It seems that today’s Republican Party is indeed a Trump cult.

It appears, therefore, that Haley has only one slim chance to defeat Trump: he would have to withdraw either for legal or medical reasons. However, Haley says that, even after a likely defeat in South Carolina tomorrow, she has no plans to quit the presidential race, and wants to fight on at least through Super Tuesday, March 5, when some 15 states (plus American Samoa) hold their Republican presidential nomination contests. For that, Democrats should be very grateful, because Haley has been hammering Trump on the campaign trail. Check out some of Haley’s attacks on Trump after the page jump:

President Joe Biden, on a primary roll

With some votes still left to be counted, President Joe Biden won the New Hampshire 2024 Democratic presidential primary this past Tuesday without even having his name on the ballot. Biden captured 64 percent of the vote, with a margin of victory of approximately 45 percent over the second-place finisher. What is really remarkable is that all of President Biden’s votes were write-ins. That’s because, as we indicated a few weeks ago, at the urging of President Biden and his campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted to request New Hampshire and Iowa to move their primary and caucus, respectively, to a later date, after that of South Carolina (which holds its Democratic primary on February 3), in order to “increase diversity” early in the process. However, while Iowa agreed to move its Democratic caucus to March 5, New Hampshire refused to do so. As a result, President Biden did not place his name on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary, thus only write-in votes would count for Biden.

Normally, there would have been approximately 33 Democratic delegates at stake in New Hampshire. However, due to the dispute with the DNC, no Democratic delegates will be allocated to any candidate in this year’s Granite State primary. As for the remaining states, it will take roughly 1,965-1,970 delegates (different sources give slightly different numbers) to win the Democratic presidential nomination this year.