National
Donald Trump (R-FL) continues to appear firmly in the driver’s seat ahead of the 2024 election, not just in terms of state polls, but also in the national averages.
RealClearPolitics currently puts Trump at 3.3 points ahead of President Joe Biden (D-DE). Trump has led the average consistently since November 2023.
It’s also remarkable as Trump continues to not only retain the lead, but expand his numbers as the summer sets in. In every election since 2004, Democrats typically find a midsummer boost in the polls. George Bush (R-TX) and John Kerry (D-MA) traded places in the national aggregates from March 2004 until September, when Bush opened a wide six-point lead over Kerry and held the lead until Election Day. Bush went on to narrowly win both the electoral and popular votes, the last time a Republican has done the former.
But Kerry took the lead from Bush in early July 2004, and maintained it until September.
The same can be said in 2008, as John McCain (R-AZ) held intermittent and tenuous leads over Barack Obama (D-IL) throughout the year, but Obama opened a large polling deficit over McCain in late June. McCain would lead the averages briefly in September. Obama crossed the finish line with a 7.3-point average over McCain and won the election in a landslide.
Mitt Romney (R-MA) held hardly any leads over Obama in 2012, with two small leads towards the very end of the race. Although polling had narrowed significantly from the winter and spring of that year, Obama widened his lead over Romney in the summer.
Finally, in 2016, Hillary Clinton (D-NY) held leads over Trump for the near entirety of the 2016 race, with Trump taking a one-point lead in late July, only to trail in the polls until November. True to form, as polling had narrowed by the summer, Clinton was able to open up a decent lead over Trump in June and August.
Succinctly, Trump’s current and consistent leads in the polls are feats not observed for a Republican candidate this century. Should he maintain his aggregate polling lead, and should it be an accurate indicator of the 2024 popular vote, not only would he be the first Republican to win the popular vote in twenty years, but it would likely translate to a large Electoral College victory.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s quest for ballot access across the country continues as he has collected the required number of signatures in Delaware (3 electoral votes), Indiana (11), and the crucial battleground state of Georgia (16). At this point, Kennedy has either received ballot access or attained the number of signatures in twenty-nine states, collectively worth 390 electoral votes. Kennedy’s team is currently petitioning in all remaining states and the District of Columbia, with the exception of Louisiana, which opens its petitioning window on July 16.
Kennedy has gained access or presented signatures in some of the largest Electoral College prizes, such as California (54), Texas (40), Florida (30), and New York (28). Besides Georgia, Kennedy has achieved access in the swing states of Nevada (6), North Carolina (16), New Hampshire (4), New Mexico (5), Pennsylvania (19), Michigan (15), and Minnesota (10). Although less politically significant in the modern era, Kennedy nonetheless has access in Ohio (17), Iowa (6), and Colorado (10).
Kennedy continues to hover around 10% in the national polling aggregates, a difficult and rare achievement as no Independent candidates has received that level support in a general election since Ross Perot (I-TX) received almost 19% of the popular vote – although not Electoral College votes – in 1992.
However, Kennedy is not the only third-party candidate on a crusade for ballot access. Cornel West is attempting the same feat, although he poses much less of a political risk to the major parties than Kennedy does. West is a political activist, philosopher, and theologian, focusing primarily on race, gender, and class differences in the United States. A self-described socialist, West is the author of the 1993 social sciences book Race Matters, and has professorships and fellowships at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth, as well the Union Theological Seminary – associated with Columbia University – in Manhattan, Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, and the University of Paris.
West has been an affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America in 1982, and the Green Party and the People’s Party alliances since 2023. West originally ran on the People’s Party ticket, then switched to seek the Green Party nomination. In October, he abandoned his bid for a Green Party ticket and would instead run as an Independent.
West has ballot access in just nine states, the most liberal of which is Vermont (3 electoral votes). West is also on the ballot in Oregon (7), Utah (6), South Carolina (9), and Alaska (3), in addition to Colorado, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina.
West has write-in access in Texas, New Mexico, New York, Indiana, and Illinois (19).
West is registering at just 1.6 in the RealClearPolitics average as of press time. He and Green Party nominee Jill Stein are about neck-and-neck around the 2% mark.
State
The ongoing saga of the last-minute reversal in the MTA congestion pricing plan by Governor Kathy Hochul (D) continues, as it has been revealed that the federal government was reportedly blindsided by Hochul’s decision.
Polly Trottenberg, Deputy Secretary of Transportation, said on Monday that she was not aware of Hochul’s plan to indefinitely suspend the congestion pricing plan, which was set to begin on June 30. Hochul made her announcement on June 5. Trottenberg had long been an advocate for the congestion pricing plan during her days as the New York City Transportation Commissioner. She said that the federal government must now determine plans for investments in NYC mass transit, as the eleventh-hour decision has made it difficult for the Biden Administration to gauge the outlook.
Trottenberg said that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (D-IN) has “made the pledge” to keep commitments to the MTA; however, she said that the federal government is “working through with them [the State] now” on how the financing will work.
The MTA was forced to shelve $16.5 billion of slated construction work after Hochul reversed her decision on the plan, which would have charged most drivers $15 to drive into Manhattan’s central business district. Projects that have been tabled indefinitely include modernizing the city’s aging subway system, accessibility renovations to the subway stations, deploying an electric bus fleet, and storm and flood protection for the subway systems. Most significantly, the plan to expand the Second Avenue Subway to 125th has completely stalled in the wake of the reversal. The federal government had awarded the project a $3.4 billion grant, one of the largest for a single mass transit project in U.S. history, but the project has been stalled since it relied on an additional $4.3 billion in local funding set to be subsidized by the congestion toll.
A spokesperson for the Governor said that Hochul spoke with federal officials before her announcement of the congestion pricing pause, but it is unclear which officials she informed.
Local
At the Suffolk County Legislature’s last general meeting, the entire Legislature presented a proclamation to Lisa Goree, in recognition of her election as Chair of the Shinnecock Council of Trustees.
Goree is the first woman to be elected to the position since 1792.
Goree was raised in the Shinnecock Nation and has served as a former member of the Shinnecock Tribal Council, former member of the Election Committee, and former member of the Enrollment Board. Goree also serves as the Sole Assessor for the Town of Southampton.
“It is a privilege and an honor to be elected as the first woman to lead my nation,” said Goree. “This is not about me but the entire Shinnecock Nation and the work that we have accomplished to get to this historical moment.”
Legislator Ann Welker (D-Southampton), whose district encompasses the Shinnecock Nation, issued the proclamation.
“I wish the best of luck to newly elected Chairwoman Lisa Goree of the Shinnecock Council of Trustees, and I look forward to working with her. With the recent elections on the South Fork, the Town of East Hampton, the Town of Southampton, the Second District of the Suffolk County Legislature, and now the Shinnecock Nation, women are all in positions of leadership,” said Welker. “What a historic moment for the history of the Shinnecock Nation, and for our community as a whole.”
The Shinnecock Nation is located on the Shinnecock Bay in the Town of Southampton, near Shinnecock Hills, Tuckahoe, and the Village of Southampton. Its population, as of 2020, sits at 819.
