Welcome to the online version of From the policy deskevening bulletin that brings you the latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill from the NBC News Politics team.
In today’s edition, national political reporter Ben Kamisar breaks down our latest focus group with Arizona Latino voters, down from Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Plus, top political reporter Jonathan Allen looks at the message Nikki Haley sent him after she said she’d vote for Trump.
Sign up here to receive this newsletter in your inbox every weekday.
How Arizona Latino voters rate Biden and Trump at the border
By Ben Kamisar
A new focus group of Latino voters in Arizona has described why the border has become such a political mess for President Joe Biden.
Former President Donald Trump’s tough talk on immigration and the actions he took while in office didn’t come close to earning the unanimous praise of dozens of participants in our latest NBC News Deciders Focus Group series, produced in partnership with NBC. Busy, Syracuse University and Sago.
The focus group specifically recruited participants angry at both Biden and Trump, an important swing cohort in a critical battleground state.
Do you have news? Let us know
But from their vantage point, many saw clarity on the issue from Trump compared to Biden’s fight to control immigration. One attendee called Biden’s border policy a “hot mess.”
“Even if we don’t agree with Trump doing specific things with border control, at least he did something about it,” said Melissa G., 43, of Phoenix, if she had supported Robert F. Kennedy. given a chance or Trump.
RFK Jr. factor: Overall, focus group participants were so alienated by both major party candidates that they said they would vote for Kennedy more than any other candidate, including Jill Stein and Cornel West. Kennedy has yet to appear on the ballot in Arizona, but a super PAC backing him says he has collected enough signatures to do so.
“I definitely wouldn’t vote for Biden — he doesn’t align with any of my beliefs,” said Nicole G., 39, of Glendale. She said she had a “very hard time voting” for Trump in 2016 and ultimately did so because “it aligns with a lot of our beliefs, morals and values as a family” and hoped he would make it into office.
“And then I was ashamed to have voted for him as president,” Nicole G. continued. “He’s a reckless leader who should never have led, so I won’t be able to vote for him again.”
Abortion ballot measure: Arizona voters are also likely to decide on the amendment establishes abortion rights in the state constitution this fall. Several focus group participants clearly understood the state’s current abortion laws, but even those who said they were personally “pro-life” expressed concern about allowing the government to restrict access to abortion.
“I’m going to teach my daughters what I believe is right and I hope they follow that. But at the end of the day, they’re going to do what they’re going to do,” said Enrique M., 48, of San Tan Valley, who said he would vote for Trump.
“Do I want them to go to jail for breaking it? Probably not,” he said.
Read more from the focus group here →
Nikki Haley sends a message to Trump
By Jonathan Allen
Donald Trump may take Nikki Haley and most of her voters for granted.
This is the message Haley sent yesterday He said he will vote for Trumpwhile he argued to the contrary.
“Trump has not been perfect in these policies. I’ve made that clear many times,” Haley said after a speech at the Hudson Institute in Washington, criticizing Democrats for their hesitant support of Israel and Republicans for Ukraine. “But Biden was a disaster. That’s why I will vote for Trump.”
Haley then encouraged Trump to do what he didn’t do to win his vote.
“Having said that, I stand by what I said in my suspension speech,” Haley said. “Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me and not assume they’re just going to be with him.”
But NBC News’ Vaughn Hillyard and Ali Vitali reported Thursday that Trump has not spoken to Haley since she dropped out of the race in early March. He was not to call, write, or say nice things about her from the pulpit. If Haley wanted to preserve her political viability, she had nowhere else to go.
He called Biden a “disaster.” By using his speech to detail the threat he poses to the United States, he did more than create a permission structure for his voters to line up behind Trump. So harsh was his condemnation of Biden that he practically asked them to fly MAGA banners from flagpoles on their manicured lawns.
This should come as no surprise to Trump, who correctly predicted he would fall in line by hiring him as US ambassador to the United Nations. It shouldn’t have come as a shock to Biden, whose campaign knows full well that the vast majority of voters are drawn to their partisan corners in the general election.
But in each of the last two elections, the results were decided by tens of thousands of voters in several states. If this episode plays out the same way, every vote will count.
So even Trump can get Haley and most it would be wrong for him to completely ignore his constituents. There is a segment of Haley’s base, including those who voted for Biden last time, that the Democrats will struggle with between now and November.
Trump doesn’t have to convince Haley of anything, but he will have to counter Biden — perhaps using the same talking points Haley gave yesterday.
🗞️ The best stories of the day
- 🤫 Behind the scenes: Trump’s allies have been quietly embroiled in a wrangle over who will serve on the committee to set the Republican Party’s national platform in an effort to avoid far-right ground on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. More →
- 🪧 Objection to objections: The Republican National Committee is demanding that the director of the Secret Service be personally involved in moving a planned protest zone away from the site of the party’s convention in Milwaukee this summer. More →
- 🔜 Let’s go back: Trump has a history of kicking the can when he has to clarify his position on important policy issues — a habit that marred his campaign this week on birth control. More →
- 📝 Border Battle: The Biden administration is finalizing details of a new executive action that would allow the president to temporarily close the southern border to migrants if necessary. More →
- 🗺️ MapQuest: The Supreme Court ruled that Republicans in South Carolina did not consider race illegal when they drew a congressional district in a way that excluded thousands of Black voters, saving the state’s map for the 2024 election. More →
- 💻 Fighting Deepfakes: An Arizona GOP lawmaker used ChatGPT to help craft the AI-based impersonation legislation that Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed into law. More →
- ⚖️ Fighting Deepfakes, continued: Steve Kramer, political consultant Accepted to NBC News he was indicted in New Hampshire and fined $6 million by the Federal Communications Commission for allegedly being behind a robocall that imitated Biden’s voice. More →
For now, that’s it from The Politics Desk. If you have feedback – like it or not – send us an email politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com
If you are a fan, please share with anyone and everyone. They can register here.