As 2020 presidential hopefuls brace for the second round of the Democratic debates, this time in the Motor City, the head of the Michigan Democratic Party is laser-focused on rallying voters behind whoever wins the nomination.
"What we know we have to do is visit [voters] early, visit them often, talk to them about the issues and why it's important to vote, and then, go ask them to vote when it's time," Chairwoman Lavora Barnes told Cheddar in Detroit Monday.
Barnes seems to have taken away an important lesson from the 2016 presidential race when Trump won the state by a razor-thin margin — just a third of a percent. But in a winner-take-all state like Michigan, that was enough for Trump to grab all 16 electoral votes. Before 2016, the state had gone for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1992.
Nevertheless, something changed in 2016. Voters may have felt the impact of a slowing economy, a water crisis in Flint, and auto manufacturing hardships. But Barnes says that party itself may shoulder some of the blame.
"So the lesson we learned in 2016 is that we've got to be out there talking to voters early, and often," Barnes said.
Barnes says she has encouraged presidential hopefuls to take Michigan seriously when it comes to the campaign and not just focus on the early races, like Iowa or New Hampshire.
"I think that you can look at Michigan as more representative to the nation, then some of those early states," Barnes said. "If you look at the issues that matter to us, if you look at the people here in Michigan, we are much more America, much more Midwest, much more everything, than some of the early states."
On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, 20 presidential candidates will take to the podium in Detroit, but will be speaking to a nation.
For Barnes, this debate is about taking Michigan's issues to the national level.
"Let's talk about the fact that people in Flint still don't have clean water to drink, people in Detroit are breathing very dirty air," she added. "Let's talk about those issues that are very Michigan-specific, but let's also speak to the nation, because everybody's got some of those issues going on."
Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama says his new Cabinet will include an artificial intelligence “minister” in charge of fighting corruption. The AI, named Diella, will oversee public funding projects and combat corruption in public tenders. Diella was launched earlier this year as a virtual assistant on the government's public service platform. Corruption has been a persistent issue in Albania since 1990. Rama's Socialist Party won a fourth consecutive term in May. It aims to deliver EU membership for Albania in five years, but the opposition Democratic Party remains skeptical.
The Trump administration has asked an appeals court to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors by Monday, before the central bank’s next vote on interest rates. Trump sought to fire Cook Aug. 25, but a federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the removal was illegal and reinstated her to the Fed’s board.
President Donald Trump's administration is appealing a ruling blocking him from immediately firing Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook as he seeks more control over the traditionally independent board. The notice of appeal was filed Wednesday, hours after U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb handed down the ruling. The White House insists the Republican president had the right to fire Cook over mortgage fraud allegations involving properties in Michigan and Georgia from before she joined the Fed. Cook's lawsuit denies the allegations and says the firing was unlawful. The case could soon reach the Supreme Court, which has allowed Trump to fire members of other independent agencies but suggested that power has limitations at the Fed.
Chief Justice John Roberts has let President Donald Trump remove a member of the Federal Trade Commission, the latest in a string of high-profile firings allowed for now by the Supreme Court.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
