Three years later, January 6 hangs over the presidential elections.

USA

Saturday marks the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The fallout from that fateful day still reverberates through American politics, and its fallout looms intensely over the 2024 presidential race.

While former President Donald J. Trump holds a large poll lead in the Republican Party’s nominating contest, he faces 91 felony charges in four separate cases, two of which stem from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election , which culminated on January 6. .

He joins the campaign trail on Friday in Iowa, a state his challengers are storming through for the Jan. 15 caucuses. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina held duels there Thursday in CNN night town halls.

President Biden, gearing up for a likely rematch from 2020 against the man who still denies the outcome, will head to Pennsylvania on Friday to make his re-election pitch in a speech drawing attention to the events of January 6 and the role that the Mr Biden has played. Trump’s election denial played a role in fueling the violence.

Biden is seeking to reunite a expanding anti-Trump coalition that led him to victory in 2020 and ended what was expected to be a “red wave” midterm election in 2022. Highlighting Mr. Trump’s most divisive qualities will be central to that strategy. .

But the incumbent president faces strong headwinds when it comes to his own popularity. Gallup polls have shown this Mr. Biden’s approval rating is below 40 percent since October, driven in part by economic discomfort and two foreign wars in Ukraine and Gaza that Americans waged have mixed feelings about involvement – even indirectly. A November New York Times/Siena College poll showed Mr. Biden losing to Mr. Trump in five of six major battleground states.

At his first campaign event of the year, Mr Biden will describe the 2024 election as an existential battle for American democracy. The location of the speech is of symbolic importance: the president will discuss the state of American democracy near Valley Forge, where American revolutionaries, led by George Washington, survived a harsh winter and emerged as a more powerful fighting force.

For his part, Mr. Trump is just as eager to draw attention to the events of January 6. He continues to falsely claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, a refrain from the rallying cry he issued to his supporters that day when he told them to “fight like hell” or “you won’t have a country anymore.” to have.’

In other news

Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, an ally of Mr. Trump who has campaigned on his behalf in Iowa, an NBC reporter told me that she would consider becoming his vice presidential running mate.
Two groups of voters in Massachusetts and Illinois have filed objections to Trump’s eligibility for the ballot in those states. Voters in both states work with the same group, Free Speech for People.
A political action committee led by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis donated $92,500 to 14 Iowa lawmakers who supported his bid for president.
A sixth-grade student was killed and five other people were injured in a school shooting in Perry, Iowa, on Thursday. Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur running for president, campaigned in Perry that day and led a prayer circle there. Mr. DeSantis suggested in an interview that he was not in favor of changing federal law to prevent such shootings, NBC News told it was “more of a local and national issue.”

Jonathan Swan, Maggie Astor, Nicholas Nehamas And Molly Langeman reporting contributed.