As the fall season of 2023 reaches its zenith, election day of this year is around the corner. While no federal offices are up for grabs this cycle as this is an odd year and largely an off year for federal political elections, many meaningful state and local elections are occurring across the country. In New Jersey, for the first time in over two decades, Republicans at the state level possess a theoretical chance to tie or take control of the majority of the state assembly or senate in Trenton. A plethora of states are also engaged in early voting for their own local elections, but despite the efforts of many state governments to expand voting opportunities, turnout in non-federal cycles remain low.
Next year, the 2024 presidential election will be held in what is a hotly contested time in American federal politics. Since 2016 and the election of the former 45th president Donald Trump, the political climate in the United States has become increasingly polarized, tribal, and divisive. The nation is gearing up for what is likely to be the most abrasive presidential election since the American civil war in 1860; the same thing was said about the previous 2020 election. Currently, it appears likely that Trump and the incumbent President Joe Biden will be facing each other in 2024 for a rematch of the 2020 election.
The governor of California Gavin Newsom has long been rumored to challenge Biden for the nomination. He has not declared candidacy. The progressive, extremist governor of the failing state of California was recently reported to have made an odd physical interaction with a child while playing a basketball game in China. Newsom recently ventured to China to meet the communist leader Xi Xinping. He played a pickup game of basketball with some children, and then tumbled into one before man-handling the child and hugging him while making weird motions with his arm.
