Tuesday's Primary Will Be A Test Of California's 'top-two' System

“Job growth was much stronger than expected in December, possibly providing the Federal Reserve less incentive to cut interest rates this year,” CNBC reports. “Nonfarm payrolls surged by 256,000 for the month, up from 212,000 in November and above the 155,000 forecast from the Dow Jones consensus.”

Charlie Sykes: “Some presidents seize the public’s imagination; Biden barely even got its attention. He presumed that he could return to a Before Times style of politics, where the president was a backroom bipartisan dealmaker. Whereas Trump dominated the news, Biden seemed to fade into the background almost from the beginning, seldom using his bully pulpit to rally public support or explain his vision for the country.

New Yorker: “On January 20, 2025, the next leader of the United States—and of the free world—assumes power. Also on that day: Donald Trump is sworn in.”

A new AP-NORC poll finds that “as Joe Biden prepares to leave office, Americans have a dimmer view of his presidency than they did at the end of Donald Trump’s first term or Barack Obama’s second.” “Around one-quarter of U. S. adults said Biden was a ‘good’ or ‘great’ president, with less than 1 in 10 saying he was ‘great.'” “It’s a stark illustration of how tarnished Biden’s legacy has become, with many members of his own party seeing his Democratic presidency as merely mediocre.”

“At a House Republican lunch this week, Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX) was presenting a series of slides when he landed on a suggestion that sent people on and off Capitol Hill into a frenzy — raising the corporate tax rate,” Punchbowl News reports. “Preserving the 21% corporate rate from the 2017 Trump tax cuts is a red line for plenty of Republicans.

Axios: “We no longer need fact-checkers. We need reality-checkers.”