A look ahead at the key events leading the news agenda next week, from the team at Foresight News. Delivered to your inbox on Fridays.
Leading the week
While the many remaining presidential primaries are now a formality after both Joe Biden and Donald Trump secured more than half their respective party’s delegates this week, primary season is just getting interesting when it comes to Congressional and state races, beginning with the Ohio and Illinois primaries on Tuesday (March 19).
In Ohio, incumbent Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown is up for re-election in one of a handful of seats considered critical to Republican hopes of retaking control of the Senate in November. Unsurprisingly, that has produced a competitive GOP primary featuring Trump-endorsed Bernie Moreno, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, and state Senator Matt Dolan. Moreno will be hoping Trump’s appearance alongside him at a rally on Saturday (March 16) is enough to push him over the line come Tuesday amid GOP establishment concerns over his candidacy – not helped by a recent report suggesting he previously held a profile on a casual sexual encounters website called Adult Friend Finder.
Neither of Illinois’ Senate seats are up for re-election this cycle, but there’s much interest in the Democratic primary in the Chicago-area 4th Congressional District. Incumbent progressive Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia is being challenged by conservative Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez in what is in some ways a rerun of last year’s mayoral election, which saw now-Mayor Brandon Johnson, a progressive, narrowly defeat the more conservative Paul Vallas. Since his election, Johnson has faced criticism amid an influx of asylum seekers into Chicago, a point not lost on Lopez, who has sought to make immigration a key issue in the election and has accused Garcia of being an ‘open border Democrat who has forgotten about everyone here that’s been waiting for help’. Chicago also votes on Tuesday on a controversial ‘Bring Chicago Home‘ ballot initiative led by Mayor Johnson that proposes to raise real estate transfer tax for the sale of properties over $1 million and use the windfall to provide funding for city programs that tackle homelessness.
After Congress managed to successfully avert a partial shutdown last week by passing a first package of spending bills, lawmakers face another deadline next Friday (March 22) to pass a second minibus bill, the text of which is expected to emerge over the weekend. Negotiations on this second six-bill package, which includes more contentious departments such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense as well as a new potential flashpoint over UNRWA funding, are likely to overshadow an otherwise busy week on Capitol Hill following the release of the Administration’s budget proposal on Monday. Several cabinet members are scheduled to appear before committees next week to discuss the budget, including HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra on Wednesday (March 20) and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday (March 21).
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday (March 18) in a key case of the court’s current term over interactions between the federal government and social media sites including Facebook and X over content the government considers problematic. The case, brought by the states of Missouri and Louisiana, challenges the federal government over its alleged ‘jawboning’ of social media companies to suppress conversative views. It follows an order last summer from a federal judge in Louisiana, subsequently upheld by the 5th Circuit, that would dramatically curtail the government’s ability to contact social media companies regarding content, such as COVID-19 misinformation, on their platforms. While conservatives hailed the ruling as a victory for free speech over censorship, the government contends its collaboration with social media firms is crucial to its efforts to address misinformation, combat foreign interference, and counter domestic extremism.
Looking abroad
Despite the addition of yet another crisis in the form of the chaos unfolding in Haiti, next week looks to be dominated once again by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, starting on Monday (March 18) when both conflicts are on the agenda for the meeting of EU foreign ministers chaired by High Representative Josep Borrell. Speaking at a session of the UN Security Council in New York this week, Borrell used some of his strongest language to date to condemn the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, accusing Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war. Former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna is due to submit the interim report from her independent investigation into UNRWA on Monday or Tuesday, though it’s unclear whether any findings will be made public ahead of the final report due on April 20.
On Tuesday (March 19), Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin chairs the 20th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, marking his first international travel since his secretive surgery in December. With the Senate-passed Ukraine funding bill still languishing in the House – though there’s a long-shot effort underway to get it through via what’s known as a discharge petition – Austin will at least be able to tout the Biden administration’s announcement of a $300 million weapons package earlier this week when he meets his European counterparts.
Both conflicts will feature prominently when European leaders gather for a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday (March 21-22), where they are expected to call for a ‘sustainable ceasefire’ in Gaza and urge Israel to shelve plans for a ground operation in Rafah. But the final text of their conclusions could still be complicated by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who refused to sign their last ceasefire call and held the bloc hostage over funds for Ukraine ahead of their last summit in February. The European Parliament initiated legal action against the European Commission this week over the decision to release €10 billion in frozen funds to Hungary in December to pave the way for opening membership talks with Ukraine.
Senegal holds a presidential election on Sunday (March 24) which was delayed from February and hastily rescheduled after the country’s top court ruled that a longer postponement was unlawful. Incumbent Macky Sall was praised last July when he surprised many by announcing he would not seek a dubiously legal third term, having pushed through a constitutional reform reducing presidential terms from seven years to five. Sall scrapped the February 25 election date just weeks before the polls amid disputes over the candidate list, but suggestions he might remain in office for months after his term ends on April 2 prompted fears that he might reverse course on a third term, despite the risk of widespread unrest.
Tensions ahead of the election were somewhat eased on Thursday with the release of key opposition figure Ousmane Sonko, who is barred from running, as well as presidential candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who Sonko has endorsed. But if Faye or any other candidate fails to secure more than 50% of vote on Sunday, a runoff will take place three Sundays after the first round results are confirmed, which would be April 14 at the earliest – raising the prospect that Sall could still remain in office beyond the end of his mandate or that the country will be without a head of state for several weeks at a minimum.