Good morning! If you thought Taylor Swift would drop out of the news soon, think again. She announced a new album last night while accepting her 13th Grammy. “The Tortured Poets Department” comes out April 19th.

 LEAD 

🗳️ A vote for no one

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is about to win her first primary. That’s easy to do when she’s the only major name on the ballot. Haley is competing in Tuesday’s Nevada presidential primary. But former President Donald Trump is competing in Thursday’s Nevada presidential caucus.

I’m sorry, what? Nevada's usually a caucus state (like Iowa). But a recent change in state law forced a switch to state-run primaries. The Republican Party of Nevada will hold that primary as required. But it will also hold a party-run caucus (that's very similar to a primary) to hand out convention delegates.

Delegates: Delegates to this summer's Republican National Convention (RNC) technically choose the party's nominee. The same goes for the Democrats. Those delegates are the real prize candidates get for winning primaries. So there are two (Republican) contests now:

• A state-run primary that awards nothing but good press

• A party-run caucus with real delegates at stake.

The party is only letting candidates compete in one or the other.

Donald Trump opted to go with the caucus. His allies, like Gov. Joe Lombardo, control the state party that runs this show.

Nikki Haley went with the primary (as did two other candidates who've since dropped out). Though she's the only major (current) candidate on the ballot, she could still lose this thing...to nobody.

None of these candidates: Don't like your options? Nevada is the only state in the country where you can literally vote for "None of these candidates.” Nobody can't win the race, though.

On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden will compete against author Marianne Williamson and 11 random nobodies. Rep. Dean Phillips launched his campaign too late to make the ballot in Nevada.

Also caucusing this week on the Republican side is the U.S. Virgin Islands. Though they can't vote in general elections, U.S. territories do take part in the primary process. The U.S.V.I. will send a cool four delegates to the Republican convention.

 CONGRESS 

🏛️ Senators release immigration text

The bipartisan group of senators working on a huge immigration enforcement-foreign aid bill released the text of their plan last night. Here's what we're looking at:

On foreign aid: 

• $60 billion in war support for Ukraine

• $14 billion in war support for Israel

• $4.8 billion to counter China's influence in the Indo-Pacific

• $10 billion in humanitarian aid to Ukraine and Gaza

On immigration:

• Raises the standard to seek asylum

• Detains or tracks asylum seekers and during the process

• Deports those who cross the border between ports of entry

• Prevents the children of legal immigrants from deportation when they turn 18 without a green card

• Hires thousands of new border and asylum agents

• Forces the president to shut down the border when a threshold of illegal crossings is his

Biden: President Biden says he'll sign the deal. The situation on the border right now is a weak point for the president. He trails Donald Trump by 30+ points on the issue.

Senate: Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) wants to vote on this ASAP. But some Senate Democrats oppose it for being too restrictive. And some Senate Republicans oppose it for not being strict enough.

House: Speaker Mike Johnson says this thing is DOA in the House. To that end, he's already pushing a standalone Israel war aid bill.

 POLITICS 

🔵 The (officially sanctioned) Democratic presidential nomination process has begun. President Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary on Saturday with a Stalinesque 96% of the vote. Author Marianne Williamson got 2.1%. Rep. Dean Phillips came in third with a measly 1.7%. Polls showed Biden winning big. But this result might make you forget he has two relatively well-funded challengers.

🔴 Should former President Donald Trump win the election, he will not reappoint Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to a third four-year term. Trump nominated Powell to lead the central bank back in 2017. Biden later gave him a second term. Powell signaled recently that the Fed is done hiking interest rates and, depending on economic factors, hopes to cut them soon. Trump believes that plan will "help the Democrats."

🔵 South Carolina didn’t quite work out for him. But the Wisconsin Supreme Court handed Rep. Dean Phillips a win. Friday, the court forced his name onto the state's Democratic presidential primary ballot. It said he meets the criteria for inclusion. Phillips was left out by default when the bipartisan committee that makes this call met for only five minutes and didn't even mention his name.

🔵 Rep. Brian Higgins (D-Buffalo, NY) resigned his House seat over the weekend to take a private sector job. This brings Democrats down to 212 members. Republicans have 219. He’ll be replaced via a special election later this year (date is TBD).

 TRIVIA 

Presidential candidates never win the popular vote by double-digit margins anymore. In fact, we’re in the midst of the longest streak ever of single-digit wins. In what year was the most recent presidential election featuring a popular vote margin of victory greater than ten percent?

 WORLD 

🇺🇸 United States: As it turns out, revenge is a dish best served by launching airstrikes against 85 Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria. Nearly 40 people died. This was the U.S. response to Iran-backed militants killing three American soldiers in Jordan last week. Iran's government called this a "strategic mistake" by the U.S. But, as Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin said, "This is the start of our response." The strikes came as the U.S. continued its assault on the Houthis in nearby Yemen.

🇨🇱 Chile: Nearly 100 forest fires are raging in Chile. At least 19 people are dead and the president has declared a state of emergency. Over 165 square miles have burned so far, mostly centered in a tourist area about 50 miles north of the capital of Santiago. Much of South America is saddled by a big summer (southern hemisphere and all) heatwave.

🇸🇻 El Salvador: He needed legal jiu-jitsu to even run for a second term. But Salvadoran voters handed President Nayib Bukele a landslide reelection. ResulBukele, 42, is insanely popular. His arrest of over 75,000 alleged gang members — that's 2% of the adult population — made his once-dangerous country the safest in Latin America. But his actions continue to spark global concern that innocent people are being swept up in the fury.

 BRIEFS 

• Joe Rogan signed a new $250 million deal with Spotify that also lets him take his podcast (the world’s most popular) to other networks

• Northern Ireland’s new leader is an Irish Nationalist for the first time ever

• Target pulled a Black History Month item off the shelves after it somehow mixed up the names and photos of three Civil Rights leaders

• A province in Argentina is trying to issue its own currency amid a fight with libertarian President Javier Milei

• Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan jailed for un-Islamic marriage (his third sentence in a week)

• The president of Senegal, set to retire, sparked riots when he indefinitely postponed the country's presidential election

• A historic rain storm could bring 10 inches of rain to some parts of Southern California

• Paris voted yesterday to triple parking fees on SUVs in an attempt to fight pollution and congestion

• South Korea and Saudi Arabia agreed Monday to begin an arms sales relationship

 QUOTE 

 SNACKS 

🗾 Taylor: In case there was any doubt about how famous our girl Taylor Swift is, the Japanese Embassy in D.C. issued an official statement confirming the timing of her travel between Tokyo and the Super Bowl this weekend.

🤏 Height: Why are Americans getting shorter? We were once the tallest people in the world. But we’ve been shrinking since the 80s. NPR takes a look at why.

📺 SNL: Nikki Haley made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live. She played a “concerned South Carolina voter” and, of course, took the chance to skewer Donald Trump.

🎵 Grammys: Who won? Who lost? Who cares? Check out the results here.

 POLL 

 ANSWER 

It’s been 40 years. Back in 1984, Ronald Reagan beat his opponent by an insane 18%. Huge margins used to be pretty common, though. From 1944-1984, there were five. Since 1984? Zero.