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Long-shot Jason Palmer deals President Biden a caucus defeat in American Samoa
Jason Palmer, a relatively unknown Democratic presidential candidate, won the Democratic primary in American Samoa. He’s seen here in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
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Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
Jason Palmer, a relatively unknown Democratic presidential candidate, won the Democratic primary in American Samoa. He’s seen here in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
President Biden’s bid to sweep the Super Tuesday primaries was undone by an unlikely challenger, far from the U.S. mainland. Jason Palmer, an under-the-radar candidate, edged Biden by just 11 votes in American Samoa, netting 51 ballots to the president’s 40.
Palmer’s campaign says American Samoa isn’t the only place he’s been campaigning in the Pacific.
“Elections are going on in Northern Mariana Islands,” where Palmer is also on the ballot, Mario Arias, Palmer’s campaign manager, told NPR. “So, we’re excited for the elections there,” which run through March 12.
Palmer’s surprise win doesn’t endanger Biden’s run for the Democratic nomination, but it did put a sudden spotlight on Palmer, a Baltimore, Md., entrepreneur who has worked primarily in technology and education.
“Biden’s chances of a second term are hurting, but not because of my campaign,” Palmer says on his campaign’s website, citing opinion polls that depict the public’s desire for other options.
“I know I’m a longshot candidate with very little chance of winning” against an incumbent president, he says on the site. But Palmer also says he is challenging Biden in the Democratic primary because he doesn’t want to risk possibly helping former President Donald Trump in November.
“This is the most important election of the 21st century, and it is extremely important to keep Trump from returning to office for a second term,” he says.
But for a day at least, Palmer can bask in an unexpected win.
“Honored to announce my victory in the American Samoa presidential primary,” the candidate said in a post on X. “Thank you to the incredible community for your support. This win is a testament to the power of our voices. Together, we can rebuild the American Dream and shape a brighter future for all.”
How did Palmer win in American Samoa?
Palmer’s campaign focused on American Samoa, where, according to the Department of the Interior, residents are deemed U.S. nationals rather than U.S. citizens. The small chain of islands is where another wealthy Democrat, Michael Bloomberg, notched the only outright win of his 2020 presidential campaign.
Palmer didn’t visit the unincorporated U.S. territory that is home to more than 43,000 people and sits between Hawaii and New Zealand. Instead, he appeared to voters via Zoom — and impressed attendees by introducing himself in the Samoan language, according to local news site Talanei.
The American Samoa Democratic Party held its caucus Tuesday in Tafuna, the territory’s most populous village, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The result gives Palmer and Biden three delegates each.
“The American Samoa Democratic Party had first announced that with the vote count, Palmer will receive four delegates at the National Democratic Convention while Biden gets two,” the Talanei site reported. “However it later issued a correction on the delegate count saying that Palmer and Biden will each get three delegates.”
Who is Jason Palmer?
Palmer, 52, is a Quaker who has worked as an executive and board member and at an investment firm called New Markets Venture Partners. His website highlights stints with Microsoft and Kaplan Education, and as deputy director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Palmer attended the University of Virginia and then earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, according to his campaign.
Palmer isn’t the only Democrat challenging Biden; the race also includes Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota — who conceded defeat on Tuesday.
“Congratulations to Joe Biden, Uncommitted, Marianne Williamson, and Nikki Haley for demonstrating more appeal to Democratic Party loyalists than me,” Phillips said in a tweet.
Hours later, he added a follow-up: “And, Jason Palmer.”
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Crew members safely eject after Navy jets collide during Idaho air show
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Four crew members ejected safely after two Navy jets collided Sunday at an air show in Idaho, a show organizer said.
Emergency crews responded after the two planes collided during the show at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in western Idaho.
All four of the crew members from the planes ejected safely, said Kim Sykes, marketing director with Silver Wings of Idaho, which helped to plan the air show. Sykes said the crash occurred off base and she did not see the crash but saw the smoke afterward.
The base said in a social media post that it was locked down following the incident during the Gunfighter Skies Air Show. Responders were on the scene and an investigation was underway.
READ MORE: Navy loses two aircraft from USS Nimitz aircraft carrier within 30 minutes
Multiple witnesses reported two planes collided and crashed, and videos posted online showed four parachutes opening in the sky as the aircraft plummet to the ground near the base about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Boise.
No other information was immediately available, said a person who answered the phone at the 366th Fighter Wing public affairs office.
Organizers said the popular air show that includes flying demonstrations and parachute jumps is a celebration of aviation history and a look at modern military capabilities. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds headlined the show both days.
The National Weather Service reported good visibility and winds gusting up to 29 mph (47 kph) around the time of the crash.
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Bus riders to Montgomery retrace old steps while fighting a new fight
A man sings a spirtual song during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala.
Mike Stewart/AP
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Mike Stewart/AP
MONTGOMERY, Ala.— In 1965, Black Americans peacefully demonstrated for voting rights and were beaten by Alabama state troopers before returning two weeks later to complete their march under federal protection. Keith Odom was a toddler then.
Now 62 years old, the union man and grandfather of three retraced some of their final steps. On Saturday, he came from Aiken, South Carolina, to Atlanta, where he joined several dozen other activists on two buses to Montgomery, Alabama. A few hours later, he stepped off his bus and onto Dexter Avenue, where the original march concluded.
“The history here — being a part of it, seeing it, feeling it,” said Odom, who is Black.

His voice trailed off as he saw the Alabama Capitol and a stage that sat roughly where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. concluded the original march.
Odom lamented that he and his fellow bus riders were not simply commemorating that seminal day in the Civil Rights Movement. Instead they came to renew the fight. The 1965 effort helped push Congress to send the Voting Rights Act to Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign, securing and expanding political power for Black and other nonwhite voters for more than a half-century.
Saturday’s “All Roads Lead to the South” rally was the first mass organizing response after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that severely diminished that landmark law. Striking down a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana, the justices concluded in a 6-3 ruling that considering race when drawing political lines is in itself discriminatory. That spurred multiple states, including Alabama, to redraw U.S. House districts in ways that make it harder for Black voters, who lean overwhelmingly Democratic, to elect lawmakers of their choice.
“I’m not trying to live a life that’s going backwards,” Odom said. “I want to go forward, for my grandchildren to be able to go forward.”
Keith Odom, a forklift driver from Aiken, S.C., looks out from his bus seat as he arrives in Montgomery, Ala., for a voting rights rally Saturday, May 16, 2026.
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Bill Barrow/AP
An old political battle is new again
The passenger rosters and the scene when riders arrived in Montgomery sounded the echoes and rhymes of past and present.
“I talked to my grandmother before I came, and she was so excited,” said Justice Washington, a Kennesaw State University student named because her mother and grandmother had faith in the American system. “My grandmother told me she did her part, and now it’s time for me to do mine.”
No one on the Atlanta buses had reached voting age when the Voting Rights Act became law. The youngest attendee was born as Democrat Barack Obama was elected the first Black president in 2008.
Kobe Chernushin is 18, white and just graduated high school in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. He is an organizer with the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition and spent the day filming Khayla Doby, a 29-year-old executive for the organization, doing standups for the group’s followers on social media.
“I believe in the power of showing up,” he said.

The buses launched from the congressional district in Georgia once represented by John Lewis, bloodied on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, when he was 25. Lewis died in 2020, but some on the buses Saturday celebrated that a proposed federal election overhaul is named for him. If some Democrats get their way, the bill would override the U.S. Supreme Court, reinvigorate the Voting Rights Act and outlaw the kind of gerrymandering competition that Republican President Donald Trump has instigated.
“I’m here because of the same forces that pulled on John Lewis when he was a student,” said Darrin Owens, 27. He has worked for former Vice President Kamala Harris and now trains Democratic candidates.
“Political activism is personal,” Owens said, explaining that he attended Saturday as a citizen, not a political professional. “Sometimes those lines are blurred, and as a Black person in America, a Black person living in a Southern state, I’m committed to action that stops what I consider to be un-American, this possibility that the person who represents me is someone who is not from my community and does not understand me or my community.”
When he arrived, Owens saw no federal authorities on Montgomery’s streets. A wounded, recovering Lewis did during the second march in 1965.
This time many of the Alabama troopers and local officers who walked the area were Black.
The buses and sandwich lunches had been arranged by Fair Fight Action, a legacy of the political network built by Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, who became a national figure in her unsuccessful runs in 2018 and 2022 to become the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history. No Black woman has yet achieved that feat.
Bee Nguyen, left, talks to Carole Burton, center, and Tondalaire Ashford at a voting rights rally Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala.
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Bill Barrow/AP
Different generations share their stories
At different points, Montgomery has branded itself as the cradle of the Confederacy and the cradle of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
“It feels like our country is stuck in this pattern of making progress, then there’s a huge backlash, and then people have to go through the same battle again just to get to where we were,” said Phi Nguyen, the 41-year-old daughter of Vietnamese refugees. She is now a civil rights lawyer in Atlanta.
She stood across from the church where a young King led the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and not far from where Jefferson Davis took the oath of office in 1861 as the slavery-defending Confederate president.
Nguyen and her sister Bee, a 44-year-old who served in the Georgia General Assembly and ran for statewide office, met two other women as they walked. Carole Burton and Tondalaire Ashford are 72-year-old Montgomery residents who have been friends since they were in a segregated junior high school and then newly desegregated Sidney Lanier High School.
“I don’t call it ‘integration,’” Ashford said, pointing at her dark skin. “It was never real integration, and it’s not like we can ever just blend in.”
Burton described them as being “in the second wave” of Black students. “It wasn’t easy,” she said. “And we had to support each other.”
They remember their parents not being able to vote in the era of poll taxes, literacy tests and other racist restrictions that the Voting Rights Act eventually outlawed. But they smiled as they swapped family histories with the Nguyens.
Burton said immigrants, descendants of enslaved persons and Native Americans have different but overlapping paths. “We just want to be treated like people with the same rights and opportunities the country has promised us,” she said. “They’ve never fully lived up to it.”
Aaron McGuire sings a spirtual song during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala.
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Mike Stewart/AP
Conflicting legacies are at stake
To Odom, who had begun his journey Saturday in South Carolina, the current U.S. Supreme Court reinforced that history by refusing to see some race-conscious election policy as a way to ensure fair representation, not simply the “technical right to vote.”
He recalls decades of his life being represented by Strom Thurmond, a segregationist Democratic governor who became a “Dixiecrat” presidential candidate and U.S. senator — by now as a Republican — into the 21st century. Odom said he fears his state losing U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, through redistricting.
“They want to take away that legacy when we’re still living with Strom’s?” Odom said.
Odom said he is also worried that the young people who participated Saturday are not a vanguard but outliers.
“I was talking to a 20-year-old co-worker about this trip,” he said. “She told me she supported me but didn’t want to do it or work for anybody” running for office. “She wondered what any of them are going to do for her.”
Nonetheless, he said on the way home, “I’m still going to tell her what I saw and what I heard.”
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Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy loses in Republican primary, does not advance to runoff
One observer of the current Senate race in Louisiana noted that Sen. Bill Cassidy could lose his reelection bid.
Annie Flanagan for NPR
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Annie Flanagan for NPR
Sen. Bill Cassidy lost Saturday’s Louisiana Republican primary according to a race call by the Associated Press.
Cassidy, who served two terms in the Senate, was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict President Trump after the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. That vote put him at odds with Trump and his MAGA coalition, ultimately leading Trump to push Rep. Julia Letlow to run against Cassidy.
Cassidy’s bid for a third term was viewed as a test of Trump’s grip on the party–and of what voters want from their representatives in Washington. The primary pitted Cassidy, a veteran lawmaker, former physician and chair of the powerful Senate health committee, against Letlow, a political newcomer and a millennial MAGA loyalist.
A detailed view of a hat that reads, Run Julia Run, is seen at a campaign event for Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA) on May 6, 2026 in Franklinton, Louisiana.
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Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images
A former college administrator, Letlow won a special election in 2021 for the House seat her late husband, Luke, was set to assume before he died from COVID in 2020.
In Congress, Letlow sponsored a bill to collect oral histories from the pandemic and has focused on education and children. She introduced the “Parents Bill of Rights Act,” which would allow parents to review classroom materials like library books and require schools to notify parents if their child requests different pronouns, locker rooms or sports teams.
She also serves on the powerful appropriations committee and has embraced Trump’s agenda.
Letlow, who came first in Saturday’s primary, will face Louisiana state Treasurer John Fleming in the runoff on June 27. Cassidy came in third.
The election result is a victory for President Trump who has put Republican loyalty to the test on the ballot so far this year in Indiana state senate primaries and in Cassidy’s race.
Another major test of Trump’s influence comes in Kentucky’s primary on Tuesday when Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who has found himself at odds with the president, faces a challenger endorsed by Trump.
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