Archives for 2019

Daily Beast: “One of the most vulnerable Republican 2020 Senate incumbents is getting major air cover from a new super PAC designed to sound like a local group. But all signs point toward the involvement of the country’s biggest business lobby 500 miles away in Washington, D.C.”

“The group, a super PAC called 1820 PAC, has dropped about $700,000 on ads this year pressing for the re-election of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who is facing a tough fight in a race sure to be one of the most expensive of the cycle. The name of the PAC is a reference to the year of Maine’s founding, but 1820’s mailing address is in Washington. And a PAY DIRT analysis of public records shows the fingerprints of one of DC’s heaviest political hitters: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”

A new Iowa State University/Civiqs poll finds Pete Buttigieg continues to lead the Democratic presidential field in the first caucus state with 24%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 21%, Elizabeth Warren at 18%, Joe Biden at 15% and Amy Klobuchar at 4%.

“I don’t have to go out and look at a poll. Just go into those states. You can feel it. You can taste it.”

— Joe Biden, quoted by the New York Times, on relying on poll results.

Michael Bloomberg writes on LinkedIn that he will work “in the open” with his staff if he becomes president.

Said Bloomberg: “If I’m elected president, I’ll run the White House the way I’ve always run things. I’ll use the Oval Office for some official functions, but the rest of the time I’ll sit in the open with everyone else.”

He added: “If you’re in charge, why would you want to wall yourself off from your team? It makes no sense, but it’s tradition – and an ego trip – so executives think they’re entitled to it.”

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Our initial ratings had 248 electoral votes at least leaning to the Republican nominee (Trump, almost certainly), 244 electoral votes at least leaning to the Democratic nominee, and 46 Toss-ups. Since then, we’ve made only one significant change, pushing Hillary Clinton’s most narrow 2016 victory, New Hampshire, from Toss-up to Leans Democratic, leaving a 248-248 split with just 42 electoral votes’ worth of Toss Ups (Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nebraska’s Second Congressional District).”

“The 2020 race still looks like a 50-50 proposition to us.”

The consensus Electoral Vote Map is a bit more fluid with Democrats at 238 electoral votes, Republicans at 198 and Toss Ups at 108.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) will meet privately with tribal leaders this weekend during her first trip to her home state of Oklahoma as a presidential candidate, the latest outreach in a nearly three-year effort to atone to Native Americans for her former claims that she was “American Indian,” the Washington Post reports.