Joe Biden said that it would be “totally legitimate” to question his age if he mounts a White House bid in 2020, CNN reports.
Said Biden: “I think it’s totally appropriate for people to look at me and say if I were to run for office again, ‘Well God darn you’re old.’”
He added: “Well, chronologically, I am old.”
“House Democrats aren’t just beating Republicans at the fundraising game—they’re annihilating them,” the National Journal reports.
“Ninety-two Republican incumbents were outraised by a challenger in the third quarter of 2018, a sharp increase from the 56 outraised in the second quarter. And that topline doesn’t even fully capture the scope of Democrats’ cash advantage. More than 50 of those members were outraised at least 2-to-1 and 31 were outraised 3-to-1 or more.”
Said GOP strategist Mike DuHaimes: “That is a startling number of incumbents being outraised by dramatic margins. It’s one thing to be outraised, it’s another thing to be outraised in multiples.”
“And these statistics have no recent precedent. According to a National Journal analysis of FEC data, 48 Democrats were outraised by a Republican challenger in the third quarter of 2010, a cycle that saw Republicans net 63 seats on their way to taking back the House. In the third quarter of 2016, just 16 GOP incumbents were outraised. This cycle, Democrats’ advantage is evident in nearly every top House battleground.”
“Special Counsel Robert Mueller is expected to issue findings on core aspects of his Russia probe soon after the November midterm elections as he faces intensifying pressure to produce more indictments or shut down his investigation,” Bloomberg reports.
“Specifically, Mueller is close to rendering judgement on two of the most explosive aspects of his inquiry: whether there were clear incidents of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, and whether the president took any actions that constitute obstruction of justice.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean Mueller’s findings would be made public if he doesn’t secure unsealed indictments. The regulations governing Mueller’s probe stipulate that he can present his findings only to his boss, who is currently Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The regulations give a special counsel’s supervisor some discretion in deciding what is relayed to Congress and what is publicly released.”
“Sen. Kamala Harris’ advisers are privately discussing a rough Democratic primary strategy that would focus heavily on Iowa, but with an eye toward high-value nominating contests coming later in Nevada, South Carolina and California — more diverse states where her candidacy might resonate with larger minority communities,” Politico reports.
“Harris, a first-term senator, would still face significant obstacles in each of those states. But as a black woman who has also won statewide elections in California — where the black proportion of the electorate is relatively small — Harris could be well positioned to compete in both the Southeast and the West.”
Politico: “Outgoing United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley made clear her value as an advocate for the administration on television—and the White House is looking for somebody telegenic to replace her.”
“Among the candidates President Trump is considering: former Fox News host Heather Nauert, who currently serves as the State Department’s spokeswoman and acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.”
A new Reuters/Ipsos/UVA Center for Politics Poll in Tennessee finds Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R) leading Phil Bredesen (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 47% to 44%.
Other recent polls have shown Blackburn with a substantially wider lead.
“He’s dishonest. That’s why the president called him Lyin’ Ted and it’s why the nickname stuck because it’s true.”
— Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), quoted by the Texas Tribune, in his U.S. Senate debate with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
Politico: “As tens of thousands of voters in Florida’s storm-tossed Panhandle try to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Michael, their communities are grappling with yet another problem — an election season thrown into disarray. With power out in many areas and phone lines down, it’s still not clear how many voters across the state have been affected. Nor is it clear which voter precincts were damaged, or what exactly the state should do to make voting easier for survivors and the displaced.”
“Then there are the more crass political considerations. The state’s Senate and gubernatorial races are virtually tied at the moment — and 8 of the 11 counties without power, an area affecting 135,000 customers, are Republican-performing counties.”
BuzzFeed News: “Once reliably Republican-voting, college-educated white women — who make up a large portion of women voters in the suburbs — flipped from Mitt Romney to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by a narrow 6-point margin. That gap is now a chasm. In a poll of 59 battleground House races nationwide, college-educated white women now favor Democrats over Republicans by nearly 30 points.”
Washington Post: “The 2018 elections differ from previous midterms in so many ways. And one, at least, is a good sign for democracy: Many more people are running for office this time around.”
“Elections are the linchpin of representative government — but only if there’s actual competition among candidates. This year’s midterms are being more vigorously contested than those in the past, mostly because more Democratic women are running for office, particularly in the South.”
James Fallows: “In the last year of his life, Atwater publicly apologized for tactics like these. He told Tom Turnipseed, the object of his ‘jumper cables’ attack, that he viewed the episode as ‘one of the low points’ of his career. He apologized to Dukakis for the ‘naked cruelty’ of the Willie Horton ad.”
“And in a private act of repentance that has remained private for nearly three decades, he told Raymond Strother that he was sorry for how he had torpedoed Gary Hart’s chances of becoming president.”
“Democratic challengers outraised Republican House incumbents in 92 House districts in the last three months — a staggering mismatch that boosts the odds of a GOP washout in November,” Politico reports.
“There is no historical precedent for financing this broad and deep for congressional challengers. About half of the 92 GOP incumbents are protecting battleground districts, and some of them posted personal-record fundraising totals in the third quarter of 2018 — but they still found themselves swamped by a combination of incandescent online fundraising for Democrats and bigger donors spreading money to challengers around the country, as 61 Democrats raised over $1 million.”
Said one Republican consultant: “We’re getting our asses kicked. Nothing else to say.”
Alaska Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott abruptly resigned from office Tuesday, Gov. Bill Walker (I) said, following disclosure of recent “inappropriate comments” he made, the Anchorage Daily News reports.
“It wasn’t immediately clear what Mallott said or to whom, and the governor’s office was not answering questions about what happened.”
President Trump denied as “totally false” former attorney Michael Cohen’s assertion that Trump coordinated a hush-money scheme to buy the silence of women who claimed to have had an affair with him, the AP reports.
Trump derided Cohen, who worked for Trump for a decade, as “a PR person who did small legal work,” and said it was “very sad” that Cohen had struck a deal to “achieve a lighter sentence.”
President Trump told the AP that he won’t accept the blame if Republicans lose the House in November.
Trump said he believes he is “helping” Republican candidates as he campaigns ahead of crucial midterm elections next month. With Republicans facing headwinds, Trump said he thinks the GOP is “going to do well,” arguing that “it feels to me very much like” 2016.
Of his efforts on the campaign trail, Trump said: “I don’t believe anybody has ever had this kind of impact.”
“One of the suspects identified by Turkey in the disappearance of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was a frequent companion of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — seen disembarking from airplanes with him in Paris and Madrid and photographed standing guard during his visits this year to Houston, Boston and the United Nations,” the New York Times reports.
“Three others are linked by witnesses and other records to the Saudi crown prince’s security detail.”
Meanwhile, President Trump told the Associated Press that there has been a rush to judgement: “I think we have to find out what happened first. Here we go again with, you know, you’re guilty until proven innocent. I don’t like that.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Wonk Wire, Political Job Hunt and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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