New York Times: “Finally bending to the White House request, Mr. Zelensky’s staff planned for him to make an announcement in an interview on Sept. 13 with Fareed Zakaria, the host of a weekly news show on CNN.”
“Though plans were in motion to give the White House the public statement it had sought, events in Washington saved the Ukrainian government from any final decision and eliminated the need to make the statement.”
“A judge ordered President Trump to pay $2 million to a collection of nonprofit organizations as part of a settlement with the New York state attorney general’s office to resolve a civil lawsuit that alleged ‘persistent’ violations of charities law that included unlawful coordination with the 2016 Trump presidential campaign,” CNN reports.
“Two of Donald Trump’s most senior aides, Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, are clashing over who should direct the president’s response to the House impeachment inquiry,” Bloomberg reports.
“Cipollone sees impeachment as his domain because he views it as a legal matter and has privately complained to colleagues that Mulvaney is trying to wrest control, the people said. Mulvaney believes he’s in charge because impeachment is political and expects Cipollone to report to his office.”
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A new Harvard Institute of Politics poll finds Bernie Sanders the top choice of voters aged 18 to 29 years old with 28%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 22% and Joe Biden at 16%.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s approval rating stands at just 27% among young Americans polled, and 59% say they’ll never vote to re-elect him.
Rick Hasen: “Will the Kentucky Legislature assist Matt Bevin in stealing the governor’s race from Democrat Andy Beshear, who appeared to have won Tuesday’s election by about 5,000 votes? Ordinarily, I would consider the possibility preposterous. We do not live in ordinary times, though, and on Wednesday Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers raised the prospect that his institution, not the voters, could determine the outcome of the race.”
“If Stivers and Republican Kentucky legislators were to make such a hardball move without good evidence that there were major problems with the vote count, the election would likely end up in federal court, where it is anyone’s guess what would happen.”
“A top aide to Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer in Iowa has privately offered campaign contributions to local politicians in exchange for endorsing his White House bid,” the AP reports.
“The overtures from Pat Murphy, a former state House speaker who is serving as a top adviser on Steyer’s Iowa campaign, aren’t illegal — though payments for endorsements would violate campaign finance laws if not disclosed. There’s no evidence that any Iowans accepted the offer or received contributions from Steyer’s campaign as compensation for their backing.”
“But the proposals could revive criticism that the billionaire Steyer is trying to buy his way into the White House.”
“Former national security adviser John Bolton is willing to defy the White House and testify in the House impeachment inquiry about his alarm at the Ukraine pressure campaign if a federal court clears the way,” the Washington Post reports.
“Bolton could be a powerful witness for Democrats: Top State Department and national security officials have already testified that he was deeply concerned about efforts by Trump and his allies to push Ukraine to open investigations into the president’s political rivals while the Trump administration held up military aid to that country.”
“The former national security adviser, who abruptly left his post in September, is expected to confirm their statements and describe his conversations with Trump.”
The Guardian: “As our interactive map reveals, while the Pacific north-west is a great place to move for those who’d like their voting rights respected, the deep south is particularly repressive. There are also a number of unexpected outliers.”
“Senior State Department officials and career diplomats repeatedly warned the Trump administration that taking away legal protections for immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti would put national security, foreign relations, and the immigrants’ American-born children at risk,” Vox reports.
“But Trump did it anyway — and concerns about the 2020 election appear to have helped determine the timeline for requiring immigrants to leave.”
President Trump denied a report that he wanted Attorney General William Barr to hold a press conference to declare he broke no laws during a July phone call in which Trump pressed his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Democrats, the AP reports.
Trump tweeted that the story “is totally untrue and just another FAKE NEWS story with anonymous sources that don’t exist.”
“It is sad to see the level of desperation that some people are willing to go through to protect someone who has been probably the most corrupt, unethical, most unpatriotic president we’ve ever had.”
— Sen. Kamala Harris, talking about Republican lawmakers on Morning Joe.
Before former Attorney General Jeff Sessions jumped into the Alabama Senate race this week, President Trump sent word to him “through allies that he would publicly attack him if he ran,” the New York Times reports.
“Mark Halperin’s first book since his career was upended by allegations of sexual harassment is clearly no Game Change,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.
“How to Beat Trump sold just 502 copies in its first week… News of the book in August was met with widespread criticism, with the major networks saying they would not interview Halperin and even some of the book’s contributors distancing themselves.”
“Republicans intend to subpoena the government whistleblower to testify in the House’s impeachment investigation into President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, according to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH),” The Hill reports.
“The effort is not likely to bear fruit, as Democrats have rejected the idea of outing the anonymous figure, citing safety concerns, and they have veto power over any GOP subpoena requests for witness testimony.”
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Virginia moves from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic in our Electoral College ratings in the wake of a fourth straight November that has broken in the Democrats’ favor.”
The consensus Electoral Vote Map shows just seven Toss Up states for 2020.
A new Gallup poll finds 64% of American voters say they are “more enthusiastic” about voting compared with previous elections, while 28% are “less enthusiastic” and 6% say they currently have the same level of enthusiasm as they have in the past.
“Americans’ self-reported enthusiasm is among the highest Gallup has measured across presidential election years, similar to the levels recorded near the end of the 2004, 2008 and 2012 elections. Enthusiasm was more subdued in 2000 and 2016.”
A new Kaiser Family Foundation/Cook Political Report poll finds Democrats have a slight edge in enthusiasm in three key battleground states.
Over six in ten Democratic voters in Pennsylvania (66%), Michigan (65%), and Wisconsin (62%) say they are more motivated to vote in next year’s 2020 presidential election than they were in 2016. This is at least 10 percentage points higher than the share of Republican voters in each state saying the same (54% in Pennsylvania, 53% in Michigan, and 46% in Wisconsin).
In Minnesota, Republican voters are just as motivated as their Democratic counterparts.
A new Kaiser Family Foundation/Cook Political Report poll finds nearly three times as many voters offer responses related to defeating President Trump (21%) as offer responses related to re-electing him or not wanting a Democrat to be elected (8%).
Defeating President Trump was offered as the top motivation to vote in 2020 by 39% of Democratic voters while responses related to re-electing President Trump/not wanting a Democrat were offered by 21% of Republican voters. Twenty percent of independent voters offered responses related to defeating President Trump while 7% of independent voters offered responses related to re-electing President Trump.
Overall, 23% of voters offer issues such as health care, the economy, and immigration, as their motivation for voting in the 2020 presidential election.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map 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.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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