A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that 9% more Democrats say they will likely vote in this year’s midterm elections than did in the same poll in 2014, while 3% fewer Republicans said they would vote in 2018 than said so in 2014.
The Hill: “The greatest source of strength for Democrats in the poll came from left-leaning older women, nearly 20% of whom say they are more enthusiastic about voting this year than in the previous poll.”
Ammar Campa-Najjar (D), who is running against indicted Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), is running a new ad that exclusively uses clips from Fox News to attack Hunter, the Sacramento Bee reports.
A new USA Today/Ipsos poll taken following a sexual assault allegation issued against Brett Kavanaugh finds that 40% of Americans say he should be rejected by the Senate, while 31% say he should be confirmed to the Supreme Court.
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Rob Goldstone, the publicist who set up the Trump Tower meeting between several Russians and Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner in June 2016, revealed new details of the meeting to NBC News correspondent Cynthia McFadden:
McFADDEN: : So you would agree with the intelligence officials, both past and present, who say that this was most likely a Russian probe to the Trump campaign?
GOLDSTONE: I mean, I can’t say that definitively… I’m willing to believe that I don’t know who wanted this meeting.
McFADDEN: But it was a dirty offer.
GOLDSTONE: Yes.
McFADDEN: It was a dirty offer that they accepted.
GOLDSTONE: Yes. That is true, that didn’t materialize, but yes, it’s the willingness to accept it.
President Trump defended Brett Kavanaugh as a “fine man” who is “under assault” by Democrats whom he says are trying to use sexual assault allegations to keep him off the Supreme Court, The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a fine man, with an impeccable reputation, who is under assault by radical left wing politicians who don’t want to know the answers, they just want to destroy and delay. Facts don’t matter. I go through this with them every single day in D.C.”
He added that Christine Blasey Ford should have filed charges against Kavanaugh if the attack she alleges occurred when they were in high school “was as bad as she says.”
Axios: “Until now, Trump has shown restraint and hasn’t questioned Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford. That ended with this morning’s tweet.”
First Read: “We have one explanation: The elimination of the judicial filibuster. Now save us your emails and text messages on who’s to blame for its elimination; we’ve heard all the arguments, and both Democrats and Republicans have good cases to make about why the other side is at fault.”
“But does anyone believe we’d be in this situation if 60 votes still mattered? After all, Kavanaugh’s ceiling was never higher than 54 votes – before the sexual-assault allegation. (Then again, Neil Gorsuch’s ceiling was 55 votes in 2017.) Would President Trump have been forced to nominate someone with less of a partisan/political background or less of a paper trail?”
“In the Bush and Obama eras, we saw Democrats and Republicans abuse the filibuster process. But at its core was this benefit: You achieved consensus — more than just a simple party-line majority.”
“We realize our politics has changed over the last 15-20 years: Voters no longer reward the consensus-builders; instead they prefer fighters and bold ideas. But the result is a broken political process — as well as the spectacle we’re likely to see next week in Washington.”
The Cook Political Report moves two U.S. Senate race rankings towards the Democrats:
A third race moves towards the Republicans:
Jennifer Duffy: “Generally, races in the Toss Up column don’t break down the middle; one party tends to win a majority of them. Over the past 10 cycles, no party has won less than 67 percent of all Toss Up races. In 2004, 2006 and 2014, one party won 89 percent of the races in the Toss Up column. The working theory for this cycle has been that if Democrats end up winning a majority of the Toss Up races, then the political environment proved to be the factor driving the election.”
A source who has been talking to President Trump throughout the Brett Kavanaugh crisis told Axios that “you have no idea” how hard it has been to keep him from attacking his Supreme Court nominee’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.
Said one White House official: “Hopefully he can keep it together until Monday. That’s only, like, another 48 hours right?”
Here’s a new ad running in West Virginia, Nevada and Arizona and digital ads in Maine, Alaska and Texas targeting Republicans on the Brett Kavanaugh appointment.
“President Trump likes to mock Nancy Pelosi, but a private survey conducted for the RNC finds that she’s actually more popular—and beats the president when the midterm election is framed as a contest between the two,” Bloomberg reports.
“The internal poll… asks registered voters who they support ‘when the November election is framed by Trump and Pelosi.’ Overall, respondents prefer Pelosi-aligned candidates over Trump-aligned candidates by 5 points, 50% to 45%. Among independents only, Pelosi still prevails by a 4-point margin.”
Playbook: “If you’re Trump, is there any cogent case to not shut down the government one week from today? Here is what a few of the president’s allies are whispering to us.”
“It wouldn’t hurt too badly. Congress has already passed a bunch of government spending bills, ensuring a shutdown would only be a partial stoppage of government funding. Trump has bills on his desk that fund critical parts of government. Much of the money Trump wants would come in Department of Homeland Security appropriations. So if he wanted to take a stand, it would be narrowly targeted to one department.”
“This is what he promised. If you are a Republican lawmaker who believes that the 2016 election was about Trump’s hard-line immigration policies — as many conservatives tell us they do — shouldn’t you take a stand on that while you can? Shouldn’t Republicans fear their base is going to stay home if an all-Republican Washington blows it on the wall?”
“Washington might not be red for long. This could be the president’s last chance to get a wall. The House is looking like it could be lost come January. No chance in hell that the leftward-drifting House will give him the wall if they get the majority in 2019. Zero. Zip. Zilch. If Ds win the House, there is no chance the president will get a wall in the lame duck, either.”
“Christine Blasey Ford’s attorneys held a high-stakes call with Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday night that ended with no decision on when or if Ford will testify about allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her,” Politico reports.
“One source described the call as ‘positive,’ though there is no ironclad agreement to have Ford appear and Ford’s attorneys made some requests that the committee won’t accommodate — such as subpoenaing Mark Judge, whom Ford alleged was in the room when Kavanaugh groped and forced himself on her while both were in high school. Senate Republicans had planned a Monday hearing and sought an agreement by Friday morning to appear, though those are no longer viewed as a hard deadline.”
Playbook: “Republicans we speak to say if it appears Ford is willing to testify, the Judiciary Committee can’t say it’s Monday or bust. They need to be a smidge more accommodating than that.”
“The Republican Party is suffering an identity crisis that poses acute short- and long-term risks: President Trump, with 38% approval in Gallup, is giving the party a constricted appeal, with the danger of continuing high-profile defections,” Axios reports.
“In a 50-50 nation, marginal defections can incapacitate a party.”
“The GOP, long synonymous with conservatism, is now effectively the Trump Party — in policy, branding and support. That leaves some swaths of traditional conservatives without a major-party home, and endangers Republican electoral fortunes.”
President Trump urged the Senate “to get on with” the confirmation of his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, while casting additional doubt on the woman who has accused him of sexual assault, USA Today reports.
Said Trump: “Why didn’t someone call the FBI 36 years ago?”
He added: “They’ve delayed it a week already. They’ve delayed it a week, and they have to get on with it.”
“An attorney for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, said Thursday that her appearing at a hearing on Monday to detail her claims is ‘not possible’ but she could testify later in the week,” the Washington Post reports.
“The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA) said through a spokesman late Thursday that he would be consulting with colleagues on how to proceed. Kavanaugh wrote to Grassley in a letter released by the White House that he looks forward to testifying.”
After reports surfaced that Michael Cohen was cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller, the following message went out of Cohen’s twitter account:
Good for @michaelcohen212 in providing critical information to the #muellerinvestigation without a cooperation agreement. No one should question his honesty, veracity or loyalty to his #family and #country over @potus @realdonaldtrump
Vox reports the tweet was quickly deleted, but reappeared soon after on the account of attorney Lanny Davis.
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal finds that more American voters now oppose Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination than support it after he was accused of committing sexual assault while he was in high school, with opposition increasing 9 points since last month.
Key findings: 38% of voters say they oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination to serve on the nation’s highest court, including 27% who “strongly” oppose him. That’s compared with 34% who support his nomination, including 25% who “strongly” support him. Twenty-eight percent say they don’t enough to have an opinion.
A new RNC survey has led Republicans “to a glum conclusion regarding President Trump’s signature legislative achievement: Voters overwhelmingly believe his tax overhaul helps the wealthy instead of average Americans,” Bloomberg reports.
Key finding: “By a 2-to-1 margin — 61% to 30% — respondents said the law benefits ‘large corporations and rich Americans’ over ‘middle class families.'”
“The result was fueled by self-identified independent voters who said by a 36-point margin that large corporations and rich Americans benefit more from the tax law — a result that was even more lopsided among Democrats. Republican voters said by a 38-point margin that the middle class benefits more.”
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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