“The White House is lowering expectations that Republicans will maintain control of the House in the midterm elections — while positioning President Trump to claim credit for any seats his party gains in the Senate,” Politico reports.
“White House political director Bill Stepien wrote a three-page memo this week in which he outlined the political landscape confronting the GOP and bluntly warned that the party’s prospects for the House are ‘challenging.'”
“As the leader of the squad, it’s up to you to make sure these people are ready to vote.”
The Sioux City Journal endorsed challenger J.D. Scholten (D) over incumbent Rep. Steve King (R) in the race for the U.S. House seat in Iowa’s 4th District:
We aren’t suggesting Scholten is a perfect candidate with whom we have no disagreements, but we believe the job of U.S. representative is more than casting votes. As a congressman, we believe Scholten would choose his words carefully, create no national controversies, bring no embarrassment to the district, seek to unite and not divide, focus his time and energy almost exclusively on issues directly impacting the lives and livelihoods of constituents, and hold regular town halls with the public. He represents changes we believe speak to the best interests of this congressional district as a whole.
The newspaper had endorsed King in every one of his previous races.
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The Fort Worth Star Telegram endorsed Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) over Sen. Ted Cruz (R):
This endorsement did not come without some disagreement. Cruz is closer to Texas’ and Tarrant County’s views on issues related to faith and values, and also on energy policy.
But Cruz was elected with no experience in any council or legislature, and it shows. His intransigence prevents him from currying support or negotiating deals to help Texas.
This Editorial Board has recommended conservative Republicans such as George W. Bush and Mitt Romney for president, along with U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison.
But Cruz does not measure up. This office needs a reset.
President Trump lamented the “hate in our country” after the killing of at least eight people in a shooting rampage at a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday and asserted that better security at the temple could have prevented the massacre, NBC News reports.
Said Trump: “They had a maniac walk in and they didn’t have any protection and that is so sad to see. If you take a look at it, if they had protection inside the results would have been far better.”
He added: “It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country, frankly, and all over the world. It’s a violent world. You think when you’re over it, it just goes away but then it comes back in the form of a madman, a wacko.”
David Remnick: “The midterm elections are being held in an atmosphere of immense national stress. It could only be so when the singular actor in the drama is Donald Trump, who thrives on the idea that American life is a daily cliffhanger, in which the hero bravely sets out to deepen the divide between his supporters and everyone else, to dismantle international agreements and alliances, and to protect corporate interests over the interests of working people and the natural world.”
“There are, unquestionably, countless local and regional issues being debated, but, above all, this election is a referendum on Trump, a contest between his base and those who feel that it is in the national interest to establish at least some brake—a new majority in the House of Representatives, a new crop of governors and state legislators—to slow his disintegration of American life and his despoilment of the national spirit. Two years ago, the prospect of a Trump Presidency represented an emergency. Tens of millions of voters found a reason to stay home. This year, the polls are tight. The stakes cannot be overstated.”
Rick Wilson: “Cesar Sayoc isn’t just some loner gone wrong. He isn’t merely a one-in-a-million Unabomber with a cabin in the woods, a crazed manifesto, and too much black powder. Sayoc is the future. Donald Trump’s famously loyal base has been radicalized, and while only the tiniest fraction will resort to political violence, neither the president nor the hollow shell of the GOP will do anything to stop it.”
“This is a president with obvious mental and moral deficits who will say and do anything to retain power. He’s backed by a runaway ‘conservative’ media feeding his rabid base a daily dose of conspiratorial lunacy. There is no mechanism to stop Trump’s division, radicalization, and calls to arms against his enemies.”
“America was lucky this week; none of the weapons exploded, and the FBI and state law enforcement moved with amazing speed to apprehend the bomber. We might not always be so lucky, particularly if this president continues to give what future Sayocs see as their marching orders.”
Coming soon: Good Trouble: Lessons from the Civil Rights Playbook by Christopher Noxon.
“Revisiting episodes from the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, it highlights the essential lessons that modern-day activists and the civically minded can extract and embrace in order to move forward and create change.”
Josh Marshall: “As a friend pointed out yesterday, 2016 can be seen as a fluke. A series of perfect storm factors coming together to make Donald Trump president with a minority of the popular vote and razor thin margins in three critical states. 2018, if it’s a winning election for the Republicans, will be a choice. A ratification of everything we’ve seen over the last two years. That will be a reality we’ll all have to contend with for what it says about the state of the country. It will send a signal abroad that this is now the American political reality and unquestionably accelerate all the geo-political processes Trump has spurred or which drove him to the White House in the first place.”
“Domestically the impact will be worse. The political message will be simple: you can do all this stuff and suffer no political consequences.”
New York Times: “Republicans, in defending a 23-seat majority, are likely to lose a handful of open or Democratic-tilting seats as well as another dozen suburban districts that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016, according to political strategists in both parties. But now Republican officials are increasingly concerned about Democratic incursions in some of the remaining 30 competitive districts on the House map where the G.O.P. candidates thought they had an edge.”
“For the final two weeks of the election, Democratic campaigns and outside groups are on track to substantially outspend Republicans, strategists on both sides say. Democrats are set to spend $143 million on television advertising in House races, compared with $86 million for the G.O.P.”
“Democratic super PACs and other outside groups are poised to outspend their Republican counterparts by a wide margin, erasing an advantage the G.O.P. planned on having.”
The Atlantic: “A few hours before he went on stage, the Department of Justice announced the arrest of Cesar Sayoc in connection with a series of bombs sent to prominent critics of the president, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Maxine Waters, and George Soros. Trump has spent the last three days cycling rapidly through perspectives on the bombing, from a somber vow to catch the perpetrator to blaming the media to suggesting that the attack was a ‘false flag’ designed to hurt the Republican Party.”
“Trump started out measured in Charlotte, and tried to strike a measured tone. The only problem was that someone kept tripping him up: himself.”
“In literally the next breath he began a lengthy rhetorical barrage against the press, as though it was the mainstream media and not he that had celebrated and incited violence.”
“Donald Trump is living a personal nightmare. Just days before a critical election, he finds himself unable to influence what the political press is covering,” the Daily Beast reports.
“The president has spent the last week attempting to gin up media coverage of a caravan of migrants making their way from Honduras to the Mexico-U.S. border. He’s heralded his signing of a major bill to combat the opioid epidemic. He’s touted additional—though currently nonexistent—legislation to further slash middle-class taxes.”
“But a series of real-world events—primarily the dispatch of explosive devices to numerous top Democratic officials by what appears to be an obsessive Trump fan— have overwhelmed that storyline. And it’s left Trump notably churlish.”
Joe Scarborough: “Is it any wonder that Trump Republicans are so desperate to change the subject from health care? After all, how do you face voters knowing that your primary political goal in Washington has been to wipe out health-care guarantees so multinational corporations and Mar-a-Lago billionaires can fatten their bank accounts and pour even more money into their children’s trust funds?”
“That platform won’t even play well in Palm Beach.”
“Despite Republicans opposing, denigrating and repeatedly trying to repeal Obamacare, a growing number of scared conservatives are now paying lip service to the preposterous idea that the law’s provision protecting coverage for those with preexisting conditions can remain intact even if the rest of the law is gutted.”
“Well, I think I’ve been toned down, if you want to know the truth. I could really tone it up. Because, as you know, the media has been extremely unfair to me and to the Republican Party.”
— President Trump, quoted by Mediaite, defending his anti-media rhetoric.
“A crowded U.S. Senate race in Republican stronghold Mississippi could set the stage for weeks of uncertainty over which party ends up controlling the upper chamber of Congress after the Nov. 6 elections,” Reuters reports.
“Two Republicans and two Democrats are contesting a special election to serve out the remainder of retired Republican Senator Thad Cochran’s term. Under state law, if no one gets 50 percent of the vote, the top two candidates regardless of party affiliation will go to a Nov. 27 runoff.”
“It is a scenario that could focus international attention on the Southern state and bring in millions of dollars from outside political groups.”
“The Trump administration has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin for a visit to Washington in early 2019,” USA Today reports.
“The invitation was announced Friday by National Security Advisor John Bolton during a news conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, just days after meeting with Putin and other Kremlin officials in Moscow to discuss the U.S. withdrawing from a Cold-War era nuclear weapons treaty.”
I’ll be on a great panel at Harvard’s Kennedy School with Rick Wilson, Asha Rangappa, Clare Malone and Chris Riback today at 4 p.m. ET.
You can watch the live stream below:
Thanks to the Institute of Politics for hosting the event.
“Just eleven donors injected $1 billion into U.S. political races in the past eight years through super PACs, the big-money entities that have given wealthy contributors a powerful way to influence elections,” the Washington Post reports.
“The list of donors — a bipartisan collection of hedge fund billionaires, entrepreneurs, media magnates and a casino mogul — together contributed more than one-fifth of the $4.5 billion collected by super PACs since their inception in 2010.”
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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