A new Change Research poll in Alabama finds Roy Moore (R) leading Doug Jones (D) by six points in tomorrow’s U.S. Senate special election, 51% to 45%.
Earlier, we also had a Fox News poll that showed Jones leading by ten points and a Monmouth poll that, depending on turnout model, showed both candidates either ahead or tied.
For members: No One Knows Who Will Win In Alabama
Republican national committeewoman Joyce Simmons resigned from her party leadership post in protest of the party’s financial support for GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore in Alabama, the Lincoln Journal Star reports.
Said Simmons: “I wish I could have continued my service to the national Republican Party that I used to know well.”
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Alabamians to vote in tomorrow’s special Senate election, the Birmingham News reports.
Said Rice: “This week’s special election will be one of the most significant in Alabama’s history. As a native daughter, I remain – at heart – an Alabaman who loves our state and its devotion to faith, family, and country.”
She added: “I encourage you to take a stand for our core principles and for what is right. These critical times require us to come together to reject bigotry, sexism, and intolerance.”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) told CNN that President Trump “should resign” over the many sexual assault allegations made about him.
Said Gillibrand: “These allegations are credible; they are numerous. I’ve heard these women’s testimony, and many of them are heartbreaking.”
She added that if he does not “immediately resign,” Congress “should have appropriate investigations of his behavior and hold him accountable.”
A new Monmouth poll in Alabama finds slight differences in turnout could dramatically change the outcome of tomorrow’s special U.S. Senate election.
Said pollster Patrick Murray: “In a typical year, we would probably default to the historical model, which shows Moore ahead. It could still end up that way, but both 2016 and 2017 suggest that typical models may not apply. If we see a surge in Democratic turnout, especially in the Birmingham region, Jones has a chance.”
Former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson (R) told Minnesota Public Radio that Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) should rescind his planned resignation and allow a formal ethics probe to continue in order to preserve due process.
The FBI is investigating Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) “practice of hiring employees to work in the governor’s office while actually paying them through various state agencies and public authorities,” the Albany Times Union reports.
“Hiring pricey political appointees to work for the Executive Chamber — but paying them through other entities — has allowed Cuomo and prior governors to increase the size of their staffs while escaping criticism for inflating the Executive Chamber budget.”
The U.S. Treasury Department released a one-page analysis of the GOP’s proposed tax reform plan.
Dan Primack: “The report claims the tax plan would be revenue neutral, acknowledges that the tax plan will not pay for itself via increased economic growth, despite Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin having regularly made such a claim… A single page feels pretty skimpy for an analysis that is supposed to help justify the most significant tax code changes since 1986.”
Matthew Yglesias: “The administration’s analysis claims, basically, that the tax cuts would pay for themselves if and only if they are paired with a bunch of other ideas congress already rejected.”
Jonathan Chait: “It has never been clear what crimes, if any, Donald Trump might have personally committed in the course of the Russia scandal. But in the 24th paragraph of a new NBC News report on the investigation is a sentence that indicates Robert Mueller’s cleanest shot — so far — at proving illegality by the president. Mueller, NBC reports, ‘appears to be interested in whether Trump directed Flynn to lie to senior officials, including Pence, or the FBI, and if so why, the sources said.'”
“That scenario would explain a lot. It would explain why Flynn took not one but two gigantic legal risks. It would explain why the White House took so long so fire him, why Trump asked James Comey to let Flynn off the hook and then fired him when he failed to promise to do so, and why Trump continued to signal his affection for Flynn even afterward.”
“As long as I’m secretary of state of Alabama, you’re going to have to show some initiative to become a registered voter in this state.”
— Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R), quoted by Mother Jones.
A new Fox News poll in Alabama finds Doug Jones (D) with a 10-point lead over Roy Moore (R) in the U.S. Senate special election, 50% to 40%.
Big caveat: “This race’s uniqueness is significant. It is impossible to know who will show up to vote in a special election to fill a seat in the middle of a term in an off-year. And it’s December, a time when people expect to be going to the shopping mall, not the voting booth.”
Also interesting: “A subtle but potentially noteworthy finding is Alabama voters who were interviewed on cellphones are +30 for Jones, while the race is roughly even among all others. The fact that traditional, high-quality probability samples, like the Fox News Poll, include both landline and cellphone numbers may be why these polls show Jones doing relatively well compared to automated or blended polls.”
Another email from a reader that made my day:
I’ve appreciated the material you’ve assembled and curated for quite some time. I visit your site every day, sometimes several times a day. I decided today that I can no longer allow this to go unrecognized/unrewarded/uncompensated — I don’t know which term is most appropriate — so I’ve become a member.
Thanks, again, for your work on this resource.
And this one from a reader who just renewed his membership for another year:
Worth every penny and more! Keep it up.
Thanks to everyone who reads! If you’re not yet a member, join for just $5 a month or $50 a year
President Trump denied a New York Times report over the weekend that he watches a lot of television in a morning tweet:
Another false story, this time in the Failing New York Times, that I watch 4-8 hours of television a day – Wrong! Also, I seldom, if ever, watch CNN or MSNBC, both of which I consider Fake News. I never watch Don Lemon, who I once called the “dumbest man on television!” Bad Reporting.
“Mueller is corrupt. The senior FBI is corrupt. The system is corrupt.”
— Newt Gingrich, quoted by the Los Angeles Times, as part of a ramped up GOP effort to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller.
“The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are hoping to make the most sweeping changes to federal safety net programs in a generation, using legislation and executive actions to target recipients of food stamps, Medicaid and housing benefits,” Politico reports.
“The White House is quietly preparing a sweeping executive order that would mandate a top-to-bottom review of the federal programs on which millions of poor Americans rely. And GOP lawmakers are in the early stages of crafting legislation that could make it more difficult to qualify for those programs.”
Former president Barack Obama “is adding his voice to the Alabama Senate race, imploring voters to go to the polls Tuesday to reject the candidacy of Roy Moore as part of an aggressive effort by Democrats to try and counter President Trump’s full-throated endorsement of the controversial Republican candidate,” CNN reports.
Said Obama: “This one’s serious. You can’t sit it out.”
Obama’s message is intended to specifically reach black voters whose turnout is critical for Democratic candidate Doug Jones.
Politico says former vice president Joe Biden also recorded a robocall.
Bloomberg: “Hundreds of the pending regulations had been effectively shelved before Trump took office. Others listed as withdrawn are actually still being developed by federal agencies. Still more were moot because the actions sought in a pending rule were already in effect.”
“The review’s findings undercut one of the signature assertions of an administration that has struggled to show progress on its major campaign promises.”
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.