A new CNN poll finds just 36% say they approve of the way President Trump is handling his job, worse by one percentage point than his previous low of 37%, reached in October.
Disapproval has also reached a new high at 58%, with 48% saying they strongly disapprove of the way he is handling his job.
Also interesting: 59% say they think Trump himself knew that his campaign had contact with suspected Russian operatives.
The violent altercation last week that left Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) nursing bruised lungs and broken ribs began with “a very regrettable dispute” between neighbors over a “trivial” matter, the New York Times reports.
The incident “has absolutely nothing to do with either’s politics or political agendas,” the lawyer for the neighbor, Matthew Baker, said in a statement. “It was a very regrettable dispute between two neighbors over a matter that most people would regard as trivial.”
Two neighbors told the New York Times that the attack may have stemmed from a dispute over “some sort of planting or flora issue around the properties.”
“I’ve known Ed Gillespie for a long time. I’ve liked Ed Gillespie for a very long time… Smart guy, has always been an honorable guy. I’ll speak for myself, I’m embarrassed for him, and I’m ashamed for the Republican Party that he’s turned to Confederate monuments to try to win this thing in the end. I don’t know if it works for him or not.”
— Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe, about the Virginia governor’s race.
“House Republicans’ tax bill would increase taxes for 12 percent of Americans next year, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. By 2027, at least 28 percent of Americans would see their taxes rise, the report says. Many of those taking a hit would be people who make less than $48,000 a year,” the Washington Post reports.
“The vast majority of Americans would get a tax cut if the bill becomes law… but the rich would benefit the most. The finding comes amid intense debate over whether this bill does enough to help the middle and working classes, a key promise of President Trump.”
“An early draft of former FBI Director James Comey’s statement closing out the Hillary Clinton email case accused the former Secretary of State of having been ‘grossly negligent’ in handling classified information, new memos to Congress show,” The Hill reports.
“The tough language was changed to the much softer accusation that Clinton had been ‘extremely careless’ in her handling of classified information when Comey announced in July 2016 there would be no charges against her.”
Jeff Flake: “I can say that reading these letters has been one of the most humbling experiences of my public life. To be clear: I don’t find them humbling because the people who wrote to me liked the speech. Indeed, some didn’t. I am humbled because until now I didn’t fully grasp the level of anxiety and real pain that exists across the country due to the state of our national leadership.”
“These writers despair not just for the chaos emanating from the White House, but for the moral vandalism that has been set loose in our culture, as well as the seeming disregard for the institutions of American democracy. The damage to our democracy seems to come daily now, most recently with the president’s venting late last week that if he had his way, he would hijack the American justice system to conduct political prosecutions — a practice that only happens in the very worst places on earth. And as this behavior continues, it is not just our politics being disfigured, but the American sense of well-being and time-honored notions of the common good.”
“Every president has made poor decisions and every president has at some time or other been judged to be taking us down the wrong path. But such judgments have always been accompanied by a sense that better choices and more appropriate behavior would be forthcoming. I wish I could say that is the case here. But if we are honest with ourselves, we all know that things will not improve.”
Nate Cohn: “A year after polls broadly overestimated Hillary Clinton’s strength in the decisive Rust Belt battleground states, top pollsters and analysts across the survey industry have reached a broad near-consensus on many of the causes of error in the 2016 presidential election. But so far, public pollsters — typically run by news outlets and colleges — have not changed much about their approach. Few if any of the public pollsters that conducted surveys ahead of Tuesday’s elections for governor in Virginia and New Jersey appear to have adopted significant methodological changes intended to better represent the rural, less-educated white voters who pollsters believe were underrepresented in pre-election surveys.”
“On the other hand, private pollsters — typically employed by campaigns and parties — have already begun to make changes. This is especially true among Democrats stunned by Donald Trump’s upset victory, but Republicans are making changes as well. The adjustments are already playing out in Virginia, where pollsters will have one of their first chances to put postelection shifts to the test.”
Slate has an interactive timeline of all of the New York Times push alerts since last year’s election.
A federal judge “ordered former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates to remain under house arrest with their movements tracked by GPS devices – until they offer up more bail money to assure their future appearances in court,” USA Today reports.
The judge said she was “inclined” to eventually “let both Manafort and Gates out of home confinement, and was even open to allowing them to travel within the United States so they could continue their consulting work, but not overseas.”
A new Monmouth poll in Virginia finds Ralph Northam (D) up a negligible two points against Ed Gillespie (R), 47% to 45%.
“The current results confirm a trend noted in last month’s poll: the race has become an appeal to each party’s base. The two candidates have solidified support in their regional strongholds leaving the Commonwealth’s central region as the kingmaker. At the same time, voters have soured on the tone the campaign has taken in the last six weeks.”
The RealClearPolitics polling average shows Northam with a three-point lead.
Esquire: “On November 8, 2016, America’s chief storytellers—those within the bubbles of media and politics—lost the narrative they had controlled for decades. In a space of 24 hours, the concept of ‘conventional wisdom’ seemed to vanish for good. How did this happen? What follows are over 40 brand new interviews and behind-the-scenes stories from deep inside The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, and more—plus first-hand accounts from the campaigns, themselves. We’ve spent a year hearing the spin. Now it’s time for the truth.”
Mike Allen: “Here’s something unusual and refreshing: There are two highly ambitious Democrats who don’t even bother hiding their strong desire to run in 2020 — and to reshape the party: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.”
“When I asked top Dem donors and operatives about candidates like these, the consistent answer was that for the first time in our lifetimes, D.C. experience may be a vulnerability rather than an asset when running for president.”
Said one Democratic operative: “Mayors are fantastic. They actually do things, and that really energizes them. They don’t talk like D.C. types or cautious governors who have to wrangle with state legislatures. They tend to love their jobs and people really like them. It’s the one level of government in which Dems have a huge advantage and a deep well of talent.”
James Hohmann: “Winning the House next year will require Democratic candidates, in many districts, to win over a considerable number of independents and even Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016. Floating impeachment may gin up the far left, but this is not an effective message to make inroads with new voters. Just ask the Republicans who went all-in on impeaching Bill Clinton how the 1998 midterms went.”
NBC News: “Democrats have been here before. They’re ahead in the polls, the Republican Party is divided and President Donald Trump’s flaws have been dominating the political landscape. And we all saw how that turned out for the party in 2016.”
“So as Virginia voters choose their next governor on Tuesday — either Democrat Ralph Northam or Republican Ed Gillespie — the central question has become: Unlike in 2016, can Democrats finally win with those advantages? Or will Republicans once again pull off the upset?”
First Read: “Those are the stakes, especially a year away from the all-important midterm elections in 2018, when control of the U.S. House is up for grabs and when Trump’s presence is sure to play another outsize role.”
“We will have more trade than anybody ever thought under TPP. That I can tell you. Probably some of you in this room disagree… ultimately I’ll be proven to be right.”
— President Trump, quoted by the Washington Post, speaking in Japan.
“A Russian lawyer who met with President Donald Trump’s oldest son last year says he indicated that a law targeting Russia could be re-examined if his father won the election and asked her for written evidence that illegal proceeds went to Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” Bloomberg reports.
“The lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, said in a two-and-a-half-hour interview in Moscow that she would tell these and other things to the Senate Judiciary Committee on condition that her answers be made public, something it hasn’t agreed to. She has received scores of questions from the committee, which is investigating possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Veselnitskaya said she’s also ready — if asked — to testify to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.”
A new Wason Center poll in Virginia finds Ralph Northam (D) leading Ed Gillespie (R) by six points, 51% to 45%.
Allocating the undecided voters according to their historical pattern in Wason Center surveys of Virginia statewide elections indicates a Northam victory on Election Day, 51.3% to 46.8%.
A new Fox News poll finds Northam leading Gillespie, 48% to 43%.
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.