Hillary Clinton’s campaign announced the main speakers for each night of the Democratic National Convention:
Monday: Michelle Obama, Bernie Sanders
Tuesday: Bill Clinton
Wednesday: President Barack Obama/Vice President Joe Biden
Thursday: Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton
Gov. Mike Pence signed the form to withdraw from the Indiana governor’s race yesterday.
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Missouri finds Donald Trump with a 10 point lead over Hillary Clinton, 46% to 36%, the same margin that Mitt Romney won by there in 2012.
“Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are unpopular everywhere but Missouri kind of takes it to a different level. Trump’s favorability there is 37/56, while Clinton’s is 29/64. With both candidates so disliked it creates an appetite for protest candidates and we find that Deez Nuts gets 8% as a possible independent candidate in the state, while a Giant Meteor hitting the earth polls at 12%.”
Donald Trump named Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate, “adding to the Republican ticket a traditional conservative who boasts strong credentials with the Christian right, and bringing an end to a vice presidential selection process that seemed at risk of spinning out of control,” the New York Times reports.
“A Reuters review of Republican-backed changes to North Carolina’s voting rules indicates as many as 29,000 votes might not be counted in this year’s Nov. 8 presidential election if a federal appeals court upholds the 2013 law. Besides banning voters from voting outside their assigned precinct on Election Day, the law also prevents them from registering the same day they vote during the early voting period.”
“The U.S. Justice Department says the law was designed to disproportionately affect minority groups, who are more likely to vote out of precinct and use same-day registration. Backers of the law deny this and say it will prevent voter fraud.”
Speaker Paul Ryan told NPR that he thinks Donald Trump will try to change.
Said Ryan: “I just think improving temperament and inclusive rhetoric, and an agenda that invites people into our party, is something that I think anybody going from a primary to a general election needs.”
Asked whether Trump is going to change his tone and behavior, Ryan said: “I believe he’s going to endeavor to try.”
First Read: “Raise your hand if, after Indiana Gov. Mike Pence arrived in New York late yesterday afternoon, you thought there would still be some doubt who Donald Trump’s running mate would be. But here we are — less than four hours before the deadline for Pence to remove his name for re-election to be Trump’s VP. And we’re still not 100% sure Pence is the guy.”
“There are two ways to interpret Trump’s ‘I haven’t made my final, final decision’ to Fox News last night. One, the pick is definitely Pence, but Trump didn’t want the attack in France to overshadow the VP announcement, so he played coy. Or two, there’s some serious second-guessing going on with Trump. And if so, you have to conclude there’s a divide with Trump’s professional political team and Trump himself — either Trump got cornered into the Pence pick, or the staff got ahead of him.”
“To say the least, this hasn’t been an artful VP pick rollout. (Why cancel your VP announcement event because of France, but then call in, twice, to Fox?) On Fox News this morning, Trump’s top political aide Paul Manafort said, ‘[Trump] isn’t prepared to announce it until he announces it… I don’t know if he’s having second thoughts, but he hasn’t announced it yet.'”
Rick Klein: “It’s hard to imagine a single action – even from Trump – that would more inflame his own party than going back on his commitment to Pence at this stage. He would be ensuring chaos at his own convention – and would immediately undo any of the goodwill he’s accumulated among prominent party voices.”
A new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Daybreak tracking poll shows Donald Trump has taken a slim lead nationally over Hillary Clinton, 43% to 40%.
“It comes amid of flurry of other surveys, both nationally and in battleground states, that show support for the former secretary of State declining since last week when FBI Director James B. Comey characterized her handling of classified material while in that office as ‘extremely careless.'”
“A key Republican National Convention committee crushed a long-shot attempt by rogue delegates to block Donald Trump’s nomination, as internal strife that’s roiled the party for much of the past decade was on full display Thursday amid fights over governing rules for the next four years,” Bloomberg reports.
“The convention’s Rules Committee — convened exactly a week before Trump is expected to accept the party’s nomination — worked well into the evening Thursday as an air of distrust hovered over the 112-member panel.”
Nate Silver: “To a national audience, Pence is almost entirely unknown; this morning’s CBS News/New York Times poll put his favorability rating at 5 percent against 8 percent unfavorable, with 86 percent of registered voters either being undecided or not knowing enough about Pence to have an opinion. A Marist College survey, meanwhile, puts him at 12 percent favorable and 21 percent unfavorable. That would present some risk to Trump, because there would be a scramble between the news media and the campaigns to define Pence in the eyes of the electorate. Given Clinton’s greater staffing and financial resources, it’s possible that Pence could stumble out of the gate.”
“And yet, several of the alternatives reportedly on Trump’s VP shortlist, especially Newt Gingrich and Chris Christie, are both widely known and widely disliked by the general electorate. So if Pence isn’t quite a risk-free choice, he’d be better than one who was guaranteed to be unpopular.”
Politico: Is Pence tough enough for Trump?
A new set of Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls shows Hillary Clinton leading in four key swing states:
A new Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll shows Clinton leading in Florida:
Washington Post: “At some point, Trump’s choice of a running mate will be announced. But it will take some time to sort out the events of the past few days.”
“Was this a process that revealed indecision on the part of a candidate who has tried to project decisiveness and strength? Was it one that revealed continuing tensions inside a campaign that has been riven by staff differences? Or was it merely an aggressive media eager to break a big story that got ahead of events and created confusion when little actually existed? Or was it some combination of all of them?”
Politico: Could the Trump VP vetting process go off the rails?
Gov. Mike Pence (R) “still has not filed the necessary paperwork to withdraw himself from the governor’s race that would allow him to run for vice-president,” the Weekly Standard reports.
Pence’s team has until noon on Friday to file the papers.
Politico: “Secret negotiations between the Republican National Committee and conservative leaders seeking to overhaul the party’s presidential nominating process broke down Thursday afternoon, with each side blaming the other for walking away from talks.”
Tim Tebow, in a video posted to his Instagram account Thursday night, denied reports that he will speak at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next week.
“In a stunning move late Thursday, Donald Trump said he was scrapping his plans to announce a running mate because of the terrorist attack in southern France, following a day of strong signals that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was the likely choice,” the Washington Post reports.
“Throughout the day, aides to Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, were preparing to formally announce Pence as the vice presidential candidate at a news conference in New York on Friday morning. But by early evening, Trump said that he had yet to make a ‘final, final decision’ between Pence and two other candidates, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former House speaker Newt Gingrich.”
Sarah Palin isn’t included in the official list of speakers for the Republican National Convention next week, and Donald Trump suggested to the Washington Examiner that her absence is because she lives too far from the venue.
Said Trump: “She was asked. It’s a little bit difficult because of where she is. We love Sarah. Little bit difficult because of, you know, it’s a long ways away.”
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.