Towns Experiencing Big Racial Changes Trend to Trump
A Wall Street Journal analysis of census data “shows that counties in a distinct cluster of Midwestern states—Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota—saw among the fastest influxes of nonwhite residents of anywhere in the U.S. between 2000 and 2015. Hundreds of cities long dominated by white residents got a burst of Latino newcomers who migrated from Central America or uprooted from California and Texas.”
“That shift helps explain the emergence of Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump as a political force, and signals that tensions over immigration will likely outlive his candidacy. Among GOP voters in this year’s presidential primaries, counties that diversified rapidly were more likely to vote for the New York businessman, the Journal’s analysis shows.”
Senate Forecast Still Cloudy
Stu Rothenberg: “About half of the 11 races that have been watched at some point over the last year are still too-close-to-call. But Republicans remain on the defensive, and Democrats have many routes to gaining the four seats they need … The re-emergence of Hillary Clinton’s email issue puts the former secretary of state on the defensive and gives ammunition to GOP House and Senate candidate… The Republicans’ problem is that, unless they win the Nevada Senate race, they’ll need to win at least four of the five tightest contests.”
“Comey’s letter gives GOP strategists reason for hope, and a race-by-race assessment … suggests that anything from a Democratic gain of as few as three to as many as eight seats is possible. But given the much greater Republican vulnerability, Democrat gains of four to seven seats now looks most likely. And that would flip the Senate.”
Why Trump Was In New Mexico and Michigan
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October’s Surprise May Not Resonate In November
Rick Klein: “The collective view from Democratic and Republican strategists on the fallout from the FBI director’s announcement: that could have been worse. While conceding that it will probably be another day or two until polling can fully reflect the impact, top strategists in both parties are saying the race didn’t get upended by the late-October surprise. It gave Donald Trump a crisper closing argument that will boost GOP turnout. It may make Trump likelier to carry Iowa and Ohio, and could save a few Senate seats for Republicans. But the narrowing of polls nationally and in other key battlegrounds doesn’t appear to have changed the stubborn electoral math confronting Team Trump. (It’s in that context, and that context alone, that makes trips to New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Michigan this week make sense.)”
“Yes, Trump is now leading by a point in the ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll. But recall the race was tightening quickly before Friday’s bombshell. While Clinton’s camp is calling on more information, and quickly, from FBI Director James Comey, it’s not clear that they should actually want that. If the story drifts away, the campaign continues over the final week – and Democrats still like their odds.”
Ex-Spy Told FBI that Russia Tried to Help Trump
“A former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump—and that the FBI requested more information from him.”
Where Are All the Good Polls?
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One Week to Go
ABC News: “Although the election is close at this point, vote preference results a week out are not necessarily predictive of the final result. Mitt Romney was +1 vs. Barack Obama in comparable tracking poll results in 2012, for example, and John Kerry was +1 vs. George Bush a week out in 2004.”
Meanwhile, the HuffPost Pollster average shows Clinton leading Trump by six points, 48% to 42%.
Clinton Momentum Dramatically Slows In Final Days
New York Times: “The announcement that the F.B.I. is reviewing newly discovered emails of a top Hillary Clinton aide has slowed the campaign’s momentum and the hopes of expanding support in traditional Midwestern battleground states. Leading Democratic strategists say the news has caused some of Mrs. Clinton’s more casual supporters to drift away. Her campaign expressed confidence that she would weather the political turbulence, but acknowledged that optimism about gaining ground in places like Ohio and Iowa, where the demographics favor Donald J. Trump, was fading. Still, it said, even as Mrs. Clinton’s overall support has shrunk in recent days, she can easily assemble the 270 electoral votes she needs for a victory next Tuesday, given her broad base of voters in more demographically diverse states.”
Playbook waits for new North Carolina and Pennsylvania polling: “It seems, at this point, that Clinton is holding her lead nearly everywhere. If Trump puts those states in play, he has a chance.”
Trump Grabs Lead as Enthusiasm for Clinton Wanes
The ABC News-Washington Post tracking poll finds Donald Trump just ahead of Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, 46% to 45%.
Key finding: “Trump now leads Clinton by 8 points in the share of voters who are very enthusiastic about their choice as of Friday. But, compared to past elections it’s low for both of them –- 53 percent for Trump, 45 percent for Clinton. Strong enthusiasm for Clinton has lost 7 points since the start of tracking, especially Friday through Sunday.”
Electoral College Math Still Favors Clinton
Amy Walter: “However, despite the recent tightening, Trump remains behind in the polls. And, his path to 270 electoral votes remains decidedly and almost impossibly narrow. Polling taken over the weekend suggests that voters are reacting to the FBI story in a typically partisan manner. Could it have an impact on enthusiasm? Perhaps. And, it also could get reluctant GOPers to show up to cast a vote for down ballot GOPers to give a “check” on Clinton. But, it hasn’t upended the normal pattern/trajectory of the campaign.”
“The most recent polls suggest that Trump’s best chances to flip a state Obama carried in 2012 are Iowa, Ohio and Florida. Even so, North Carolina — a state Romney carried in 2012 — is looking tougher and tougher for Trump. Pennsylvania, Virginia and Colorado also look out of reach. Without North Carolina or Pennsylvania, it is almost impossible for him to hit 270.”
Trump Used Legally Dubious Method to Avoid Taxes
Donald Trump “proudly acknowledges he did not pay a dime in federal income taxes for years on end. He insists he merely exploited tax loopholes legally available to any billionaire — loopholes he says Hillary Clinton failed to close during her years in the United States Senate,” the New York Times reports.
“But newly obtained documents show that in the early 1990s, as he scrambled to stave off financial ruin, Mr. Trump avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable income by using a tax avoidance maneuver so legally dubious his own lawyers advised him that the Internal Revenue Service would likely declare it improper if he were audited.”
“Thanks to this one maneuver — which was later outlawed by Congress — Mr. Trump potentially escaped paying tens of millions of dollars in federal personal income taxes. It is impossible to know for sure because Mr. Trump has declined to release his tax returns, or even a summary of his returns, breaking a practice followed by every Republican and Democratic presidential candidate for more than four decades.”
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“If Hillary Clinton becomes president, I am going to do everything I can do to make sure four years from now, we still got an opening on the Supreme Court.”
— Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), quoted by CNN.
Trump Companies Destroyed Emails In Defiance of Courts
“Over the course of decades, Donald Trump’s companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders. These tactics—exposed by a Newsweek review of thousands of pages of court filings, judicial orders and affidavits from an array of court cases—have enraged judges, prosecutors, opposing lawyers and the many ordinary citizens entangled in litigation with Trump. In each instance, Trump and entities he controlled also erected numerous hurdles that made lawsuits drag on for years, forcing courtroom opponents to spend huge sums of money in legal fees as they struggled—sometimes in vain—to obtain records.”
“This behavior is of particular import given Trump’s frequent condemnations of Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent, for having deleted more than 30,000 emails from a server she used during her time as secretary of state.”
Ex-Pennsylvania Attorney General Sent to Prison
“The brief, unlikely political career of Kathleen G. Kane, Pennsylvania’s brightest rising star when she was elected attorney general less than four years ago, came to a humiliating close on Monday when a judge sentenced her to 10 to 23 months in prison for her conviction on charges of perjury and abuse of her office,” the New York Times reports.
Kasich Votes for McCain Instead
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), who had vowed not to vote for Donald Trump, voted by absentee ballot for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) instead, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
FBI Now Investigating Ex-Trump Campaign Manager
The FBI has been conducting a preliminary inquiry into Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort’s foreign business connections, law enforcement and intelligence sources told NBC News Monday.
“Word of the inquiry, which has not blossomed into a full-blown criminal investigation, comes just days after FBI Director James Comey’s disclosure that his agency is examining a new batch of emails connected to an aide to Hillary Clinton. And it comes a day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid criticized Comey’s revelation and asserted that Comey possesses ‘explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government.'”
GOP Senator Jokes About Shooting Clinton
Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) privately mused over the weekend that gun owners may want to put a “bullseye” on Hillary Clinton, CNN reports.
The North Carolina Republican, locked in a tight race for reelection, quipped that as he walked into a gun shop “nothing made me feel better” than seeing a magazine about rifles “with a picture of Hillary Clinton on the front of it.”
