Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) vetoed a bill that would have effectively banned abortion in her state, The Oklahoman reports.
“She said the measure was vague and would not withstand a constitutional legal challenge. Senate Bill 1552 would have made it a felony for physicians to perform abortions. It also contained a provision to revoke their medical licenses unless the abortion was necessary to save the life of the mother.”
Politico: “The main reason for Trump’s surge over the past few weeks? He is earning increasingly larger shares of the Republican vote — even as some prominent GOP leaders, like House Speaker Paul Ryan, haven’t yet committed to supporting their party’s apparent nominee. But rank-and-file Republican voters are lining up behind Trump in large numbers, closing the gap with Clinton’s support among Democrats, which had been higher during earlier stages of the campaign.”
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), who once called Donald Trump “a cancer on conservatism,” told CNN that he would be willing to serve as the presumptive Republican nominee’s vice president.
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Donald Trump told the National Rifle Association that Hillary Clinton would take away the right to bear arms, moments after the gun group endorsed the presumptive GOP nominee at its annual meeting, CNN reports.
Calling the endorsement a “fantastic honor,” Trump dove right into attacking Clinton, saying she “wants to abolish the Second Amendment.”
Said Trump: “We’re not going to let that happen. We’re going to preserve it, we’re going to cherish it.”
“Oklahoma’s Republican-dominated legislature has filed a measure calling for President Obama’s impeachment over his administration’s recommendations on accommodating transgender students, saying he overstepped his constitutional authority,” Reuters reports.
“Lawmakers in the socially conservative state are also expected to take up a measure as early as Friday that would allow students to claim a religious right to have separate but equal bathrooms and changing facilities to segregate them from transgender students.”
“Trump is a dick.”
— Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, quoted by Politico.
“Just months before the U.S. housing market started to crash, beginning the downward spiral that sent the globe on the road to the massive 2008 financial crisis, Donald Trump was advising Trump University students that he didn’t think there was a bubble in the real estate market,” BuzzFeed reports.
“The comments from Trump in an October 2006 audiobook were one of numerous times Trump said through Trump University that he didn’t think there was a housing bubble. In another Trump University audiobook released earlier that year, Trump said to take talk of real estate bubble talk with a ‘pinch of salt.'”
Harry Enten: “Trump did worse than the polling forecast in 19 states; he did better in 15 states. That hardly suggests that Trump outperforms his polling. Still, the difference isn’t so great that we can say Trump usually underperforms his polling. It’s a fairly even split, with Trump missing his average poll by just 1 percentage point in the median state. Two of Trump’s worst performances relative to the polls were in Kansas and Iowa — both states held low-turnout caucuses, which Trump won’t have to deal with in the general election. Overall, Trump’s percentage of the vote versus the polls is about what you’d expect of the average politician.”
For members: How Many People Don’t Admit They Support Trump?
“The last time information from Donald Trump’s income-tax returns was made public, the bottom line was striking: He had paid the federal government $0 in income taxes,” the Washington Post reports.
“The disclosure, in a 1981 report by New Jersey gambling regulators, revealed that the wealthy Manhattan investor had for at least two years in the late 1970s taken advantage of a tax-code provision popular with developers that allowed him to report negative income.”
“In an attempt to head off an ugly conflict at its convention this summer, the Democratic National Committee plans to offer a concession to Sen. Bernie Sanders — seats on a key convention platform committee — but it may not be enough to stop Sanders from picking a fight over the party’s policy positions,” the Washington Post reports.
“Allies of both Clinton and Sanders have urged Democratic leaders to meet some of Sanders’s more mundane demands for greater inclusion at the Philadelphia convention. Their decision to do so is expected to be finalized by the end of the week, according to two people familiar with the discussions. But growing mistrust between Sanders supporters and party leaders have threatened to undermine that effort.”
“As tensions were escalating between Bernie Sanders and Democratic Party leaders over the chaos caused by his supporters at a Nevada convention, Dick Durbin got an unexpected call from the Vermont senator,” Bloomberg reports.
“Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, came away from the conversation on Wednesday convinced that Sanders, who has all but lost the presidential nomination battle to Hillary Clinton, understands the need for party unity and will do his part to defeat presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.”
“Hundreds of millions of dollars that Republican groups had been poised to spend in the 2016 presidential election are now increasingly likely to move into Senate and House races, as many big donors look to distance themselves from the party’s presumptive nominee, Donald J. Trump,” the New York Times reports.
“These groups and their Democratic counterparts have already spent more than $25 million on advertising in Senate general election races alone, according to Kantar Media/CMAG, significantly outpacing both the 2014 and 2012 campaigns in outside spending. And more than $134 million in advertising for Senate races alone has been reserved by groups for the general election.”
“Donald Trump will have another chance to reassure wary conservatives still reluctant to back a candidate who once expressed support for an assault weapons ban and contributed to anti-gun Democrats when he speaks at the National Rifle Association’s national convention Friday,” NBC News reports.
“Since expressing support for the ban and a longer waiting period for gun purchases in 2000, Trump’s done an about-face on the issue. He’s since called gun bans ‘a total failure,’ opposed an expansion of background checks and called for concealed carry permits to be valid across all 50 states.”
“Homosexuality is a chosen behavior that is contrary to the fundamental unchanging truths that has been ordained by God in the Bible, recognized by our nations founders, and shared by the majority of Texans.”
— The Texas Republican Party platform, which Reuters notes includes an errant comma suggesting that the majority of Texans are gay.
Norm Ornstein: “In this highly charged election, it’s no surprise that the news media see every poll like an addict sees a new fix. That is especially true of polls that show large and unexpected changes. Those polls get intense coverage and analysis, adding to their presumed validity.”
“The problem is that the polls that make the news are also the ones most likely to be wrong. And to folks like us, who know the polling game and can sort out real trends from normal perturbations, too many of this year’s polls, and their coverage, have been cringeworthy.
Politico: “While a small group of Republicans has wrung its hands raw over the choice between the GOP’s nominee and Hillary Clinton, the party’s firmament – social and intellectual conservatives, the lobbyist and donor class, powerful operatives and outside groups – is increasingly getting in line behind Donald Trump.”
“Never mind that many of them complain about his bombastic and unpredictable political style. The thawing has slowly but surely begun – and it’s visible everywhere — from mega-donors like Foster Friess rallying Republican governors to Trump, to Mitt Romney’s allies agreeing to raise money for him, to leaders of the Never Trump movement conceding their cause is lost.”
“Hillary Clinton, seeking a governing coalition if she wins the White House, is pumping millions of dollars into key battleground states at the heart of her presidential map and Democrats’ quest to regain control of the Senate,” the AP reports.
“The Democratic National Committee and state parties are spending about $2 million initially to build coordinated campaigns in eight battleground states with competitive Senate races. The money is being raised by Clinton’s campaign through her Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that allows Clinton to raise large checks of more than $350,000 from wealthy donors.”
“Democrats say the coordinated effort, now a staple in presidential campaigns, will try to build up the party’s network of field organizers earlier in the election and work more closely with Senate, House and state and local campaigns than in previous election cycles.”
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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