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Real Time Projections May Upend Election Coverage

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New York Times: “For decades, news organizations have refrained from releasing early results in presidential battleground states on Election Day, adhering to a strict, time-honored embargo until a majority of polls there have closed.”

“Now, a group of data scientists, journalists and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs is seeking to upend that reporting tradition, providing detailed projections of who is winning at any given time on Election Day in key swing states, and updating the information in real time from dawn to dusk.”

Bonus Quote of the Day

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“I don’t see the path. I just don’t see the path. … I’ve been in these races where you’re nine points down, then you’re five down — you’re still losing.”

— GOP strategist Stuart Stevens, quoted by the Washington Post, noting that Donald Trump is doing no better than Mitt Romeny in the presidential race.


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What Politicians Can Learn from Apple

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At the iPhone 7 unveiling this week, Apple was roundly criticized for saying it was “courage” that led them to remove the headphone jack from the newest model of their popular phone.

Here’s what Phil Schiller said on stage:

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Economic Outlook Best In 9 Years

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A new CNN/ORC poll finds “53% of Americans say economic conditions in the US are good, up from the 45% who felt that way in June. It’s the highest number since September 2007, before the 2008 economic collapse.”

“The poll also showed that President Barack Obama continues to have majority approval ratings, at 51%. His approval rating has been at or above 50% since February, the longest stretch of his presidency since his first year in office.”

Quote of the Day

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“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables’. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it.”

— Hillary Clinton, quoted by the Washington Post.

Why Isn’t Clinton Further Ahead?

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“With Election Day less than two months away, Democrats are increasingly worried that Hillary Clinton has not built a formidable lead against Donald Trump despite his historic weaknesses as a national party candidate,” the Washington Post reports.

“Even the Democratic nominee’s advisers acknowledge that she must make changes, and quickly. Clinton leads Trump by three percentage points, having fallen from her high of nine points in August, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average. That tightening has frustrated many Clinton allies and operatives, who are astonished that she isn’t running away with this race, given Trump’s deep unpopularity and his continuing stream of controversial comments.”

Trump Says Clinton Is Protected from Prosecution

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Donald Trump suggested that Hillary Clinton “was so immune to prosecution that she could shoot someone in front of thousands of witnesses and not be prosecuted,” the New York Times reports.

Said Trump: “She is being so protected. She could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching, right smack in the middle of the heart, and she wouldn’t be prosecuted. O.K.? That’s what’s happening.”

Bonus Quote of the Day

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“I do hate them. I hate some of these people, but I’ll be honest, I would never kill them.”

— Donald Trump, quoted by Mediaite, saying that even though Vladimir Putin has been accused of killing journalists, “I’m totally against that.”

Did Obama Blow It with the Merrick Garland Nomination?

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James Hohmann: “No Democratic Senate candidates are talking about Garland in paid television ads. No one mentioned Garland during the Democratic National Convention in July, including Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton has not committed to re-nominate Garland if she’s elected. While she talks about the Supreme Court, she almost never talks about him.”

“Some Democrats privately fear that Obama blew an opportunity to help re-activate the coalition that elected him twice by not picking a more progressive nominee – especially a minority candidate – to replace the late Antonin Scalia. Had Obama nominated someone who really ginned up the Democratic base, perhaps Clinton and the party would have more whole-heartedly embraced him or her.”

Also: “Many of the same progressives who are not enthusiastic about Clinton are also not enthusiastic about Garland.”

Politico: “The air wars over Garland have largely gone silent, with no Senate Democratic candidates having run television ads invoking the unprecedented Republican blockade of Garland. And some Senate Republicans have actually turned the tables, using the court to motivate their own base.”

Minnesota Democrats Seek to Push Trump Off Ballot

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Minnesota’s DFL Party moved to have Donald Trump removed from the November ballot, arguing the state GOP failed to abide by candidate filing laws, Minnesota Public Radio reports.

“State Democratic Party Chairman Ken Martin filed a petition with the Minnesota Supreme Court to strike Trump and running mate Mike Pence. The petition contends Trump’s candidate filing was flawed because the Republican Party failed to properly choose the people who would cast Electoral College votes for their candidate if he wins Minnesota.”

Michigan GOP Can’t Ban Straight Ticket Voting

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The Supreme Court “refused to allow Michigan to ban voters from casting straight-ticket ballots in the coming election after lower courts found the prohibition was likely to discriminate against African Americans and result in long lines at the polls,” the Washington Post reports.

“The justices declined to get involved in a political controversy that began when the state’s Republican leadership passed a bill to end 125 years of straight-ticket voting, which allows a voter to vote for all candidates of a desired party by taking a single action.”

Is Political Consulting a Scam?

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Molly Ball: “These are boom times for political consultants—by one rough estimate, more than $6 billion will go to or through consulting firms during this year’s elections—and the scene at the conference was befitting of an industry awash in cash. Booths showcased the wares of campaign-literature printers, data-acquisition specialists, automated-phone-call vendors, online-fund-raising experts, and social-media-analytics firms. Whole companies exist just to manufacture the throwaway trinkets campaigns hand out, from stress balls with a candidate’s name on them to red-white-and-blue fingernail files.”

“But all was not well at the Pollies. A confab intended to be a sun-soaked junket was instead shadowed by the island’s debt crisis, the Zika virus, and a forecast of stormy weather throughout the week. It was almost too perfect a metaphor: Despite all the money pouring into political consulting, a palpable sense of unease looms over the profession. The consultants may be getting rich, but recent events suggest they don’t have any idea what they’re doing.”

Enough About Hillary Clinton’s Email

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A Washington Post editorial says it’s time to stop fixating on Hillary Clinton’s emails now that the FBI said there wasn’t evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

“Ms. Clinton is hardly blameless. She treated the public’s interest in sound record-keeping cavalierly. A small amount of classified material also moved across her private server. But it was not obviously marked as such, and there is still no evidence that national security was harmed. Ms. Clinton has also admitted that using the personal server was a mistake. The story has vastly exceeded the boundaries of the facts.”

About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan 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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