Chris Suprun, a member of the Electoral College from Texas, is warning he might not cast his electoral vote for Donald Trump, Politico reports.
Said Suprun: “I’m not a professional politician. I’ve got no training on this one. The nominee is saying things that in an otherwise typical election year would have you disqualified.”
Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) sought to clarify comments he made on race and drug dealers when he said he kept a binder of photographs of arrested heroin dealers in Maine and that more than 90% were black or Hispanic, the Portland Press Herald reports.
Said LePage: “If I am a racist for trying to get black people and Hispanic people and white people and Asian people who come up (Interstate 95) with heroin that will kill Mainers, then I plead guilty. I do plead guilty.”
Jeb Bush told WABC that he doesn’t believe Donald Trump has had a sincere policy evolution on immigration.
Said Bush: “I don’t know what to believe about a guy who doesn’t believe in things. This is all a game. His views will change based on the feedback he gets from a crowd or what he thinks he has to do.”
A new Pew Research Center poll finds that 71% say undocumented immigrants living in the United States mostly fill jobs citizens do not want, while just 24% say they mostly take jobs citizens want.
About three-quarters of Americans (76%) say undocumented immigrants are “as honest and hard-working” as U.S. citizens, while 67% say they are no more likely than U.S. citizens to commit serious crimes.
Mother Jones: “In another harsh attack on his opponent, Donald Trump at a New Hampshire rally on Thursday accused Hillary Clinton of running a ‘vast criminal enterprise’ that was worse than Watergate, alleging that the Clinton Foundation was part of some sort of pay-to-play scheme while Clinton was secretary of state.”
“Trump did not cite any evidence as he repeated this hyperbolic charge and his supporters shouted ‘lock her up.’ Moreover, Trump did not mention that his own foundation donated at least $110,000 to the Clinton Foundation.”
Amy Walter: “At this point in a ‘normal’ campaign, there is talk about the dreaded ‘October Surprise’ which is an event or series of events that can change the contours and direction of the campaign. Or maybe it’s a new piece of information about the candidate that alters the perception of that candidate or pulls them off their carefully crafted message.”
“What’s unique about this campaign, however, is that the stuff (specifically bad stuff) that is most likely to come out between now and Election Day won’t be ‘surprising,’ but will instead reaffirm existing perceptions about these candidates. More suspect emails from Clinton and more bad behavior from Trump won’t be a “surprise” to voters who already view both Clinton and Trump more negatively than positively.”
“My worship for him is like the people of North Korea worship Dear Leader — blind loyalty. Once he gave that Mexican rapist speech, I’ll walk across glass for him. That’s basically it. Unlike the crazy Cruz supporters, I’ll criticize him, and I have, but it’s all minor stylistic stuff. We all want to shoot him at various times.”
— Ann Coulter, quoted by Bloomberg’s Josh Green. on her support of Donald Trump.
Julian Assange told Fox News that WikiLeaks will release information with some “unexpected angles” regarding Hillary Clinton’s campaign ahead of the general election.
Said Assange: “I think it’s significant. You know, it depends on how it catches fire in the public and in the media.”
He added: “I don’t want to give the game away, but it’s a variety of documents from different types of institutions that are associated with the election campaign, some quite unexpected angles, some quite interesting, some even entertaining.”
A new Quinnipiac poll shows Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump nationally by 10 points, 51% to 41%.
In a four-way race, Clinton leads Trump 45% to 38%, with Gary Johnson at 10% and Jill Stein at 4%.
Said pollster Tim Malloy: “We are starting to hear the faint rumblings of a Hillary Clinton landslide as her 10-point lead is further proof that Donald Trump is in a downward spiral as the clock ticks. Trump’s missteps, stumbles and gaffes seem to outweigh Clinton’s shaky trust status and perceived shady dealings. Wow, is there any light at the end of this dark and depressing chapter in American politics?”
Here are the latest state polls from the presidential race:
Florida: Trump 44%, Clinton 41% (Cherry Communications)
Michigan: Clinton 44%, Trump 37% (Suffolk)
John Sides: “Probably the best estimate comes from a recently published piece by political scientists Ryan Enos and Anthony Fowler. They show that the effect of the 2012 presidential campaign on voter turnout was quite large, about 7-8 points overall.”
“They arrive at this estimate by analyzing a sort of experiment: media markets that span state boundaries, such that part of the market falls in a battleground state and part doesn’t. Voters in one of those markets would be potentially exposed to the same amount of televised political advertising but different amounts of other campaign activity. In particular, you would expect that the battleground state voters would be far more likely to be contacted by campaign fieldworkers, who generally aren’t going to contact voters outside of battleground states. Enos and Fowler found that voter turnout within these markets was much higher in the battleground state portion than the non-battleground state portion.”
Donald Trump is now getting the support of only 72% of Republican women, down from the 93% that Mitt Romney won in 2012, according to Clare Malone.
“Enter Kellyanne Conway, who Trump hired as his campaign manager last week. Conway, a longtime GOP pollster, owns her own firm, “the polling company, inc./WomanTrend,” and if you couldn’t guess it from the name, she’s made a career in no small part by providing advice to politicians and marketers about what women want… Conway even wrote a book, What Women Really Want.”
A new Reuters/Ipsos “States of the Nation” poll projects that Hillary Clinton has a 95% chance of beating Donald Trump if the presidential election were held today.
“The project, which combines opinion polls with an analysis of voting patterns under different election scenarios, shows Clinton currently beating Trump in the popular vote by six percentage points and ahead in 19 states, including most of the larger-population ones that heavily influence the outcome of the election.”
In an interview with CNN, Hillary Clinton appeared intent on cleaning up Colin Powell’s frustration about how Clinton’s allies are trying to pin her email problems on him.
Said Clinton: “Well, look, I have the utmost respect for Secretary Powell, and he was incredibly grateful after I was nominated and before I took the job. Appreciated the time he took when I was preparing to become secretary. Not going to re-litigate in public my private conversations with him. I’ve been asked many questions about emails and what I’ve learned is, what I’ve tried to explain there are no excuses. I want people to know that the decision to have a single email account was mine. I take responsibility for it. I apologize for it. I would certainly do differently if I could.”
Vice President Joe Biden said he expected the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would close before President Obama leaves office in January, Reuters reports.
Said Biden: “That is my hope and expectation.”
“I’m finding that I do better with voters, do better in the polls, when I’m on message… If people hit me, I will certainly hit back. That will never change.”
— Donald Trump, in an interview with the New York Times.
“Ann Coulter revealed her sense of disgust with Donald Trump’s latest comments on immigration in which he suggested an openness to changing his hard-line stance on illegal immigration,” Politico reports.
“The conservative commentator, in the midst of a book tour for In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!, threatened earlier this week to abandon her efforts if Trump is softening his stance on immigration.”
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.