“Even after the tumultuous Summer of Trump, Republicans still insist that he won’t doom their hopes of retaining control of Capitol Hill,” Politico reports.
“Returning to Washington after their long August recess, Republican lawmakers are cautiously optimistic that GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump can remain disciplined enough over the next two months to keep them from getting blown out — and give them a fighting chance to hold the Senate and protect their sizable House majority.”
New York Times: “In the 1980s, Mr. Trump was compelled to testify under oath before New York State officials after he directed tens of thousands of dollars to the president of the New York City Council through myriad subsidiary companies to evade contribution limits. In the 1990s, the Federal Election Commission fined Mr. Trump for exceeding the annual limit on campaign contributions by $47,050, the largest violation in a single year. And in 2000, the New York State lobbying commission imposed a $250,000 fine for Mr. Trump’s failing to disclose the full extent of his lobbying of state legislators.”
“The presidential campaign has intensified long-standing political divisions, but there is one area of broad agreement among voters in both red states and blue states — a pervasive pessimism that no matter the outcome, the election will do little to unify the country,” according to a Washington Post-SurveyMonkey survey of all 50 states.
“Americans also say they fear they are being left behind by the cultural changes that are transforming the country. Asked whether the America of today reflects their values more or less than it did in the past, large majorities of registered voters in every state say the country reflects their values less.”
“But almost hidden behind those broad findings is another striking reality of America at the end of President Obama’s tenure in the White House. Those groups that fall roughly into the coalition that helped elect Obama to successive terms are more likely — in some cases significantly so — to say the country reflects their values more than it did in the past. Obama has pushed policies and taken executive actions that have played directly to that coalition.”
A Moody’s Analytics forecasting model which heavily weighs state-by-state income growth suggests Hillary Clinton will win in a landslide over Donald Trump.
“The latest forecast puts 16 states, which includes Washington, D.C., firmly in Democratic territory, with 11 more leaning in that direction for a total of 332 electoral votes. Republicans hold comfortable leads in 21 states, with three more leaning red, giving its candidate 206 electoral voters.”
Jon Favreau: “The reason Trump succeeded isn’t that complicated after all. He didn’t win the nomination by tapping into some nascent political movement. He won by doing a fairly good impression of a right-wing media celebrity. Every issue, every conspiracy, every applause line has been ripped from their websites, radio shows, and television programs. It’s why he became America’s most prominent birther. It’s why he floated rumors that Ted Cruz’s dad killed JFK, and that Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster. It’s why he talks the way he does about Mexicans and Muslims and women and African Americans. It’s why he’s been able to get away with knowing little to nothing about policy or government or world affairs — because Trump, like any good talking head, only speaks in chyrons and clauses and some-people-are-sayings.”
“Trump’s greatest trick has been to realize that right-wing media stars have a built-in audience that Republican politicians don’t. To that audience, Jeb Bush talks like Washington talks. Ted Cruz talks like conservative ideologues talk. Marco Rubio talks like the last consultant he spoke with talks. But Trump talks like a true talk radio fan — longtime listener, first-time caller. He comes off like the winner of a reality TV show in which one lucky Fox viewer gets picked to run for president of the United States.”
Two-time U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller said he will try again to unseat Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) by replacing Cean Stevens as the Libertarian candidate on the Nov. 8 general election ballot, the Alaska Dispatch News reports.
Politico: “While volatility at this stage of the campaign isn’t unexpected, the latest polling data point to an stunningly unstable election environment, unlike any in recent decades.”
Said pollster Neil Newhouse: “There’s every reason to believe that there is huge instability in the current electorate. Four years ago, there were probably 6, 7, 8 percent of voters up for grabs. Now you have 17, 18 percent up for grabs.”
New York Times: “Their secret weapon is the Grassroots Leadership Academy: a training program dreamed up by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the political education arm of the Koch network, and intended to groom the next generation of conservative activists to shape the future of the Republican Party.”
“Taking inspiration from icons of the left like Saul Alinsky, the Marxist-inspired Frankfurt School, and even President Obama’s Organizing for Action, the academy offers classes like ‘Messaging to the Middle’ (about reaching not just the conservative base but also persuadable voters), community organizing and how to wage a successful public protest, complete with costumes.”
“The goal is not just to equip activists to compete with the left, but also to help rebuild the conservative movement in the wake of a Trump loss — or even a Trump victory.”
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, “who is accused of spray-painting equipment Tuesday at a Dakota Access Pipeline work site, will face charges for her action,” the Bismarck Tribune reports.
“Stein was part of a group of 150 to 200 people who protested at the construction site, where two protesters attached themselves to bulldozers and some construction equipment reportedly was vandalized.”
Here are the latest state polls from the presidential race:
Missouri: Trump 47%, Clinton 38% (Remington)
“With a mushroom cloud and at least $5 million worth of TV airtime behind it, the new ad from the pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC Priorities USA is sure to stand out in a crowded political landscape,” NBC News reports.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told the New York Times that House Republicans may punish House Democrats in some way for their June sit-in over gun control.
The Dallas Morning News won’t be endorsing Donald Trump:
We have no interest in a Republican nominee for whom all principles are negotiable, nor in a Republican Party that is willing to trade away principle for pursuit of electoral victory.
Trump doesn’t reflect Republican ideals of the past; we are certain he shouldn’t reflect the GOP of the future.
Donald Trump is not qualified to serve as president and does not deserve your vote.
Nate Silver: “Clinton’s ahead, by a margin of about 3 percentage points in an average of national polls, or 4 points in our popular vote composite, which is based on both national polls and state polls. While the race has tightened, be wary of claims that the election is too close to call — that isn’t where the preponderance of the evidence lies, at least for the moment. If one candidate is ahead by 3 or 4 percentage points, there will be occasional polls showing a tied race or her opponent narrowly ahead, along with others showing the candidate with a mid- to high single-digit lead. We’ve seen multiple examples of both of those recently.”
“In swing states, the race ranges from showing Trump up by 1 point in Iowa to a Clinton lead of about 6 points in her best states, such as Virginia. That’s a reasonably good position for Clinton, but it isn’t quite as safe as it might sound. That’s because the swing states tend to rise and fall together. A further shift of a few points in Trump’s favor, or a polling error of that magnitude, would make the Electoral College highly competitive.”
New York Times: “The trial in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal, which is scheduled to open on Thursday with jury selection, will play out like a documentary on the rise and fall of Mr. Christie’s presidential ambitions, a tell-all tale of how he and his aides built his administration and his 2013 re-election campaign with an eye to winning the White House, then scrambled to contain the damage as inquiries into the lane closings began to wreck those hopes.”
“Mr. Christie has not been charged. But he will loom large in the story laid out by both sides in the courtroom. The governor is expected to be on a list of people who federal prosecutors say knew about the scheme to create gridlock in order to to punish a mayor who had declined to endorse him.”
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) hit back at Donald Trump again, Politico reports.
Said Flake: “What Trump has been willing to do is say terrible things about women, mock the disabled, disparage minorities, impugn the character of POWs, and go after the Gold Star parents of a fallen U.S. soldier.”
He added” “I’m not OK with that, and I’m going to keep speaking out until he changes the tone of his campaign. If he refuses to do so, Republicans will lose a lot more than the election in November.”
Glenn Thrush: “It’s the obvious strategy to hammer Trump for everything he’s said – and the campaign has slashed at his jugular with mechanical consistency, producing a series of devastating ads intended to slay the GOP nominee with his own words. They have succeeded in pushing the Republican nominee off the popularity cliff (or at least nudged him as he jumped), trapping Trump below the critical 40 percent threshold in the vast majority of national and battleground state polls.”
“It’s not enough… The problem, and it has dogged Clinton since she first ran for office in 2000, is that she’s lousy at self-definition, doesn’t like to make the campaign about her (not one of Trump’s problems) and reveals herself only in jagged broken-mirror shards, not a portrait in full for voters to warm themselves by. Back in July, Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook told me he thought the only way people would get to know Clinton was to watch her govern.”
“But politics doesn’t work that way. Never mind questions of character: Many voters simply don’t have a clear idea of what her personality is, so it’s easy to accept caricature imposed upon her by her enemies. People don’t like her because they don’t know her – that’s the core counterargument from her intimates – but Clinton (who coined the term ‘zone of privacy’ in 1992 to define her attitude toward self-revelation) is an uncooperative client. So that makes her uncommonly vulnerable to events, or changes in campaign climate that undermine faith in her cause – such as her August-long hiatus to fundraise, various new stories on her emails and the Clinton Foundation, and the sudden professionalization of Trump’s messaging operation.”
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.