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The Easiest Way to Identify a Trump Supporter

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Vox: “You can ask just one simple question to find out whether someone likes Donald Trump more than Hillary Clinton: Is Barack Obama a Muslim? If the answer is yes, 89 percent of the time that person will have a higher opinion of Trump than Clinton.”

“That’s more accurate than asking people if it’s harder to move up the income ladder than it was for their parents (54 percent), whether they oppose trade deals (66 percent), or if they think the economy is worse now than last year (81 percent). It’s even more accurate than asking them if they are Republican (87 percent).”

Trump Keeps Winning the News Cycle

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Joe Klein: “Winning the news cycle is one of the more odious concepts in American politics. It is a recent media invention that rewards superficiality and punishes substance; it is, at best, a nano-measurement of micro-momentum–but anything measurable is news, and therefore easier to cover than subjects that may require actual thought. Which makes it perfect for Donald Trump. He uses the daily contest brilliantly, with an almost demonic perversity. He almost always wins the day.”

“Clinton, by contrast, does not win many news cycles. Her most notable days are those when negative events spin beyond her control–when the State Department’s inspector general scolds her for cutting corners with her emails; when Bernie Sanders or his supporters do violence to her sense of inevitability. This is rightly seen as a problem for her; Trump is always on the offensive, in every sense of the word.”

Trump Inflicts More Damage with Hispanic Voters

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“The head of Hispanic media relations at the Republican National Committee is resigning this month in what appears to be another indication of the lingering discomfort some party officials have about working to elect Donald Trump president,” the New York Times reports.

James Hohmann: “Donald Trump is doing to the national GOP brand in 2016 what Proposition 187 did to California Republicans in 1994. He continues to inflict lasting, perhaps irreparable, damage to the party’s image among Hispanics. It is not hyperbole to say that Trumpism could relegate the party of Abraham Lincoln to long-term minority status.”


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Ohio Purges Non-Voters from the Rolls

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Reuters: “As the Nov. 8 elections loom, officials in Ohio have removed tens of thousands of voters from registration lists because they have not cast a ballot since 2008.”

“All U.S. states periodically cleanse their voter rolls, but only a handful remove voters simply because they don’t vote on a regular basis. And nowhere could the practice have a greater potential impact in the state-by-state battle for the White House than Ohio, a swing state that has backed the winner in every presidential election since 1960.”

Reid Says Sanders Should Quit

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Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid told the AP that Bernie Sanders shouldn’t continue his campaign through the Democratic convention in July.

Said Reid: “I’ve never been too good at math but I can figure that one out. I think he better do a little mathing.”

He added: “I don’t know what that’s going to prove. Sometimes you just have to give up. I’ve lost before. The numbers aren’t there.”

PGA Moves Tournament from Trump Course to Mexico

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The PGA Tour is moving a key tour date away from a golf course owned by Donald Trump and relocating it to Mexico, CNN reports.

Said Trump: “They’re moving it to Mexico City — which, by the way, I hope they have kidnapping insurance. But they’re moving it to Mexico City. And I’m saying, you know, what’s going on here? It’s so sad when you look what’s going on with our country.”

Chart of the Day

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women in congress

New York Times: “Although women in both parties have increased their numbers in Congress during the past 25 years, the share of Democratic women — now nearly 33 percent — has continued to climb, while the Republican female share has leveled off since hitting 10 percent during the mid-2000s. And political polarization seems to be a major reason.”

Trump Threatens to Hit Obama If He Campaigns

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Donald Trump, “lashing back at Barack Obama after the president waded forcefully into the presidential campaign,” threatened to turn the president’s attacks on him in retaliation, McClatchy reports.

Said Trump: “This is a president who doesn’t have a clue. If he campaigns, that means I’m allowed to hit him, just like I hit Bill Clinton.”

Quote of the Day

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“Hillary is not a talented person. In fact she is a person with no actual talent. All you have to do is watch her speak. This is not a president.”

— Donald Trump, quoted by CNN.

Clinton Will Portray Trump as Dangerous

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“Hillary Clinton plans to deliver a scorching assessment of Donald Trump’s foreign policy prescriptions on Thursday, casting her likely Republican rival as a threat to decades of bipartisan tenets of American diplomacy and declaring him unfit for the presidency,” the New York Times reports.

“Mrs. Clinton’s campaign aides said the speech, which she will deliver in San Diego, would be the start of a persistent assault to portray a potential Trump presidency as a dangerous proposition that would weaken American alliances and embolden enemies.”

Trump’s Attacks on Judges Worry Legal Experts

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“Donald Trump’s highly personal, racially tinged attacks on a federal judge overseeing a pair of lawsuits against him have set off a wave of alarm among legal experts, who worry that the ­Republican presidential candidate’s vendetta signals a remarkable disregard for judicial independence,” the Washington Post reports.

“That attitude, many argue, could carry constitutional implications if Trump becomes president.”

Letters from Trump

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Donald Trump “is a master of modern media, exploiting Twitter and television to punish his enemies, energize his allies and promote himself,” the New York Times reports.

“But perhaps his most powerful and memorable form of communication is the old-fashioned ritual of a personal letter, written on embossed paper or scrawled across a newspaper clipping, signed by hand and sent from the 26th floor of Trump Tower.”

“Churned out prolifically from a computer-free desk, they are letters of gratitude, hate, flattery and revenge, dispatched to teenage admirers and big-city mayors, professional athletes and magazine editors. The tone can range from florid to juvenile, pleading to poisonous. Tightly clutched and prominently displayed even by those who despise him, the epistles have become keepsakes and mementos for hundreds of people across the country.”

No Sign of a Wave Election

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This piece is only available to Political Wire members.

The most surprising aspect of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy was not necessarily that he won the Republican nomination, but that he so quickly consolidated support among GOP voters. This is, after all, a man that ran against both the party itself and many of its core beliefs.

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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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