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Republicans In Disarray

March 21, 2016 at 12:20 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 53 Comments

Rick Klein: “The thing about the plan is, there is no plan. More than halfway through the voting, with Donald Trump far and away the delegate leaders – and therefore the GOP frontrunner, and it’s not even close – the anyone-but-Trump forces are as scattered and uncertain as ever. There’s no consensus alternative, not with Ted Cruz and John Kasich both still running (and both touting support they got from the party’s most recent nominee, inside the last week). There’s no consensus on the third-party route – neither on whether to do it nor whom to do it with. There’s no firm sense that any of the tens of millions in anti-Trump spending has had its desired effect, or that future spending can hope to be successful, either.”

“So it is that as Trump comes to Washington Monday to court the establishment, the establishment (such as it is) can agree on only one, longshot-in-itself, goal for stopping Trump: denying him a majority of convention delegates. Even that is undercut by the growing list of elected officials and party regulars boarding the Trump train. Trump’s been advising the GOP to embrace, rather than fight, the energy he’s brought to the party. That advice will sound more tempting the closer Trump gets to his magic number.”

Why Donald Trump Is Unlikely to be President

March 21, 2016 at 12:17 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 69 Comments

Greg Sargent: “With Donald Trump steamrolling towards the GOP nomination, the political chatter is increasingly focused on whether Trump could win a general election by making surprise inroads into states in the industrial Midwest. Many Democrats and nonpartisan observers see this as probably the only plausible (if that’s even the right word for it) path for Trump, who might do this mainly by running up huge numbers among white voters — particularly blue collar whites.”

“But a new examination of the demographics and projected voting patterns in some of the key Rust Belt states underscores just how unlikely this really is. To succeed, this analysis finds, Trump would likely have to improve on Mitt Romney’s advantage over Barack Obama among blue collar whites by double digit margins, which is an astronomically high bar — in almost all of these states.”

Will Trump Clinch Before the Convention

March 21, 2016 at 12:11 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 16 Comments

FiveThirtyEight: “The Republican race for the presidential nomination is down to just one man and one number: Donald Trump and 1,237 — the number of delegates required to clinch the nomination. Can Trump win 1,237 delegates by the end of the primary season on June 7? Will he be forced to plunder among the more than 100 unbound or currently uncommitted delegates who will make the trip to Cleveland in order to win on a first ballot at the Republican National Convention? Or are we all but assured of a multi-ballot convention?”

“Any pundit giving confident answers to these questions is full of it, so FiveThirtyEight surveyed some of the best delegate obsessives and political experts we know on how many delegates they expect Trump to win in the remaining contests. Trump has 695 delegates now, and, on average, our respondents estimate he will still be just a little bit short of 1,237 on June 7, when California wraps up the primary calendar. He might be close enough, though, that he could clinch the nomination in the six weeks between California and Cleveland.”

Listen, Liberal

March 21, 2016 at 10:00 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 26 Comments

Just published: Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank.

The GOP Establishment’s Choice

March 21, 2016 at 8:50 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 165 Comments

First Read: “Accept Trump — who is trailing Hillary Clinton by double digits in hypothetical general-election matchups, who could possibly put the House in play for Democrats, and who could fundamentally transform the Republican Party as we know it. Or reject Trump — whose delegate lead is likely to increase after this week’s contests, whose alternative is Ted Cruz, and whose supporters will likely abandon the GOP in the fall if Trump is not the nominee.”

For members: Only Bad Options Left for Republicans

Cruz Holds Big Lead In Utah

March 21, 2016 at 8:25 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 24 Comments

A new Deseret News/KSL poll in Utah finds Ted Cruz leading the GOP presidential race with 42%, followed by Donald Trump at 21% and John Kasich at 13%.

On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton, 52% to 44%.

Taking Apart Donald Trump’s Wall

March 21, 2016 at 8:20 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 11 Comments

John Oliver discovers some inconsistent claims in Donald Trump’s most famous policy proposal.

Aaron Blake: “After watching this, though, you have to wonder: Was the appeal of the border wall ever about logic and consistency? As with most things, Trump says he’ll do it, and no matter how tall the task or the varying explanations for precisely how, and his supporters believe him, apparently not really caring that the details don’t always add up.”

A Conversation with Pollster Mark Blumenthal

March 21, 2016 at 8:05 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 1 Comment

In the latest episode of Political Wire Conversations, Chris Riback talks to pollster Mark Blumenthal about the role of polling in American politics.

Subscribe via iTunes or RSS to get episodes automatically downloaded to your phone.

Trump Unites Top GOP Donors — Against Him

March 21, 2016 at 7:35 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 20 Comments

“The prospect of a Donald Trump nomination is accomplishing what a diverse and talented field of Republican presidential contenders could not: uniting the party’s big-money donor establishment,” the New York Times reports.

“Some of the wealthiest conservative givers in the country are helping pay for a series of last-ditch attacks to wound Mr. Trump, disclosures filed on Sunday night revealed, even after previously backing rival Republican candidates. And officials involved with the political groups have made clear that they are aggressively raising more money to fight Mr. Trump, hoping to deprive him of enough delegates to win the Republican nomination outright. That would set the stage for a contested convention in July.”

Bloomberg: Anti-Trump PAC raises $4.8 million

Quote of the Day

March 21, 2016 at 7:33 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 10 Comments

“History would show when someone’s a little bit short, you let the process play out, and if it’s that close, that’s generally what happens.”

— RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, quoted by The Hill, dismissing the notion that Donald Trump should be the nominee just because he has the most delegates.

Trump Has Worst Grammar of Candidates

March 21, 2016 at 7:30 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 35 Comments

A Carnegie Mellon study scored Donald Trump’s grammar at a fifth-grade level.

The other presidential candidates’ grammar was rated between sixth- and eighth-grade levels.

Trump Puts GOP House Majority In Jeopardy

March 21, 2016 at 7:19 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 39 Comments

“Donald Trump is on the verge of two things once thought to be impossible: winning the Republican presidential nomination, and putting Republicans’ historically large House majority in danger,” Politico reports.

“Democrats have for the past year discussed the GOP’s 30-seat majority as a long-term problem, solvable only by shrinking it over several successive elections. But Trump’s remarkable rise in the GOP presidential race, and the backlash he has already provoked among the broader electorate, has suddenly raised the prospect of a large November wave against Trump and the Republicans who would share the ballot with him.”

The Cook Political Report now has 14 GOP-held House seats in the “toss up” category.

Democrats Urge Sanders to Wind Down

March 21, 2016 at 7:15 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 125 Comments

Politico: “After holding their fire on Sanders for the better part of a year, the senators — all backers of Hillary Clinton — are gently calling on Sanders to face the reality that there’s almost no chance he’s going to be the Democratic nominee. They don’t say outright he should quit; doing so would be counterproductive, they say.”

“But nearly a dozen Democratic lawmakers suggested in interviews that Sanders should focus more on stopping Donald Trump and less on why he believes Clinton’s stands on trade, financial regulation and foreign policy would make her a flawed president.”

Trump Has Spent $25 Million on Campaign

March 21, 2016 at 7:07 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 15 Comments

“Donald Trump put $6.9 million more of his personal money into his presidential campaign in February, significantly increasing his investment as he began racking up wins in the Republican presidential primary contest,” the Washington Post reports.

“Since he began his White House bid last year, the billionaire real estate developer has lent or given his campaign nearly $25 million, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Although he maintains that he is self-funding the effort, his supporters have contributed $9.5 million, including $2 million in February.”

Politico: “While Cruz, Clinton, Sanders and Ohio Gov. John Kasich (whose low-idling campaign spent $3.6 million last month) all increased their spending in February, Trump actually decreased his. It’s a remarkable stat that’s a testament to just how completely Trump has defied campaign industry conventions.”

Why House Republicans Stay Silent on Trump

March 21, 2016 at 6:40 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 3 Comments

Byron York: “Why the silence from Ryan’s Republicans in the House? Well, one reason might be that Trump is winning their districts.”

“Each member of the House represents a district, average size about 700,000 people. According to my calculations from a breakdown of voting provided by 538’s Nate Silver, 115 congressional districts voted in the race from Iowa through the first Super Tuesday. Trump won the majority of them.”

Robert Criticized Confirmation Process Last Month

March 21, 2016 at 6:26 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 22 Comments

“Last month, Chief Justice John Roberts delivered some blunt remarks about the Supreme Court confirmation process. The Senate should ensure that nominees are qualified, he said, and leave politics out of it,” the New York Times reports.

“The chief justice spoke 10 days before Justice Antonin Scalia died, and he could not have known how timely and telling his comments would turn out to be. They now amount to a stern, if abstract, rebuke to the Republican senators who refuse to hold hearings on President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland.”

Bush Loaned Campaign $400K In Final Days

March 20, 2016 at 6:37 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 31 Comments

“In the last weeks of his flagging presidential bid, former Florida governor Jeb Bush loaned or gave his campaign nearly $407,000 as it struggled to pay its bills,” the Washington Post reports.

“New Federal Election Commission filings show that Bush’s campaign spent $3.6 million last month before he dropped out Feb. 20 — raising just $1.18 million in the same period. A large share of the money came from the candidate himself, who gave his campaign $56,983.50 on Feb. 1. The next day, he loaned the campaign $250,000. And on Feb. 16, four days before the South Carolina primary, he gave an additional $100,000.”

Team Clinton Prepares for Trump

March 20, 2016 at 6:34 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 98 Comments

Hillary Clinton and her allies “have begun preparing a playbook to defeat Donald Trump in a general-election matchup that will attempt to do what his Republican opponents couldn’t: show that his business dealings and impolitic statements make him unfit to be commander in chief,” the Washington Post reports.

“They are now focused intently on researching the billionaire real-estate mogul’s business record, dissecting his economic policies, and compiling a long history of controversial pronouncements that have captivated and repelled the nation in this tumultuous election season.”

“Implicit in the effort is real worry about Trump’s outsider appeal in a year dominated by working-class anger and economic anxiety. The prospect that Trump could compete for some of the blue-collar voters who have flocked to Sanders, for instance — or to reorder the map of competitive states to include trade-affected Michigan or Pennsylvania — has prompted Clinton’s allies to leave nothing to chance.”