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Trump Is the Clear Favorite for Nomination

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Chris Cillizza: “The Iowa caucuses are 10 days from Friday. And Donald Trump, the larger-than-life real estate reality star, is — still — the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Not only has Trump not disappeared or imploded — as everyone everywhere predicted he would — he appears to be getting stronger in both early-state and national polling as actual votes draw closer.”

“At this point, Trump’s path to putting the nomination away quickly is far easier than the one Hillary Clinton must travel to capture the Democratic nomination.”

Clinton’s Response to Sanders Has Many Worried

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“Hillary Clinton has questioned Bernie Sanders’ electability. She’s criticized his plans for health care, foreign policy and Wall Street. And she’s tagged him with flip-flopping on gun control. None of it appears to be sticking, say some Democrats who have raised concerns that a months-long primary campaign could create lasting damage for their party,” the AP reports.

“While most believe Clinton will still capture the nomination, some say she is failing to respond effectively to Sanders, fueling both his primary rise and strengthening the Republican argument against her. Others say she got too late a start going after Sanders and is still not hitting him enough — eroding her lead in states that should be safe.”

Quote of the Day

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“If you nominate Trump and Cruz, I think you get the same outcome. Whether it’s death by being shot or poisoning doesn’t really matter. I don’t think the outcome will be substantially different.”

— Sen. Lindsey Graham, quoted by the New York Times.


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When Marco Rubio Was Arrested

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Washington Post: “He resolved to go back to Florida and get his life on a path to success. Instead the 18-year-old added to his troubles after returning to Miami for summer break: He was arrested one night in May 1990 for being in a crime-plagued public park after closing time, according to police records and an interview with a friend who was cited with Rubio that night.”

“The previously unreported misdemeanor, which eventually was dismissed, tugged Rubio into the criminal-justice system just one year after the conviction of his brother-in-law in a major drug-trafficking case had exacted a devastating toll on his family. But that summer also marks a turning point for Rubio, the moment when a somewhat aimless young man found a direction and purpose that shaped the highly focused politician who now sits among the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.”

GOP Establishment Prefers Trump to Cruz

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“The Republican establishment — once seen as the force that would destroy Donald Trump’s outsider candidacy — is now learning to live with it, with some elected and unelected leaders saying they see an upside to Trump as the nominee,” the Washington Post reports.

“In the past few days, Trump has received unlikely public praise from GOP luminaries who said they would prefer him to his main rival, Sen. Ted Cruz.”

Wall Street Journal: “A Republican establishment worried about the rise of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz has two big problems: Support is divided among a number of their favored, centrist candidates for the GOP presidential nomination. And when support for those candidates is combined, it falls short of what’s likely needed to win.”

An Unsilent Majority Speaks Out Against Trump

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New York Times: “For months, great quantities of ink, political-science brain power and polling resources have been expended trying to dissect, if not exactly diagnose, the Trump phenomenon — precisely who supports him and why. Far less energy has been devoted to sounding out a much larger segment of the electorate: those who reject him.”

GOP Senator Would Back Sanders Over Cruz

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Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) told supporters at a campaign fundraiser for his own re-election that he would vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders for president before Sen. Ted Cruz, the AP reports.

“Burr did not appear to be joking, said the person, who demanded anonymity to discuss the private gathering.”

How Sarah Palin Helped Break the Republican Party

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E.J. Dionne: “After Obama won, the main goal of Republican leaders of all stripes was to take back Congress as a prelude to defeating the president in 2012. The angry grass-roots right — it has been there for decades but cleverly rebranded itself as the tea party in 2009 — would be central in driving the midterm voters the GOP would need to the polls. Since no one was better at rousing them than Palin, old-line Republican leaders embraced and legitimized her even if they snickered privately about who she was and how she said things.”

“Today’s Republican crisis was thus engineered by the party leadership’s step-by-step capitulation to a politics of unreason, a policy of silence toward the most extreme and wild charges against Obama, and a lifting up of resentment and anger over policy and ideas as the party’s lodestars.”

Bloomberg Would Trail Badly In Three-Way Race

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A new Morning Consult poll finds that when pitted in a three-way race with Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trump gets 37%, Hillary Clinton gets 36% and Bloomberg gets just 13%.

Key finding: “More voters have a favorable impression of Bloomberg (30%) than an unfavorable one (26%). But 43% say they have not heard of him or have no opinion.”

In a two-way race, Clinton edges out Trump by a 44% to 42%, with 14% of voters saying they are undecided.

Very Tight Race in Iowa

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A new Loras College poll in Iowa finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential race with 26%, followed by Ted Cruz at 25%, Marco Rubio at 13%, Ben Carson at 8% and Jeb Bush at 6%.

A new Monmouth University poll shows Cruz leading with 27%, followed by Trump at 25%, Carson at 11%, Rubio at 9% and Bush at 7%.

A new Emerson College poll shows Trump leading with 33%, followed by Cruz at 23, Rubio at 14% and Carson at 9%.

Trump Can Win Because No One Is Stopping Him

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Nate Silver admits that he is less skeptical that Donald Trump can win the GOP nomination.

“So if I were ranking the four establishment candidates’ chances of eventually defeating Trump and Cruz, I’d put Rubio first and Kasich last. But if I were ranking them in terms of who seems to have the most momentum right now, the order would be just the opposite. Kasich has gained 3 or 4 percentage points in New Hampshire polls over the past month, while Rubio has declined slightly in New Hampshire and national polls, and his once-steady flow of endorsements has turned into a trickle.”

“Things are lining up better for Trump than I would have imagined, however. It’s not his continued presence in the race that surprises me so much as the lack of a concerted effort to stop him.”

Senate GOP Powerless to Stop Cruz

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“Republican senators are confronting an unsettling possibility: Sen. Ted Cruz, their least favorite colleague, stands within reach of becoming the party’s presidential nominee and standard-bearer,” the AP reports.

“Worse than that, many GOP lawmakers and aides fear the Texas senator could ruin Republicans’ chances of hanging onto control of the Senate in November’s elections, alienating voters in a half-dozen key swing states with his hardline stances on issues from immigration to abortion.”

“And yet, these fellow Republicans say they’re essentially powerless to stop him. Any attempt to weaken Cruz in his primary campaign against Donald Trump and other GOP candidates risks bolstering his argument that he’s running against the ‘Washington cartel.’ So there’s little Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans can do beyond watch in dismay as Cruz, isolated and boxed out in the clubby Senate after repeatedly angering colleagues, rises in the polls in first-voting Iowa and elsewhere.”

Cheney House Bid Coming Soon

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Liz Cheney is likely to launch her bid for Congress within days, several Republicans in Washington and Wyoming tell Morning Consult, and unlike her short-lived Senate bid two years ago, this time she’ll almost certainly begin as the favorite.

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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