A new Harvard Institute of Politics poll of 18- to 29- year-olds finds Donald Trump as young Republicans’ first choice in their party’s presidential primary – and young Democrats giving the edge to Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton, 42% to 35%, as the top selection in their presidential primary.
Overall, a majority (56%) of young people prefer a Democrat win the 2016 campaign for president over a Republican.
A new Gallup survey finds Donald Trump vies with Hillary Clinton as the presidential race’s best-known candidate, but he is by far the least-liked of the field, with 59% viewing him unfavorably and 32% favorably, yielding a net favorable score of -27.
A day after being criticized by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his comments about Muslims, Donald Trump abruptly announced that he is “postponing” a planned trip to Israel and rescheduling a meeting with the country’s leader until “after I become President of the U.S,” NBC News reports.
Jonathan Chait: “Rubio is the candidate who laid his credibility on the line in order to resolve the party’s immigration problem in 2013. (While he failed, and abandoned his own proposal, pro-reform Republicans have every reason to believe his heart lies with them.) Trump is the candidate whose inflammatory racism would brand the GOP as irrevocably hostile to immigrant communities. Cruz lies in between, not having sponsored major pro-reform legislation, but also having steered clear of crude Trumpist demagoguery (and, like Rubio, having a Cuban-American background to fall back upon).”
“Cruz may find himself best positioned to bridge the gap, and well positioned to win a three-way race divided along these lines. Should Trump falter, pro-Trump border hawks would probably prefer Cruz to Rubio, who tried to shepherd immigration reform through the Senate. And should Rubio falter, Rubio’s supporters would find Cruz a more predictable and disciplined Republican partisan than the erratic Trump.”
The Hill: Nightmare scenario for the GOP Establishment: Trump or Cruz
“When Hillary Clinton’s campaign unveiled a stark campaign ad in early November urging a change in gun control laws, the move was seen as unusually bold for a candidate who has been criticized in the past for being overly cautious. The ad would be put into the rotation of her existing television reservations in Iowa and New Hampshire,” the New York Times reports.
“It was true that it went into the rotation, but the spot was broadcast on local television only six times, according to data provided by the Campaign Media Analysis Group: It ran four times in four separate Iowa media markets, and two times in two separate New Hampshire markets, Boston and Manchester. Five of those instances were on Nov. 4, a day after the spot aired.”
Huffington Post: “The GOP race in New Hampshire, where all of the establishment-backed candidates are making their do-or-die stands has become — for now, at least — a battle for second place among a half-dozen contenders left in the front-runner’s dust. Trump has held a comfortable and consistent lead in New Hampshire since July. But a Suffolk poll last month showed that if Romney himself were a candidate, he would have a 2-to-1 lead over Trump in New Hampshire — where the former Massachusetts governor maintains a lakeside home and cruised to an easy victory in the 2012 primary.
“If Romney were to take that goodwill and back one of the establishment-friendly GOP contenders, Republican powerbrokers agree, it would upend the race’s dynamic and, in turn, reverberate far beyond the Granite State. But it’s less clear which candidate Romney would be inclined to get behind.”
“Despite predictions that such searing, divisive rhetoric and the resulting outcry would cripple his campaign, Donald Trump’s insults and controversial proposals have propelled him to the forefront of the 2016 presidential race — and kept him there.”
“And while it may seem like a lurching, chaotic campaign, Trump is, for the most part, a disciplined and methodical candidate, according to a Washington Post review of the businessman’s speeches, interviews and thousands of tweets and retweets over the past six months.”
Associated Press: “Even campaigning half as much as his rivals, Donald Trump is drowning them out in an echo chamber of insults and charged pronouncements that have taken over the presidential campaign. Frustrated GOP candidates trekking across Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina are struggling to be heard.”
Sen. Ted Cruz “is plotting a protracted nomination fight through Southern states that are playing bigger roles than in prior elections,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“It is a region where his antigovernment, evangelical conservative message plays well, and he has quietly been building a far-reaching political organization to take advantage of that.”
“If it works, Mr. Cruz could become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the party’s decision to hold primaries in 12 states — half in the South—on March 1. A strong showing by one candidate could provide a burst of momentum at a key moment in the race.”
A new Winthrop University poll in South Carolina finds Donald Trump leading with 24%, followed by Ted Cruz at 16%, Ben Carson at 14%, Marco Rubio at 11% and Jeb Bush at 9%.
A new New York Times/CBS News poll finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential field with 35%, followed by Ted Cruz at 16%, Ben Carson at 13% and Marco Rubio at 9%. The rest of the field was at 4% or less.
The poll was taken largely before his statement on Monday afternoon proposing to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the United States.
Bloomberg: “Trump’s state co-chairman Steve Stepanek is helping to petition signatures from the state party’s executive committee to force a meeting and a vote to remove New Hampshire GOP chair Jennifer Horn form office. Stepanek argues that Horn’s criticism of Trump breaks with state party by-laws requiring her to remain ‘strictly neutral’ in the primary process.”
“Ted Cruz, the no-compromise conservative purist, is on the verge of securing the Christian conservative bloc, a linchpin that could secure victory in the 2016 Iowa caucuses,” GOP insiders tell the Des Moines Register reports.
“The question is whether Cruz can siphon enough tea party voters from front-runner Donald Trump to vault Cruz into the No. 1 slot when votes are counted less than two months from now, they say.”
Also interesting: “The campaign last week opened ‘Camp Cruz’ in some of the apartment buildings near a soon-to-close business college in Des Moines. The 48 dorm-style rooms will house supporters from outside of Iowa (mainly from Texas) who have been moved to come to the state to organize for him.”
Sarah Palin wrote on Facebook that she supports Donald Trump’s call for a ban on admitting Muslims into the United States.
Said Palin: “A broken system allowed terrorists to come to our home and slaughter Americans. A bold, non-politician candidate calls for a pause in this flaw bureaucratic program so it can be fixed, to make sure it doesn’t happen again. That’s common sense, which is why the media and spineless pundits attack it.”
National Journal: “It turns out that a nontrivial share of these same working-class, anti-immigrant voters won’t tell a live person who they support but will share their true feelings when their support is secret—like on Election Day. This is no surprise: Support for immigration and globalization are perhaps the only political sentiments that unite elites from both business and the academy, from right and left. Openly supporting an anti-immigration candidate can risk social opprobrium, ridicule, or worse. In other words, for every group of vocal Trump supporters, there are probably a lot more who just don’t advertise it.”
Politico: “Starting next month, Bush’s campaign will deploy hundreds of his brother and father’s former White House aides to early primary states to assist in canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts. The plan, which has been hashed out in private emails and phone calls for months, is taking on new urgency as the primary season grows closer.”
A new Fox News poll in South Carolina finds Donald Trump leads the GOP presidential primary field with 35%, followed by Ben Carson at 15%, Ted Cruz at 14%, Marco Rubio at 14% and Jeb Bush at 5%.
Trump’s remarks about barring Muslims from entering the country may have helped him. Support for Trump increased eight points after his statement — from 30% the first two nights of the survey vs. 38% the last two nights.
During oral arguments in a pivotal affirmative action case, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that African American students might belong at less rigorous schools than their white peers, Mother Jones reports.
Said Scalia: “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.”
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.