“Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet— he is a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump.”
— A Trump campaign statement, quoted by the New York Times.
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Why the Odds Have Risen for a Democratic Victory
William Galston: “Candidates seeking to succeed a two-term incumbent of their own party face an uphill battle. All other things being equal, political scientists find, such candidates can expect to fall short of the incumbents’ re-election vote share by at least 4 percentage points. Applied to the 2012 results, this metric would yield a 47% share for this year’s Democratic nominee.”
“On the other hand, demographic trends favor the Democrats. As the nonwhite share of the electorate increases, Democrats can expect their baseline to shift upward by 1 or even 2 percentage points in each four-year cycle—a significant gain, but not enough to counter the third-term disadvantage.”
“It is at this point that factors specific to 2016 come into play. To begin, the American people’s assessment of Barack Obama’s performance as president has been rising steadily. From a low of 43% approval as recently as December, it has increased to an average of 49% today… Another potential plus for the 2016 Democratic nominee is the economy’s improving condition… Since its recessionary low, the economy has added more than 13 million jobs, and the unemployment rate has fallen by half.”
Why Bernie Sanders Can’t Win
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Sanders Is Running Out of Open Primaries
First Read: “There’s another potential problem for Sanders as the Democratic contest heads into New York, which is Clinton’s home state but also where Sanders grew up: New York is a closed primary, which means that the independents that he won 72%-28% in Wisconsin won’t be able to vote. And the deadline to register as a New York Democrat ended on March 25. Of the 16 Democratic remaining primaries, just three are completely open contests.”
Infighting Plagues Trump Campaign
“Donald Trump’s campaign is facing new internal discord over who is advising the candidate and whether his current team must expand if he is to make good on his quest for his party’s presidential nomination,” sources within the team told NBC News.
“The dissent comes at a pivotal moment for a campaign team coming off a significant loss in Wisconsin. It has maintained a slender footprint even as Trump has soared in the polls and outpaced his Republican competitors in primary races. But after several tough weeks, peppered by charges against Trump’s campaign manager for misdemeanor battery, and then comments from the candidate that infuriated all sides of the abortion debate, some within the Trump team said it was time for changes.”
Cruz Moves to Soothe GOP Establishment
Sen. Ted Cruz “is aggressively reaching out to his Senate colleagues as he prepares for the possibility of a convention floor fight against Donald Trump. And Cruz’s emissaries on Capitol Hill are now signaling to senior Republicans that Cruz would be willing to work with them as the GOP nominee in a way Trump would not,” Politico reports.
FBI Not Rushing Clinton Email Probe
FBI director James Comey told the Niagra Gazette that “there was no pressure to wrap-up the probe” into Hillary Clinton’s private email server before the Democratic National Convention in July.
Trump, Clinton Lead in Pennsylvania
A new Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential race with 39%, followed by Ted Cruz at 30% and John Kasich at 24%.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders 50% to 44%.
GOP Race Moves to Trench Warfare
Dan Balz: “After Sen. Ted Cruz’s big victory in the Wisconsin primary, Republicans enter a new and critical phase in their volatile nomination battle, with Donald Trump’s rivals and those in the party establishment who are determined to stop him sharing a single objective: to keep the GOP front-runner as far short of a first-ballot convention victory as possible.”
“The Wisconsin race represents a potentially important turning point in the Republican contest, one that will embolden Trump’s opponents. A contested convention has become more probable. Whether that comes to pass will be determined by what takes place in the trench warfare that will play out over the next three months.”
Quote of the Day
“There is a persistent, organized effort to misrepresent my record, and I don’t appreciate that, and I feel sorry for a lot of the young people who are fed this list of misrepresentations.”
— Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Politico, increasingly annoyed by Sen. Bernie Sanders.
GOP Lawmaker Says Voter ID Will Help Republicans
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) told WTMJ that his state’s new voter ID laws were a key reason the Republican presidential candidate will be competitive there in the general election.
Said Grothman: “Well I think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up. And now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well.”
Wisconsin Hurts Trump In Delegate Race
Nate Silver: “Clearly tonight’s results were problematic for Trump in terms of his delegate math. A few weeks ago, we’d projected Trump to win 25 delegates in Wisconsin. It looks like he’ll only get 3 to 6 instead. After also accounting for Trump’s failure to get any delegates in Utah last month, our estimate would now project him to get 1,179 to 1,182 delegates total, or somewhere between 55 and 58 short of the 1,237 he’d need to clinch the nomination. Trump could potentially make up the difference by persuading uncommitted delegates to vote for him, although given how poorly Trump’s doing in the delegate-wrangling business, that might not be easy.”
“But the more immediate question — the one I’m not quite ready to answer — is what tonight tells us about how Trump might perform in subsequent states.”
Wall Street Journal: Who’s winning the delegate race?
Trump Shows New Vulnerabilities
“As recently as three weeks ago, it was looking as though none of the laws of political physics applied to the phenomenon that is Donald Trump,” the Washington Post reports.
“But the days since his strong showing in the March 15 round of primaries have seen the GOP front-runner make a series of stumbles over his own feet. No longer does he appear to be invulnerable to gaffes and mistakes that would have destroyed a more conventional candidate before the Iowa caucuses.”
ASS Law
Gawker: “Last week, George Mason University announced that its law school would be renamed, at the request of an anonymous donor who gave $20 million to the program, after the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia: the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University—ASS Law. (Or ASSoL.)”
The New York Times says the school will now be renamed again to The Antonin Scalia Law School.
Trump Plans Series of Policy Speeches
Donald Trump “plans to shift gears in the coming weeks, and give a series of policy speeches in settings more formal than the freewheeling rallies that have become his political signature,” the Washington Post reports.
“Among the topics he will address are how to strengthen the nation’s military, specific education reforms and the criteria by which a President Trump would select Supreme Court justices. The campaign hopes to stage those speeches in settings such as economic clubs in various cities and possibly the National Press Club in Washington.”
Wisconsin Primary Results
Sen. Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary.
Ted Cruz won the Republican primary, beating Donald Trump and John Kasich.
Sanders Flubs Daily News Interview
“Bernie Sanders sat down with the New York Daily News editorial board last Friday, seeking its endorsement in the upcoming April 19 Empire State primary. It did not go well for the senator from Vermont,” the Washington Post reports.
“Time and again, when pressed to get beyond his rhetoric on the evils of corporate America and Wall Street, Sanders struggled. Often mightily. (The Daily News published the full transcript of the interview today so you can check it out for yourself.)”
Trump Supporters Will Seek Out Delegates Who Switch
Longtime Donald Trump ally Roger Stone “is threatening to make public the hotel room numbers of Republican National Convention delegates who switch from Trump to another candidate,” Politico reports.
Said Stone: “We’re going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal… We urge you to visit their hotel and find them. You have a right to discuss this, if… your votes are being disallowed.”
