Political Wire

Trump Says Reports of Coup Attempt Are a Hoax

June 18, 2016 at 4:58 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 54 Comments

Donald Trump “says he isn’t worried about delegates organizing against him at the Republican National Convention next month — but he spent a large part of his rally in Las Vegas on Saturday afternoon insisting that it won’t happen,” Politico reports.

He insisted that the story “is all made up by the press. It’s a hoax.”

Trump added: “Who are they going to pick? I beat everybody. I beat the hell out of them. And we’re going to beat Hillary. And it’d be helpful if the Republicans could help us a little bit.”

Can Clinton Turn Arizona Blue?

June 18, 2016 at 12:48 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 148 Comments

Washington Post: “There is no recent reliable public polling in Arizona, but Democratic and Republican strategists said private research shows the presidential race as a toss-up.”

Asked whether Hillary Clinton has a path to victory, GOP strategist Charles Coughlin conceded: “I believe it’s there if she wanted to do it. Everybody always says, ‘This is the election when Latinos turn out,’ and it’s never happened. But I can actually see that happening this time.”

Trump’s Short List for Veep Includes Four

June 18, 2016 at 12:34 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 165 Comments

Politico reports that Donald Trump’s “own toxicity is making the job of finding a vice presidential nominee that much easier, because the short list is so short.”

“Multiple high-level Republican sources said it is topped by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, with Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions a distant third and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin also in the mix.”

The Hill: Trump veepstakes in overdrive

Quote of the Day

June 18, 2016 at 12:29 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 65 Comments

“The Democrats are in a perplexing position. On the one hand, they’re trying to appeal to the gay community, but, on the other hand, they’re trying to also appeal to the Muslim community, which, if it had its way, would kill every homosexual in the United States of America.”

— Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), in an interview on WAPI.

Is Trump Tilting the Senate Map?

June 18, 2016 at 12:23 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 43 Comments

“Democrats hope, and Republicans fear, that Donald Trump is tilting the Senate battleground map away from the GOP in 2016. But the biggest wild card in the race for Senate control is Marco Rubio,” Politico reports.

Dan Balz: “The GOP’s Senate majority is at risk. Republicans hope they can insulate vulnerable Senate incumbents from the Trump effect, but that’s no easy task. Only a clean break with the presumptive nominee will give those senators the freedom to campaign on their own.”

For members: The Consensus Senate Forecast

The Election Has Become a Referendum on Trump

June 18, 2016 at 12:22 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 32 Comments

Dan Balz: “The hole that Donald Trump has dug for himself keeps getting deeper. On nearly every front, his position continues to deteriorate. Unless he reverses course, Republicans are heading toward a wrenching week at their convention in Cleveland next month and potentially worse in November.”

“National polls alone provide an incomplete picture of the current state of the presidential race, but the shifts over the past few weeks should make Republicans beyond nervous. What looked like a tight contest between Trump and Hillary Clinton in late May has morphed into a Trump deficit that cannot be wished away.”

Trump Says Armed Clubgoers Could Have Killed Shooter

June 18, 2016 at 7:45 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 175 Comments

Donald Trump “argued again that the mass shooting in Orlando, could have been less deadly had people in the gay nightclub been able to shoot back,” The Hill reports.

Said Trump: “If we had people with the bullets going in the opposite direction — right smack between the eyes of this maniac. If some of those wonderful people had guns strapped right here, right to their waist or right to their ankle, and this son of a bitch comes out and starts shooting, and one of the people in that room happened to have it and goes boom, boom, you know what? That would have been a beautiful, beautiful sight, folks, that would have been a beautiful, beautiful sight.”

Sanders Makes Push to Change Party Rules

June 18, 2016 at 7:39 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 153 Comments

Sen. Bernie Sanders “is winding down his presidential run by pushing for changes to Democratic Party rules that could assist an insurgent campaign like his own in the next presidential election,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The Vermont lawmaker is eager to influence the party’s platform… But the Sanders campaign also wants the party to adopt a range of changes to how it governs itself. While party platforms are typically forgotten soon after they are approved, the party rules will affect how the next presidential contest is run.”

“Specifically, he wants to get rid of superdelegates, the party leaders and elected officials who get to vote for whomever they like for the party’s nomination. He wants all presidential primaries to be open to independent voters, and not just to registered Democrats, and for the party to encourage candidates to reject support in primaries from super PACs, the outside political groups that can raise and spend unlimited sums of money.”

Castro Says He’s Not Being Vetted

June 18, 2016 at 7:26 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 69 Comments

U.S. Housing Secretary Julián Castro said he is not being vetted to be Hillary Clinton’s running mate, the San Antonio Express News reports.

The former San Antonio mayor did not say who he thought would be a good pick for Clinton’s vice president telling reporters, “I’m not going to answer that,” and, when asked whether he’d gotten any phone calls from Clinton, he said “no, not at all.”

Trump Outsources His Ground Game to RNC

June 18, 2016 at 6:51 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 34 Comments

Associated Press: “The unconventional approach reflects Trump’s disdain for traditional Republican campaign practices and inclination to implement businesslike decision-making. It also carries substantial risk.”

“If, for instance, Trump is lagging Clinton badly in polls come early fall, there is nothing to stop the RNC from cutting its losses and focusing instead on saving Republican control of the Senate or other competitive contests also on the ballot this November.”

Also interesting: “The RNC in recent days hired Trump’s former political director, Rick Wiley, just weeks after he was fired by the campaign. The move took some of Trump’s senior team by surprise, despite the RNC’s insistence that it had the campaign’s blessing.”

Four New Gun Proposals Expected to Fail

June 18, 2016 at 6:32 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 57 Comments

“With congressional leaders once again at a stalemate over how to respond to a mass shooting, the Senate’s most moderate Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, is developing a compromise measure that would prevent some terrorism suspects from purchasing weapons, while sidestepping partisan flash points that have doomed similar legislation in the past and threaten to do so again next week,” the New York Times reports.

“The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, has already scheduled votes for Monday on four proposals — two sponsored by Republicans and two by Democrats — but all four are expected to fail in a nearly identical replay of votes last December after the attack in San Bernardino, Calif.”

Warren Visits Clinton Campaign HQ

June 17, 2016 at 7:12 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 52 Comments

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) “was warmly received during a visit to Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, where she gave a pep talk to staff,” NBC News has learned.

Said Warren: “Don’t screw this up.”

Priebus Discusses Anti-Trump Push with State Leaders

June 17, 2016 at 7:07 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 101 Comments

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus “has been quietly having conversations with state party leaders to discuss the latest push by convention delegates to nominate anyone other than Donald Trump,” CNN reports.

“Priebus has spoken with GOP party chairmen in multiple states in recent days in part to get a better sense of how large the anti-Trump faction is among their convention delegations.”

NBC News: “Anti-Trump forces are launching what the organizer of the movement describes as a ‘multi-pronged’ approach to stop Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention, one that could cause chaos on the convention floor.”

ABC News: Why Trump may still face a delegate mutiny at the convention

The Consensus Senate Forecast

June 17, 2016 at 6:01 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 59 Comments

This piece is only available to Political Wire members.

Republicans currently control the U.S. Senate with a 54 seat majority while Democrats currently have 46 seats. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, Democrats need to flip four seats to take control since her vice president would be able to break ties.

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Many State Legislative Seats Are Uncontested

June 17, 2016 at 6:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 21 Comments

Governing: “When filing deadlines had passed in the first 27 states this year, one party or the other had failed to run candidates in nearly half the legislative seats — 45 percent, according to Ballotpedia, an online politics site that tracks races and ballot initiatives. Nearly all incumbents can rest easy in Georgia, because 80 percent of the races there will be uncontested.”

“In recent years, it’s been common for a third to 40 percent of state legislative seats to lack major party competition. It’s even worse during primary seasons, meaning legislators win re-election simply by showing up. In the four states that held legislative elections last year, 56 percent of the races went uncontested in the fall.”

Trump Admits He’s Trailing In the Polls

June 17, 2016 at 4:40 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 83 Comments

Donald Trump “rarely, if ever, acknowledges he might be losing at anything… So it was surprising when Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said on Thursday night that he is not beating Hillary Clinton in the most recent presidential polls,” the New York Times reports.

Said Trump: “I’m four down in one poll, three and a half in another that just came out, and I haven’t started yet.”

He added: “And I have tremendous Republican support. Unfortunately they never talk about that, they talk about the few rebels.”

Condoleezza Rice Won’t Be Trump’s Veep

June 17, 2016 at 3:50 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 70 Comments

Condoleezza Rice, who served George W. Bush as national security adviser and then secretary of state, has zero interest in being Donald Trump’s running mate, her chief of staff told Yahoo News.

Clinton Takes Control of the DNC

June 17, 2016 at 1:49 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 32 Comments

Hillary Clinton’s campaign “is taking the reins of the Democratic National Committee, installing a new top official on Thursday to oversee the party’s day-to-day operations through the general election,” CNN reports.

“Brandon Davis, national political director for the Service Employees International Union, will become the general election chief of staff for the Democratic Party. His selection formalizes the coordination of the Clinton campaign and the committee, a stark contrast to Donald Trump who is currently at odds with his party.”

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