Jane Mayer: “For two years, observers have speculated that the June, 2016, Brexit campaign in the U.K. served as a petri dish for Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign in the United States. Now there is new evidence that it did.”
“Newly surfaced e-mails show that the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Cambridge Analytica, the Big Data company that he worked for at the time, were simultaneously incubating both nationalist political movements in 2015.”
“German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced she will give up leadership of her center-right Christian Democrat Union (CDU) party after 18 years in the post,” CNN reports.
“Merkel announced during a meeting with officials that she will not seek to run for re-election at the party’s convention in December. But she made clear that she wanted to remain as chancellor, a position she has held since 2005… The announcement is a sign of Merkel’s weakened power within her own party, and waning popularity in the country.”
Bloomberg: “The unexpected reversal by Merkel, 64, signals the beginning of the end of an era during which her command of Germany put its stamp on Europe and beyond for more than a decade. Even so, Merkel’s term as chancellor runs until 2021 and Merkel has said she intends to serve it out.”
“Voters in Brazil, the world’s fourth-largest democracy, appear poised to elect a far-right populist as president in a runoff election on Sunday that could signal the biggest political shift in the country since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985,” the New York Times reports.
BBC: “While polls have been narrowing, Mr Bolsonaro remains in the lead.”
“The election has been over-shadowed by corruption scandals and a knife attack on Mr Bolsonaro in which he lost 40% of his blood and needed emergency surgery.”
Stephen Bannon told the Daily Beast that he “is setting up a foundation in Europe called The Movement which he hopes will lead a right-wing populist revolt across the continent starting with the European Parliament elections next spring.”
“The non-profit will be a central source of polling, advice on messaging, data targeting, and think-tank research for a ragtag band of right-wingers who are surging all over Europe, in many cases without professional political structures or significant budgets.”
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, “who recently sparked outrage for calling God stupid, has courted new controversy in his largely Roman Catholic country by saying he will resign if anybody can prove that God exists,” the AP reports.
“Riding a wave of populist anger fueled by rampant corruption and violence, the leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected president of Mexico on Sunday, in a landslide victory that upended the nation’s political establishment and handed him a sweeping mandate to reshape the country,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. López Obrador’s win puts a leftist leader at the helm of Latin America’s second-largest economy for the first time in decades, a prospect that has filled millions of Mexicans with hope — and the nation’s elites with trepidation.”
”The outcome represents a clear rejection of the status quo in the nation, which for the last quarter century has been defined by a centrist vision and an embrace of globalization that many Mexicans feel has not served them.”
New York Times: “As corruption and violence gnaw at Mexico’s patience, voters have turned to a familiar face in Mr. López Obrador, a three-time candidate for president who once shut down Mexico City for months after a narrow loss, refusing to accept defeat.”
“Brandishing a deep connection with the poor, built over more than a decade of visits to every corner of this country of 120 million, he has managed a staggering lead ahead of Sunday’s vote.”
“If the poll numbers bear out on Election Day, Mr. López Obrador — who has promised to sell the presidential plane and convert the opulent presidential palace into a public park — could win by a landslide, putting a leftist leader in charge of Latin America’s second-largest country for the first time in decades.”
“President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey claimed victory on Sunday in the country’s presidential election, sending tremors that will be felt not just in Turkey but in Western and regional capitals — if it holds up,” the New York Times reports.
“The official results showed him with just under 53 percent of the vote, enough to spare him from going to a second round against his nearest challenger, Muharrem Ince.”
BBC: “Under Turkey’s new constitution, due to come into force after the election, the president will hold considerable power.”
“Two mayoral candidates in two different Mexican towns have been killed in less than 24 hours, marking a total of at least 18 candidates killed so far in campaigns leading up to the July 1 elections,” NBC News reports.
“Since September, 113 candidates, pre-candidates, and current and former politicians in Mexico have been killed ahead of its elections, and there are still about two weeks to go,” Axios reports.
Ireland has voted by a landslide margin to change the constitution so that abortion can be legalized, according to an exit poll conducted for The Irish Times.
Muntazer al-Zaidi, the journalist who famously threw his shoes at President George W. Bush, is running for parliament in Iraq, BuzzFeed News reports.
“Mexican left-wing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has an 18-point lead ahead of the July 1 election, according to a poll published on Monday that showed him with a growing advantage at the start of formal campaigning,” Reuters reports.
“A Lopez Obrador victory could usher in a Mexican government less accommodating toward the United States, where President Trump has stoked trade tensions with Mexico and aggressively moved to curb immigration.”
“Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau no longer looks invincible,” the Washington Post reports.
“CBC’s Poll Tracker reported in late March that the opposition Conservative Party is now in the lead, at 37.7% of voting intentions, compared with Trudeau’s Liberals, at 33.7%. The left-of-center New Democratic Party was third at 18.5%.”
“Some observers say it’s just a question of midterm blues, with a Canadian election not scheduled until the fall of 2019. But the real culprit seems to have been Trudeau’s visit to India in February. During the week-long trip, Trudeau was widely mocked for wearing traditional Indian garb as he crossed India with his wife and three children.”
[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]Barack Obama put it best: “You don’t put stuff on your head if you’re president. That’s politics 101. You never look good wearing something on your head.”[/alert]
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Peru President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski “presented his resignation to Congress after vote-buying allegations ensnared his center-right government in a fresh scandal on the eve of an impeachment vote,” Reuters reports.
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was taken into custody in connection with allegations that he received millions of euros in illegal campaign financing from the regime of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, the AP reports.
“Russian election observers denounced what they said were large-scale violations in the presidential vote that handed Vladimir Putin a crushing victory, including ballot-stuffing that was captured on state-controlled cameras,” Bloomberg reports.
“An exit poll and early returns suggest that Vladimir Putin has easily won a fourth term, keeping him as Russia’s president for six more years,” the AP reports.
“The nationwide exit poll conducted by the All-Russia Opinion Research Center showed that Putin won 73.9% of Sunday’s presidential vote.”
“Let them call you racist. Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativists. Wear it as a badge of honor. Because every day, we get stronger and they get weaker.”
— Former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon, quoted by ABC News, speaking to French far-right politicians.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt 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.
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