“I am confident that I can unite much of it. There are parts of it I don’t want.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by NBC News, on whether he can unite the Republican party as its presidential nominee.
“I am confident that I can unite much of it. There are parts of it I don’t want.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by NBC News, on whether he can unite the Republican party as its presidential nominee.
A new Associated Industries of Florida poll finds Hillary Clinton would crush Donald Trump by 49% to 36% margin if the election were held today.
She would beat Ted Cruz 48% to 39%.
From the memo: “In this critical swing state, it is clear to us that Republicans continue to suffer substantial brand damage amongst all segments of the ascending electorate (younger voters, Hispanics & No Major Party voters) and this presidential campaign has clearly exacerbated these attitudes.”
You are reading the free version of Political Wire.
A new Pew Research survey finds 62% of Americans have an unfavorable impression of the Republican party compared to 33% who view the party favorably.
William Galston: “The minute-to-minute coverage of the 2016 presidential primaries threatens to obscure the larger story: While Sen. Bernie Sanders is pressing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to move further and faster down the progressive road, Donald Trump is waging and winning the third major revolution in the Republican Party since World War II.”
“Mr. Trump’s candidacy has showed that the cadre of genuine social conservatives is smaller than long assumed, that grass-roots Republican support for large military commitments in the Middle East has withered, and that the business community is politically homeless.”
“So it has come to this: A mercantilist isolationist is the odds-on favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination.”
Wall Street Journal: “Some 58% of Republican voters in Pennsylvania said the primary process had divided the party, exit polls showed. A far smaller share, 40%, said the primaries had energized the party.”
“Moreover, one-quarter of Republican primary voters in Maryland and Connecticut, and nearly that share in Pennsylvania, said they wouldn’t vote for Mr. Trump in a general election. That signaled a problem for Mr. Trump in one of his top tasks, should be become the nominee: unifying his own party.”
First Read: “Here’s something else that might give GOP consultants the night sweats: In battleground Pennsylvania, 69% of Democratic primary voters said their race was energizing their party, versus 58% of Republicans who said their nominating contest was dividing theirs.”
“The Republican Party could be maimed for years following the 2016 presidential election,” party insiders tell the Washington Examiner.
“They worry not just that front-runner Donald Trump will lose the general election to Hillary Clinton, but that the disruption he’s proudly caused will mean lost elections and diminished influence for years to come.”
“The outlook is so bad that a contested convention to stop the New York businessman is not their biggest worry, they say, even as he gets close to the 1,237 delegates he needs to secure the nomination… The deeper concern is that Trump will remake the party in his own image, breaking it to pieces and ending its existence as America’s recognizable and electable conservative party.”
“We can’t take a chance that we’re accused of any monkey-business. Tricks. Stunts. Anything.”
— Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), quoted by Politico, talking to RNC members about this summer’s convention.
“If you don’t have ideas, you got nothing, and frankly my Republican Party doesn’t like ideas. They want to be negative against things.”
— Gov. John Kasich, in a Washington Post interview.
House Speaker Paul Ryan “plans to roll out a wide-ranging conservative agenda in the weeks before Republicans gather in Cleveland to select their presidential nominee,” the Washington Post reports.
“Republicans say the speaker’s agenda project — the product of several task forces and dozens of meetings among rank-and-file House members — will provide specifics, and perhaps even draft legislation, on key issues of importance to conservatives, including health care, taxes and national security. Republicans have long promised an alternative to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which they constantly bash but for which they have not produced a concrete replacement.”
“I think that we should go. This is our convention making our nominee, so I think everybody should participate. It could be a great historical exercise. I mean, it could be something you’ll remember the rest of your life, so I would go if I were, if I had a chance to go.”
— Speaker Paul Ryan, quoted by CNN, on some GOP lawmakers says they won’t attend the GOP convention.
Politico: “Chaos erupted at a Virgin Islands Republican Party Territorial Committee meeting regarding delegates over the weekend, and the pandemonium has been further muddled by wildly differing tales from the Virgin Islands’ GOP leadership that now include accusations of battery and defamation.”
Washington Post: “Compounding the challenges facing organizers are the expectations of Donald Trump, who asserted in an interview that he should have at least partial control over programming, stagecraft and other issues by virtue of his front-runner status — even if he does not have the delegates to secure the nomination beforehand.”
“Trump blasted the GOP’s last convention, in Tampa four years ago, as ‘the single most boring convention I’ve ever seen.’ The billionaire real estate mogul and reality-television star said it was imperative that this year’s gathering have a ‘showbiz’ quality — and he cast doubt on the ability of the Republican National Committee, which oversees the convention, to deliver.”
“An all-out internal power struggle has erupted at the Republican National Committee, just days before a critical party gathering in Florida, as the head of the RNC’s powerful rules committee has accused his own party leadership of a ‘major breach of trust’ in trying to block a rule change that he said would make it harder to reopen the GOP nomination fight at a contested convention this summer,” Politico reports.
“At issue: a controversial proposal that would drastically alter how the convention would function, changing the underlying rule book for proceedings — and potentially affecting whether party insiders could draft a so-called white knight at a deadlocked convention.”
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus “has privately urged members of the party’s rules committee not to make changes to the guidelines governing the presidential nominating process, an effort to avoid the appearance that the party is seeking to block Donald J. Trump from becoming its nominee,” the New York Times reports.
“Separately, a group of influential rules committee members held a conference call Thursday to prepare for the meeting and reached a consensus that they would derail any attempt at the gathering to make changes to the how the convention is conducted, according to a committee member on the call.”
“The Republican National Committee is expected to debate a proposal next week that would dramatically shift the balance of power at this summer’s convention — and impose a new rulebook for selecting the party’s nominee,” Politico reports.
“The proposal… would fundamentally alter how the convention is conducted, further empowering the delegates to determine the course of the proceedings. It amounts to not just a changing of the rules but of the rulebook itself, with far-reaching implications, potentially impacting whether party insiders will be able to draft a so-called ‘white knight’ — someone currently not running who would play the role of savior at a deadlocked convention.”
“This is going to blow over. I believe this is some frustration that has bubbled up.”
— RNC chairman Reince Priebus, quoted by Politico, downplaying Donald Trump’s latest tirade against the Republican Party while adding that he will “soon get over it.”
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.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.