Today in Campaign 2016
- Donald Trump said today that Hillary Clinton’s plan for Syria would “lead to world war three” because of the potential for conflict with military forces from nuclear-armed Russia. In an interview focused largely on foreign policy, the Republican presidential nominee said defeating Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading than Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to step down, playing down a long-held goal of US policy. Trump questioned how his Democratic opponent would negotiate with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin after having demonized him; blamed Barack Obama for a downturn in US relations with the Philippines under its new president, Rodrigo Duterte; bemoaned a lack of Republican unity behind his candidacy and said he would easily win the election if the party leaders supported him.
- “If we had party unity, we couldn’t lose this election to Hillary Clinton,” Trump said.
- As they go to the polls in a historic presidential election, more than six in 10 Americans say neither major political party represents their views any longer, a survey has found. Dissatisfaction with both Democrats and Republicans has risen sharply since 1990, when less than half held that neither reflected their opinions, according to research by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
- A former aide to Republican governor Chris Christie reiterated today that a now-infamous email she sent saying “time for some traffic problems” near the George Washington bridge in 2013 referred to a traffic study, not a political retaliation plot.
- Trump implied today that he would be willing to fight the sitting vice-president Joe Biden behind a barn. Speaking at a rally in Tallahassee, Florida, almost precisely two weeks to the minute to when polls close there on election day, Trump said of a fist fight between the two: “I’d love that.” The 70-year-old Republican nominee for president also labeled the vice-president “Mr Tough Guy” and said of beating up the 73-year-old Biden: “Some things in life you could really love doing.”
Megyn Kelly and Newt Gingrich spar over sexual assault
Fox News host Megyn Kelly and former House speaker Newt Gingrich engaged in an aggressive argument tonight over lingering questions regarding Donald Trump’s treatment of women and how it might affect him in the coming presidential election, with Gingrich accusing Kelly of bias against Trump and Kelly urging Gingrich to “take your anger issues and spend some time working on them.”
“I’m sick and tired of people like you using language that’s inflammatory that’s not true!” Gingrich shouted. “I think that is exactly the bias that people are upset by!”
“I think that your defensiveness on this may speak volumes, sir,” Kelly deadpanned.
“What I said is, if Donald Trump is a sexual predator, then it’s a big story. What we saw on that tape was Trump himself saying that he likes to grab women by the genitals and kiss them against their will,” Kelly continued, referring to a 2005 tape that showed Trump bragging about being able to sexually assault women with impunity because of his fame. “Then we saw ten women come forward after he actually denied doing it at a debate, to say ‘that was untrue, he did it to me; he did it to me; he did it to me.’ We saw it with reporters, people who had worked with him, people from Apprentice, and so on and so forth. He denies it it all, which is his right - we don’t know what the truth is.”
“My point to you is, as a media story, we don’t get to say the ten women are lying,” Kelly continued. “We have to cover that story, sir.”
Gingrich dismissed Kelly’s assertion, and decried the amount of focus paid on Trump’s sexual assault accusations.
“You are fascinated with sex, and you don’t care about public policy!” Gingrich responded. “And that’s what I get out of watching you tonight.”
“I’m not fascinated by sex, but I am fascinated by protection of women and understanding what we’re getting in the Oval Office,” Kelly retorted. “It’s not about me - it’s about the women and men of America, and the poll numbers show us that the women of America, in particular, are very concerned about these allegations.”
The former speaker of the House of Representatives responded by “daring” Kelly to call former president Bill Clinton a “sexual predator,” which Kelly ignored.
“We’re gonna have to leave it at that, and you can take your anger issues and spend some time working on them, Mister Speaker,” Kelly concluded.
“And you too,” Gingrich responded meekly.
The Trump campaign swiftly responded, deeming Gingrich’s appearance a success:
.@NewtGingrich just destroyed @MegynKelly. Shows she is totally biased against Mr. Trump & not very smart. Mr. Trump has long known!!
— Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) October 26, 2016
Updated
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has released yet another Spanish-language advertisement in ruby-red Arizona, although there’s no word yet whether Clinton plans on visiting the Grand Canyon state herself:
Families are complicated.
All I know is that my brother has done nothing for the Kenyan side of his family. I wonder if we are related sometimes.
— Malik Obama (@ObamaMalik) October 25, 2016
Scott Adams, the author behind the once-popular Dilbert cartoons, has published a blog post in which he offers his qualified support of Donald Trump, but vows to assist in his assassination if Trump “does anything that looks even slightly Hitler-ish in office.”
In a post titled “The Crook Versus the Monster,” Adams argues that the public conception of Trump as a “monster” are misguided, but that if they prove accurate, Adams vows to “join the resistance movement and help kill him.”
Calling it an “easy promise to make,” Adams continues: “I hope my fellow citizens would use their Second Amendment rights to rise up and help me kill any Hitler-type person who rose to the top job in this country, no matter who it is.”
What could be a more suitable ending to this awful campaign than a fistfight between Donald Trump and Joe Biden?
Republican nominee Donald Trump implied today that he would be willing to fight sitting vice-president Joe Biden behind a barn.
Speaking at a rally in Tallahassee, Florida, almost precisely two weeks to the minute to when polls close there on election day, Trump said of a fist fight between the two: “I’d love that.”
The 70-year-old Republican nominee for president also labeled the vice-president “Mr Tough Guy” and said of beating up the 73-year-old Biden, “Some things in life you could really love doing.”
The comments came after Biden said of Trump on Saturday: “The press always asks me, don’t I wish I was debating him? No, I wish we were in high school and I could take him behind the gym. That’s what I wish.”
Biden made the comments in reference to a lewd 2005 tape recording of Trump, unearthed in early October, where the Republican nominee bragged about being able to grab women by the genitalia without their consent.
On Monday, Biden clarified his remarks in a rally, saying he meant “If I were in high school ... I want to make it clear I understand what assault is. I’m not in high school. If I were in high school.” The septuagenarian graduated from the Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware, in 1961.
Hillary Clinton is currently watching Adele perform in Miami, according to the press pool:
Sooo it appears HRC is going to @Adele's concert in Miami. Per pool, she just arrived at the American Airlines Arena where she's performing.
— Liz Kreutz (@ABCLiz) October 26, 2016
Donald Trump on the US flag in 2008: 'I don't know what the 13 stripes represent'
This is literally on the US citizenship test:
Updated
As they go to the polls in a historic presidential election, more than six in 10 Americans say neither major political party represents their views any longer, a survey has found.
Dissatisfaction with both Democrats and Republicans has risen sharply since 1990, when less than half held that neither reflected their opinions, according to research by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
The seventh annual 2016 American Values Survey was carried out throughout September among a random sample of 2,010 adults in all 50 states.
Both party establishments have been rattled by the outsider challenges of Donald Trump, who was successful in winning his party’s nomination, and Bernie Sanders, who was not. In a year that seems ripe for third-party candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green party are seeking to capitalise but have fallen back in the polls in recent weeks.
Sixty-one per cent of survey respondents say neither political party reflects their opinions today, while 38% disagree. Nearly eight in 10 (77%) independents and a majority (54%) of Republicans took this position, while less than half (46%) of Democrats agree. There was virtually no variation across class or race.
Both Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican standard bearer Trump continue to suffer historically low favourability ratings, with less than half of the public viewing each candidate positively (41% v 33%). Clinton is viewed less favourably than the Democratic party (49%), but Trump’s low rating is more consistent with the Republican party’s own favourability (36%).
The discontent with parties and candidates extends to the electoral process itself, which Trump claims is rigged against him. Less than half the public (43%) say they have a great deal of confidence that their vote will be counted accurately, while 38% have some confidence and 17% have hardly any confidence.
LeBron James - and Nike - appear to be coming for a certain presidential candidate’s views regarding immigrants, women and inner-city African Americans in a new ad:
TrumpTV is back after Donald Trump’s rally in Florida:
Analysis: Hillary Clinton's plans for no-fly zones in Syria could provoke US-Russia conflict
Retired senior US military pilots are increasingly alarmed that Hillary Clinton’s proposal for “no-fly zones” in Syria could lead to a military confrontation with Russia that could escalate to levels that were previously unthinkable in the post-cold war world.
The former strategists spoke to the Guardian as Clinton’s Republican rival Donald Trump warned that Clinton’s proposal to establish “safe zones” to protect beleaguered Syrian civilians would “lead to world war three”.
The proposal of no-fly zones has been fiercely debated in Washington for the past five years, but has never attracted significant enthusiasm from the military because of the risk to pilots from Syrian air defenses and the presence of Russian warplanes.
Many in US national security circles consider the risk of an aerial confrontation with the Russians to be severe.
“I wouldn’t put it past them to shoot down an American aircraft,” said James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, on Tuesday in response to a question from the Guardian at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Those who have patrolled no-fly zones over the relatively freer skies of Bosnia and Saddam-era Iraq fear that a President Clinton would oblige the US to what one retired US air force three-star general described as an indefinite “air occupation”. Such a move would risk the lives of US pilots – and dare confrontation with a Russian military which is more aggressive than it has been in years.
Critics of the plan also question how using US military power to establish and police a safe space for beleaguered Syrian civilians would contribute to the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad – the explicit goal of US policy in Syria.
“If she is not politically posturing, it’s going to be a disaster. I hope it’s political posturing,” said John Kuehn, a retired navy officer who flew no-fly zone missions over Bosnia and Iraq. Kuehn who called denying an adversary its airspace “the cocktail party military application of power of choice”.
David Deptula, a retired air force lieutenant general who commanded the no-fly zone operations over northern Iraq in 1998 and 1999, said the Russians were a “complicating factor” but considered the problems with a no-fly zone to be more fundamental.
“Until a strategy that defines the desired end-state is clearly laid out in a comprehensive way, it’s difficult to advocate for a no-fly zone,” said Deptula.
Donald Trump campaigns in Tallahassee, Florida
Watch it live here:
New anti-Zephyr Teachout ad: She’s just not one of us!
Also, she’s “zany.”
Donald Trump: Hillary Clinton's policy for Syria would 'lead to world war three'
Donald Trump said earlier today that Democrat Hillary Clinton’s plan for Syria would “lead to world war three”, because of the potential for conflict with military forces from nuclear-armed Russia.
In an interview focused largely on foreign policy, the Republican presidential nominee said defeating Islamic State is a higher priority than persuading than Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to step down, playing down a long-held goal of US policy.
Trump questioned how Clinton would negotiate with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin after demonizing him; blamed Barack Obama for a downturn in US relations with the Philippines under its new president, Rodrigo Duterte; bemoaned a lack of Republican unity behind his candidacy and said he would easily win the election if the party leaders supported him.
“If we had party unity, we couldn’t lose this election to Hillary Clinton,” he said.
On Syria’s civil war, Trump said Clinton could drag the US into a world war with a more aggressive posture toward resolving the conflict.
Clinton has called for the establishment of a no-fly zone and “safe zones” on the ground to protect noncombatants. Some analysts fear that protecting those zones could bring the US bring into direct conflict with Russian fighter jets.
“What we should do is focus on Isis. We should not be focusing on Syria,” said Trump as he dined on fried eggs and sausage at his Trump National Doral golf resort. “You’re going to end up in world war three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton,” Trump said.
“You’re not fighting Syria any more, you’re fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk,” he said.
Trump said Assad is much stronger now than he was three years ago. He said getting Assad to leave power was less important than defeating Isis.
“Assad is secondary, to me, to Isis,” he said.
Closing out his rally in Sanford, Florida, Donald Trump vows to bring the dreams of his supporters to reality, and to create “a government of, by and for the people.”
“We’re going to have the biggest tax cuts since Ronald Reagan, and actually even bigger,” Trump vows. “We’re going to eliminate every unnecessary job-killing regulation they’re choking our businesses to death. We’re going to bring an end to Common Core and bring our education local. We’re going to support our great men and women in law enforcement. We’re going to save our second amendment, which is totally under siege. And we will appoint justices to the supreme court who will defend the constitution.”
“This is our last chance - this is bigger than me or any of us. It’s about our country,” Trump concludes. “Join this incredible movement - a movement the likes of which has never been witnessed in this country before, never. Never! Never. Never been anything like this - let’s not blow it, folks!”
Calling his supporters the head of a movement powered “by the love of our country, and the love of our fellow citizens,” Trump meanders on issues relating to the inner city (“hell”) and the proposed wall along America’s southern border (“Mexico’s going to pay for it, believe me”), before declaring that “I’m going to fight for every citizen, of every background, from every stretch of this nation.”
“Together, if we win on November 8 - and I really believe we will, we better - we will make America wealthy again, we will make America strong again, we will make America safe again and we will make America great again!”
Updated
Gotta love the white woman holding the “Blacks for Trump” sign...
"Blacks for Trump! I love those signs — thank you!" – Donald Trump, in Florida pic.twitter.com/EKMp8eVeTp
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) October 25, 2016
Deeming Hillary Clinton’s “criminal conduct” regarding her use of private email servers during her tenure as secretary of state a threat to “the foundation of democracy,” Donald Trump tells the crowd in Sanford, Florida, that he will “drain the swamp” of federal corruption.
“We’re gonna turn it around, folks. I propose a contract with the American voter that will give the government back to the people,” Trump says. “My contract begins with a plan to end the rampant government corruption and put the special interests out of business— I want everyone in Washington to hear and heed the words I’m about to say.”
“We, together, are going to drain the swamp!”
“We are proposing a series of ethics reforms on day one to end corruption,” Trump continues, name checking term limits, bans on former government officials lobbying for foreign governments and bans on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.
Despite his hatred of the Clintons - ’cause I know one thing, Bill hates him - but despite his hatred, now I understand why he pushed her, because he didn’t want to get caught up in the big lie. Now he’s caught up.
- Donald Trump, on Barack Obama
It really is.
Trump's Obama impression is pretty terrible.
— Lauren Gambino (@LGamGam) October 25, 2016
Clad in a red tie and a camouflage “Make America Great Again” cap, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump mounts the stage in Sanford, Florida, with a swipe at Fox News for estimating the crowd as “small.”
“The media, folks, is no good. They’re no good,” Trump says. “Very dishonest.”
With two “Blacks for Trump” signs and one “LGBTQs 4 Trump” sign behind him, Trump tells the crowd that voters will be “very surprised” by the results in Florida.
“We’re leading Iowa,” [Ed.: He’s up three points], “we’re leading Ohio,” [Ed.: He’s up one point], “North Carolina we’re doing very well,” [Ed.: Oh dear].
Donald Trump campaigns in Sanford, Florida
Watch it here live:
He just wanted to bring voting back!
Justin Timberlake is in hot water with the Tennessee authorities after Instagramming his visit to the voting booth yesterday, apparently running afoul of legal restrictions against using phones to record images in a polling location.
Timberlake’s encouragement of his 37m Instagram followers to “choose to have a voice!” in the upcoming general election has led the Shelby Sounty district attorney’s office to put the matter “under review,” according to the Daily Beast.
“The Shelby County DA’s office was made aware of a possible violation of state election law,” the Shelby County DA said in a statement. “The matter is under review of the DA’s office. The law itself TCA2-7-142(B). The offense is a state class C misdemeanor. Any person convicted of this violation could be sentenced up to 30 days or fined no more than $50 or both.”
Bridgegate: former Christie aide defends 'traffic problems' email in testimony
A former aide to Republican governor Chris Christie reiterated today that a now-infamous email she sent saying “time for some traffic problems” near the George Washington bridge in 2013 referred to a traffic study, not a political retaliation plot, the Associated Press reports.
Former deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly and former bridge authority official Bill Baroni are charged with closing bridge access lanes and causing gridlock to punish a Democratic mayor who didn’t endorse Christie’s re-election.
Facing cross-examination this morning, Kelly repeated her direct testimony from Friday that she used a poor choice of words when she emailed another former bridge authority official, David Wildstein.
Wildstein has pleaded guilty and testified against Kelly and Baroni, Christie’s top appointee to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Kelly and Baroni face nine criminal counts each, including wire fraud and civil rights offenses. They contend any political retaliation plot was Wildstein’s creation.
Christie has consistently denied any knowledge of the plot or the lane closures while they were going on and has not been charged.
Kelly testified Tuesday that the email referred to the traffic that would ensue once the lanes were closed. She said she believed it was a legitimate traffic study that would eventually improve traffic flow over the bridge connecting New Jersey and New York.
The words “were not as they are read”, Kelly said to assistant US attorney Vikas Khanna.
“‘Problem’ means something that’s not OK, right?” Khanna asked.
“It meant that would be the effect” of the traffic study, Kelly said, adding, “David had told me the benefits were going to outweigh the inconvenience.”
Khanna said: “If you are creating problems in Fort Lee, you are making things worse in Fort Lee.”
Updated
Clinton: 'It’s going to be a close election'
Clinton: “It’s going to be a close election. Pay no attention to the polls... don’t get complacent. We need to turn people out.”
Clinton gets off a George Washington/Trump joke in Florida:
"This all started when George Washington refused to be king," Clinton says. "Donald Trump probably would've called him a loser."
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 25, 2016
Hillary Clinton's response after crowd in Coconut Creek bursts into "Happy Birthday" (she turns 69 tomorrow) pic.twitter.com/pNBV0sP9dF
— Liz Kreutz (@ABCLiz) October 25, 2016
How much you want to bet Trump breaks this law in New York in two weeks?
Narcissists, know your rights! pic.twitter.com/4yMEuXhPbJ
— Mike (@Doranimated) October 25, 2016
Powell to vote for Clinton
Former secretary of state Colin Powell, a Republican who served under George W Bush, will reportedly vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the upcoming general election.
Speaking at the Long Island Association, a trade group and civic organization based outside of New York City, Powell told the group that “I am voting for Hillary Clinton,” according to the New York Times.
Powell, a retired four-star general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was once considered a potential presidential candidate himself, reportedly cited Republican nominee Donald Trump’s inexperience and negative messaging as contributing to his cross-party endorsement.
The former secretary of state joins other officials from the second Bush administration in indicating their plans to vote for Clinton or their disavowal of Trump, including former homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff, former commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez, former treasury secretary Henry Paulson and former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Powell’s successor who urged Trump to withdraw from the race earlier this month:
Powell’s support indicates a shift in mood regarding Clinton from earlier this year. Hacked emails were released last month in which he had showed annoyance with Clinton earlier this year when she cited his use of private email servers during his tenure at the state department as proof that her own email scandal was a mountain made out of a molehill.
“Her people are trying to pin it on me,” Powell wrote in August, of Clinton’s email scandal.
In another email he wrote: “I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect.”
He added: “A 70-year-old person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still dicking bimbos at home (according to the NYP).”
Updated
Clinton and Murphy take turns slagging off Marco Rubio:
.@PatrickMurphyFL takes the stage before Clinton in Coconut Creek. Quickly mentions Donald Trump and Marco Rubio in same sentence.
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 25, 2016
One of @PatrickMurphyFL's favorite lines adopted from FLOTUS: "When Donald Trump goes low, Marco Rubio is right there with him."
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 25, 2016
.@PatrickMurphyFL channels a bit of POTUS in going after Rubio for saying he’ll stand up to Donald Trump: “Really? C’mon.”
Taking the stage in Coconut Creek, Clinton says @PatrickMurphyFL “is exactly the kind of senator that Florida needs and deserves.”
Clinton goes after Rubio: “Unlike his opponent, Patrick Murphy has never been afraid to stand up to Donald Trump.”
HRC reads a Rubio quote from the archives: Medicare and Social Security “have weakened us as a people.” From 2011.
Crowd at Coconut Creek breaks into a rendition of Happy Birthday for Hillary Clinton. (Her birthday is tomorrow.)
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 25, 2016
Here’s a live stream of the Hillary Clinton event, with senate candidate Patrick Murphy having just spoken:
Weld: 'Donald Trump is not stable'
Former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, who’s Libertarian party nominee Gary Johnson’s running mate, has released a statement saying that it’s an honor to have been involved in the race – and that however voters vote, it should not be for Trump.
Weld does not, in the statement, withdraw his own candidacy to be vice president. But he as much as admits that the Libertarians don’t have a chance this time – hoping instead for “a place in our national political dialogue – and goes on to appeal “particularly to those Republicans who feel that our President should exhibit commonly accepted standards of decency and discipline.”
“I would not have stepped out of the swirl of the campaign to make this statement if I did not fear for our country, as I do,” Weld says. “A serious candidate for the Presidency of the United States must be stable, and Donald Trump is not stable.”
In the final days of this very close race, every citizen must be aware of the power and responsibility of each individual vote. This is not the time to cast a jocular or feel-good vote for a man whom you may have briefly found entertaining. Donald Trump should not, cannot, and must not be elected President of the United States.
(h/t @bencjacobs)
Updated
We’re getting ready to hear from Hillary Clinton in Coconut Creek, Florida, in Broward county north of Miami. We’ll have a live stream when the time comes.
The mention of Marco Rubio's name draws loud boos at Clinton's rally in Coconut Creek over his opposition to climate change.
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 25, 2016
Or to a “rationale climate change policy.”
I meant climate change denial. It's been a long day. https://t.co/x5DXURgysJ
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 25, 2016
Updated
Trump endorsed by Bay of Pigs veterans
While polling has found that Miami’s community of exiled Cubans appears to be breaking away from its reliable pattern of voting overwhelmingly Republican this year, Donald Trump has secured the endorsement of the veterans association of the Bay of Pigs:
Trump in Miami thanks the Veterans Association of the Bay of Pigs, which had never endorsed any candidate in its history til now. pic.twitter.com/xQsR6ECvAF
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 25, 2016
This is from the pool report:
Trump thanked the Bay of Pigs veterans, saying they had been “fighting for a free Cuba, fighting for the values of freedom liberty that unite us all. The same values that are at stake in our election, where I’m hearing we’re doing very very well in Florida.”
Trump at one point displayed a baseball cap with the number 2506 on it, and said “2506, that’s a special number huh?” [Brigade 2506 was the CIA-backed Cuban exile group that attempted to overthrow the Castro regime in 1961.]
“I’m in a room full of heroes,” Trump said.
As far as Cuba policy goes, Trump did not get into specifics.
“Organizations of the Cuban resistance have struggled for decades to depose the Castro regime — but it’s at hand, it’s at hand — to free the Cuban people, and to restore truth and justice to the daily life of its citizens,” he said.
“What you are asking for is right, what you are asking for is just,” Trump said, while not specifically saying what they are asking for.
“The US should not prop up the Cuban regime economically and politically as Obama has done and as Hillary Clinton plans to do,” Trump said. “They wouldn’t know how to make a good deal if it was staring them in the face.”
After about eight minutes, Trump wrapped up his remarks. Before doing so he noted the large size of his crowd at last night’s Tampa rally, saying “We had a rally last night in tampa, maybe you saw, we set the record, this massive arena, we set the record.”
Trump did not answer a shouted question about whether he supports lifting the Cuban embargo, as he left.
Updated
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, now...
Anyone who knows FL early voting patterns in '08/'12 knows this means that Trump has already lost the state. Done. https://t.co/vxcnAKkIbE
— Jeff B/DDHQ (@EsotericCD) October 25, 2016
Early voting results in FLORIDA so far
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) October 25, 2016
• DEM: 658,177
- 525,076 by mail
- 133,041 in-person
• GOP: 665,092
- 556,058 mail
- 109,034 person
The rule of thumb for early voting in Florida is that Republicans establish a large early-early voting lead and Democrats don’t catch up until a week from now. Except this time there’s no early-early Republican lead.
@TWTWsports @FrankLuntz GOP led by far, far, FAR more in FL early vote in '08 and '12. Got crushed in former, still lost latter. It's over.
— Jeff B/DDHQ (@EsotericCD) October 25, 2016
You can read more about Decision Desk HQ here. In short they know what they’re talking about and ideologically speaking they’re more right than left. And what Jeff Blehar is saying here does not go against what other close Florida watchers are seeing.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Because if she’s won Florida, she’s won it all.*
*unless SMOD2016.
“I think she’s going to go down at a minimum as a great senator. I think she is a great wife to a president, and I think Bill Clinton was a great president... we had no war, the economy was doing great, everybody was happy... Bill Clinton was a great president... Hillary Clinton is a great woman and a good woman... a wonderful woman... a little bit misunderstood... a very smart woman, a tough woman...”
It goes on and on.
Donald Trump basically cutting a campaign ad after the 2008 election for his lifelong friends, the Clintons. Wow. pic.twitter.com/9Q71NaTFOR
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) October 25, 2016
Trump: 'I have no interest in Trump TV'
“No, I have no interest in Trump TV,” Trump told Cincinnati’s 700WLW radio Tuesday morning, in remarks flagged by Politico. “I hear it all over the place. I have a tremendous fan base, we have a tremendous base. We have the most incredible people, but I just don’t have any interest in that.”
Related:
In a 2009 would-be consolation note to actors John Travolta and Kelly Preston after their son Jett passed away at the age of 16 after suffering a seizure while on a family vacation, Donald Trump “expressed his condolences to Preston, but not before he mentioned the time he tried to sleep with her,” Mother Jones reports:
Trump wrote a blog post dedicated to Preston on the website of the now-defunct Trump University, which has been sued by the state of New York and former students over claims of fraud. [...]
“A long time ago, before I was married, I met Kelly Preston at a club and worked like hell to try and pick her up,” he wrote on the Trump University website. “She was beautiful, personable, and definitely had allure. At the time I had no idea she was married to John Travolta.”
He continued, “In any event, my track record on this subject has always been outstanding, but Kelly wouldn’t give me the time of day. She was very nice, very elegant, but I didn’t have a chance with her, and that was that.”
Read the full piece here.
Arizona race neck-and-neck – poll
New Monmouth poll of Arizona
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) October 25, 2016
Trump: 46%
Clinton: 45%
Not counting Bill Clinton’s reelection, the state has not gone Democratic in a presidential race since Truman. The Monmouth poll finds incumbent Republican senator John McCain with a comfortable double-digit lead in his reelection bid:
five-term incumbent John McCain holds a 10 point lead over Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick. The race stands at 50% for McCain and 40% for Kirkpatrick, with 4% supporting the Green Party’s Gary Swing.
4 in 10 voters in Arizona say they already voted per Monmouth. Among them:
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) October 25, 2016
Clinton: 52%
Trump: 42%
Updated
Pussy Riot have released a new song celebrating the vagina, in an unashamed feminist riposte to Donald Trump and his boast that when he meets beautiful women he “grabs them by the pussy”.
The Russian punk band’s latest video Straight Outta Vagina, released on Tuesday, features Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova wearing white clerical robes and trademark balaclava, plus a chorus line of men and women sitting in toilet cubicles and standing at urinals. There is also an inflatable duck.
In typically provocative style, the video includes the lyrics: “If your vagina lands in prison, then the whole world’s going to listen.” And: “Don’t play stupid, don’t play dumb, vagina’s where you’re really from.”
Tolokonnikova said she recorded the song in February with the US musician, guitarist and producer Dave Sitek, whom she described as “one of the biggest feminists I’ve ever met”. The video was shot in Los Angeles.
Tolokonnikova said Sitek was inspired by her phrase: “Does your vagina have a brand?”. “So it made total sense to write a song which celebrates [the] vagina with him,” she said.
“This song could be considered an answer to Trump. But I believe the idea of powerful female sexuality is much bigger than any populist megalomaniac man … Vagina is bigger than Trump.”
Read further:
The video, unfortunately, has for now been set to private:
African American woman denied housing by Trump speaks out in video
Hillary Clinton released a gripping new video featuring a woman who says she was denied housing in one of Donald Trump’s apartment complexes because of the color of her skin.
In the video, vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine tells the story of Mae Brown Wiggins, a retired nurse, who says she was told by the Trump organization that there were no more vacancies in a building where she applied. After she contacted the Human Rights Commission, a caucasian couple was sent to apply and told there were vacancies.
“I feel very, very angry,” Wiggins said, pausing to wipe tears from her eyes. “So much so that is still evokes anger and hurt – deep, deep hurt.”
Trump’s family real estate business was sued by the Justice Department in 1973 for discriminating against African American applicants seeking to rent an apartment in his buildings in New York City’s outer boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens and in Norfolk, Virginia.
In the video, Elyse Goldweber, an attorney for the Justice Department in the case, said the investigation into the Trump organization revealed that applications by African American tenants were marked with a “C”, for “colored”.
In a conference call organized by the Clinton campaign, congresswoman Holmes Norton, the former chair of the NYC Human Rights Commission, said the Justice Department uncovered “systemic discrimination in a number of different buildings” and said she was shocked by the “egregious” nature of the discrimination.
The Trumps’ lawyer, Roy Cohn, who famously worked for Senator Joseph McCarthy, mounted a counter-suit and demanded the government pay them $100m for falsely accusing them of discrimination. Norton said the judge called the countersuit “a waste of time and paper”.
The lawsuit was settled, and Donald Trump through lawyers has maintained that there was never an admission to guilt. The government – and Norton – see it differently.
“The proof was so clear that the Justice Department was able to obtain a strong consent decree,” Norton said. “It is functionally the same as being found guilty of discrimination except you don’t have to admit discrimination.”
Retired general John Allen reprises his role at the Democratic national convention in a new ad for Clinton:
New Clinton TV ad features ret. Gen. John Allen, who says Trump's rhetoric on ISIS "implies a complete ignorance of the reality". pic.twitter.com/H9iy8LDAtZ
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 25, 2016
On Monday, Trump claimed to have been endorsed “conceptually” by the military:
Trump to FL TV: "I’ve been endorsed largely, at least conceptually, by the military” ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? https://t.co/16YMnoYSNF
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) October 25, 2016
While Clinton has received more endorsements and more high-profile endorsements from retired military officers, polling of rank-and-file members of the military suggest a preference for Trump. A Military Times survey of nearly 2,500 active-duty troops between 12-14 October found that 41% planned to vote for Trump versus 21% for Clinton.
Are you working on your map? Here’s Fox News – with Clinton winning the election with 307 electoral votes (including Florida) not even counting toss-up results:
UPDATED @FoxNews 2016 Scorecard - Iowa & Maine's 2nd CD go lean R to toss-up, Indiana moves solid R to lean R pic.twitter.com/9SMpuhws5f
— Chris Snyder (@ChrisSnyderFox) October 25, 2016
Inside Donald Trump’s One-Stop Parties: Attendees Recall Cocaine and Very Young Models – Michael Gross writes in the Daily Beast:
Both confirmed that Trump, as I’ve reported, used to host parties in suites at the Plaza Hotel when he owned it, where young women and girls were introduced to older, richer men. This is hardly aberrant behavior in the modeling business. Indeed, it is standard operating procedure.
But both men also put Donald Trump in the room with cocaine, very young women and underage girls, and rich, old men there to—pardon my language, but if the Times can say pussy on its front page, I can say this—fuck them.
In the past hour, Trump has tweeted seven times. Six of his tweets were about spiking Obamacare premiums (see earlier). The other tweet is a shrill reaction to news of Clinton’s early voting strength:
Get out and vote! I am your voice and I will fight for you! We will make America great again! https://t.co/XXvLRlhSaz
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2016
Barack Obama is still president until the 20 January inauguration of the next president.
But after the election, Obama is outta here... for a week at least:
No matter what happens Nov. 8, @POTUS is leaving the country. White House announces he will travel to Greece, Germany & Peru Nov. 14-21
— Julie Davis (@juliehdavis) October 25, 2016
Greece, Germany and Peru is a pretty far-flung holiday trip.
Trump describes fear of failure in candid pre-race interviews
This is quite a read.
We obtained 5 hours of interviews that reveal Trump's fear of failure and embarrassment. Story and podcast: https://t.co/Kyjt1um3uY
— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) October 25, 2016
From the piece:
The recordings reveal a man who is fixated on his own celebrity, anxious about losing his status and contemptuous of those who fall from grace. They capture the visceral pleasure he derives from fighting, his willful lack of interest in history, his reluctance to reflect on his life and his belief that most people do not deserve his respect.
In the interviews, Mr. Trump makes clear just how difficult it is for him to imagine — let alone accept — defeat.
“I never had a failure,” Mr. Trump said in one of the interviews, despite his repeated corporate bankruptcies and business setbacks, “because I always turned a failure into a success.”
The interviews were conducted in 2014 by Michael D’Antonio, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who later wrote a biography of Mr. Trump called “The Truth About Trump.” [...]
Over the past few weeks, Mr. D’Antonio gave The New York Times access to the original audio as well as transcripts of his interviews with Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump’s first wife, Ivana, and his three oldest children. The Times is using them as the basis for this article and a two-part episode of its election podcast, “The Run-Up.”
Here’s a pretty amazing anecdote:
“And when Mr. Trump feels he has been made a fool of, his response can be volcanic. Ivana Trump told Mr. D’Antonio about a Colorado ski vacation she took with Mr. Trump soon after they began dating. The future Mrs. Trump had not told her boyfriend that she was an accomplished skier. As she recalls it, Mr. Trump went down the hill first and waited for her at the bottom:
IVANA TRUMP: So he goes and stops, and he says, “Come on, baby. Come on, baby.” I went up. I went two flips up in the air, two flips in front of him. I disappeared. Donald was so angry, he took off his skis, his ski boots, and walked up to the restaurant. ... He could not take it. He could not take it.
Updated
Hillary Clinton turns 69 tomorrow.
.@HillaryClinton gives a thumbs up when asked about how Stevie Wonder performed last night at her fundraiser/early birthday party. pic.twitter.com/vxKHN3aZn7
— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) October 25, 2016
Reader challenge: what's your map look like?
This is a two-part challenge, actually. The first part is, go to 270towin.com and fill in the electoral map how you think it will come out. What’s your final electoral vote tally?
The second part is, predict what time the election will be called. You may find this AP record of when each state was called in 2012 useful. The 2012 election was called by AP at 11.38pm ET.
My current electoral map, prediction-wise. I think all swings will swing away from Trump at this point, for obvious reasons. pic.twitter.com/oo7c7VdQou
— Jeff B/DDHQ (@EsotericCD) October 25, 2016
That map would elect a president before polls close on the west coast -- first time since 1996. https://t.co/nFrJXdVkVG
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) October 25, 2016
Here’s a favorite scenario: the tie!
Updated
Strong early voting numbers for Democrats in Florida
Florida Democrats are keeping pace with Republicans in the first two days of early voting in Florida...
After 1.6m Floridians voted in person and by mail, Dems close to catching GOP in early votes. Just 0.43% margin nowhttps://t.co/v0DD8Weq5r
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) October 25, 2016
... which is unusual, writes Caputo, Politico’s man in the Sunshine state:
When it comes to in-person early voting, Democrats tend to outperform Republicans but that doesn’t usually happen until after a full weekend of early voting, particularly after the Sunday “Souls to the Polls” events where African-Americans cast ballots in person after church.
Steve Schale, a longtime political operative for the Democrats who watches Florida elections at a rare level of detail, likes what he sees this morning:
Frankly for the fans of the home team, it is all good news.
Democrats entered the day down after about 2 weeks of vote by mail returns (and about 1.2 million ballots) about 20,000 votes. This 1.7% GOP advantage compares to a GOP advantage of 5% in 2012.
Then early voting happened.
First, not all counties have reported yet (17 yet to report, most are small), but when all said and done, over 300,000 will have voted on day one. Just to put into scale, 1.2 million voted by mail in the first two weeks.
When you add in the mail ballots from yesterday, 22% of all the ballots cast in Florida were cast in person yesterday. That is a remarkable number.
In total, Democrats reduced the Republican advantage of 1.7% going into yesterday to around 0.5% after day one (still counties reporting, so this number will move around).
Read further. Add in the fact, as Caputo points out, that Trump has trailed Clinton in 10 of the 11 public polls conducted in Florida in October, and it’s looking tough for Trump in his second-home state.
Trump golf course manager: 95% of employees get health care
Via Politico:
Doral GM David Fedder says 95% of employees get healthcare, so very few on Obamacare.
— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) October 25, 2016
Weird event.
Trump employees parading onto stage to say say nice things about him and working for Trump, at Trump National Doral pic.twitter.com/I9dolCmQEc
— Noah Gray (@NoahGrayCNN) October 25, 2016
OK, Trump’s talk about his employees “having a tremendous problem with Obamacare” has just been further muddled by his saying “we take great care of people,” meaning they don’t use Obamacare?
Trump now says his employees are "not worried about health care because we take great care of people" ... So he does provide benefits?
— David Martosko (@dmartosko) October 25, 2016
Let’s recap. Trump said this:
Trump: "All of my employees are having a tremendous problem with Obamacare."
— Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) October 25, 2016
This is the very best quote to start the day with. It's...beautiful. https://t.co/fx7YSohQ8U
— Jonathan Bernstein (@jbview) October 25, 2016
Then he said this:
@dmartosko @Bencjacobs He also said his employees were angry about Obamacare. He doesn't know how it works.
— Suzanne Kelleher (@SuzanneKelleher) October 25, 2016
Classic Trump, claiming his employees are "having tremendous problems" with Obamacare AND claiming credit for providing them w/ healthcare.
— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) October 25, 2016
Responding to Q shouted by reporter about whether his employees are on Obamacare, Trump said, "Some of them, but most of them no." https://t.co/MZKRb28BR0
— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) October 25, 2016
Updated
Model fight!
We love these kinds of dialogues because they’re interesting and they throw light on how election modeling works and they’re almost certainly good for the overarching quest to model elections well.
@JustinWolfers: I'm just going to say this once, but you make some very lazy critiques. Build a model yourself and see how this stuff works.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 25, 2016
@JustinWolfers: Still lazy. But it's interesting that prediction markets have tracked 538 polls-plus *almost exactly* thru the campaign.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 25, 2016
@JustinWolfers: You probably also know that most models in low-n environments are overfit and overconfident. We work hard to avoid that.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 25, 2016
Trump implies he does not provide employees with health insurance
Trump appears to claim that he does not provide his employees with employer-subsidized health care, forcing them onto the Obamacare exchanges?
Trump: "All of my employees are having a tremendous problem with Obamacare."
— Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) October 25, 2016
Don't his employees get health coverage through their employer? https://t.co/TLZpncca5S
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) October 25, 2016
Trump just said his employees are having a hard time with Obamacare.... so .... he doesn't provide benefits?
— David Martosko (@dmartosko) October 25, 2016
The Trump pool reporter today is BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray, who here reports on an open event we’re just learning the nature of. “Trump hotel event in Doral. He’s currently talking about the hotel’s ‘tremendous success,’ she tweets:
Not the first time Trump's managed to trick the press into covering what is basically a promotional event for a Trump property.
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) October 25, 2016
Let’s check in on early voting in Nevada. Reno?
Dems won early voting for third straight day in swing county Washoe by substantial margin. pic.twitter.com/q3wxuqvPH5
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) October 25, 2016
Las Vegas?
Democrats added 5,000 votes to their lead in Clark County on Monday. It's now more than 23,500 raw votes. Statewide: 22K. On par with 2012.
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) October 25, 2016
Obama, of course, won in NV by 7 in 2012. https://t.co/vY3PtsBIpG
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) October 25, 2016
Whatever Trump’s event is this morning, he has assembled employees of his Doral national golf club for it. Here’s the scene:
Trump doing photo op with Doral employees — with blinding sun directly behind them. Top-notch advance work. pic.twitter.com/6lAiC0DSlI
— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) October 25, 2016
“You’ll Likely Be Reading One Of These 5 Articles The Day After The Election” – that’s the title of a fun new piece by Cook political report editor Dave Wasserman for FiveThirtyEight. Wasserman imagines a Clinton landslide, a Clinton majority, a 2012 redux, a Clinton squeaker – and, yes, a Trump upset.
The piece rather brilliantly imagines the turnout and loyalties of various demographic groups underlying each imagined result, as well as likely down-ballot effects.
In the landslide scenario, Wasserman imagines Clinton with 413 electoral votes, including victories in Arizona, Texas and Georgia; he gives Utah to independent candidate Evan McMullin. In this scenario, senate candidate Patrick Murphy upsets Marco Rubio in Florida and the Democrats end up with a 54-seat senate majority. But, to underscore just how hard this would be, the Democrats still don’t take the House.
What about the Trump upset? He gets Pennsylvania (where polling averages have Clinton up six points), Wisconsin (ditto) and New Hampshire (five points), in addition to all the Romney states plus Florida, Iowa and Ohio. Here’s Wasserman’s nut graph for that scenario:
After one of the worst polling misses of all time, election “forecasters” and experts were left scratching their heads. Trump credited his “Silent Majority” for swarming polling places and himself for leading a blue-collar revolution. Indeed, turnout among whites without a college degree surged from 55 percent in 2012 to 64 percent in 2016, and Trump carried them by 35 percentage points. Validating the “shy Trump voter” theory, Trump defied expectations by nearly tying Clinton among whites with a college degree.
Obamacare premiums set to spike, White House says
Premiums will go up sharply next year under President Barack Obama’s health care law, and many consumers will be down to just one insurer, the administration confirmed Monday. That’s sure to stoke another “Obamacare” controversy days before a presidential election, the AP reports:
Before taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25 percent across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services. Some states will see much bigger jumps, others less.
Moreover, about 1 in 5 consumers will have plans only from a single insurer to pick from, after major national carriers such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Aetna scaled back their roles.
“Consumers will be faced this year with not only big premium increases but also with a declining number of insurers participating, and that will lead to a tumultuous open enrollment period,” said Larry Levitt, who tracks the health care law for the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Republicans pounced on the numbers as a warning that insurance markets created by the 2010 health overhaul are teetering toward a “death spiral.” Sign-up season starts Nov. 1, about a week before national elections in which the GOP remains committed to a full repeal.
“It’s over for Obamacare,” Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said at a campaign rally Monday evening in Tampa, Florida.
Anxious to see what @realDonaldTrump will do today to distract from the news of the 25% Obamacare premium increase
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) October 25, 2016
One would expect a GOP nominee to hold a press conference with people whose Obamacare premiums have increased, or something.
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) October 25, 2016
Trump’s press pool reports that they’ve been called to his Doral national golf club outside Miami for an event on whose nature they remain uninformed. Stay tuned.
Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. It’s a mere fortnight until election day. Though with early voting getting under way in earnest – more than 7 million people have cast ballots already – we’ve actually already arrived.
Texas jumped into the early voting game yesterday the only way Texas knows how: bigly. Voting was way up in the state’s five biggest counties, the Texas Tribune found, in a sign that could indicate that Hillary Clinton really has made the state semi-competitive, in the face of all relevant precedent.
My back of the napkin: Early voting up by average of 57% today in Texas' five biggest counties compared to first early voting day in 2012 pic.twitter.com/cnEOtUA1KB
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) October 25, 2016
This is what happens when a state becomes a battleground, people start believing their vote matters https://t.co/vOqUeeGQSZ
— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) October 25, 2016
Bad news for Trump in North Carolina
A new edition of the hyper-quant New York Times poll of North Carolina has Clinton with a seven-point lead in the state, which Trump simply must win. Polling averages have Clinton up by about two there.
Clinton leads by 7 points, 46-39 percent, in the final Upshot/Siena poll of North Carolina https://t.co/hIKoOUlwsH
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) October 25, 2016
Where the rallies are today
Hillary Clinton has an event in Broward County, Florida, where she’d like to stay close to Barack Obama’s 35-point margin of victory in 2012. Vice-president Joe Biden is in Pittsburgh. Bill Clinton has three events in North Carolina. Chelsea Clinton has three events in Wisconsin. Senator Elizabeth Warren is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Tim Kaine is in New York City for a fundraiser. And Kaine’s wife, Anne Holton, a former judge and state education secretary, has two events in Nevada.
Donald Trump has two rallies in Florida. Mike Pence has three rallies in Ohio.
‘Trump TV’ gets a soft launch
The Guardian’s Dave Schilling reports: “I thought there’d be snacks,” RNC strategist Sean Spicer said to the hosts of the debut installment of what the media is generously referring to as Trump TV.
We were all in a bit of a frothy lather over this being the long-awaited rollout of Donald Trump’s real 2016 endgame – a 24-hour news empire to go toe-to-toe with Fox News for the eyeballs of America’s far right. At last, Trump would reveal his true intentions.
Instead, we got a grown man asking where the craft services table is.
This is not Trump TV, declared the hosts – Trump advisers Boris Epshteyn and Cliff Sims. It is, instead a program called Live from Trump Tower – “an effort by us to reach out to you”, they said.
But there is no discernible entertainment value to be had in Live from Trump Tower, unless your idea of a good time is significantly less professional than InfoWars, but with fewer insane people removing articles of clothing.
Obama does ‘mean tweets’
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