Today in Campaign 2016
- Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton raised $52.8m between October 1 and October 19, according to the latest campaign finance disclosures released this evening, and spent $50m over the same period. That gives Clinton’s campaign $62.4m in cash-on-hand going into the final weeks of the presidential campaign, a huge sum that would allow her to spend at least $3.1m per day through Election Day.
- Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, has a meager $16m in cash-on-hand in the last two weeks of the presidential campaign, after having raised $30.5m between October 1 and October 19.
- Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s campaign plane skidded off the runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Thursday evening, after attempting to land in heavy rain. Pence, the governor of Indiana, was onboard at the time. No injuries were reported on the plane or on the ground, with journalists, campaign staff and Pence himself exiting from the rear of the plane. According to journalists on the scene, the plane landed hard enough for mud to splash on the plane’s windshield. Emergency crews were on-site moments after the plane landed. The plane, a Boeing 737, is operated by private Miami-based charter company Eastern Airlines.
- Illinois senator Mark Kirk, locked in a bitter reelection battle with Democratic challenger and Illinois congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, responded to Duckworth’s citing of her family’s military background in a debate this evening by accusing Duckworth of exaggerating her family’s record of service.
- According to an exclusive report from Politico, Vice President Joe Biden is the frontrunner of a shortlist of potential secretaries of state compiled by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
- A former beauty queen has become the 12th woman to openly accuse Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump of sexual assault. Ninni Laaksonen, a former Miss Finland in the Miss Universe competition that Trump once owned, alleged in an interview with the Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat that Trump groped her before an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman in 2006.
Tammy Duckworth responds:
My mom is an immigrant and my dad and his family have served this nation in uniform since the Revolution #ILSEN pic.twitter.com/ehEBHswFMs
— Tammy Duckworth (@TammyforIL) October 28, 2016
Report: Joe Biden tops Hillary Clinton's list of potential Secretaries of State
According to an exclusive report from Politico, Vice President Joe Biden is the frontrunner of a shortlist of potential secretaries of state compiled by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Citing a source familiar with the planning, Politico reports that Biden has not been informed of his potential status as a frontrunner for Clinton’s old job, but “He’d be great, and they are spending a lot of time figuring out the best way to try to persuade him to do it if she wins,” the source said.
Biden, a former six-term senator from Delaware who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was selected as Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008 in part because of his extensive foreign-policy experience. Biden has expressed interest in working in the foreign-policy sphere after he leaves the Naval Observatory, saying as much as a campaign stop this week.
Included on the list of potential secretaries of state are former undersecretary Wendy Sherman, Kurt Campbell, Clinton’s assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and James Stavridis, a retired admiral .
More on Mark Kirk's racialized comments about Tammy Duckworth
Illinois senator Mark Kirk, locked in a bitter reelection battle with Democratic challenger and Illinois congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, responded to Duckworth’s citing of her family’s military background in a debate this evening by accusing Duckworth of exaggerating her family’s record of service.
“My family has served this nation in uniform going back to the Revolution. I am a Daughter of the American Revolution,” Duckworth said, referring to the group whose members are the female descendants of those who served in the American Revolution.
“I’ve bled for this nation,” Duckworth continued. “But I still want to be there in the Senate when the drums of war sound because people are quick to sound the drums of war and I want to be there to say, ‘this is what it costs and this is what you’re asking us to do.’ And if that’s the case, I’ll go. It’s families like mine that bleed first. But let’s make sure that the American people understand what we are engaging in and let’s hold our allies accountable because we can’t do it all.”
Kirk, whose own campaign exaggerated his record of military service, responded dismissively: “I had forgotten your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”
Duckworth, who was born in Thailand, is the daughter of a Thai woman of Chinese descent and an American father who traced his roots to the Revolutionary War. Members of the Duckworth family have served in the American armed forces since the revolution.
Duckworth herself served as a US Army helicopter pilot in the Iraq war, losing both her legs and severely injuring her right arm when the helicopter she was piloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in 2004.
Updated
Donald Trump's campaign has a mere $16m in cash
According to the latest campaign finance filings with the Federal Election Commission, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign has a meager $16m in cash-on-hand in the last two weeks of the presidential campaign, after having raised $30.5m between October 1 and October 19.
The campaign spend $49.3m over that same period.
Trump gave just $30,681.67 of his own money to the campaign in October. He has so far donated $57m of his personal fortune to the campaign - much less than the $100m he has promised.
Hillary Clinton has $153m in cash on hand, including cash held by allied groups.
Updated
Mark Kirk to Tammy Duckworth: 'I had forgotten your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington'
In his debate with Illinois congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, a combat veteran who is challenging him for a seat in the US Senate, Illinois senator Mark Kirk made a tone-deaf joke that already has critics accusing him of racially charged remarks.
“I had forgotten your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington,” Kirk said, in reference to Duckworth’s family background.
Duckworth, who was born in Thailand, is the daughter of a Thai woman of Chinese descent and an American father who traced his roots to the Revolutionary War. Members of the Duckworth family have served in the American armed forces since the revolution.
Updated
Reminder: This happened earlier tonight.
“And we’re gonna work on our ghettos.” – Donald Trump.
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) October 27, 2016
“Ghettos.”
Donald Trump, on Mike Pence’s plane accident:
The plane skidded off the runway and was pretty close to grave, grave danger, but I just spoke to Mike Pence, and he’s fine. Everybody’s fine, everybody’s fine.
The Daily Beast reports that Donald Trump’s long list of political contributors does not include his grown children:
According to a review of Federal Election Commission filings by The Daily Beast, only one of Trump’s children showed up on a list of itemized receipts for the campaign: Eric. On Sept. 7, 2016, Eric Trump appears to have contributed $376.20 listed only as “meeting expense: meals.” It appears that money was later refunded. Eric Trump did not respond to a request for comment about the transaction.
Ivanka Trump, who previously contributed to Hillary Clinton and John McCain in 2007 and 2008 respectively, does not appear to have given to her father.
Donald Trump Jr., who contributed to Iowa congressman Steve King in 2014 and Hillary Clinton in 2007, is also nowhere to be found.
And a search for Tiffany Trump yielded no results.
Other no-shows: Newt Gingrich, Michael Flynn, Chris Christie, Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani.
Mike Pence says he’ll be back on the campaign trail tomorrow:
So thankful everyone on our plane is safe. Grateful for our first responders & the concern & prayers of so many. Back on the trail tomorrow!
— Mike Pence (@mike_pence) October 28, 2016
Mike Pence meeting with first responders after his plane skidded off the main runway at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport:
WATCH: Gov. Mike Pence talks to emergency responders after his plane skids off runway at NYC's LaGuardia Airport: https://t.co/K3gONJMgA5 pic.twitter.com/zNUtG4XV1D
— Good Morning America (@GMA) October 28, 2016
Donald Trump campaigns in Geneva, Ohio
Watch it live:
Journalists on the ground are sharing incredible video of the damage Mike Pence’s campaign plane did to the LaGuardia Airport’s runway upon landing:
Tarmac damage after Pence plane skids off runway at LGA pic.twitter.com/SSGp7Ir9lv
— Ines de La Cuetara (@InesdLC) October 28, 2016
LaGuardia Airport has been put at a ground-stop, with all planes either held in a holding pattern or redirected to nearby regional airports.
Mike Pence's plane slides off runway
Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s campaign plane skidded off the runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Thursday evening, after attempting to land in heavy rain. Pence, the governor of Indiana, was onboard at the time.
No injuries were reported on the plane or on the ground, with journalists, campaign staff and Pence himself exiting from the rear of the plane. According to journalists on the scene, the plane landed hard enough for mud to splash on the plane’s windshield.
Emergency crews were on-site moments after the plane landed. The plane, a Boeing 737, is operated by private Miami-based charter company Eastern Airlines.
Pence’s next scheduled appearance was at a campaign rally in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, on Friday afternoon; he was to attend a private fundraiser on Thursday night in New York City.
According to campaign spokesperson Stephanie Grisham, speaking from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s motorcade in Ohio, Trump called Pence from his car after a rally in Geneva, Ohio: “He reached out to Governor Pence and he is very glad everyone aboard is safe.”
Updated
Donald Trump raise $0 for RNC in October
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump raised zero dollars - nada, zilch, goose-egg - for the Republican National Committee in October, according to the RNC’s latest report to the Federal Election Commission.
The filings show no transfers joint-fundraising organization Trump Victory to the RNC’s coffers in the final stretch of the campaign, a potentially crippling shortfall when the party is desperately attempting to hold onto its control of the US Senate.
Trump also has no high-price donor events scheduled for the remainder of the campaign, for his own campaign or for the RNC.
Donald Trump campaigns in Geneva, Ohio
Watch it live here:
Finance report: Hillary Clinton has $62.4m on-hand
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton raised $52.8m between October 1 and October 19, according to the latest campaign finance disclosures released this evening, and spent $50m over the same period. That gives Clinton’s campaign $62.4m in cash-on-hand going into the final weeks of the presidential campaign, a huge sum that would allow her to spend at least $3.1m per day through Election Day.
Over the month of October, Clinton has raised, on average, $2.8m a day.
If you haven’t seen the Guardian’s full interview with a very angry Gary Johnson, you should:
Donald Trump: 'We're gonna work on our ghettos'
Speaking in front of a largely white audience in Toledo, Ohio, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump vowed to “work on our ghettos” to solve the “horrible, horrible problems” afflicting African Americans.
During a section of his speech in which he promised to “to fight for every American, of every background, in every stretch of this nation,” Trump went off his teleprompter to list a litany of problems affecting “pockets of areas of land where you have the inner cities.”
“We’re gonna work on our ghettos,” Trump said. “You take a look at what’s been going on, where you have pockets of areas of land where you have the inner cities, and you have so many things, so many problems. So many horrible, horrible problems. The violence, the death, the lack of education, no jobs. We’re gonna work with the African-American community, and we’re gonna solve the problem.”
Donald Trump: 'We should just cancel the election and just give it to Trump'
Speaking in Toledo, Ohio, Donald Trump suggested that the United States cancel the election and just award him the presidency.
“You know, what a difference this is,” Trump said, comparing his tax plan to Hillary Clinton’s.
“And just thinking to myself right now, we should just cancel the election and just give it to Trump, right? What are we even having it for? What are we having it for?” Trump asked rhetorically. “Her policies are so bad.”
Donald Trump, on Hillary Clinton:
Isis is dreaming of her becoming president, that I can tell you.
'Hillary doesn't play': Michelle Obama showers Clinton with praise at joint rally
Hillary Clinton deployed the star power of Michelle Obama in North Carolina on Thursday, laying out the stakes in the presidential election and then turning the stage over to the popular first lady.
Appearing together for the first time on the campaign trail, Clinton and Obama shared a platform at a packed arena. Both warned sharply against voter apathy.
“Hillary doesn’t play,” Obama said, after ticking off the Democratic nominee’s professional accomplishments, a line that drew wild cheers from the crowd at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
“I know that there are some folks out there who have commented that it’s unprecedented for a sitting first lady to be so actively engaged in a campaign,” Obama said of her own forays into the campaign against Donald Trump. “That may be true. But this is truly an unprecedented election.”
In a speech that switched between the soaring rhetoric that has become her trademark and playful asides, Obama said the choice facing American voters was a moral one, between two competing visions.
Trump’s vision, she said, was “of hopelessness and despair, a vision of a country that is weak and divided, a country in chaos, where other citizens are a threat”.
“And then there’s Hillary’s vision,” she said, calling Clinton “my girl” as she spoke of “a vision of a nation that is powerful and vibrant and strong, big enough to have a place for all of us”.
Donald Trump campaigns in Toledo, Ohio
Watch it live here:
Donald Trump is being “interviewed” by his advisor on Facebook Live:
Latest WikiLeaks dump ties Clinton Foundation to personal enrichment claims
Donald Trump’s campaign has seized on embarrassing revelations of blurred lines between the Clinton Foundation and the family’s business interests, as fresh WikiLeaks emails cause their biggest political stir yet.
The new disclosures detail the extent of what was dubbed “Bill Clinton Inc” by advisers who boasted of securing more than $100m for the former president when challenged about their own conflicts of interest.
One email discussing an internal investigation into whether the foundation’s charitable status was at risk reveals Chelsea Clinton warning that her father would be “horrified” to hear that comparisons were being made between his activities and “Tony Blair’s profit motivations”.
Now the affair threatens to cast a cloud over Hillary Clinton’s campaign as demands are made for the full internal audit to be made public rather than just the snapshots provided via WikiLeaks.
“The revelation that the Clinton Foundation undertook an in-depth investigation into whether they were violating IRS charity rules because of the money-making efforts of the Clintons is deeply concerning,” said Trump spokesman Jason Miller on Thursday. “In the matter of transparency, the Clintons must release all the internal documents related to the investigation of the Foundation, including interview notes and other supporting documentation as well as all initial and preliminary reports.”
WikiLeaks has been releasing embarrassing and sometimes revelatory emails from Hillary Clinton and key figures in her party since July, giving an unprecedented insight into the workings of her campaign and foundation and raising hopes on the right that the group may publish something truly damaging before election day.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is reportedly considering making a campaign stop in ruby-red Arizona, an indication that his campaign sees Hillary Clintons polling gains in the Latino-heavy state as enough of a threat to dispatch him with less than two weeks to go before the general election.
According to the Arizona Republic, Trump’s campaign is scouting several locations in Phoenix, the state’s capital, for a rally on Saturday. Arizona has voted for a Democratic presidential candidate once since 1952.
The rally would be his seventh in the state since the beginning of the campaign.
Former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and Republican senate candidate David Duke has released an advertisement that asks Louisiana voters to support both himself and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as two candidates who “the media hates.”
“The only man the media hates more than Donald Trump is me, David Duke,” Duke says in the ad. “But they may give him my Most-Hated by the Media Award. They hate Trump and me because we oppose the massive immigration that will destroy America. We vow to protect American jobs and industry - we defend our heritage. Trump even says we should say ‘merry Christmas’ instead of the PC garbage. The media says he sounds like me, but you know what? We both simply sound like you.”
“Vote for Trump for president and David Duke for the US Senate, and let’s take America back.”
Duke is currently polling at 5.1% in Louisiana, qualifying him for an upcoming debate.
Laura Ingraham is calling for a purge of #NeverTrump Republicans:
Without a doubt, @JeffFlake needs to go. He has been aiding & abetting Hillary's candidacy all along. https://t.co/MU3ah7VTTT
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) October 27, 2016
Donald Trump plummets to 'uncharted territory' in California poll
California hasn’t been a hospitable state for Republican presidential candidates since Ronald Reagan, but a new survey of likely Golden State voters shows Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in bad shape even for a member of the GOP.
According to a new survey conducted by the Public Policy institute of California, Trump only has the support of 28% of likely California voters, a dismal amount even in a state where there are no Republicans on the ballot for an open seat in the US Senate.
Over the course of the past month, the survey shows. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s lead over Trump has widened to 26 points, 54% to 28%, with 50% of Republicans saying that they view the Republican party negatively, and 60% say that they’re unsatisfied with their current choices for president.
“Twenty-eight percent is uncharted territory,” said Bill Whalen, a former Republican operative, to the Mercury News. “Republicans should be concerned... The numbers are dreadful.”
In 2012, Mitt Romney garnered 37% of the vote in California.
Former Miss Finland becomes 12th woman to accuse Donald Trump of sexual assault
A former beauty queen has become the 12th woman to openly accuse Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump of sexual assault.
Ninni Laaksonen, a former Miss Finland in the Miss Universe competition that Trump once owned, alleged in an interview with the Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat that Trump groped her before an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman in 2006.
“Before the show we were photographed outside the building,” Laaksonen said, according to a translation provided by The Telegraph. “Trump stood right next to me and suddenly he squeezed my butt. He really grabbed my butt.
“I don’t think anybody saw it but I flinched and thought: ‘What is happening?’”
Laaksonen said that she had been told at other events that year that Trump found her attractive because she reminded him of his wife, Melania, whom he had married the year before.
“Somebody told me there that Trump liked me because I looked like Melania when she was younger,” Laaksonen said. “It left me disgusted.”
Trump’s campaign has denied the previous 11 allegations of sexual assault and impropriety leveled against the candidate.
Georgia is a neck-and-neck race, poll finds
A new Quinnipiac poll reflecting the solid leads for Clinton in North Carolina and Virginia that other polls have found detects a close race in Georgia – with a relatively strong draw by Libertarian Gary Johnson.
Here are the head-to-head matchups, via Quinnipiac:
- Georgia: Clinton-Trump tied at 46 - 46 percent;
- Iowa: Trump at 47 percent to Clinton’s 46 percent;
- North Carolina: Clinton leads Trump 50 - 44 percent;
- Virginia: Clinton buries Trump 53 - 40 percent.
Q polls
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) October 27, 2016
Georgia — Trump +1
Iowa — Tie
North Carolina — Clinton +4
Virginia — Clinton +12https://t.co/yBn9dFvRSBhttps://t.co/l3qDg8LQq0 pic.twitter.com/XlJLvl1n0p
HuffPost Pollster’s average has Clinton down 2.5 points in Georgia. The state voted once for southern boy Bill Clinton and twice for homestate boy Jimmy Carter, but has otherwise been solidly Republican since 1960.
“Let’s get this done,” the first lady closes. “Thank you all. God bless.” Cue Stevie.
Obama to Clinton: 'first ladies. We rock'
How do we go high? Obama says.
We vote!
How do we go high?
We vote!
“As you are out there working your hearts out for my girl. Here’s the thing... because this has been a draining election. But I ask you to please, please be encouraged. I want our young people to be encouraged. Because we still live in the greatest country on earth... be encouraged.”
She says she’s had the honor of being first lady for eight years.
Then a funny moment. She turns to Clinton.
“First ladies. We rock.”
Obama points out that her husband lost North Carolina in 2012. “Each of you could swing an entire precinct and win this election for Hillary. ... you can do this. But you could also help swing an entire precinct for Hillary’s opponent. So here’s what I’m asking you. Get out and vote. Get out and vote from Hillary.”
“Hillary has done her job. Now we need to do our job and get her elected. Because here’s where I want to get real. If Hillary Clinton does not get elected, it will be on us,” Obama says.
“When you hear folks ... saying this election is rigged, understand that they are trying to get you stay home... they are trying to take away your hope. And just for the record, in this country, in the United States of America, the voters decide.”
Obama flips through a binder on her lectern. She doesn’t break stride. She’s reading a bit off the lectern. Did the teleprompter break? If it did, the first lady does not miss a beat.
Obama frames the election as a choice for the children.
“We try to be the kind of people, the kind of leaders that your children deserve, whether you believe in our politics or not.”
Guess who doesn’t fit that bill.
Obama: “We want a president who values and honors women. Who teaches our daughters and our sons that women are full and equal beings deserving of love and respect.”
She says we want a president who understands that immigrants built the country, who sees the goodness in our communities, “someone who understands that communities like the one where I was raised are filled with good, hard-working folks.”
“And finally, we want a president who takes this job seriously. And has the temperament and maturity to do it well. Someone who is steady.”
the feeling when you're building the matriarchy with your bud pic.twitter.com/wR6d1Ovc7l
— Emmy ✨12 days✨ (@EmmyA2) October 27, 2016
Obama contrasts Clinton’s and Trump’s visions.
She says Trump’s vision is grounded in hopelessness and despair and he “calls on us to turn against each other.”
“And then there’s Hillary’s vision, a vision of a nation that is powerful and vibrant and strong, big enough to have a place for all of us.”
“That is the choice we face,” Obama says.
Michelle Obama: 'Hillary doesn't play'
“I know that there are some folks out there who have commented that it’s unprecedented for a sitting first lady to be so actively engaged in a campaign. That may be true. But this is truly an unprecedented election,” Obama says.
She’s transitioning to her stump speech. Michelle Obama has a stump speech.
“I say this everywhere I go. I admire and respect Hillary,” Michelle says, and then zips through everything Clinton’s done.
Hillary! Hillary! the crowd chants.
“Yeah,” says Obama. “That’s right. Hillary doesn’t play”
Obama says Clinton has the most experience of any presidential candidate “and yes, she happens to be a woman.”
Michelle Obama on Clinton: 'she's my friend'
Obama: “You guys are pretty fired up right?”
People are screaming.
She says “Hillary’s mini-tribute to me has thrown me a little bit. It’s very generous.”
She says she wants to publicly thank Clinton “for what she’s done for this family, for this nation.”
“If people want to know, yes, she’s my friend,” Obama says.
Obama says she’s excited about the Clinton presidency. “It’s gonna be good.”
Obama asks for votes for Ross and Cooper, the Democratic senate and gubernatorial candidates, too.
Clinton closes with an exhortation to vote early! Vote this afternoon!
She introduces the first lady. Very excited crowd.
We can never forget how Trump disrespects our military families, like the Khans. https://t.co/cWxnRsqU6r
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 27, 2016
Clinton now is relating to Michelle Obama as a first lady. She says it’s hard to raise kids in the White House. “And let’s be real, as our first African American first lady, she’s faced pressures I never did. And she’s handled them with pure grace.”
“Among the many real privileges I’ve had is to see the president and first lady dance. Now she also planted an amazing vegetable garden at the White House. And I will promise you, if I win, I will take good care of it, Michelle.
“And boy, didn’t she dazzle the world with that wise and beautiful speech at the Democratic convention this summer?”
The crowd agrees avidly with Clinton’s glowing assessment of everything Michelle Obama has always done.
“Just by being herself every day, never missing an opportunity to honor her parents... she has shown every little girl and boy in America that there are no limits to what they can achieve...
“Seriously, is there anyone more inspiring than Michelle Obama?”
“There are so many things I admire about our first lady. .. Michelle reminds us to work hard, stay true to our values, be good to one another and never ever stop fighting,” Clinton says.
The crowd cheers every line. Who’s running again?
Clinton is describing the stakes of the election. She gets to “dignity for women and girls.”
“I wish I didn’t have to say this, but indeed dignity and respect for women and girls is also on the ballot in this election, and I want to thank our first lady for her eloquent, powerful defense of that basic value!”
Crowd goes wild.
Clinton compares Michelle Obama to Maya Angelou, a “woman whose voice we need now more than ever.”
We’ve got a lot of work to do, and I don’t mean just in the presidential race, Clinton says. She calls for Democrat Roy Cooper to be elected governor. “He will repeal HB-2,” the state’s transgender discrimination law, Clinton says. “And let’s send Deborah Ross to the United States senate.”
“And unlike her opponent, Deborah Ross has never been afraid to stand up to Donald Trump.”
Obama and Clinton come in to Andra Day. The crowd is going nuts. They get to the lectern and there’s a big big hug. Clinton is going to talk first. They’re at Wake Forest university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Updated
OK here now are Michelle Obama and Clinton:
Trump is cruising along. He says Clinton wants open borders and should not be allowed to run for president for wanting that. He says “we will build a wall” at which the crowd chants “Build the wall.”
“And,” says Trump, “who is going to pay for the wall?”
The crowd knows who is going to pay.
Trump: Every time you see a closed factory in Ohio, it was essentially caused by the Clintons
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) October 27, 2016
Trump claims lead in battleground states
Trump begins a sentence “if we win in November” – and then he registers or pretends to register some protest in the crowd. He apologizes.
When we win, he says:
We don’t want to take it for granted but we are winning in a lot of states. The media well, they’re going wild, because they’re saying this guy’s winning in Florida, he’s winning in North Carolina, he’s winning in Iowa, he’s winning in Ohio –
[No one’s saying that. –Ed.]
OK, when we win, we are going to Washington DC and we are going to drain the swamp!
The crowd chants along to “Drain the swamp.”
Trump predicts an Ohio win. He cites a poll from Remington research, which leans Republican, showing him four points up. “Job-killing Obamacare is just one more way the system is rigged,” Trump says. Then he goes hard on Wikileaks. “If the Clintons were willing to play this fast and loose when they weren’t in the White House, just imagine what they’ll do... I think we’ve had enough of the Clintons, to be honest.”
That’s an applause line.
Trump comes out. Watch here:
Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn has just taken the stage in Springfield, Ohio. “Let’s get it going,” he says.
.@BorisEP was just introduced at the Trump rally. The crowd is NOT happy. They chant, "We want Trump!" It was supposed to start at 1.
— Jill Colvin (@colvinj) October 27, 2016
“Mr Trump’s coming out any minute,” Epshteyn says. But Trump’s an hour late. We’re starting to watch the live feed for Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton’s event in North Carolina:
Updated
Still waiting for Trump in Springfield:
Mike Flynn at Trump rally: "This is a very digital election"
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) October 27, 2016
Shouts of Hillary to Gitmo at this Trump rally
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) October 27, 2016
Retired Lt. general Michael Flynn is introducing Trump in Springfield Ohio. He’s explaining why Trump is better for women than Hillary Clinton. “Look at the money that she has taken from countries that just totally denigrate women,” Flynn says. He gets some people to chant, “Women for Trump.”
“That is awesome,” Flynn says. He’s vamping. He says Trump is backstage doing local media.
While we wait, here’s a mashup of every Donald Trump film and TV cameo:
Video: Adele endorses Clinton
Adele tells a crowd at Miami’s American Airlines Arena on Wednesday night that she is backing Hillary Clinton, while also rejecting Republican candidate Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton was at the concert and later said she was thrilled to receive the singer’s support. Trump meanwhile said the move was ‘unfair’:
Updated
Allred: 'Many women contacted me even prior to the Trump tape'
From the moment that Donald Trump denied, in a nationally televised presidential debate, that he had ever groped or kissed a woman without her permission, it was only a matter of time before Gloria Allred got involved.
An ambulance chaser to her critics, a righteous crusader to her admirers, the 75-year-old women’s rights attorney is never far when a scandal of this nature bursts into national view. No one knows this better than Allred herself. “I knew,” she said in a recent interview, “as soon as I heard those words – the denial in the debate – that women would start contacting me and want to come forward.”
Sure enough, Allred has, as of publication, introduced the world to three different women who accuse Trump of inappropriate sexual contact. Her involvement has placed Allred back in familiar territory: holding court at one of her trademark press conferences, surrounded by a phalanx of news crews.
Politics is her strong suit. Allred tanked Meg Whitman’s bid for California governor when she announced that Whitman’s former nanny would be suing for unpaid wages. And she fanned the flames engulfing Herman Cain’s presidential campaign when she introduced a woman who claimed that Cain once grabbed her head, forced it toward his crotch, and leered, “You want a job, right?”
I spoke with Allred this week about her supposed baggage, Trump’s accusers, the cultural shifts around rape and sexual assault and what young women may not understand about Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Our conversation took place in two, 15-minute bursts. “I just have so many people trying to contact me,” she said as she excused herself from our first conversation. “Basically, women about Trump. And I have to get back to them.” How many? “Many.”
Read the full piece here:
Incumbent Republican senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin appears likely to lose his reelection bid. In any case he’s down six in polling averages and always has been. And he’ll drink to that:
What you do when the Tavern League of Wisconsin endorses you: pic.twitter.com/wTo8q5BbVg
— Ron Johnson (@RonJohnsonWI) October 27, 2016
RIP Vine.
People: https://t.co/qZWklxR0VH
— Nick Riccardi (@NickRiccardi) October 27, 2016
My favorite 2016 vine https://t.co/gS7T1OdQTi
— Iowa Starting Line (@IAStartingLine) October 27, 2016
Updated
We’re eager to watch a Donald Trump event about to begin in Springfield, west-central Ohio. Here’s a live video stream:
The news that Twitter will discontinue the mobile app Vine “in the coming months” has caught journalism off guard. How will this kind of reporting happen from now on?
Vine announces shut down day before @HillaryClinton returns to Cedar Rapids. Coincidence or massive conspiracy? https://t.co/KLTq58r2F8
— Iowa Starting Line (@IAStartingLine) October 27, 2016
Still my favorite https://t.co/SZvGAI0PWQ
— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) October 27, 2016
Updated
Ban on ballot selfies challenged
A federal judge has demanded an explanation from New York state elections officials for a ban on ballot selfies, after pop star Justin Timberlake deleted such a selfie for fear of having transgressed a similar ban in Tennessee.
Officials have until 1 November to defend the ban, the Village Voice reported:
Yesterday afternoon Judge P. Kevin Castel issued an order to show cause requiring New York State election officials to defend the constitutionality of the state law, which prohibits New York voters from taking a photograph of their election ballots, typically inside a voting booth, and posting them on social media,” the Village Voice reported.
Will Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton gain the right to take pictures of themselves voting this November? #staytuned
Thanks to Justin Timberlake's selfie gaffe, we have a handy dandy guide of 5 things you can't do in a voting booth https://t.co/ByakCj67V8
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) October 27, 2016
Video: 'Generation "meh": the battle to win millennial voters'
For the first time there are as many millennials eligible to vote in the US election as there are baby boomers, and nearly half of them might vote for a third-party candidate. Paul Lewis and Tom Silverstone travel to Tucson, Arizona, to explore why large numbers of young people appear poised to sit out the election or vote for either Gary Johnson or Jill Stein:
Addendum to our earlier post on the “tightening” race:
Hey @RalstonReports. CNN moved Nevada towards Trump. Does that sound right?
— Chico Delainky (@ChicoDelainky) October 27, 2016
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) October 27, 2016
And here’s a nice side dish to go with Maria L La Ganga’s piece on the Nevada senate race:
Podcast! Jon Ralston of @RalstonReports on the Nevada Senate race, the GOP's only chance at a pickup. https://t.co/A7NugDS08r
— Ken Rudin (@kenrudin) October 27, 2016
Clinton maintains a healthy, 7-point lead in the latest edition of The Upshot’s remarkable poll of Pennsylvania voters, which selects respondents from an L2 voter file of active Pennsylvania voters stratified by age, gender, party, county, a modeled turnout score and a modeled race and ethnicity classification:
Clinton leads by 7 in Pennsylvania, 46 to 39 percent, in the Upshot/Siena poll of Pennsylvania https://t.co/bBEqeCFvSL
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) October 27, 2016
HuffPost Pollster’s average of Pennsylvania has Clinton’s lead slightly smaller, at around six points.
The poll also has Democrat Kate McGinty, a former environmental adviser in the Clinton administration, three points ahead of Republican incumbent Pat Toomey in the state’s US senate race, which could determine whether Democrats take control of the body.
It appears from the Upshot/Siena poll that Trump’s “What do you have to lose” pitch to African American voters is not working too good:
Black voters in Upshot/Siena polls:
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) October 27, 2016
FL (Sept): Clinton 82, Trump 4
NC (Sept): 86-3
NC (Oct): 88-2
PA (Oct): 90-1
Right? Right??
Since this campaign hasn’t been about issues, Clinton at least will have a mandate not to endlessly re-litigate email scandals right?
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 27, 2016
No one, of course, is outright assuming that Clinton will win, despite her lead in the polls and rosy signs in early voting. Which is right were the Clinton campaign might want the state of play, points out the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel:
If I ran the Clinton campaign, I'd much prefer a "this random poll shows tightening" story to a "Clinton has it in the bag" storyline.
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) October 27, 2016
Many news organizations are playing with their maps these days. It’s hard to find one that works for Trump, though. Here’s an example: CNN has just moved Nevada and Florida from “lean Democratic” to “tossup”. Both state have already seen significant early voting.
If Trump won every battleground in this scenario – a big “if,” given his numbers in Florida, North Carolina and Nevada especially – if he won all the yellow, he’d still lose:
CNN updates its electoral college map to move 2 states in Trump's direction, from "lean Democratic" to battleground https://t.co/T9EAsjxhqb pic.twitter.com/haM6QKwF7Q
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) October 27, 2016
Has your map been changing ?
Trump attempts Hindi in ad targeting Indian-Americans
The Donald Trump campaign has produced an extraordinary new ad targeting Indian-Americans in which the candidate speaks some Hindi.
He adapts “Abki Baar Modi Sarkar,” the campaign slogan of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. Quora explains: ‘“Abki Baar” means “This time” and the word “Sarkar” means government.’
Check it out:
Hindu nationalists have proven some of Trump’s most avid supporters. The New York Times reports:
That some of Mr. Trump’s most passionate followers are Indian may seem, at first, somewhat strange, given how fond he is of scorning Asian countries where cheap labor saps demand for American workers. A poll on Asian-Americans’ political leanings conducted in August and September found that just 7 percent of Indian-Americans said they would vote for Mr. Trump.
But in one of the more peculiar pairings of this most peculiar political season, Mr. Trump has unwittingly fashioned a niche constituency in the overlap between the Indian right and the American right, which share a lot of the same anxieties about terrorism, immigration and the loss of prestige that they believe their leaders have been too slow to reverse.
Trump embraces Michael Moore
We’re not going within a thousand yards of the word “bedfellows” in describing this pair, but “strange” certainly captures it.
Filmmaker Michael Moore has been talking for months about how Donald Trump is going to win the presidential election. He has given powerful explanations for Trump’s appeal among the left-behind Rust Belt former manufacturing workers whose lives and thinking he has repeatedly documented. Moore’s description of white working-class support for Trump squares with some polling.
There’s something that appears to be missing from Moore’s analysis. Trump does not appear to be winning in Michigan, Moore’s home, or in Wisconsin, or Minnesota, or Pennsylvania. Still, Moore thinks Trump is going to win, and he has continued to say so as he promotes his film, “Michael Moore in Trumpland.”
Trump has just approvingly tweeted an audio recording of Moore talking about Trump’s appeal. Moore says in part:
He is the human Molotov cocktail that they’ve been waiting for. The human hand grenade that they can legally throw... and on November 8th... they’ve essentially lost essentially everything they had except one thing... the right to vote... they might be fucked over and fucked up, it doesn’t matter, because it’s equalized on that day... so on November 8th, the dispossessed will walk into the voting booth... and put a big fucking X in the box by the name of the man who has threatened to upend and overturn the system that has ruined their lives: Donald J Trump...
All the blows get to go and blow up the whole goddamn system because it’s your right. Trump’s election is going to be the biggest Fuck You ever recorded in human history. And it will feel good.”
I agree, @MMFlint- To all Americans, I see you & I hear you. I am your voice. Vote to #DrainTheSwamp w/ me on 11/8. https://t.co/D7nBwkogBb
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2016
Trump's a drag in crucial senate fight for Republicans
It’s hard to be a Republican candidate these days if you were late to the renounce-Donald-Trump party. It’s especially tough to be Joe Heck.
The three-term Nevada congressman is embroiled in what may be the highest-profile contest for the US Senate in 2016: the race to fill the seat of Democrat Harry Reid, the powerful, outgoing Senate minority leader and the man Republicans most love to hate.
The race between Heck and Catherine Cortez Masto, a former Nevada attorney general, could decide whether the US Senate stays in Republican hands or tips to the Democrats. If Cortez Masto wins, she will be the first Latina ever elected to the largely white, largely male legislative body.
With so much at stake, the Nevada race has become one of the most expensive in the country, attracting tens of millions of dollars from outside Super Pacs, including more than $8m from the Koch brothers’ Freedom Partners Action Fund.
Heck was believed to have the best chance to wrest a Senate seat away from the Democrats this year.
But not any more. And he can thank Donald Trump for his troubles.
Read the full piece:
Democrats act against Trump's call for 'poll watchers'
The Democratic party has taken legal action to try to enforce 1980s-era decrees that forbid the Republican party from organizing “poll watchers” and engaging in other “ballot-security measures” promoted by the Trump campaign.
Bloomberg reports:
The Democratic National Committee asked a judge to block the Republican Party from supporting efforts to discourage minorities from voting based on Donald Trump’s claims that the presidential election is ‘rigged,’” Bloomberg reports:
In a preemptive strike against what it called a coordinated effort to intimidate voters, the Democratic Party’s governing body alleged Wednesday that the Republican National Committee is violating a court order in a case that started 35 years ago.
The RNC is supporting Trump’s recruitment of so-called watchers at polling places, which is in breach of consent decrees going back to 1982 that forbid the group from engaging in ballot-security measures, according to a filing in federal court in Newark, New Jersey. The DNC said the watchers are really intended to deter registered voters from casting ballots.
“The filing is completely meritless,” said Lindsay Walters, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee...
Read the full piece here.
This bus in Denmark makes Donald Trump look like a google-eyed American cuckoo:
Epic Bus Ad from the political party SF in Denmark is mocking @realDonaldTrump and encouraging Americans abroad to vote. #Election2016 pic.twitter.com/MfyeOYtDuQ
— Mads Albers (@MadsAlbers) October 26, 2016
Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Michelle Obama will join Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail for the first time today to encourage early voters in North Carolina. Chelsea Clinton will be campaigning separately in the Tar Heel state, Tim Kaine has a couple of Ohio events and Jon Bon Jovi will rock Pittsburgh this evening on Clinton’s behalf. 🎶
Donald Trump is scheduled to rack up three events in Ohio, while Mike Pence has stops in Omaha, Nebraska, and Fort Dodge, central Iowa.
Gary Johnson gets testy
The Guardian’s Paul Lewis caught up with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson to talk about tax policy – except Johnson wasn’t particularly interested in talking tax policy, and things got testy.
“I don’t want to argue,” Johnson told Paul, comparing his plan to abolish the income tax to his plan to legalize marijuana. “I had people in my face for years and years and years talking about how stupid it was … It’s leadership. It is leadership.”
Paul and Tom Silverstone travelled to Tucson, Arizona, to explore why large numbers of young people appear poised to either vote for Johnson or the Green candidate, Jill Stein, or sit out the election altogether.
Khizr Khan stumps for Clinton
With less than two weeks before the general election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign deployed one of its most potent weapons in the fight against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump: Khizr Khan, the father of a Muslim war hero killed in the line of duty.
Khan, a Gold Star father whose impassioned speech on the final night of the Democratic national convention helped knock Trump down to his current flailing position in the presidential race, spoke on Clinton’s behalf to congregants and guests of a mosque in Norfolk, Virginia, home to the world’s largest naval base and more than 60,000 active duty military personnel.
“The courage [to speak against Trump] wasn’t ours,” Khan said at Masjid William Salaam, the first of three stops in Norfolk that Khan made on Wednesday. “The courage was given to us.
“People ask would I do it again,” Khan continued. “A million times – again and again and again – up until hatred and political bigotry is wiped out of this United States, we will continue to speak.”
Trump on the ‘element of surprise’
Critiquing the Iraqi siege of Mosul, Donald Trump told ABC News that American war planners had made a fatal error in telegraphing their intentions, thus forfeiting the “element of surprise”, which Trump said was very important, repeating the phrase: “Element of surprise, element of surprise.”
“You can tell your military expert that I’ll sit down and I’ll teach him a couple of things,” Trump told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.
Trump dismisses journalist’s assault accusations
Two weeks ago in a piece titled “Attacked by Donald Trump,” People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff described how Trump lured her to an empty room and “within seconds … was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat”.
“Give me a break,” Trump tells ABC News in an interview airing this morning:
Trump on People reporter being afraid to come forward: "Give me a break...She would have gotten the Pulitzer Prize" https://t.co/jPqwF4Yq3b
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 27, 2016
Trump praises wife’s public speaking skills
Trump says Melania has agreed to give 2 or 3 speeches: "I think it's going to be big speeches, important speeches." https://t.co/wkbiBlVSIL
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 27, 2016
Inside the Trump bunker, with 12 days to go
Here’s a selection from a new Bloomberg piece describing the Trump campaign’s efforts to suppress the vote, as part of “an ambitious digital operation fashioned around a database they named Project Alamo”:
Today, housed across from a La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery along Interstate 410 in San Antonio, the digital nerve center of Trump’s operation encompasses more than 100 people, from European data scientists to gun-toting elderly call-center volunteers. They labor in offices lined with Trump iconography and Trump-focused inspirational quotes from Sheriff Joe Arpaio and evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.
To compensate for this, Trump’s campaign has devised another strategy, which, not surprisingly, is negative. Instead of expanding the electorate, Bannon and his team are trying to shrink it. “We have three major voter suppression operations under way,” says a senior official. They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women and African Americans. Trump’s invocation at the debate of Clinton’s WikiLeaks emails and support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership was designed to turn off Sanders supporters. The parade of women who say they were sexually assaulted by Bill Clinton and harassed or threatened by Hillary is meant to undermine her appeal to young women. And her 1996 suggestion that some African American males are “super predators” is the basis of a below-the-radar effort to discourage infrequent black voters from showing up at the polls – particularly in Florida.
6. Trump advisor: “We have three major voter-suppression operations under way,” including one targeting African-American voters: pic.twitter.com/Oz6UggoWal
— Joshua Green (@JoshuaGreen) October 27, 2016
Inside ‘Bill Clinton Inc’
A former close aide to Bill Clinton, Doug Band, described in a 2011 memo released by WikiLeaks how his consulting firm simultaneously solicited funds for the Clinton Foundation and enriched Bill Clinton personally, in an arrangement without explicit ties to Hillary Clinton’s work at the state department but with a lot of potential to raise questions about the line between charitable work and personal enrichment in Clinton world.
“Band wrote that Teneo partners had raised in excess of $8 million for the foundation and $3 million in paid speaking fees for Bill Clinton. He said he had secured contracts for the former president that would pay out $66 million over the subsequent nine years if the deals remained in place,” the Washington Post writes.
Politico has more:
The memo at one point refers bluntly to the money-making part of Clinton’s life as “Bill Clinton Inc.” and notes that in at least one case a company – global education firm Laureate International Universities – began paying Clinton personally after first being a donor to the Clinton Foundation.
The 12-page document, prepared in November 2011 by Band with input from Clinton adviser John Podesta, came as Chelsea Clinton was pressing for changes to the foundation’s governance and complaining that Band, Teneo co-founder Declan Kelly and others were profiting from their ties to her father and the foundation.
“Laureate is a Foundation relationship that evolved into a personal advisory services business relationship for President Clinton. … Laureate pays President Clinton $3.5 million annually to provide advice and serve as their Honorary Chairman,” Band wrote. “Gems approached President Clinton in 2009 to seek his personal services as an advisor to the company. ... [Clinton aide Justin Cooper] and I convinced them to initiate a relationship to the Foundation, which they did; that relationship has grown into a business relationship for President Clinton and a donor relationship for CGI.”
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