Today in Campaign 2016
On the eve of a crucial primary in Wisconsin, the last remaining candidates in the Democratic and Republican contests fought to prove their viability, with each would-be Oval Office occupant facing stiff headwinds against that claim.
On the Democratic side, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is sitting pretty in Wisconsin, but he’ll need to win nearly 60% of the remaining delegates to clinch the party’s nomination. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has superdelegates on her side, but she’s finished her third straight month behind Sanders in fundraising, and just capitulated on an additional debate only five days before the New York primary.
Things only get fiercer in the Republican race. Donald Trump is starting down the barrel of an embarrassing loss in Wisconsin, which severely hampers his ability to win a 1,237-delegate majority before the conclusion of the primary process. Texas senator Ted Cruz is actively calling on fellow candidate John Kasich to drop out, lest he serve as a spoiler who sends the party into July without a clear nominee. How bad is it? Republicans are reportedly contemplating drafting Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to serve as a “unity nominee.”
Ahead of the Wisconsin primaries, here’s a wrap-up of the biggest news in campaign politics today:
- Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, for one, is not onboard the “Draft Ryan” movement - at least, not yet. “I decided not to run for president,” Ryan told the Times of Israel this weekend during a visit to Jerusalem. “I think you should run if you’re going to be president.” He later doubled down on the comments, telling Hugh Hewitt that “if you want to be president, you should go run for president.” Of course, Ryan was similarly disinterested in seeking the House speakership when the Republican congressional majority was in chaos after the resignation of John Boehner, so take that firm denial with a grain of salt.
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Ted Cruz, for one, is bearish on a Ryan nomination. Talking with reporters in the basement of a Masonic Center in Madison, Wisconsin, Cruz declared that “this fevered pipe dream of Washington, that at the convention they would parachute in some white knight who will save the Washington establishment, it is nothing less than a pipe dream: It ain’t gonna happen. If it did happen, the people would quite rightly revolt.”
- At least eight people were able to agree on voting-related matters today - although not everyone is pleased about it. The supreme court unanimously rejected a conservative challenge to voting rights – ruling that states could count the total population, not just eligible voters, in drawing legislative districts. The case was brought before the court after conservative activists challenged the legal principle of “one person, one vote”, which has long established that election districts should be drawn to be equal in population.
- The New York Observer has now pledged to cover billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump “in the same way they cover every other candidate in the presidential race,” despite Trump being the father-in-law of the paper’s owner Jared Kushner. The pledge comes after a high-profile flap in which New York Magazine revealed that editor-in-chief Ken Kurson had assisted Trump in writing his high-profile speech in front of the Aipac Policy Conference last month.
- Speaking to a relatively sparse crowd in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Melania Trump made a rare campaign appearance to advocate on behalf of her billionaire husband with a laundry list of qualities that she said make him “a good leader.”
That’s it for today - tune in tomorrow for up-to-the-minute coverage of the critical Wisconsin primaries from our team of brilliant political reporters, analysts and opinion writers.
In an email to supporters this evening, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton comes across as pessimistic about her chances of winning tomorrow night’s Democratic presidential primary in Wisconsin, noting that “we’re down in almost every poll.”
Under the subject line “We could lose Wisconsin,” Clinton’s campaign urges supporters to “have Hillary’s back” in fighting back the insurgent campaign of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.
“We’re down in almost every poll in Wisconsin - tomorrow’s primary is going to be a tough fight,” the email begins. “The Sanders campaign raised over $43 million in March - making that the third month in a row they’ve outraised us.”
“This nomination isn’t locked up yet, and we’ve got to keep fighting for every vote if we want to see Hillary Clinton in the White House,” the email continues, before asking supporters to “chip in right now” in exchange for a free sticker.
Donald Trump: “You’re gonna be so proud of your country"
After pledging to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, destroy Common Core, renegotiate trade deals, stop the heroin trade, build a wall on America’s southern border and “stop bad, bad things from happening in this country,” Donald Trump concluded a speech in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha by telling Wisconsinites that they would be “so proud” if the Badger State votes in support of his candidacy in tomorrow night’s crucial Republican primary.
“You’re gonna be so proud of your country,” Trump said, saying that if he wins the Republican nomination and is elected president, his supporters will look back on their primary vote as “the single greatest vote that I have ever cast - and you’re gonna look back, and you’re gonna be proud of yourselves.”
Trump quoted a woman he reportedly saw interviewed on a local television station who told journalists that “there is nothing he can do that would get me to vote against him.”
“We have so many people like that - we’re all like that. I mean, a big chunk of the country is like that,” Trump said.
Perhaps our favorite photo from Donald Trump in Wisconsin:
Donald Trump was dismissive of the #NeverTrump movement within the Republican party at a speech in Waukesha, Wisconsin, calling its supporters “crazy” and dismissing the Club for Growth - “whatever that means.”
“You need Trump so badly though!” Trump said. “If [#NeverTrump Republicans] would have worked so hard, so diligently, against President Barack Hussein Obama, they would have beaten him!” he declared. “They would have had everything they wanted!”
“I’ve never met any human being that lied as much as him,” Donald Trump said of fellow would-be Republican presidential nominee Ted Cruz, who Trump labeled several times as “Lyin’ Ted” (complete with spelling out the dropped letter G).
Evangelical leaders, Trump said, were expected to support Cruz in South Carolina, “but they don’t like liars, and they see how much he lies.”
Cruz, Trump mocked, holds his Bible aloft when he makes political speeches “and then he starts to lie! Boy, he is bad.”
Donald Trump, on campaign contributions:
I’m not taking any money from anybody - I’m self-funding my campaign.
Donald Trump’s campaign event in Milwaukee tonight is very “low energy.” In a half full theater, Trump trotted out his wife Melania to read prepared remarks praising her husband for being “kind” and having a “great heart.”
Despite anticipation that the event, held just a few blocks from a Bernie Sanders rally, might be raucous, it was relatively subdued by the Republican frontrunner’s standards. While the vocal supporters of Trump hooted and hollered along with him, the shouts echoed in a theater that was far under its listed capacity of 4,086. The balcony was curtained off and the lower level was about half full.
The event boded ill for Trump’s chances in Wisconsin’s primary tomorrow. The Republican frontrunner is trying to fend off Ted Cruz who has been endorsed by the state’s governor, Scott Walker, and strongest in the Milwaukee area.
Crowd shot from back of the theater at Trump event in Milwaukee pic.twitter.com/RlWrBS9WMZ
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) April 5, 2016
Donald Trump began reciting The Snake, an Al Wilson song from 1968 in which a “vicious snake” takes advantage of the kindness of a “tender woman,” who saves the life of a venemous snake, only to be bitten and killed by “the reptile with a grin.”
“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in,” Trump closed the poem, to cheers.” That’s what’s happening to our country, folks.”
Donald Trump, while speaking in Waukesha, Wisconsin, has tweeted a video putatively highlighting his good relationship with communities of color.
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!https://t.co/yypR5snYBC
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 5, 2016
As Trump said in 2011, “I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.”
Donald Trump, re-taking the stage, called for fellow candidate John Kasich, governor of nearby Ohio, to drop out of the race, ridiculing his chances of taking the Republican nomination as miniscule and calling him an obstacle to his own nomination.
“The guy’s one and thirty-two, and it was his own state!” Trump said, in reference to the number of primary contests that Kasich has won. “Jeb Bush was doing a lot better than that.”
“He’s taking my votes! We have to get over fifty percent - and how do we do that?” Trump continued, referencing the need to win a 1,237 Republican delegate majority to secure the party’s presidential nomination on the first ballot at the convention.
“He takes my votes away much more than he does Cruz - I don’t like it, I don’t think it’s appropriate.”
Trump then declared that no matter what, he will beat Kasich “easily.”
Melania Trump makes rare campaign stump speech
Speaking to a relatively sparse crowd in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Melania Trump advocated on behalf of her billionaire husband Donald with a laundry list of qualities that she said make him “a good leader.”
“I brought somebody very very special along - I wonder who that could be?” Trump (the candidate) said, introducing his wife as “an incredible woman, an incredible mother... and really something special,” who would make “an unbelievable first lady.”
“It is wonderful to be here today with you and with my husband,” Trump (the spouse) said, before lauding her husband with a long list of positive attributes in her thick Slovenian accent. “I’m very proud of him. He’s hard worker; he’s kind; he has a great heart; he’s tough; he’s smart; he’s a great communicator; he’s a great negotiator, he’s telling the truth; he’s a good leader; he’s fair.”
“As you may know by now, if you attack him, he will punch back ten times harder,” she continued, inciting a loud chant of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” from the crowd.
“No matter who you are, a man or a woman, he treats everyone equal,” she said. “He’s a fighter, and if you elect him to be your president, he will fight for you and for your county. He will work for you and with you. And together we will make American strong and great again.”
Donald Trump holds rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin
On the eve of the Wisconsin primary in which he is not expected to triumph, billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump is holding a rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee whose 70,000 residents don’t seem to have turned out in droves to see him speak.
Empty seats in first level of Trump rally in Milwaukee. There's a whole mostly empty balcony upstairs too pic.twitter.com/3pq31rCpR4
— Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) April 4, 2016
We’ll be liveblogging the speech in its entirety - if you want to watch at home, the good people at C-SPAN are streaming the proceedings as well.
Speaking at a club in midtown Manhattan, Transparent actor Gaby Hoffman neared tears while speaking about the fervor around Sanders. Hoffman said she has campaigned for Sanders since the Iowa caucus.
“It is incredible to be at any Bernie sanders headquarters in the country,” Hoffman said. “It’s the most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Watching her speak in a crowd of about 200 was Jon Wayne Martin, a 26-year-old high school speech and debate teacher. He said that this is the first time he’s been politically active.
Martin said he was inspired by Sanders’s image, his position on Palestine and his work to fight income inequality.
“I feel like its campaign of love,” Martin said.
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton agree to another debate
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders have agreed to meet for another Democratic presidential primary debate on April 14, less than a week before the consequential New York primary.
The debate, which will be co-hosted by CNN and local station NY1, will be moderated by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer and held in Brooklyn, according to CNN. Dana Bash, CNN’s chief political correspondent, and NY1 political anchor Errol Louis also join in questioning the candidates.
Both Sanders and Clinton had traded jabs over the topic of a potential additional debate over the past week, with the Sanders camp accusing Clinton of attempting to put the kibosh on all future debates.
“Fortunately, we were able to move a major New York City rally... to the night before,” the Sanders campaign released in a pithy statement. “We hope the debate will be worth the inconvenience for thousands of New Yorkers who were planning to attend our rally on Thursday but will have to change their schedules to accommodate Secretary Clinton’s jam-packed, high-dollar, coast-to-coast schedule of fundraisers all over the country.”
Updated
Donald Trump’s campaign staffers are getting more aggressive with reporters who dare to stray beyond designated, fenced-in “media zones.”
Have attended Trump rallies several times w/ general admission tix. Tonight marks 1st time I've been impeded from reporting at one of these
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) April 4, 2016
Trump staffer spotted me interviewing a voter and interrupted, telling me if I'm here as general public I had to go sit down
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) April 4, 2016
Death threats made against reporter filing charges against Trump's campaign manager
Michelle Fields, the former Breitbart News reporter who has filed charges against Donald Trump’s campaign manager for assaulting her after a campaign event in Florida, has contacted authorities after phone calls threatening to kill her if she didn’t drop the charges were made to her and a relative.
According to the Blaze, an unknown man called Fields after midnight on April 1, telling her that he knew where she lived and that if she didn’t drop the battery charges against Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, within 36 hours, “I’m going to slit your throat.”
Fields’ address and phone number were accidentally released to the public by Buzzfeed and Fox News after the police report she filed against Lewandowski became public. Fields has since fled her home.
The Daily Beast’s Betsy Woodruff points out that cold weather in Wisconsin may be keeping pro-Trump fans at home tonight:
An hour before the Trump event starts, Milwaukee Theater is barely half full with no lines outside pic.twitter.com/lsSm6qW6rH
— Betsy Woodruff (@woodruffbets) April 4, 2016
Both venues here in Milwaukee seem keen to get tonight’s competing rallies inside. Heavy police presence but it’s freezing cold and no one seems in the mood to mingle so far.
Line for Sanders rally 4 times as long as Trump next door but security moving quickly to get folks inside (and warm) pic.twitter.com/O5NneH8DnJ
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) April 4, 2016
The National Labor Relations Board has officially certified the union election by 500 workers at Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel, overruling the objections of the union-averse employer.
“We voted for a union so we could negotiate a fair contract with Mr Trump,” Jeffrey Wise, a food server at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, said in a statement. “We voted and won – now it’s time for him to listen to us, the voters, and finally do the right thing by making a deal with his employees.”
The Culinary Workers Union, which represents more than 50,000 casino and hotel workers in Las Vegas, had sought to capitalize on the Republican presidential candidate’s high profile and anti-immigrant rhetoric to galvanize its organizing campaign. Trump co-owns the hotel with Phillip Ruffin, a billionaire casino owner.
Latino staffers had protested at the hotel, using his harsh stance on immigrants to galvanize the majority-Latino workforce to join the union, one of the most powerful entities in Nevada politics.
“If Mr Trump wants to make America great again, he should start here,” workers shouted at the time.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has flatly denied any interest in seeking the Republican presidential nomination at a contested convention this summer, despite strong rumors to the contrary.
“I think you need to run for president if you’re gonna be president, and I’m not running for president, so period, end of story,” Ryan told Hugh Hewitt on his radio show this afternoon. “If you want to be president, you should go run for president. And that’s just the way I see it.”
Of course, Ryan was similarly disinterested in seeking the House speakership when the Republican congressional majority was in chaos after the resignation of John Boehner, so take that firm denial with a grain of salt.
The New York Observer has now pledged to cover billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump “in the same way they cover every other candidate in the presidential race,” despite Trump being the father-in-law of the paper’s owner Jared Kushner.
The pledge comes after a high-profile flap in which New York Magazine revealed that editor-in-chief Ken Kurson had assisted Trump in writing his high-profile speech in front of the Aipac Policy Conference last month.
Kurson stirred the pot after writing in an unapologetic blog post for the Huffington Post that he didn’t intend “to let the eleven people who have appointed themselves the journalist police tell me, at age 47, how to behave or to whom I’m allowed to speak.”
Here’s the Observer’s full statement:
“A recent report about Observer Editor Ken Kurson’s input on a speech delivered by Donald Trump before AIPAC has resulted in new scrutiny of our newspaper’s relationship with Mr. Trump, who is the father-in-law of our publisher, Jared Kushner. Going forward, there will be no input whatsoever on the campaign from Mr. Kurson or anyone on the editorial side of the Observer.
“Further, we are re-visiting our policy on covering Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign—something that has been a matter of frequent discussion and debate at the Observer since Mr. Trump announced his candidacy. The policy has evolved from our original plans to simply not cover Mr. Trump to covering him when he intersected with New York politics to more recently covering his campaign with mainly straight news stories, with an effort to avoid the opinion and analysis pieces of which other candidates have been the subject.
“That policy has become less tenable as the field of candidates has shrunk. In the interest of covering the race as fairly as possible despite the unavoidable conflict of interest created by our ownership—a conflict we disclose on each story about Mr. Trump—and in response to concerns raised by staffers at the paper, Observer writers will now be able to cover Mr. Trump in the same way they cover every other candidate in the presidential race.”
Billionaire Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump - a phrase that we never quite get over typing - was dismissive of the so-hashtagged #NeverTrump movement within the Republican Party to prevent his nomination, calling it a conspiracy by a small group of ne’er-do-wells who stand to lose their seat at the table if Trump takes the White House.
“You know what these are?” Trump asked rhetorically at a campaign rally in Superior, Wisconsin. “These are establishment people that don’t want to see it happen because they’re all on the trough, they’re all making a lot of money - I don’t even think in many cases they care who wins.”
“If they worked this hard to stop Obama, Obama wouldn’t have had a chance, you know that?” Trump continued.
The Guardian’s Dan Roberts reports from Wisconsin that Texas senator Ted Cruz is coming close to joining Donald Trump in calling for a party insurrection if shenanigans at the Republican National Convention rob one of them of the nomination:
If it did, the people would quite rightly revolt.
US supreme court unanimously rejects conservative challenge to voting rights
The US supreme court on Monday unanimously rejected a conservative challenge to voting rights – ruling that states could count the total population, not just eligible voters, in drawing legislative districts, writes Guardian politics reporter Sabrina Siddiqui:
The case was brought before the court after conservative activists challenged thelegal principle of “one person, one vote”, which has long established that election districts should be drawn to be equal in population. The two plaintiffs, both residents of Texas, argued the principle diluted the influence of those living in districts where a larger number of individuals were ineligible to vote.
But shifting the method would most certainly lend greater power to states with wealthier populations with mostly white voters, and away from urban and more racially diverse areas. The lawsuit was opposed by the Obama administration, the state of Texas and civil rights groups across America.
Not a single member of the court, down to eight members since the death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia, sided with the challengers. Ruth Bader Ginsburg authored the opinion for the court, in which the liberal justice wrote that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate a rationale upon which the court should overturn the longstanding use of total population in drawing districts.
The nation’s founders, she added, intended that “representatives serve all residents, not just those eligible or registered to vote”.
Read the full piece here.
Team Cruz cruises Wisconsin.
.@tedcruz @CarlyFiorina @SenMikeLee @ScottWalker on the bus heading to Kenosha #CruzToVictory #CruzCrew #Cruz2016 pic.twitter.com/NN2hWns6pd
— bruce redden (@brucereddenjr) April 4, 2016
A new ad from the pro-Clinton super Pac Priorities USA attacks Ted Cruz as “extreme,” “dangerous,” and “wrong.”
“If you think Donald Trump is dangerous... watch out for Ted Cruz,” the ad says:
.@tedcruz is just as bad as @realDonaldTrump... maybe worse. #CruzControlhttps://t.co/kKlaeDRgYa
— Priorities USA (@prioritiesUSA) April 4, 2016
Sanders to auto workers: 'you are my family'
Bernie Sanders appeared Monday at a UAW rally in Janesville, Wisconsin. “Without a strong labor union there cannot be a strong middle class,” he said, to enthusiastic applause. “We’re going to do everything we can to rebuild” unions.
“I am not a candidate that goes to unions and then leaves and then goes to Wall Street,” he says. “You are my family.”
Here’s video of the speech:
Video: Cruz on convention 'pipe dream'
Here’s video of Ted Cruz calling the elevation of an outside presidential nominee at the national Republican convention a “pipe dream” and saying it “ain’t gonna happen.”
Cruz gets pretty yolo with his mixed metaphors here. “This fevered pipe dream of Washington, that at the convention they will parachute in some white knight that will save the Washington establishment...”
“The people would revolt” and stay out of the race if saddled with an outside nominee, Cruz says.
Updated
Heh
$2 #books pic.twitter.com/VJGUosvvaO
— Paperback Paradise (@paprbckparadise) March 19, 2016
Clinton in New York to hail $15/hour wage law
Hillary Clinton has joined New York governor Andrew Cuomo at a signing ceremony for a law that would eventually raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 / hour, depending on inflation. California governor Jerry Brown signed an even more muscular $15/hr law today.
Here’s video of Clinton’s speech in New York, which votes in a Democratic primary on 19 April:
President Obama released a statement congratulating Cuomo:
I commend Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state of New York for taking the historic step of creating a paid family leave program in the state and raising its minimum wage to support New York’s working families. This action means more parents won’t have to choose between their job and caring for their new children. It means more workers can earn a higher wage to help make ends meet. Since I first called on Congress to increase the federal minimum wage in 2013, 18 states and more than 40 cities and counties have acted on their own -- thanks to the strong leadership of elected officials, businesses, and workers who organized and fought so hard for the economic security families deserve. Now Congress needs to act to raise the federal minimum wage and expand access to paid leave for all Americans.
Ayotte to meet Garland
New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte, a Republican up for re-election this year, has decided to meet with Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, her office has announced.
Ayotte is one of at least 16 Republican senators to agree to meet with Garland – but only two, according to a Washington Post count, favor holding hearings on the nomination in advance of the November presidential election.
Steelworker flies Mexican flag at Trump construction site
For a brief period this weekend, the flag of Mexico flew proudly from the soon-to-be-completed Trump hotel and tower in Vancouver, writes Ashifa Kassam from Toronto:
Diego Saul Reyna entered the building on early Saturday morning, with the aim of sending a message to Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.
Wearing a hard hat and steel-toed boots, the Mexican-Canadian steel framer was given access to the building. He took the elevator to the 20th floor of the building and climbed the stairs the rest of the way to reach the top floor of the 63-storey tower. Once there, he hung a Mexican flag from the building and snapped a photo.
#TipOfTheHat to Construction worker Diego Saul Reyna, who raised a #Mexican flag atop #TrumpTower #Vancouver ... pic.twitter.com/ejwTZ3Dv6T
— Miss Myrtle (@MissMyrtle2) April 4, 2016
“From the concrete pouring, finishing, drywall, taping, wood forming and general labour, Mexicans were there, building it,” Reyna wrote on Facebook as he posted the photo. “The comments Trump has made about us, did not stop us from doing the high quality work we have always done, in our home country or when we migrate to the US/Canada.”
By Sunday morning, the flag had been taken down but Reyna’s Facebook post had been shared thousands of times.
Reyna is not part of the crew who has been building the project. But he knows many who have worked on the site and wanted to send a message on their behalf. “They kept telling me their frustration, their anger and their hurt but they can’t say anything,” Reyna, 30, told The Huffington Post Canada. “So I did it because I don’t work there.”
In his push to become the Republican nominee, Trump has repeatedly taken aim at Mexicans, referring to them as rapists and criminals and pledging to build a “great, great, wall” along the US-Mexico border.
“I’m not concerned about Trump rising to power. I’m concerned about his values and his points of view extending to our country,” said Reyna. “Here in Canada, we are very well integrated ethnically and I think, as he labels negatively an entire ethnic group, that could jeopardise our society... That can spill into our society.”
The Trump project in Vancouver is Canada’s second tower bearing the billionaire businessman’s name. As Trump sharpened his rhetoric against Mexicans and Muslims, the projects in Vancouver and Toronto have both faced calls to remove the Trump name, with some such as Josh Matlow, a Toronto city councillor, pointing out on Twitter that “Toronto is a diverse & respectful city. Donald Trump is a fascist.”
The Holborn Group, the developer behind the Trump tower in Vancouver, did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.
Scott Baio does not need a political decoder ring to understand what Donald Trump is sayin’.
.@ScottBaio: "@realDonaldTrump is the only guy, I think, that has the will & the nerve to attack & to fight."https://t.co/RtocRDFiAq
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 3, 2016
Don’t know who Scott Baio is?
Related:
Got wife a coffee(I've never had a cup)The barista refused to call out name. @realDonaldTrump #MustBeABernieVoter pic.twitter.com/n1nQaP9lNy
— Scott Baio (@ScottBaio) April 2, 2016
The rise of Donald Trump is a battle for the soul of the Republican party
In case your weekend reading omitted this analysis by Guardian politics reporter Ben Jacobs...:
After Mitt Romney failed to beat a vulnerable Barack Obama in 2012, a chastened Republican party arrived pretty quickly at the answer to their electability problem.
They were the party of old, angry white men, and in a much-heralded Washington DC press conference in March 2013, senior officials released an “autopsy report”concluding that to win back the White House, the party needed to appeal to young voters, women and minorities.
Three years later, Donald Trump, who is historically unpopular among every one of those demographics, is the frontrunner for the party’s nomination. To paraphrase David Byrne, how did the Republican party get here?
In a series of interviews with party insiders, operatives and elected officials, the party’s predicament is clear – Trump is on the verge of completing a hostile takeover – but as top Republican consultant John Brabender said: “Everybody may have a small piece of the answer, but I’m not sure if anyone has the answer.”
With the next primary contest looming in Wisconsin on Tuesday, the two most plausible scenarios for the Republican convention in July are either that Trump is the nominee or that complete and total anarchy ensues – and no one knows which option will be more damaging at the general election in November or to the future of the party.
The reasons are complex, but the grassroots rage against the machine was clearly evident. Brabender, like many others, saw dissatisfaction with Barack Obama as a key impetus for the rise of Trump. Obama has long been a hate figure on the right and Trump’s coalition includes both diehard conservatives and disaffected blue-collar Democrats.
Read the full piece here.
A video like this, just tweeted by Trump and apparently put together by a supporter unaffiliated with the campaign, is, with its childlike worldview, action-movie idioms, appetite for violence and accidental exposure of its protagonist as ridiculous – well, this is the kind of thing that used to be funny. Before Trump had captured 700-some Republican delegates in the presidential nominating race.
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!https://t.co/4uWRyTeEr3
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 4, 2016
Cruz: talk of convention miracle candidate a 'pipedream'
Guardian Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts is with Ted Cruz in Wisconsin. Cruz dismisses outright all the renewed buzz this morning about whether Paul Ryan or somebody might sweep to victory in a national convention on the fourth ballot after party leaders conduct ritual self-flagellation and sacrifice a goat.
Cruz’s pithy assessment: “Ain’t gonna happen.”
Cruz blasts RNC "pipedream" of third candidate joining him and Trump in a contested convention. 'Ain't gonna happen' pic.twitter.com/zVN4xOLxh8
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) April 4, 2016
Kasich raises funds on Trump's call for him to drop out
The John Kasich camp has sent a fundraising email highlighting his opponents’ claims that his presence in the race is blocking them from victory.
The fundraising email – subject line: “wild weekend” – features a Donald Trump quote from a Wisconsin rally: “If I didn’t have Kasich, I automatically win.”
Ted Cruz, meanwhile, released his first anti-Kasich TV ad in Wisconsin. Titled “John Kasich: not for us,” the ad spins a dark web of accusation but basically says Kasich handed out tax breaks in return for political contributions.
Team Kasich’s push in Wisconsin also includes an endorsement from Tommy Thompson, who was governor of Wisconsin for 14 years:
Fmr WI Gov. Tommy Thompson backs John Kasich because America needs a president ready on Day One.https://t.co/HT8Yp5RsIb
— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) April 4, 2016
The Kasich camp has been frank about its strategy of winning the nomination in a contested convention. Kasich has captured only 143 delegates so far, to Cruz’s 463 and Trump’s 736.
If Trump loses Wisconsin, does that mean that he is finally fading in his fight for the presidential nomination?
Short answer: depends on what happens after Wisconsin. What? It does. But don’t take our word for it. Here’s a good thread from this morning / this weekend on the question:
So you think Trump is finally fading. Okay. Will you think that after he wins big in the Northeast in three weeks?
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) April 4, 2016
Going to be a real temptation to say Trump is in trouble after Wisconsin. Fact is he'll likely crush in NY two weeks later.
— Harry Enten (@ForecasterEnten) April 2, 2016
As for me, yes: Trump "fading" if he loses WI b/c, mathematically, he's likely done for 1,237. Big NY/NJ/CT/RI wins priced in. @Nate_Cohn.
— Jeff B/DDHQ (@EsotericCD) April 4, 2016
Big q is implications of WI loss for IN, SD, MT, etc. Also, what is going on on the West Coast. https://t.co/G3DtFKEpPG
— Sean T at RCP (@SeanTrende) April 4, 2016
In fact, sweeping the Eastern seaboard wouldn't even get Trump above 1,000 delegates, even with New Jersey tossed in.
— Sean T at RCP (@SeanTrende) April 4, 2016
Even if he wins WI & everything else, Trump can't clinch the nomination before California on June 7 https://t.co/MkNZwjaIeC
— Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) April 4, 2016
And read our analysis here:
Here’s someone pouring cold water on talk of House speaker Paul Ryan emerging triumphant from the national convention to become the Republican nominee for president: Paul Ryan.
“I decided not to run for president,” Ryan told the Times of Israel Sunday, on a visit to Jerusalem. “I think you should run if you’re going to be president. “I think you should start in Iowa and run to the tape.”
It’s Ryan’s first trip abroad as speaker.
Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Next stop: Wisconsin, tomorrow, with 42 Republican and 86 Democratic delegates at stake (our comprehensive delegates tracker is here).
Donald Trump is braced for an electoral setback in the midwest on Tuesday, after suffering the worst week so far in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, writes Jon Swaine:
The property developer and TV host is expected to lose the Wisconsin primary to Ted Cruz, the firebrand Texas senator who is the leading hope of conservatives scrambling to stop him as part of a deepening civil war within the Republican party.
Cruz has led Trump in all polls of the state in the past week, with two surveys placing his advantage as high as 10 percentage points. Analysts forecast that Cruz could win 39 of the potentially crucial 42 party delegates at stake in the race to the 1,237-delegate finish line.
And for those readers in whom the prospect of a wildly contested Republican convention inspires shivers of anticipatory delight, Politico’s Mike Allen has got your shivers – the Paul Ryan kind:
EXCLUSIVE : On the eve of the Wisconsin primaries, top Republicans are becoming increasingly vocal about their long-held belief that Speaker Paul Ryan will wind up as the nominee, perhaps on the fourth ballot at a chaotic Cleveland convention. One of the nation’s best-wired Republicans, with an enviable prediction record for this cycle, sees a 60% chance of a convention deadlock, and a 90% chance that delegates turn to Ryan – ergo, a 54% chance that Ryan, who’ll start the third week of July as chairman of the Republican National Convention, will end it as the nominee. “He’s the most conservative, least establishment member of the establishment,” the Republican source said. “That’s what you need to be.”
Ryan, who’s more calculating and ambitious than he lets on, is running the same playbook he did to become Speaker: saying he doesn’t want it, that it won’t happen. In both cases, the maximum leverage is to NOT WANT IT – and to be begged to do it. He and his staff are trying to be as Shermanesque as it gets. Ryan repeated his lack of interest this morning in an interview from Israel with radio host Hugh Hewitt.
The Bernie Sanders campaign, meanwhile, is urging its supporters to stay away from a Trump rally due to take place yards away today, write Dan Roberts and Ben Jacobs:
Two of the most vocal groups of activists in the 2016 presidential race will be separated by a single street in downtown Milwaukee and a tight security presence when both of their campaign events begin at about 7pm on Monday.
The latest polls may give Sanders a comfortable lead over former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in the Badger State, but a Saturday night gala – filled with union members and party stalwarts – was definitely Clinton territory, even just judging by the number of standing ovations and the amount of sustained applause for the candidates’ speeches, writes Megan Carpentier:
If you are a socialist running for the Democratic nomination for president and have received more than six million individual contributions totalling more than $100m, but you won’t say if you’ll use any of that money to help Democratic nominees for the House or the the Senate, it’s possible that the place to call your two million donors “the future of the Democratic party” is not the Founders Day gala of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. There, the cheap seats go for $150 and the platinum sponsorship (a table for 10 with six VIP tickets) will run you $12,000.
Even if, like Bernie Sanders on Saturday night, you’re playing more to the television cameras in the back of the room and the general admission seats on house right than the audience directly in front of you, making such statements will still leave a huge expanse of silent ballroom between you and those cameras.
Thanks for reading, and please don’t delay in letting us know what’s on your Monday mind in the comments.
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