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Scott Bixby (now) and Tom McCarthy (earlier)

Virginia governor issues order to restore felons' voting rights – as it happened

Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe: an old and deep Clinton ally.
Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe: an old and deep Clinton ally. Photograph: Gary Cameron/Reuters

Today in Campaign 2016

We barely got a breather after the New York primary before the runup to the so-called “Acela primaries” in Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland focused all of our attention on the Mid-Atlantic states again.

Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign stop at the Bream Wright Hauser Athletic Complex at Gettysburg College.
Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign stop at the Bream Wright Hauser Athletic Complex at Gettysburg College. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Before you head home, here are some of the biggest news stories from the campaign trail today:

  • The Ted Cruz campaign has produced a video ad hitting Donald Trump for expressing openness to people using a bathroom designated for a sex other than that listed on their birth certificates. “It’s not appropriate. It’s not safe. It’s PC nonsense that is destroying America,” the ad says. “Donald Trump won’t take on the PC police.”
  • Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, has declared at the party’s spring meeting in Florida that the party is serious about its rule that a candidate must capture a majority of delegates at stake – 1,237 this year – to win the presidential nomination, reports Guardian politics correspondent Ben Jacobs from the scene. The stance directly challenges Donald Trump’s assertion that whoever ends up with the most delegates – that’s likely him – should win the nomination, even if that person does not cross the 1,237 line.
  • Virginia’s Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic governor of a presidential swing state and an old and deep Clinton ally, has moved to take executive action to enable all felons in the state who have completed parole to register to vote. The measure, which was first reported in the New York Times, would reverse the disenfranchisement of African Americans under a state constitutional provision dating to the civil war, McAuliffe said.
  • The Trump camp has officially announced that the candidate will deliver an address on foreign policy at the invitation of the Center for the National Interest at the National Press Club on Wednesday, 27 April. “I am honored to be invited to speak at an organization founded by former President Richard Nixon, and look forward to sharing my views on the many serious foreign policy issues facing our country and our allies around the world,” Trump said in a statement. “Trade, immigration and security policies are critical concerns of all Americans, and we must develop a clear, consistent long-term foreign policy for making America safe and prosperous.”

That’s it for today - stay tuned for more up-to-the-minute news from the campaign trail!

Fact-check: did Obama really remove a Churchill bust from the Oval Office?

Churchill.
Churchill. Composite: AP, Corbis, Reuters, PA, GC Images, Corbis, Rex

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has claimed that shortly after becoming president, Barack Obama removed a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office.

Writing on Friday for the Sun, a right-leaning British tabloid, Johnson attacked“the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire” in an article urging Britons to leave the European Union when given the choice in a referendum to be held in June.

The US president landed in London late on Thursday night as part of a trip to encourage Brits to stay in the union.

The claim that Obama discarded a Churchill bust is not new. In 2012, rumors circulated of an undiplomatic redecorating, prompting the White House to publish a blogpost titled Fact Check: The Bust of Winston Churchill, which claimed: “This is 100% false. The bust still in the White House. In the Residence. Outside the Treaty Room.”

So, has Boris Johnson got his facts wrong? The answer is a little more complicated.

The bust in question, by British sculptor Jacob Epstein, was given to President George W Bush by the British government in 2001 and was placed in the Oval Office. But the statue was not donated, it was simply on loan for Bush’s term in office (a loan which the British government decided to extend when Bush was re-elected in 2004). Churchill disappeared from the White House in 2009, when the loan ended at the same time that Obama moved in.

One month after the Utah presidential caucuses, the state Republican party still has not published its final results as evidence amasses of a breakdown in the party’s new online voting system as well as email and other communication failures.

Utah governor Gary Herbert, Ted Cruz, R-Texas and senator Mike Lee wave during a rally in Draper, Utah.
Utah governor Gary Herbert, Ted Cruz, R-Texas and senator Mike Lee wave during a rally in Draper, Utah. Photograph: John Locher/AP

The 22 March caucus, which moved the reliably red state’s place in the presidential calendar up by three months, was notable for Ted Cruz’s lopsided victory and the firewall the establishment Republicans hoped Cruz could establish to block Donald Trump’s path to the nomination.

But the caucus also offered the kind of electoral dysfunction that Trump has repeatedly characterized as a “rigged system” – a private party election without state oversight and with little transparency about either its conduct or its exact outcome.

Days after stories of different sorts of electoral dysfunction emerged from New York and Arizona, Utah’s Republican party appears to be in disarray, with state and local party officials pointing fingers at each other as they gear up for this weekend’s state convention.

As of Friday, the state party’s website still linked to a results tally from 24 March showing 88.68% of precincts reporting, with some counties’ counts as low as 45%.

Donald Trump’s business has been criticized for auctioning off a summer internship at his real estate empire valued at $100,000, according to an advertisement on an online luxury bidding site.

The 10-week role on offer on the Charitybuzz website states that the winning intern will have the opportunity to have a 15-minute sit-down with three of the billionaire Republican frontrunner’s children – Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric – to “pick their brains about how to be successful in the real estate & business world”.

It adds: “You will gain real-world, first-hand exposure to the various disciplines housed within The Trump Organization and have a series of power group lunches with each department head.”

The auctioning of the six-figure internship has come under fire for potentially excluding less privileged candidates from the most attractive opportunities.

Sad!

Ted Cruz continues to hit Donald Trump for supporting transgender bathroom access.

Poll alert!

A supporter wraps herself in campaign sign.
A supporter wraps herself in campaign sign. Photograph: Jim Bourg/Reuters

A new survey out from California political publication Capitol Weekly shows that billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump currently leads the field among likely voters in the party’s June 7 primary. Trump is currently ahead with support from 41% of likely Republican voters, with Texas senator Ted Cruz lagging behind with 23% and Ohio governor John Kasich with a relatively distant 21%.

Trump’s lead among recently registered Republican voters - that is, those who belong to the party but haven’t voted in a Republican primary election before - is even higher. A separate sample survey of Republicans who have registered since the New Year has Trump leading with 53% of the vote, with Cruz falling two points to 21% and Kasich falling to 15%.

Retired pediatric neurosurgeon and onetime presidential candidate Ben Carson was reported to have finished ahead of Texas senator Ted Cruz in certain New York precincts on Tuesday’s primary, an embarrassing loss for Cruz in a state where he had planned on at least gaining a few delegates.

But according to finalized results, reports of Carson’s third-place finish in Westchester County have been grossly exaggerated.

“Someone could have called in something wrong,” said Reginald A. LaFayette, a Westchester County election commissioner, who told the New York Times that he suspected human error might have been behind initial reports that Westchester County voters gave Carson 2,058 votes - despite him having thrown in the towel a month ago.

Secretive group of Hollywood conservatives suddenly dissolves

The Friends of Abe has acted as a clandestine club for Hollywood conservatives for more than a decade, hosting secret events where they could vent rightwing views and hear speeches from visiting Tea Party luminaries.

Ronald reagan waving to well-wishers on the White House Lawn.
Ronald reagan waving to well-wishers on the White House Lawn. Photograph: taken from picture library

But on Thursday the organisation – which counts Jon Voight, Jerry Bruckheimer and Kelsey Grammer among its 1,500 members – made an abrupt announcement: it was dissolving.

“Effective immediately, we are going to begin to wind down the 501 c3 organization, bring the Sustaining Membership dues to an end, and do away with the costly infrastructure and the abespal.com website,” the executive director, Jeremy Boreing, told members in an email, a copy of which the Guardian has seen.

“Today, because we have been successful in creating a community that extends far beyond our events, people just don’t feel as much of a need to show up for every speaker or bar night, and fewer people pay the dues that help us maintain that large infrastructure.”

The announcement caught members by surprise and fueled speculation that infighting over Donald Trump’s candidacy, among other factors, had drained commitment. Others said the group had been losing steam for years.

Trump favorability among Hispanics measured at negative 78

Latino Decisions interviewed a total of 2,200 Latino registered voters between April 3 – April 13, 2016. They have published their results – which contain a shocking measure of Trump’s unpopularity:

Obama on Churchill: 'love the guy'

Barack Obama has explained why a bust of Winston Churchill disappeared from the Oval Office after he was accused by Boris Johnson of removing it out of hostility to British history, writes the Guardian’s Rowena Mason:

A rumour that Obama had got rid of the Churchill bust first emerged in 2012, prompting alarm about the state of the “special relationship” between the two countries.

At the time, the White House published a blogpost that said the rumour was “100% false”, going on to state: “The bust still in the White House. In the Residence. Outside the Treaty Room.”

However, the president confirmed he did have a hand in its removal from the Oval Office, citing the lack of space and clutter in the room. As the first African-American president, he said he thought it was right to have a bust of Rev Martin Luther King Jnr “to remind him of the people who helped get him there”.

But he confirmed that there was still a bust of Churchill in the White House residence outside his office, which he saw every day.

“I love Winston Churchill, love the guy” he added.

Clinton comes out in support of Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe’s actions to return the right to vote to felons who have served their sentences and completed parole:

The Trump camp has officially announced that the candidate will deliver an address on foreign policy at the invitation of the Center for the National Interest at the National Press Club on Wednesday, 27 April.

“I am honored to be invited to speak at an organization founded by former President Richard Nixon, and look forward to sharing my views on the many serious foreign policy issues facing our country and our allies around the world,” Trump said in a statement. “Trade, immigration and security policies are critical concerns of all Americans, and we must develop a clear, consistent long-term foreign policy for making America safe and prosperous.”

Trump’s team said the speech will focus on “several critical foreign policy issues facing our nation including global trade, and economic and national security policies.”

Chris Wolfersberger of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, shows off his Donald Trump sleeves in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Thursday.
Chris Wolfersberger of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, shows off his Donald Trump sleeves in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Thursday. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP

Ted Cruz has produced another video spot – see earlier – hitting Donald Trump over Trump’s openness on transgender bathroom access. The Cruz camp has clearly concluded that the issue is one where they can draw a vital contrast with the frontrunner.

Update:

The new ad refers to the firing by ESPN of former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling after Schilling came out against transgender rights in a Facebook post, writing that “a man is a man no matter what they call themselves.”

“Curt Schilling was fired by the PC police for suggesting that grown men shouldn’t use the bathroom with little girls,” the Cruz ad says. “Guess who’s joined the ranks of the PC police?”

Quoting Trump “People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate.”

The ad closes: “Donald Trump can’t be trusted with common sense. Why would we trust him in the White House?”

“Common Sense”

Updated

Obama: 'with respect to Prince...'

Obama reveals that he and the US ambassador to the UK gathered ’round a turntable this morning and listened to Purple Rain and Delirious, “just to get warmed up before we left the house for important bilateral meetings like this.”

“I didn’t know [Prince] well,” Obama said. “He came to perform at the White House last year and was extraordinary and creative and original and full of energy. It’s a remarkable loss.”

Politics and English language usage stories are automatic clickers, on this blog. The Wall Street Journal here explores the origins of Donald Trump’s favorite word to describe the Republican delegates system: rigged.

Where did all of this “rig”-marole come from? Back in the 16th century, writers chiefly used “rigged” to describe sailing vessels fully equipped to go to sea. “Rigging” a ship involved fitting it with all the necessary ropes and cables to support the masts and control the sails.

“Rigged” eventually took on a less positive meaning: put together hastily or as a temporary measure. That slapdash sense came through especially in the forms “rigged up” or “jury-rigged.” (“Jury” originally referred to a ship’s temporary “jury mast,” erected to replace one that had broken off. Confusion with the expression “jerry-built” led to a blended version, “jerry-rigged.”)

Read the full piece here:

An informal straw poll of presidential candidates of the Silicon Valley Association of Republican Women earlier this year produced an intriguing result, writes Nellie Bowles, Guardian US tech reporter:

A surprising number of the organization’s members – many of them technology-orientated women, drawn from a corner of California where conservatives tend to have a libertarian bent – wanted Donald Trump in the White House.

“I was shocked,” said Jan Soule, the group’s president, who has worked in Silicon Valley marketing for 25 years. “We’d had someone speaking about Islam that night, and it was a larger group than most of our events, so maybe that had something to do with it, but I was shocked.”

Read the full story:

First Indiana poll shows slight Trump lead

The mood of Republican primary voters in Indiana cannot be said to have been difficult to gauge, because until now, no pollster has tried to gauge it.

But the results of the first statewide poll in the state have been released, and they contain a sliver of good news for national frontrunners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Trump signs autographs at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis on Wednesday.
Trump signs autographs at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis on Wednesday. Photograph: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters

A WTHR/HPI Indiana Poll has Trump with a 6-point lead over Ted Cruz. The poll, according to local WTHR, “indicates a record turnout will favor Trump over the other candidates.”

Here’s the Republican breakdown:

Donald Trump 37%
Ted Cruz 31%
John Kasich 22%

And the Democrats:

Hillary Clinton 48%
Bernie Sanders 45%

Lacking polling to this point, political analysts have groped for regional and demographic comparisons to try to get a handle on what appears to be a crucial race on the Republican side in Indiana. Many have pointed to Wisconsin, Indiana’s demographically comparable neighbor to the northwest, where Cruz scored a 13-point victory over Trump earlier this month.

Updated

Democratic Virginia governor shifts voting rules

Virginia’s Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic governor of a presidential swing state and an old and deep Clinton ally, has moved to take executive action to enable all felons in the state who have completed parole to register to vote.

The measure, which was first reported in the New York Times, would reverse the disenfranchisement of African Americans under a state constitutional provision dating to the civil war, McAuliffe said.

“There’s no question that we’ve had a horrible history in voting rights as relates to African Americans – we should remedy it,” McAuliffe said. “We should do it as soon as we possibly can.”

As in, definitely before November. Virginia voted Republican in eight consecutive presidential elections before voting for Barack Obama twice, partly owing to high turnout among African American voters, who made up 20% of the electorate in the 2008 race.

In 2012 black voters in Virginia supported Obama by a 93-6 margin, and African Americans backed McAuliffe in his 2013 gubernatorial campaign by a 90-8 margin.

Updated

Donald Trump mourns the death of Prince:

On Thursday, John Kasich called Prince an “extraordinary musician” and said he regretted not having seen him in concert:

Hillary Clinton called Prince “an American original” and said “I was so stunned. You know you think of him as almost being eternal... I was so sad.”

Neither Ted Cruz nor Bernie Sanders appears to have reacted publicly to the death of Prince.

Priebus: 1,237 or bust

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, has declared at the party’s spring meeting in Florida that the party is serious about its rule that a candidate must capture a majority of delegates at stake – 1,237 this year – to win the presidential nomination, reports Guardian politics correspondent Ben Jacobs from the scene.

The stance directly challenges Donald Trump’s assertion that whoever ends up with the most delegates – that’s likely him – should win the nomination, even if that person does not cross the 1,237 line. The stance also squares off against the view of a majority of Republican primary voters, who have told pollsters that they agree with Trump.

Reince rejects the anti-Trump movement but also makes clear Trump needs 1237 bound pledged delegates before Cleveland

Reince: If no candidate reaches a majority of bound delegates during the primary process we will go to an open or contested convention

With the Priebus statement, it would appear very difficult for the national party apparatus to avoid a spectacular collision with the presidential frontrunner, should he fall short of the 1,237, which many models anticipate.

This past weekend, Trump said of the convention, “You’re going to have a very, very upset and angry group of people at the convention. Now I hope that doesn’t happen because if I win, people are going to be very happy. I hope it doesn’t involve violence, and I don’t think it will, but I will say this: it’s a rigged system, it’s a crooked system, it’s 100% crooked.”

Trump: I hope the Republican convention doesn’t turn violent – video

Update:

Updated

Cameron welcomes Obama

Barack Obama has arrived at 10 Downing Street for a meeting with British prime minister David Cameron, following a lunch with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle. Obama and Cameron were to hold bilateral talks on topics including Britain’s upcoming referendum on whether to exit the European Union.

Obama arrives at Downing Street to be greeted by Cameron.
Obama arrives at Downing Street to be greeted by Cameron. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Obama published a comment piece in the Telegraph Friday morning opposing the Brexit. “As citizens of the United Kingdom take stock of their relationship with the EU,” Obama wrote, “you should be proud that the EU has helped spread British values and practices – democracy, the rule of law, open markets – across the continent and to its periphery.” The piece continues:

The European Union doesn’t moderate British influence – it magnifies it. A strong Europe is not a threat to Britain’s global leadership; it enhances Britain’s global leadership. The United States sees how your powerful voice in Europe ensures that Europe takes a strong stance in the world, and keeps the EU open, outward looking, and closely linked to its allies on the other side of the Atlantic. So the US and the world need your outsized influence to continue – including within Europe.

For comprehensive coverage of the president’s visit to the UK, read Andrew Sparrow’s ongoing live blog out of London, which features a sample of the bracing reactions across Britain to the president’s stance on the Brexit, and which is a great place to catch up on reaction to London mayor Boris Johnson’s wild assertion that a Churchill bust was removed from the White House because the “part-Kenyan” Obama resents the British colonial legacy:

Here are a couple more photos from the president’s trip:

Obama and Cameron at 10 Downing Street.
Obama and Cameron at 10 Downing Street. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and Queen Elizabeth II arrive at the Sovereign’s Entrance in the Quadrangle of Windsor Castle for a private lunch.
Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and Queen Elizabeth II arrive at the Sovereign’s Entrance in the Quadrangle of Windsor Castle for a private lunch. Photograph: WPA Pool/Getty Images

The Obamas came bearing gifts to mark the queen’s 90th birthday on Thursday:

Updated

Cruz hits Trump over transgender bathroom access

The Ted Cruz campaign has produced a video ad hitting Donald Trump for expressing openness to people using a bathroom designated for a sex other than that listed on their birth certificates.

“It’s not appropriate. It’s not safe. It’s PC nonsense that is destroying America,” the ad says. “Donald Trump won’t take on the PC police.”

Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. New features of Donald Trump’s strategy for winning the race were revealed at a spring meeting of the Republican National Committee in Florida on Thursday, where Guardian politics correspondent Ben Jacobs reported that the candidate has plans to roll out a new persona, give a big foreign policy speech using a teleprompter and spend significant money on ads.

In an audio recording obtained by the Associated Press of a closed-door speech at the summit, top Trump lieutenant Paul Manafort told party officials that Trump had been “projecting an image” so far in the 2016 primary season and “the part that he’s been playing is now evolving”.

“When he’s out on the stage, when he’s talking about the kinds of things he’s talking about on the stump, he’s projecting an image that’s for that purpose,” Manafort said.

“You’ll start to see more depth of the person, the real person. You’ll see a real different guy,” he said.

Trump agreed.

“I’m gonna be so presidential that you people will be so bored,” Trump told a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Thursday night. “I’ll come back as a presidential person, and instead of 10,000 people I’ll have 150 people, and they’ll say, ‘Boy, he really looks presidential.’”

Get ready for mister softee.

Part of the plan is for Trump to give a foreign policy speech Wednesday at National Press Club, Ben Jacobs reports, for which occasion the campaign has hired a speech writer and is having the candidate practice on a teleprompter.

Read the full piece here:

Ted Cruz, meanwhile, is hunting for delegates in Indiana, the importance of which is not to be underestimated.

There’s some unpleasant news out of London this morning: Mayor Boris Johnson has ascribed what he perceives as a cooling in the special relationship with the US to a lingering resentment of the British colonial presence in Africa on the part of Barack Obama, whom Johnson calls “part-Kenyan” in a column for the Sun.

Musing on Obama’s stated desire for Britain to remain in the EU, Johnson seizes on the White House decision after Obama was installed to remove a bust of Churchill from the Oval Office. “No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision,” Johnson writes:

Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.

Some said that perhaps Churchill was seen as less important than he once was. Perhaps his ideas were old-fashioned and out of date.

Thank you as ever for reading, and join us in the comments!

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