NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Morning Consult: Trump 32, Bush 12, Carson 7, Huckabee 6, Rubio 6, Cruz 5, Fiorina 4, Christie 4, Paul 4.
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—CNN/ORC: Trump 24, Bush 13, Carson 9, Rubio 8, Walker 8, Paul 6, Cruz 5, Fiorina 5, Kasich 5, Huckabee 4.
Key finding: “Trump is the biggest gainer in the poll, up 6 points since July according to the first nationwide CNN/ORC poll since the top candidates debated in Cleveland on Aug. 6. Carson gained 5 points and Fiorina 4 points.”
Also interesting: “Trump has quickly won the trust of Republican voters on several top issues. According to the poll, 45% say they trust Trump more than any other Republican candidate on the economy — up 25 points since June, 44% say they trust Trump over the others on illegal immigration — up 30 points since June — and 32% trust him most to handle ISIS, no other candidate comes close on any of these issues.”
WISCONSIN–SENATOR–Luntz Global (R): Fmr. Sen. Russ Feingold (D) 50, Sen. Ron Johnson (R) 42.
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—FOX News: Clinton 49, Sanders 30, Biden 10, Webb 1, O’Malley 1, Chafee 0
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released this week found that fully 60 percent of millennials say government should do more to solve problems, rather than leaving things up to businesses and individuals. Only 37 percent say government shouldn’t shoulder more responsibility. So stop being cowards, Democrats.
A new Jewish Journal poll, which includes Jews who are not religiously observant, indicates that 63 percent of respondents “of the three-quarters who said they knew enough to offer an opinion on the deal” support the Administration’s proposed lifting of sanctions against Iran in exchange for arms reduction.
Jonathan Chait: “Trump has already endured numerous mortifying gaffes, by ordinary standards, and an apparently unsuccessful effort by Fox News to destroy his standing within the party during a highly visible televised debate. He will not run out of money. He can, and probably will, take his candidacy all the way to the end.”
“The worst-case scenario for Republicans is if Trump decides to run a third-party campaign. Even managing to get his name on the ballot in a handful of states would bring victory out of reach for the GOP’s eventual nominee. The best-case scenario is that Trump straggles through the race, eventually supporting the nominee. But this scenario is also far from ideal. It means that Trump has shaped the tenor of the race in almost precisely the opposite way the party establishment had hoped.”
1) Trump is unbowed, unbent, and unbroken
The Fox News debate hosts went hard at Trump and probably succeeded in making him even more toxic to a general election audience, but they didn’t actually dent his support. Trump as the GOP nominee remains fantastically unlikely, but for now at least, Republicans need to keep talking about him, the media is going to keep covering him, and an independent run seems like a real possibility.
2) Ben Carson is rising, not falling
Before Trump-mania, the world was prepared for Ben Carson to play the role of not-gonna-be-the-nominee-but-polling-well-early. That meant Trump largely seemed at first to be overshadowing Carson. But Carson’s poll numbers are now strong and rising. With Trump in first and Carson in second, all the actual politicians are lagging way behind.
3) Ted Cruz is beating the rest of the real politicians
Unlike the guys in first and second place, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is a real politician. And while it would be unusual for a first-term senator to win a presidential election, it did happen as recently as 2008, so it’s not the craziest idea in the world. What would be crazy, however, would be for a party to nominate a first-term senator who’s despised by the party’s congressional leadership and whose record in office consists largely of counterproductive tactical blunders.
4) The Trump/Carson/Cruz/Huckabee vote is bigger than the Bush/Walker/Rubio/Kasich/Christie vote
[…] The combined 26 percent behind Bush/Walker/Rubio/Kasich/Christie is basically neck-and-neck with Trump. A majority of Republican voters currently say they like Trump, Carson, Cruz, or Huckabee — none of whom are acceptable to the party elites. […]
5) The good performances didn’t help
Watching the debate, I thought Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio had the most impressive performances. […] But Republican voters don’t much seem to care about it.
First Read: “Donald Trump’s policy position on immigration — all undocumented immigrants must leave the country, no birthright citizenship, Mexico must pay for a border wall (and it will be penalized if it doesn’t do so) — is a big deal, because it will force the rest of the GOP field to react. Do they, too, believe that all undocumented immigrants must be deported, as Trump said on “Meet the Press” yesterday? Do they, too, believe that children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S. shouldn’t become citizens? Do they, too, believe that the U.S. should increase 1) fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexicans and 2) other fees and tariffs if Mexico doesn’t build its wall? If anything, Trump provided very CLEAR answers on the thorny subject of immigration. Can his opponents respond as clearly?”
Nate Cohn reviews the state of the Democratic primary.
Bernie Sanders is said to be surging, Joe Biden is considering jumping in the race, and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s unfavorable ratings are the worst they’ve been in her 23-plus years in national politics — worse than they were in 2007 or 2008.
Whether you call it wishful thinking or a worst-case scenario, it’s enough to make some people say the Clinton campaign is in serious trouble. But is it? Has she forfeited the huge advantages she held at the start of the year? Does Mr. Sanders, or another Democrat, have a real chance to beat her in the primary? Has she done great damage to her chances in the general election?
The answers are …. no, no, not likely, not at all.
Mrs. Clinton’s advantage among the majority of Democratic voters is underpinned by just about all of the forces that help shape public opinion and determine the outcome of primary elections. Her policy views are smack-dab in the middle of the Democratic electorate, denying Mr. Sanders much room to challenge her on the left. She has won the so-called invisible primary, the behind-the-scenes competition for elite support that helps decide the nomination. She has more endorsements and cash than just about any candidate in American history.
Eric Jaffe at CityLab reports on a good thing that our own Tom Carper has proposed. Indeed, I am personally shocked, and I am sure Jason is currently being resuscitated at Christiana.
The federal gas tax that pays for America’s highways hasn’t been raised in decades, but that doesn’t stop some determined lawmakers from trying. The latest effort comes via Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, who has introduced a plan to raise the tax four cents a year for four years then index it to inflation so it remains effective over time. The move would ultimately bring the fuel tax to 34 cents a gallon—nearly double the existing rate of 18.4 cents.
That might seem like a big bump, but even a gas tax twice as high the current one would be incredibly low by global standards. A U.S. Department of Energy review of fuel taxes among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in 2011 placed the U.S. just about at the bottom of the pack. Kyle Pomerleau of the Tax Foundation recently updated these figures to reflect 2013 tax rates via OECD data—and found very little change.
The U.S. rate of 53 cents a gallon reflects the federal gas tax as well as the average state tax. Adding Carper’s 16 cents wouldn’t budge the U.S. position way back of the pack—nor would doubling the entire 53 cent average. As the numbers stand, lawmakers would have to raise the average gas tax at least eight-fold for Americans to pay the steepest rate in the world.