Friday Open Thread [3.11.16]

Florida—Florida Times-Union–Trump 43, Rubio 24, Cruz 21, Kasich 10
Florida—Trafalgar Group–Trump 42, Rubio 23, Cruz 21, Kasich 11
Florida—Suffolk University–Trump 36, Rubio 27, Cruz 19, Kasich 10
Florida—Wash Post/Univision–Trump 38, Rubio 31, Cruz 19, Kasich 4
North Carolina—Civitas–Trump 32, Cruz 26, Rubio 11, Kasich 11
North Carolina—Civitas–Clinton 57, Sanders 28
Pennsylvania—Harper–Trump 36, Rubio 19, Cruz 17, Kasich 10
Pennsylvania—Harper–Clinton 57, Sanders 27

A funny thing is happening to President Obama that bodes well for Hillary Clinton in the fall: he is becoming more popular. Libby Nelson:

As President Obama prepares to leave office, Americans are starting to like him a little more. The latest Gallup data on Obama’s approval ratings found 50 percent of Americans approve of the job he’s doing — the highest level since 2013. That’s much better than Obama’s average 46 percent approval during his seventh year in office, which ended January 19, and the 43 percent approval rating during his sixth. Obama is also much more popular than George W. Bush was at this point in his presidency, and nearly on par with Ronald Reagan during Reagan’s final March in office.

Actually, that Gallup Tracking Poll that Libby cites is out of date. Gallup now finds 52% of Americans approve of the President’s job performance, while 44% disapprove. And this is confirmed across all of the polls released this week. Rasmussen has Obama at 50-49. ABC News/Washington Post, 51-43. NBC News/Wall Street Journal, 49-46. CNN/ORC, 50-44. President Obama will go down in history as one of the best Presidents this country has ever had, and the best it has had since Roosevelt. And the American people, faced with the prospect of replacing him, are realizing that.

Jeffrey Goldberg’s “The Obama Doctrine” is worth reading in full. Eric Levitz of New York Magazine and Max Fisher of Vox have some analysis, which are also must reads. I can’t excerpt it, because I would excerpt it all, and then get sued for copyright violations. So go click on the links.

First Read: “One of the big secrets to Trump’s and Sanders’ success [on Tuesday] was the ‘open’ nature of last night’s primaries in Mississippi and Michigan. In Michigan, 31% of the voters were independents, and Trump bested Kasich among them, 36%-27%. And on the Democratic side in Michigan, Clinton won Democrats by a 57%-41% margin, but Sanders won among indies (who made up 28% of the electorate), 71%-28%.”

“Looking ahead to next week’s contests, Florida is a closed primary, while Ohio isn’t as open as Michigan is. Per Ohio’s election law, you declare your political party affiliation by requesting the ballot of a political party in a partisan primary election. If you do not desire to affiliate with a political party in Ohio, you are considered to be an unaffiliated voter. An unaffiliated voter does not vote the ballot of a political party in a primary election. However, an unaffiliated voter may vote the Official Questions & Issues Ballot, if there is one for the voter’s precinct at the election.”

I told you so. The next step is someone is going to die at a Trump rally. And the guy who punched Mr. Rakeem Jones, promises to kill next time.

INSIDE EDITION tracked down the supporter, 78-year-old John McGraw, who was unrepentant. When asked if he liked the rally, he said: “You bet I liked it. Knocking the hell out of that big mouth.”

And when asked why he punched the protester, he said: “Number one, we don’t know if he’s ISIS. We don’t know who he is, but we know he’s not acting like an American, cussing me… If he wants it laid out, I laid it out.” He added: “Yes, he deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him. We don’t know who he is. He might be with a terrorist organization.”

A new Public Policy Polling survey finds that only 33% of American voters trust Sen. Ted Cruz to nominate the new Supreme Court justice (57% don’t), only 31% trust Donald Trump to (62% don’t), and just 26% trust Marco Rubio to (61% don’t).

Greg Sargent quotes from an interview he conducted with pollster and Democratic strategist Stan Greenberg, focusing on white working-class voters and Hillary Clinton’s prospects: “Michigan will end up making her a stronger candidate, both in the primary and the general election,” Greenberg told me this morning. “It will lead her to be focused more on change and the economy…This will enable her to unite the party, and compete for working class voters in the general against Trump,” Greenberg concluded. “She’s going to win. She’ll be stronger when she wins in the right way.”

For a more in-depth look at underlying issues presaging the collapse of the GOP, read “Why Donald Trump Is Winning and Why His Nomination Could Shatter the Republican Party” by Alan I. Abramowitz, Ronald Rapoport, and Walter Stone at the Crystal Ball. Among the authors’ observations, reporting on their national survey of 1,000 registered Republican and independent voters: “…We examined the relationship between Trump support and a variety of factors that have been identified as possibly explaining reactions to Trump’s candidacy: authoritarianism, nativism, and economic liberalism. The results…show that there were strong relationships between all three of these predictors and where respondents ranked Trump among 11 possible Republican candidates…In addition to authoritarianism and nativism, economic attitudes also predicted support for Trump. In contrast to most other Republican presidential candidates and, indeed, most other prominent Republican officeholders, Trump has sometimes veered from conservative orthodoxy on economic issues…If we combine authoritarianism with nativism and economic liberalism we get an even stronger prediction of Trump support…a Trump candidacy would almost certainly produce serious divisions among GOP leaders and voters, potentially leading to the election of a Democratic president and major Republican losses in down-ballot contests, including key U.S. Senate races.”