CALIFORNIA—Field–Clinton 47, Sanders 41
CALIFORNIA—Field–Trump 39, Cruz 32, Kasich 18
MARYLAND—Wash Post/Univ. of Maryland–Trump 41, Kasich 31, Cruz 22
MARYLAND—Wash Post/Univ. of Maryland–Clinton 55, Sanders 40
NATIONAL—The Atlantic/PRRI–Trump 37, Cruz 31, Kasich 23
NATIONAL—The Atlantic/PRRI–Sanders 47, Clinton 46
NATIONAL—NBC/SurveyMonkey–Clinton 51, Sanders 42
NATIONAL—Morning Consult–Clinton 47, Sanders 39
NATIONAL—McClatchy/Marist–Trump 40, Cruz 35, Kasich 20
NATIONAL—McClatchy/Marist–Sanders 49, Clinton 47
NATIONAL—McClatchy/Marist–Clinton 50, Trump 41
CALIFORNIA—Field–Clinton 59, Trump 31
PENNSYLVANIA–U.S. SENATE—Quinnipiac–Toomey 47, Sestak 39 | Toomey 47, McGinty 38
“Cruz would be the most extreme right wing nominee in modern American history. He is deeply out of sync with a large majority of voters on social issues. His role in shutting down the government is anathema to most Americans. If Republicans nominate Cruz, they concede any claim to the center whatsoever.”
— Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, quoted by the Washington Post.
Bernie is deescalating. I suppose his internal polling showed that he was losing voters.
The conflict began when Hillary Clinton implied Sanders wasn’t a real Democrat and hadn’t “done his homework” on his pet issue: breaking up big banks. Based on headlines, Sanders took Clinton’s remarks to mean she’d said he wasn’t qualified to be president, and he shot back that maybe she wasn’t qualified, either.
Having successfully driven Sanders to a boiling point, Clinton then backed off, saying she’d take Sanders “over Donald Trump or Ted Cruz anytime.” But the question remained: If Sanders thought Clinton so “unqualified,” would he endorse her if she won the nomination in July?
The answer, it seems, is yes. During an interview with CBS on Thursday evening, Sanders assured anchor Charlie Rose that he “thinks the idea of a Donald Trump or a Ted Cruz presidency would be an unmitigated disaster for this country.” He went on, “I will do everything in my power and work as hard as I can to make sure that that does not happen. And if Secretary Clinton is the nominee, I will certainly support her.”
President Obama did something yesterday that may take some thunder out of Bernie Sanders’ campaign, and I am not talking about fully endorsing Hillary Clinton’s qualifications to be President. Matt Yglesias:
[T]he Obama administration has been quietly undertaking a series of tough, obscure, progressive economic policy measures that seriously threaten the bottom lines of America’s once untouchable banks.
Just this week came announced rules on tax inversions and financial advising, along with hints of a substantial crackdown on shell companies.
None of this is as dramatic or easy to explain as a few CEOs being dragged off in handcuffs, but it adds up to a big agenda that — if sustained by the next administration — could do a lot to cut into the size of the American financial sector.
Read the whole thing. These are all steps in the right direction that shrink the banking sector, rather than just breaking up banks. Enforcing these rules and regulations, and making them law when we have a Democratic Congress, and then passing Hillary’s plan on shadow banking, are how we regulate the banks and corporate America.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, “an enthusiastic fan of Pope Francis’s work, plans to step off the campaign trail next week to speak at a conference hosted by the Vatican on social, economic and environmental issues,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Sanders: “I am grateful to the Vatican for inviting me to talk about an issue that is very dear to my heart, which is how we create a moral economy that works for all of the people rather than just the top one percent.”
“Donald Trump’s campaign is increasingly falling into disarray as the Manhattan billionaire braces for a loss in Wisconsin that could set him on course for an uncertain convention floor fight for the Republican presidential nomination,” Politico reports.
“As the final stretch of this hard fought GOP primary bogs down into a delegate fight among party insiders and operatives that likely won’t be decided until the July convention in Cleveland, Trump’s singular star power appears to be no longer enough—and his campaign’s months-long lack of attention to other fundamentals is emerging as a hindrance to his ability to clinch the nomination outright.”
David Plouffe is asked if Bernie Sanders has a shot?: “Negative. In fact, Hillary Clinton has strengthened her hold on the nomination in the most recent contests. Because for every state that holds a contest, more delegates come off the board, and the percentage of remaining delegates Sanders has to win grows larger. The hill Bernie Sanders has to climb becomes more and more steep. Like a sheer, rock cliff.”
“I believe Hillary Clinton has zero chance of not being the Democratic nominee. But she still is going to lose a bunch of states to Bernie Sanders the rest of the way into the clubhouse. Here’s my sense of how the race will play out from now to June.”
William Galston on why the odds have risen for a Democratic victory: “Candidates seeking to succeed a two-term incumbent of their own party face an uphill battle. All other things being equal, political scientists find, such candidates can expect to fall short of the incumbents’ re-election vote share by at least 4 percentage points. Applied to the 2012 results, this metric would yield a 47% share for this year’s Democratic nominee.”
“On the other hand, demographic trends favor the Democrats. As the nonwhite share of the electorate increases, Democrats can expect their baseline to shift upward by 1 or even 2 percentage points in each four-year cycle—a significant gain, but not enough to counter the third-term disadvantage.”
“It is at this point that factors specific to 2016 come into play. To begin, the American people’s assessment of Barack Obama’s performance as president has been rising steadily. From a low of 43% approval as recently as December, it has increased to an average of 49% today… Another potential plus for the 2016 Democratic nominee is the economy’s improving condition… Since its recessionary low, the economy has added more than 13 million jobs, and the unemployment rate has fallen by half.”
First Read: “There’s another potential problem for Sanders as the Democratic contest heads into New York, which is Clinton’s home state but also where Sanders grew up: New York is a closed primary, which means that the independents that he won 72%-28% in Wisconsin won’t be able to vote. And the deadline to register as a New York Democrat ended on March 25. Of the 16 Democratic remaining primaries, just three are completely open contests.”
Good. Since these independents have shown they are not on board with any Democratic down ballot revolution (see Wisconsin Supreme Court), it is high time that Democrats decide this Democratic primary race. If Bernie Sanders really wanted a revolution, he would have convinced these holier than thou independents to register Democratic and really take over the party. But these purists can’t be bothered. It would make them unclean.
“I am looking forward to working with her closely.” — Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Morning Joe, on Sen. Elizabeth Warren serving in a Clinton White House.
You know what would make Bernie Sanders and his supporters irrelevant right quick? Naming Warren as Clinton’s VP.
I dismissed the idea of a Clinton-Warren ticket before because the ticket would be two women. But why should that be a consideration? It’s been two men for 239 years.
Matt Yglesias says the media is biased — in favor of Sanders.
To Sanders fans, this naysaying [that Bernie cannot win the nomination] is just more evidence of the anti-Bernie bias in the media.
The truth is exactly the opposite. The media has a systematic self-interested bias toward exaggerating how close the race is. Sanders supporters are a minority of Democrats, but they are still a large number of people, and they avidly read and share content about Sanders’s big fundraising hauls and his wins in low-population states.
Television networks want people to tune in to their debates and town halls, which they are much more likely to do if they think something is at stake. And Sanders’s big fundraising has been transformed into big advertising dollars, which is literally money in the pockets of media companies.
The media loves Bernie Sanders!
And so do millions of voters. But somewhat more voters like Hillary Clinton, which is why she’s been ahead of him in national polls from the beginning and why he keeps falling further and further short of the delegate totals he needs to win.
Rebecca Traister responds Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver’s sexist attack on Hillary:
It was a small comment, in every sense. A throwaway bit of nastiness coming from a campaign manager in the late stages of a long and hotly contested primary battle. But the line, which overtly cast Clinton’s political ambition as a destructive force and framed her famous drive and tenacity as unappealing, malevolent traits, played on long-standing assumptions about how ambition — a quality that is required for powerful men and admired in them — looks far less attractive on their female counterparts, and especially on their female competitors.
Bernie Sanders must fire Jeff Weaver today.
“If Donald Trump wants to ward off defeat at a contested convention, he’s got more than just a vote of the delegates to worry about,” Politico reports.
“Every aspect of the Republican National Convention is a potential tripwire that motivated anti-Trump forces could deploy to waylay the mogul — from major processes to invalidate whole slates of delegates to minor inconveniences, like seating arrangements for delegates inside the arena, which could complicate negotiations if the convention becomes a free-for-all.”
“If Trump continues to lose local delegate fights at a rapid clip, he’ll be walking into a convention arena stacked with hostile delegates working to deny him the nomination. And those delegates can work arcane procedures and rules in ways large and small to impede his path.”