NEW YORK—Emerson–Trump 56, Kasich 17, Cruz 22
NEW YORK—Emerson–Clinton 56, Sanders 38
NEW YORK—Emerson–Clinton 54, Trump 36 | Clinton 58, Cruz 30 | Sanders 51, Trump 38 | Sanders 56, Cruz 29
Fareed Zakaria looks at Republican opposition and the effect it’s had on the GOP:
Just as Reagan solidified the ideological position of the Republican Party — around free markets, free trade, an expansive foreign policy and an optimistic outlook — Obama has helped push the Democratic Party to be more willing to use government to achieve public purposes. And his party has responded. […]
The biggest impact of his presidency, however, can be seen in his opposition, the Republican Party, which is in the midst of an ideological breakdown. Surveying this scene, conservative columnist Daniel Henninger writes in the Wall Street Journal that Obama “is now close to destroying his political enemies — the Republican Party, the American conservative movement, and the public-policy legacy of Ronald Reagan.” Obama’s success in this regard, if it can be called that, is a passive one. He has let his opponents self-destruct and never overplayed his hand. […]
As Obama kept his cool, the Republican Party descended deeper into the politics of identity, flirting with racial, religious and ethnic grievances — and moving away from its core tenets of limited government, free markets and free trade. The result has been an ideological implosion, and it’s unclear what will emerge from the debris.
Crystal Ball experts Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley see several Senate and Governor’s races “Move Toward Democrats.” The authors note, “the Crystal Ball is changing six Senate race ratings, all in a Democratic direction.” As for the governorships, “A weak Republican presidential nominee could endanger GOP incumbents running for reelection in Indiana and North Carolina, prompting us to also shift the ratings for those contests in the Democrats’ direction.”
For those interested in the races in the state legislatures of America, keep an eye on Tennessee, where an interesting down-ballot strategy is taking shape — 23 Democratic women are running for seats in the state senate and house, supported by Women for Tennessee’s Future. “It’s the latest strategy unveiled by Democratic activists, and it could have some legs,” writes Dave Boucher in The Tennessean. “Organizers of the effort — including longtime Tennessee Democratic operative Krissa Barclay and Lisa Quigley, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville — believe a combination of Hillary Clinton atop the Democratic ticket and Trump atop the Republican ticket only helps strong Democratic women.”
Jonathan Chait discusses “The Pragmatic Tradition of African-American Voters” to help explain why Sen. Sanders lags with this constiuency well behind former Secretary of State Clinton — despite Sanders’ participation in civil disobedience protests against racial segregation as early as 1963. Pragmatism is one explanation. I also think Sander’s hostility to the policies of the first African American President.
So the first reports yesterday that Bernie Sanders had been invited to the Vatican by the Pope were indeed false. Here is a Storify slideshow of some earlier news stories (inlcuding Bernie’s personal announcement that he has been invited by the Pope on the View) and then Dana Houle’s tweets unraveling the whole story.
The Daily News cover this morning. Not good.
Politico: “Donald Trump’s team is encouraging its supporters in Washington state to sign up to be a potential Trump delegate. The only problem: The campaign’s local crew sent its email on Friday — two days after the filing deadline to appear on the printed ballot in Saturday’s conventions and caucuses.”
Sen. Ted Cruz “captured a majority of Colorado’s delegates to the Republican National Convention on Friday, outmaneuvering Donald J. Trump, whose lack of an organized national campaign once again allowed Mr. Cruz to gain at his expense,” the New York Times reports.
“As the fight for the Republican campaign moves into a period in which a handful of delegates could decide the nomination, Mr. Trump’s losses here were a troubling sign.”
“Federal prosecutors on Friday for the first time provided details of sexual abuse allegations against J. Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the House, asserting that he molested at least four boys, as young as 14, when he worked as a high school wrestling coach decades ago,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Hastert, 74, is not charged with the incidents of abuse because of statutes of limitation, prosecutors said, but he was accused last year of illegally structuring bank withdrawals for money he was paying to one of his victims in an effort to hide the abuse. He pleaded guilty in October to the banking violation, and suffered a stroke in November while awaiting sentencing, now set for later this month.”
Associated Press: “The filing is the first time prosecutors have confirmed Hastert paid hush-money to conceal sex abuse. It chronicles a chain of deception that began with Hastert exploiting his position of trust as a teacher and coach and carried on years later to include lying to bank officials and making false claims of extortion to the FBI to conceal his wrongdoing.”
Nate Silver says Ted Cruz would win a contested convention, not Paul Ryan.
It’s not that hard to imagine a contested convention. In fact, with Donald Trump’s path to 1,237 delegates looking tenuous, especially after his loss in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, it’s a real possibility. And it’s not hard to see how Republicans might think of Kasich or Ryan as good nominees. If Republicans were starting from scratch, both might be pretty good picks, especially from the perspective of the party “establishment” in Washington.
But Republicans won’t be starting from scratch, and the “establishment” won’t pick the party’s nominee. The 2,472 delegates in Cleveland will. And most of them will be chosen at state or local party conventions a long way from Washington. Few will be household names, having quietly attended party gatherings in Fargo, North Dakota, or Cheyenne, Wyoming, for years with little remuneration or recognition. Although the proverbial Acela-riding insiders might dream of Ryan or Kasich, there are indications that the rank-and-file delegates are into Ted Cruz — and they’re the ones who will have votes in Cleveland.
Repeat after Jason and me: Ted Cruz will be the Republican nominee.
TPM reported this Wednesday:
Republican congressman on Tuesday night acknowledged that the new law requiring a photo ID to vote in Wisconsin could help Republican candidates at the polls in the general election.
“I think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up. And now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well,” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI), a supporter of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), told Milwaukee television station TMJ4 when asked how either Cruz or Donald Trump could win in November.
This is what some in the business call a Michael Kinsley Moment: making a mistake by accidentally telling the truth. The line Republicans and proponents of voter-suppression tactics are supposed to take is that voter-ID policies have nothing to do with partisanship or affecting the outcome of elections, and everything to do with the integrity of the voting process. “We’re not trying to disenfranchise Democrats,” GOP officials say, “that’s just the accidental byproduct of our policies.”
The argument is obviously untrue, but at least in public, Republicans are supposed to pretend that the talking points have merit. Except, Grothman forgot to stick to the script. He’s not the first.
Ron Brownstein on Bernie’s already successful campaign:
With greater success the Vermont senator now faces greater challenges. Sanders is enduring intensified criticism from Clinton and sharper scrutiny from the news media, especially after a stumbling interview with the New York Daily News editorial board in which he could not entirely explain how he would implement some of his core ideas. And for all his recent victories, Sanders’s team understands he can’t overtake Clinton just by taking predominantly white states like Wisconsin; he still must prove he can appeal to the diversity of the Democratic coalition. “We have to do that,” said Tad Devine, Sanders’s senior strategist. “I get it”
But none of that obscures what Sanders has already achieved, and how it may change the Democratic Party. At my request, the veteran electoral analyst Rhodes Cook, publisher of an eponymous political newsletter, compiled figures comparing Sanders’s performance with previous outsider challengers. Those numbers show that Sanders is on track to win more total votes, and a higher percentage of the primary vote, than any insurgent Democrat in the modern primary era.