PENNSYLVANIA—CBS News/YouGov–Trump 49, Cruz 26, Kasich 22
PENNSYLVANIA—CBS News/YouGov–Clinton 51, Sanders 43
INDIANA—CBS News/YouGov–Trump 40, Cruz 35, Kasich 20
INDIANA—CBS News/YouGov–Clinton 49, Sanders 44
President Obama “is trying but failing to reassure foreign leaders convinced that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. They’re in full-boil panic,” Politico reports.
“According to more than two dozen U.S. and foreign-government officials, Trump has become the starting point for what feels like every government-to-government interaction. In meetings, private dinners and phone calls, world leaders are urgently seeking explanations from Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Trade Representative Michael Froman on down. American ambassadors are asking for guidance from Washington about what they’re supposed to say.”
NBC News: “When asked why he thinks he’s losing in those states, Sanders responded, ‘Well, because poor people don’t vote. I mean, that’s just a fact.'” Well, that may or may not be true, but wasn’t the whole point of Bernie’s campaign is that he will inspire a revolution where people who hadn’t voted before would rise up and ….vote for Bernie? If Bernie is losing because poor people are not voting at all, yet alone for him, then it looks like Bernie has failed to create his revolution, by his own admission.
Nate Silver: “It also helps that Trump’s system-is-rigged message is relatively simple and plays into the media’s master narrative of the Republican race as a conflict between the Republican base and the GOP establishment. The Republicans’ delegate selection rules, by contrast, require an attention to detail that narrative-driven stories about the Republican race can misconstrue.”
Donald Trump told supporters that he’s “not toning it down,” a day after his chief adviser assured Republican officials the GOP front-runner will show more restraint on the campaign trail, the AP reports.
Said Trump: “I’m not toning it down. Isn’t it nice that I’m not one of these teleprompter guys?”
Dan Balz: “For Trump, the bridge-building represents the challenge of trying to reassure nervous Republican leaders that he can avoid the erratic behavior and divisive rhetoric that have given him the highest negatives of any candidate in the 2016 race while reassuring his angry base that he is not selling out to a party establishment that many of them loathe.”
“For state and national Republican leaders, the outreach highlights the conflict between the revulsion many of them have felt toward a candidate who has trampled on core GOP values and inflamed much of the electorate and a grudging acceptance that it is increasingly likely the controversial New York billionaire will be leading them into a fall campaign against Hillary Clinton.”
“Ted Cruz notched another delegate landslide Saturday, stretching his advantage in a competition that might never occur: the second ballot of a contested Republican National Convention in July,” Politico reports.
“Cruz won at least 65 of the 94 delegates up for grabs Saturday (and he may have won more, but Kentucky’s 25 delegates haven’t revealed their leanings). The Texas senator has so thoroughly dominated the fight to send loyalists to the national convention that if front-runner Donald Trump fails to clinch the nomination on the first ballot, Cruz is well-positioned to surpass him — and perhaps even snag the nomination for himself — when delegates are free in subsequent convention rounds to vote for whomever they want.”
“I have never been more worried about the Republican Party breaking apart than I am today.” — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by The Hill.