NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–Monmouth–Clinton 49, Trump 42
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–Reuters/Ipsos–Clinton 50, Trump 43
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–NBC News/Survey Monkey–Clinton 48, Trump 42
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–PPP–Clinton 48, Trump 43
PENNSYLVANIA–PRESIDENT–Emerson–Clinton 46, Trump 43
OHIO–PRESIDENT–Emerson–Clinton 43, Trump 43
MICHIGAN–PRESIDENT–Emerson–Clinton 45, Trump 40
ARIZONA–PRESIDENT–OH Predictive Insights–Clinton 40, Trump 39
“Hillary Clinton’s advisers are talking to Donald J. Trump’s ghostwriter of The Art of the Deal, seeking insights about Mr. Trump’s deepest insecurities as they devise strategies to needle and undermine him in four weeks at the first presidential debate, the most anticipated in a generation,” the New York Times reports.
“Her team is also getting advice from psychology experts to help create a personality profile of Mr. Trump to gauge how he may respond to attacks and deal with a woman as his sole adversary on the debate stage.”
“They are undertaking a forensic-style analysis of Mr. Trump’s performances in the Republican primary debates, cataloging strengths and weaknesses as well as trigger points that caused him to lash out in less-than-presidential ways.”
In a TRMS exclusive, Rachel Maddow shares the results of the latest Public Policy Polling poll, which shows, among other things, that Donald Trump is about as far as is mathematically possible from having any support among African-American voters.
Olivia Nuzzi: “If you were a presidential candidate who polled low among women, who was on your third wife, who had a reputation for womanizing and a professional relationship with a man who’d recently been axed from his job for sexual harassment, would you respond to the latest Anthony Weiner scandal by A. Staying out of it; B. Changing the subject; or C. Attacking your opponent by making a dubious connection between Weiner’s behavior and her own?”
“If you chose C, congratulations: This election has officially warped your sense of good judgment.”
Yes, even though Weiner himself has no role in the Clinton campaign, Donald Trump attacked Hillary for allowing Weiner to have access to confidential national security information (what?!?), and the media spent all day yesterday equating Trump Campaign CEO Steve Bannon’s domestic abuse charges and Weiner’s sexting in an example of the media’s devotion to BothSidism.
NEW: One of Trump's biggest lies is falling apart. So, naturally, he's blaming the media for it: https://t.co/UyjSL9ezyL
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) August 29, 2016
Corey Lewandowski “was fired in late-June after serving as Trump’s first campaign manager… Now, a few weeks and a lucrative cable network contract later, Lewandowski is back in the fold,” ABC News reports.
Campaign sources “describe Lewandowski’s relationship with the candidate as ‘stronger than ever.’ Each day, Trump wakes up, usually in his Fifth Avenue penthouse, and has a routine round of calls, sources say, that includes his campaign leadership (which has changed in recent weeks), his children, some close allies and someone else quite frequently: Lewandowski.”
This seems like kind of a big deal. https://t.co/oF2KiJ5lK8
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) August 29, 2016
Donald Trump was not happy about San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during a performance of the national anthem, BuzzFeed reports. Said Trump: “I have followed it and I think it’s personally not a good thing. I think it’s a terrible thing, and you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him, let him try, it’s not gonna happen.”
‘Cluelessness’: CNN strategist’s immigration truth bomb leaves Trump surrogate blinking https://t.co/F1fUDOQ9RP pic.twitter.com/W8RHexPXdI
— Raw Story (@RawStory) August 29, 2016
Politico: “The Clinton de-legitimization project is now central to Donald Trump’s campaign and such a prime component of right-wing media that it’s already seeped beyond extremist chatrooms into ‘lock her up’ chants on the convention floor, national news stories debating whether polls actually can be rigged, and voters puzzling over that photo they think they saw of her needing to be carried up the stairs.”
Slate asks if Trump can win without a ground game. Better Q IMO is whether he can even hit his polling share. https://t.co/ZK2JX4GDs0
— Liam Donovan (@LPDonovan) August 29, 2016
Nate Silver: “Last week, Politico reported that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was set to employ a ‘run out the clock’ strategy, declining to respond to recurring controversies even at the risk of seeming nonresponsive. In the abstract, such a strategy could make sense. Clinton has a fairly clear lead in the polls. There are only 10 weeks to go until the Nov. 8 election — and less than that until early voting, which begins in late September in some states.”
“But Clinton shouldn’t get too complacent. After mixed evidence before, it’s become clearer, at least according to our forecast models, that Donald Trump has regained some ground on her. Clinton’s national lead in our polls-only forecast has gone from a peak of about 8.5 percentage points two weeks ago to 6.5 percentage points as of Sunday evening — that is, a 2-point gain for Trump over two weeks. Correspondingly, Trump’s chances of winning the election have improved from a low of 11 percent to 19 percent.”
I agree completely. I tend to think the Politico story is wrong, since other reporting (like the debate piece above and in the Washington Post) show that Clinton is going big, advertising in Utah, and giving the risky Racist speech last week.