Bernie Sanders trounces all three possible Republican nominees, but Hillary actually loses to Kasich in the general, in a poll matching the candidates head-to-head. The Hill:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would perform better than Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clintonin head-to-head matchups with their GOP opponents, according a CBS News poll released before Thursday’s heated primary debate. While Clinton maintains a 10-percentage point lead over Republican front-runner Donald Trump and a three-point edge over Sen. Ted Cruz(Texas) in head-to-head general elections, she doesn’t fare as well against John Kasich. Clinton trails the Ohio governor by six points.
Sanders, on the other hand, would beat all GOP candidates, the poll shows. He has a 17-point lead over Trump, a 12-point lead over Cruz and a five-point lead over Kasich.
Trump will never pull ahead of Sanders, because Sanders has the new voter people power. Within the Democratic establishment, Hillary is an obvious favorite. As always it’s how the candidates play in Peoria that matters.
In other news, OR Sen. Jeff Merkley became the first US senator to endorse Bernie Sanders, two days ahead of the NY primary, in a NY Times editorial. Merkley wrote:
“It is not that America is less wealthy than 40 years ago — quite the contrary. The problem is that our economy, both by accident and design, has become rigged to make a fortunate few very well off while leaving most Americans struggling to keep up. And as economic power has become more concentrated, so too has political power. Special interests, aided by their political and judicial allies, have exercised an ever-tighter grip on our political system, from the rise of unlimited, secret campaign spending to a voter suppression movement.”
With kind word for Hillary, Merkley nevertheless concludes:
“But Bernie Sanders is boldly and fiercely addressing the biggest challenges facing our country.
He has opposed trade deals with nations that pay their workers as little as a dollar an hour. Such deals have caused good jobs to move overseas and undermined the leverage of American workers to bargain for a fair share of the wealth they create in our remaining factories.
He has passionately advocated for pivoting from fossil fuels to renewable energy to save our planet from global warming — the greatest threat facing humanity”
NY Primary Voters to File Lawsuit Demanding Their Votes Be Counted
New Yorkers who had planned to vote in Tuesday’s Democratic primary have found themselves stripped from the rolls or incorrectly listed. Because NY is a closed primary, only people who had registered as Democrats by the March deadline are allowed to vote. Outraged New Yorkers are not taking it lying down, and will be filing suit against elections officials in a bid to have their votes counted on Monday morning, the day before the primary. The NY Daily News reports:
More than 200 outraged New York voters have joined a lawsuit claiming the party affiliation on their voter registration changed without their consent. The voters say they are unfairly being shut out of Tuesday’s primary.
The news comes as new poll has Sanders narrowing the polling gap between himself and Clinton to now single digits.