New polls out, note how often Trump is < 40.
Old media question: why isn't Hillary leading by double digits? Um, she’s up by 10 in new Fox poll and sailing in the states. New media question: why isn't Hillary leading by 35?
So a few things still seem true in this 2016 race:
1. Trump won't/can't change
2. GOP is divided
3. Democrats are united
4. Trump will remain the nominee
5. GOP defections are still happening
6. GOP base is not majority
7. Polls favor HRC
8. Trump is going to lose
9. Hillary will not be credited. It’s all his fault.
10. Those not running her campaign will still have plenty of unsolicited advice for her.
Here is a must-read tweet storm from GOP national security adviser John Noonan (click name to read whole piece). Don’t complain about tweet storms, just read it. Sometimes twitter is the only place to find these. Read the whole thing. Please. More comment in Joan McCarter’s post.
David Remnick:
Vladimir Putin is a cunning and cynical reader of his adversaries. He notices that Trump does not know the difference between the Quds Force and the Kurds, or what the “nuclear triad” is; that his analysis of Brexit was based in part on what might be good for his golf courses in Britain; that his knowledge of world affairs is roughly that of someone who subscribes to a daily newspaper but doesn’t always have time to get to it. Overwhelmed with his own problems at home, Putin sees the ready benefit in having the United States led by an unlettered narcissist who believes that geostrategic questions are as easy to resolve as a real-estate closing. Putin knows a chump when he sees one.
This is real. It’s also why Trump won’t be president. as nutty as his base is, there are more sane people than insane people voting.
Jonathan Alter:
Hillary Clinton Is Right: Donald Trump Threatens World War III
In her DNC speech, the nominee laid out why her opponent risks toppling the world order. Why the war-and-peace conversation is not only fair—it’s necessary.
Daniel Drezner:
So, nothing to see here, just a story confirming that Donald Trump does not comprehend the basics of nuclear deterrence and the importance of the taboo against the use of those weapons. Move along.
More seriously, at the risk of stepping on the toes of my colleagues Erik Wemple and Margaret Sullivan, that particular exchange prompts a whole bunch of questions that I would like to ask MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. In order:
1) Exactly when did you find out about this information?
2) Was this conversation with your source off the record?
3) Who was the expert?!
and more...
Chris Cillizza:
Donald Trump’s Washington Post interview should make Republicans panic
Andrew Prokop:
The state of Georgia will have 16 electoral votes in this year’s presidential election. So you’d think that would mean that if Trump won the state, he’d get all 16 votes.
But perhaps not. Those 16 votes will all be cast by actual people — the state’s electors. And, according to a new article by the Atlantic Journal-Constitution’s Jim Galloway, one of the people who would be a Georgia elector if Trump won in the state is so anti-Trump that he’s openly musing about withholding his vote from the nominee.
FiveThirtyEight crew:
Is Donald Trump Blowing It?
natesilver: I guess the point I’m struggling to make is that Clinton’s large-ish convention bounce is a pretty big deal, and people are sort of treating it as another garden-variety event and moving on to the next thing.
micah: Well, we have certainly covered it.
harry: Covered? We doused ourselves in it.
natesilver: I know. But I’m used to people freaking out over 1- or 2-point shifts in the polls. This year, we’ve seen some 5- or 7-point shifts, and people’s reactions are about the same.
First Read:
[Tuesday] morning, we wrote that Donald Trump's campaign seemed like it was unraveling over his inexplicable clash with the Khan family. Twenty-four hours later, the word "unraveling" seems like an understatement. Take a look at what's happened in the last 24 hours:
- In a Washington Post interview, Trump declined to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan against his primary challenger
- He reiterated that he hasn't endorsed Sen. John McCain and said the onetime prisoner of war "has not done a good job for the vets"
- He slapped out at Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, saying "she has given me zero support"
- He suggested that Americans should pull their 401(k) funds out of the stock market
- He said he's "always wanted" to receive a Purple Heart but that having one gifted to him by a supporter was "much easier"
- He said that the handling of sexual harassment has "got to be up to the individual"
- He accused Khizr Khan of being "bothered" by his plan to keep terrorists out of the country, and said that he had no regrets about his clash with the family
- He appeared to feud with a crying baby during a rally
- He reiterated that "if the election is rigged, I would not be surprised"
- The sitting president of the United States publicly called Trump "unfit to serve" and urged Republicans to withdraw their support for him.
- Trump spokesman Katrina Pierson suggested that Obama and Clinton are to blame for the death of Humayan Khan, who died in 2004, when neither were in the executive branch at the time
- An ally of Paul Manafort told our colleague John Harwood at CNBC that the campaign chairman is "mailing it in," leaving the rest of the staff "suicidal."
- Sitting GOP congressman Richard Hanna, HP head Meg Whitman and former Christie aide Maria Comella all said they plan to vote for Hillary Clinton
- The Washington Post released a transcript of its full interview with Trump, indicating among other things that he paused five times to watch TV coverage in the middle of the sit-down
- A GOP source told NBC's Katy Tur that Reince Priebus is "apoplectic" over Trump's refusal to endorse Ryan and is making calls to the campaign to express his "extreme displeasure"
What are we missing?
Dave Hopkins (political scientist, my bold):
Pennsylvania Is Always Purple (And Other Electoral College Observations)
The electoral college is crucial to understanding candidate strategies, but is very unlikely to prove decisive to the outcome. The probability of a national popular vote winner failing to receive a majority of electoral votes is vanishingly small unless the popular vote margin is extremely narrow (as it was in 2000). This is because there is no significant partisan bias in the electoral college, and because individual swing states do not move independently of each other but rather collectively mirror national trends. Any analysis (like this one from the Times) arguing that Candidate X has a clear advantage in the electoral vote is thus suggesting that Candidate X is clearly ahead in the popular vote—and vice versa. Especially at this early stage of the race, it is advisable to avoid getting bogged down in trying to predict the election by gaming out various electoral college scenarios, as they will only come into play if the race is truly neck-and-neck heading into Election Day.
Ed Kilgore:
What Would Happen If Trump Quit?
At the national level, the rules (it’s actually in RNC rule No. 9) are reasonably clear: If a presidential nominee dies or withdraws, the RNC is empowered to replace her or him via one of two methods: (1) a vote by theRNC itself in which each state would cast the same number of votes as it possessed at the recent national convention, or (2) an actual reconvening of said convention.
There would obviously be significant pressure on the RNC from the abandoned Trump supporters to follow the latter route so they could nominate Jeff Sessions or Gary Busey or whomever. But it would be a logistical and political nightmare. Besides, why should the RNC defer to the same delegates who made such a poor choice the first time around?
It’s unclear to whom the RNC would turn if it did itself name a replacement candidate; the obvious choice would be Paul Ryan, if he were willing to accept the poisoned chalice. Another approach would be to elevate Mike Pence, a transitive if very recently minted Trumpite who at least was approved by the convention for the national ticket. Sure, that would make a guy who was probably heading for a loss in a gubernatorial contest in a red state the party’s national leader, and would also produce another vacancy on the ticket that the RNC would have to fill. But a party abandoned by its own nominee would be beggars, not choosers. The one thing that’s clear is that the nominee would have to be approved by a majority vote, which would probably rule out someone like Ted Cruz.
The iffier proposition is ensuring that the new ticket is substituted for the old one on 50 state ballots
Matt Mackowiak (GOP strategist):
Reuters:
Billionaire hedge fund manager Seth Klarman said on Wednesday he would work to get Hillary Clinton elected president of the United States because he finds recent comments by Donald Trump "shockingly unacceptable."
"His words and actions over the last several days are so shockingly unacceptable in our diverse and democratic society that it is simply unthinkable that Donald Trump could become our president," Klarman said of the Republican presidential nominee.
The president and chief executive of The Baupost Group told Reuters in an emailed statement that Trump's suggestion "that the election will be rigged is particularly dangerous."
Remember what I said yesterday: Buffett, Bloomberg, Cuban, et al. are an important refutation of Trump business practices, not to mention permission structure to vote Clinton. For example, Fox News poll (Clinton +10):
Trump is the choice among whites by 10 points (49-39 percent), men by 5 (45-40 percent), white evangelical Christians by 50 (69-19 percent), and whites without a college degree by 16 (52-36 percent).
Right now he’s underperforming his 2012 counterpart. Romney won whites by 20 points (59-39 percent), men by 7 (52-45 percent), white evangelicals by 57 (78-21 percent), and whites without a degree by 26 (62-36 percent).
Trump bests Clinton among veterans by 53-39 percent.
Twelve percent of Republicans back Clinton. That’s more than double the number of Democrats supporting Trump (five percent). And while Clinton garners more support among Democrats (87 percent) than Trump does among Republicans (78 percent), she trails among independents. They go for the Republican by 41-33 percent. In 2012, independents went for Romney by 50-45 percent.
Here’s an interesting piece on conservative media:
While the conservative media constellation is far larger than it once was, its audience is completely dwarfed by the left-leaning mainstream media. People who are “very conservative” love right-wing media outlets. No one else appears to, not even Republicans who are “somewhat conservative.”
The fact that a majority of average Americans has never even heard of the Right’s biggest stars like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck is a perfect illustration that Republican political junkies live in a media bubble.