News polls show Clinton, Trump in dead heat in Georgia
Three public polls show Clinton now within the margin of error
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
ATLANTA (CFP) — Three new public polls show that Hillary Clinton may be poised to do something no Democrat has done in 24 years — carry Georgia in a presidential race.
The latest poll results come as Priorities USA, a Clinton-allied Super PAC, announced that it would begin airing TV and radio ads in the Peach State — the first sign that the Clinton campaign may make a play for the state’s 16 electoral votes.
All three polls showed Clinton within the margin of error in her contest against Donald Trump, in a state Mitt Romney won by 8 points in 2012.
The poll results included:
- Landmark Communications: Trump, 47 percent, and Clinton, 43 percent, within the margin of error plus or minus 4 points.
- Fox5/Opinion Savvy: Trump, 50 percent, and Clinton, 46 percent, within the margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 points.
- Atlanta Journal Constitution: Trump, 44 percent, and Clinton, 42 percent, within the margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 points.
In addition to those polls, a Washington Post/Survey Monkey survey of online respondents gave Clinton a 3-point lead, 45 percent to Trump’s 42 percent. However, that survey did not use a random sample and, therefore, its margin of error cannot be calculated.
The last time a Democratic presidential candidate carried Georgia was when Clinton’s husband, Bill, won in 1992. However, with independent Ross Perot in the race that year, Bill Clinton won with only 43 percent of the vote.
In the past 50 years, a Democrat has carried Georgia with a majority only twice, in 1976 and 1980 when Georgian Jimmy Carter was the nominee. During the same period, Republicans have pulled off that feat seven times, including the last four elections in a row.
In addition to Georgia, three other Southern states are also in play this year — Virginia, Florida and North Carolina. These four states are the largest in the South outside of Texas, with a combined 73 electoral votes, about a quarter of what is needed to capture the presidency.
The latest state polls show Clinton with a strong lead in Virginia and smaller margins in North Carolina and Florida.
No Democrat has captured all four of these states since Harry Truman back in 1948.
Racist David Duke qualifies for Louisiana U.S. Senate debate
Debate on November 2 will take place at historically black Dillard University
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
NEW ORLEANS (CFP) — Racist David Duke will take the stage at an historically black university on November 2 to debate with five other Louisiana U.S. Senate candidates, after scoring high enough in a poll to qualify for the event.
State Treasurer John Kennedy
The poll, commissioned by debate Raycom Media, showed Republican State Treasurer John Kennedy and Democratic Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell leading a crowded field of 24 candidates vying for the the open Senate seat in the Pelican State’s all-party “jungle” primary.
The top two vote-getters on November 8, regardless of party, will advance to a December 10 runoff.
Duke came in at 5.1 percent in the poll commissioned by Raycom, the sponsor of the debate at Dillard University in New Orleans, which was just above the 5 percent threshold set for candidates to qualify. Raycom confirmed to the Baton Rouge Advocate that, based on those poll results, it would invite Duke to the debate.
Raycom, based in Montgomery, Alabama, plans to air the debate on its television stations in Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Shreveport.
Duke celebrated the news in a Tweet, in which he said, “I can’t wait to tell truth nobody else dares!”
Dillard, which rented space for the event to Raycom’s station in New Orleans, WVUE, said in a statement that the university “will work with WVUE to ensure that the event is secure and managed professionally, as it does with every event that occurs on our campus.”
The statement also said that WVUE is the “sole sponsor” of the event and that Dillard “does not endorse the candidacy of any of the candidates who will appear at this debate.”
Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell
The poll found Kennedy at 24 percent, followed by Campbell at 19 percent. Three candidates were in a statistical tie for third place: Democrat Caroline Fayard, a New Orleans lawyer (12 percent), and two sitting GOP U.S. House members, Charles Boustany of Layfayette (11 percent) and John Fleming of Minden (10 percent).
Among those not making the 5-percent cut were Joseph Cao, a Vietnamese-American Republican who represented the New Orleans area in Congress from 2009 to 2011, and Rob Maness, who made a spirited but unsuccessful Tea Party-backed bid for the Senate in 2014.
The seat is being vacated by Republican U.S. Senator David Vitter, who gave up his Senate seat to make an unsuccessful run for governor in 2015.
Candidates spar over North Carolina’s bathroom bill in governor’s debate
Governor Pat McCrory defends Trump, says Caitlyn Jenner would have to use men’s shower
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
RALEIGH (CFP) — Facing off in a debate less than a month before voters go to the polls, Republican Governor Pat McCrory and his Democratic challenger, Attorney General Roy Cooper, sparred over a series of controversial laws passed by North Carolina’s GOP-controlled legislature, in particular a controversial measure that requires transgendered people to use bathrooms and shower facilities that conform with their birth gender in public facilities.
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory
In the October 12 debate, sponsored by the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters and airing on UNC-TV, the governor also continued to defend his endorsement of Donald Trump after video surfaced on October 7 in which the Republican presidential nominee made braggadocious comments about being allowed to grab women’s genitals because of his celebrity.
“Mr. Trump needs to have his mouth washed out with soap, but so does Mrs. Clinton,” McCrory said.
In response, Cooper said that “it’s hard to believe that Governor McCrory continues to support a presidential candidate who condones sexual assault.”
“Governor McCrory and Donald Trump are a lot alike. They both have trouble with the facts, and they both engage in divisive rhetoric.”
McCrory, who has come under national criticism for HB 2, the so-called bathroom bill, defended his support for the law, saying that it was the result of “a major change in culture” initiated by city officials in Charlotte, who had passed a measure outlawing discrimination against transgendered people that HB 2 overturned.
“We never brought this issue up. It was the mayor of Charlotte, with strong support from the attorney general,” the governor said. “It wasn’t called for. It was the liberals that brought it up.”
But Cooper called for the law’s repeal, saying that “it writes discrimination into our law, and it has been a disaster for our economy.”
“This legislation was passed in one day and signed in the middle of the night. And Governor McCrory continues to go across the state telling people that this is not hurting our economy,” Cooper said. “Governor, what planet are you on?”
In response to the passage of the bathroom bill, a number of businesses have cancelled plans to move or expand in North Carolina, and the NBA, NCAA and ACC have all pulled events from the Tar Heel State.
McCrory was asked by the debate’s moderator, NBC’s Chuck Todd, if the law would force Caitlyn Jenner, a former Olympic athlete and the nation’s best-known transgendered women, to use men’s bathroom facilities.
The governor said that while private businesses had the right to decide that for themselves under state law, “If she’s going to shower at a facility at UNC-Chapel Hill after running around the track, she’s going to use the men’s shower. ”
Recent polls in the race have shown Cooper with a slight lead.
Here is the full video of the October 11 debate.
Report: Internal GOP polls show Trump in trouble in Georgia
New York Times reports Trump in “dire risk” of losing the Peach State
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
ATLANTA (CFP) — Internal Republican polls show that Republican Donald Trump is in danger of losing to Democrat Hillary Clinton in Georgia, according to a report in The New York Times.
The Times attributed to its October 12 report to people briefed on the polls who spoke on condition of anonymity. The newspaper also reported that Clinton’s campaign has concluded that Georgia is winnable, although her camp has made no move so far to put resources into trying to capture the Peach State.
The Times did not give any specific polling numbers for the race or indicate whether that polling took place before or after video surfaced on October 7 in which Trump made braggadocious comments about being allowed to grab women’s genitals because of his celebrity.
The last public poll in Georgia, conducted by WSB-TV/Landmark on September 20-21, showed Trump at 47 percent and Clinton at 43 percent, which was within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage votes. That means that from a statistical perspective, the race was a tie.
A Republican presidential candidate has not taken Georgia in 24 years, since Clinton’s husband, Bill, carried the state back in 1992. Mitt Romney won it by 8 points in 2012.
In addition to Georgia, three other Southern states are also in play — Virginia, Florida and North Carolina. These four states are the largest in the South outside of Texas, with a combined 73 electoral votes, about a quarter of what is needed to capture the presidency.
The latest state polls show Clinton with a strong lead in Virginia, with races in Florida and North Carolina within the margin of error.
No Democrat has captured all four of these states since Harry Truman back in 1948.
Trump’s Southern firewall shows cracks but no wholesale erosion
Three Alabama politicos flee from Trump; Rubio, Burr and McCrory are non-committal
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
(CFP) — Donald Trump’s support among Southern elected officials has begun to crack after the release of an audiotape in which he made offensive comments about women, but, so far, there has been no wholesale deterioration of his Southern support heading into the second presidential debate.
U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia is the only Southern senator to distance herself from Trump, calling on him to “reexamine his candidacy” in light of remarks that surfaced on October 9 in which he bragged about being able to sexually assault women because of his celebrity.
“As a woman, a mother and a grandmother to three young girls, I am deeply offended by Mr. Trump’s remarks, and there is no excuse for the disgusting and demeaning language,” Capito said in a statement.
Comstock
Two U.S. House incumbents in tough re-election battles, Reps. Barbara Comstock in Virginia and William Hurd in Texas, both announced they would not vote for Trump and want him to step aside as the Republican nominee.
But three other incumbent Republican politicians locked in tight re-election fights – U.S. Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Richard Burr of North Carolina and North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory – did not retract their support for Trump, although all three condemned his remarks.
Rubio, who offered Trump a tepid endorsement after losing to him in the GOP presidential primaries, went on Twitter to call Trump’s remarks “vulgar, egregious & impossible to justify.” But his opponent in the Senate race, U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, said Rubio’s refusal to unendorse Trump amounted to “political cowardice.”
Murphy
“Donald Trump is a threat to every value this country holds dear,” Murphy said in an op-ed in The Hill newspaper. “If Marco Rubio cannot withdraw his endorsement after this latest sickening news, then he should withdraw from the race.”
The most significant erosion of Trump’s support has come in conservative Alabama, where Republican Governor Robert Bentley has announced he won’t vote for Trump, and two GOP members of the U.S. House delegation, Reps. Martha Roby and Bradley Byrne, have called on him to step aside as their party’s presidential nominee.
“As disappointed as I’ve been with his antics throughout the campaign, I thought supporting the nominee was the best thing for our country and our party,” Roby said in a statement “Now, it is abundantly clear that the best thing for our country and our party is for Trump to step aside and allow a responsible, respectable Republican to lead the ticket.”
Byrne called Trump’s comments “disgraceful and appalling.”
“It is now clear Donald Trump is not fit to be President of the United States and cannot defeat Hillary Clinton,” he said in a statement. “I believe he should step aside and allow Governor Pence to lead the Republican ticket.”
Roby represents parts of metro Montgomery and southeast Alabama. Byrne represents metro Mobile and southwestern parts of the state. Both are seeking re-election, and neither race is expected to be competitive in November.
Bentley
Bentley, who has been mired in his own scandal over a purported affair with a former aide, issued a short statement in which he said, “I certainly won’t vote for Hillary Clinton, but I cannot and will not vote for Donald Trump.”
Notably absent from the list of Alabama politicos distancing themselves from Trump is U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, one of his staunchest supporters in Congress. Trump announced Sessions would be in New York to help him prepare for his October 9 debate with Hillary Clinton, although Sessions’s office has not confirmed that information.
In Virginia, Comstock, who had not previously endorsed Trump, is in a tough re-election battle in the 10th District, based in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, against Democrat Democrat LuAnn Bennett, a real estate developer who is the ex-wife of former U.S. Rep. Jim Moran.
Comstock called Trump’s comments “disgusting, vile and disqualifying.”
“No woman should ever be subjected to this type of obscene behavior, and it is unbecoming of anybody seeking high office,” she said in a statement. “Donald Trump should step aside and allow our party to replace him with Mike Pence or another appropriate nominee from the Republican Party. I cannot in good conscience vote for Donald Trump, and I would never vote for Hillary Clinton.”
In Texas, Hurd, who had also not endorsed Trump, is battling to keep his 23rd District seat, which stretches from the suburbs of San Antonio across a wide swath of West Texas to the edge of El Paso.
As a black Republican running in a majority Latino district, Trump’s incendiary comments about Latinos had already put Hurd on the defensive in the race against the man he beat in 2014, former U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego.
Hurd issued a statement saying he could not vote for a candidate who degrades women and insults minorities. He said Trump should step aside in favor of “a true conservative to beat Hillary Clinton.”
Burr
Burr, who polls show is neck-and-neck with Democrat Deborah Ross in his re-election race in North Carolina, told Politico that he was “going to watch (Trump’s) level of contrition over the next few days to determine my level of support.”
McCrory, who trails Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper in recent polls, issued a statement in which he said, “I condemn in the strongest possible terms the comments made by Donald Trump regarding women. I find them disgusting,” But he stopped short of retracting his support for Trump or announcing that he would not vote for him.
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