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Symbolic solution in search of an actual problem
Support of 9 Southern Republicans for Respect for Marriage Act shows why Supreme Court isn’t about to ban same-sex marriage ♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor…
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West Virginia stubborn, or playing hard to get
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin pisses off his party yet again … to what end? ♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor Also in this report: Atlanta DA…
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2 Mississippi Republican U.S. House members forced into runoffs after weak primary showings
Michael Guest narrowly trails challenger in 3rd District; Steven Palazzo clears just 32% in 4th District ♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor JACKSON, Mississippi (CFP) –…
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Mississippi Republican U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo facing Tuesday primary fight amid ethics investigation
6 opponents hitting “No-Show Palazzo” over inattention to district, ethics problems ♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor GULFPORT (CFP) — Mississippi U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo —…
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Primary Wrap: Kemp, Raffensperger survive Trump’s ire; Brooks makes Alabama U.S. Senate runoff
Texas Democratic U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar survives challenge from the left; George P. Bush gets blown out by Attorney General Ken Paxton ♦By Rich Shumate,…
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U.S. House’s last pro-life Democrat, Texas’s Henry Cuellar, fighting to keep seat in Tuesday primary runoff
Challenger Jessica Cisneros wanted House Democratic leaders to rescind Cuellar endorsement; they refused ♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor LAREDO, Texas (CFP) — Amid the newly…
Poll: Trump may be bleeding Republican support among early voters in Florida
Poll finds that nearly 1 in 3 Republicans who voted early voted for Clinton
♦ By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitcs.com editor
GAINESVILLE, Florida (CFP) — A unique poll of Florida voters who have already cast ballots for the November 8 election finds that Donald Trump may be bleeding Republican voters, allowing Hillary Clinton to open up a substantial lead in the early vote.
The TargetSmart/William & Mary poll found that 27 percent of Republicans who had cast ballots at the time of the poll, taken October 25-30, said they voted for Clinton over Trump, while just 6 percent of Democrats had chosen Trump over Clinton.
If that polling result is accurate, it would mean a net shift of 206,000 votes to Clinton as of November 3, when the count of Republicans who voted early approached 1 million.
Among voters affiliated with neither party, the poll found 40 percent for Clinton and 43 percent for Trump. Among all early voters, Clinton led Trump by a 17-point margin, 55 percent to 38 percent.
However, TargetSmart/William & Mary also polled Florida voters who had not yet cast ballots, which showed the race as a tie, with Trump at 43 percent and Clinton at 42 percent, mirroring the results of other national polls.
The poll used both online contact and telephone surveys; therefore, it did not constitute a random sample, and no margin of error could be specified. Also, the sample size was small, including only 311 early voters and 407 people who hadn’t voted.
Still, given that more than 20 percent of registered voters in the Sunshine State cast ballots as of November 3 – including nearly 1 million registered Republicans – any significant erosion of GOP support could present difficulties for Trump’s quest to carry the state. By contrast, Mitt Romney took 93 percent of the Republican vote in 2012.
The poll also combined the early and non-early results in the poll and did a demographic analysis which showed Trump trailing Clinton by a whopping 86-point margin among African-American voters and by 29 points among Latinos.
President Obama joins effort to oust Florida GOP U.S. Rep. John Mica
Obama cuts a commercial for Mica’s Democratic opponent, Stephanie Murphy, in what has become a competitive race
ORLANDO (CFP) — President Barack Obama has cut a television commercial for Florida congressional candidate Stephanie Murphy, who is giving veteran GOP U.S. Rep. John Mica the fight of his political career in the newly redrawn 7th District.
Murphy
In the commercial, which began airing October 31, Obama recounts Murphy’s background as the daughter of Vietnamese refugees who fled to the United States when she was a small child and became a national security specialist at the Pentagon after 9/11.
“She’ll tackle the tough problems,” Obama says.
Obama is the latest in a string of high-profile endorsements of Murphy, which have included House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona, who became a gun control advocate after being wounded by a would-be assassin in 2011.
Outside groups supporting Murphy have also poured more than $3 million in the effort to oust Mica, 73, who is seeking his 12th term in the House and has never carried less than 59 percent of the vote in any of his re-election bids.
Mica
Mica is vulnerable this year thanks to a redraw of Sunshine State’s congressional map ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. Mica’s old district was centered in the northern and eastern suburbs of Orlando; the redraw pushed his district further south into the city of Orlando, which is more Democratic.
About a quarter of the voters in Mica’s new district were not in his old district, and the minority population is about 30 percent. However, the number of registered Democrats and Republicans is about equal.
Public polling in the race has been sparse, but both campaigns have touted internal polls putting their candidate in the lead.
However, the poll offered by the Mica campaign showed him only 5 points ahead with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage votes–essentially, a tie in a Republican poll, a potentially troubling result for a well-known incumbent facing a challenger who has not previously run for political office.
The Cook Political Report, which until recently had rated the race as favoring Mica, now lists it as a toss-up.
Heading into the final three weeks of the campaign, Federal Election Commission filings show Murphy with about $174,000 in cash on hand, compared to $167,000 for Mica. However, both the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are airing ads in the race, and outside spending is expected to eclipse what the campaigns run themselves.
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.
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