Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing - April 11, 2016
From Ballotpedia
|
Monday's Leading Stories
- Ted Cruz swept Colorado after winning its final 13 delegates at the state convention over the weekend. Combined with his congressional district assembly wins, Cruz collected 34 delegates. Three Colorado party officials will also attend the national convention as unpledged delegates. After the results were announced, a tweet was sent from the official Colorado Republican Party Twitter account, reading, “We did it. #NeverTrump." It was deleted shortly after and another tweet released: “The last tweet was the result of unauthorized access to our account and in no way represents the opinion of the party. We are investigating.” (Politico, Colorado Public Radio)
- Bernie Sanders won his seventh straight primary contest on Saturday with 55.7 percent of the vote in the Wyoming caucuses, defeating Hillary Clinton by 11 points. Because of the state’s delegate allocation rules, however, both candidates finished the night with seven delegates each. (The Washington Post, CNN)
Polls
- In a Fox News poll released on Sunday, Donald Trump maintains his substantial lead over Ted Cruz in New York with 54 percent to Cruz’s 22 percent. Hillary Clinton also has a comfortable 16-point lead over Bernie Sanders with 53 percent. According to Democratic pollster Chris Anderson, “Sanders has a lot of work to do if he’s going to make this race a close one. He’s currently losing among every demographic group with the exception of men and voters under age 45. Many more middle-age New Yorkers are going to have to feel the Bern for Sanders to have a chance of catching Clinton.” (Fox News)
- According to the Fox News poll, in head-to-head matchups in New York, Clinton defeats Trump by 16 points. Sanders performs even better, topping Trump by 19 points. (Fox News)
- Trump and Clinton also hold sizeable leads in Pennsylvania with 48 percent and 49 percent, respectively, according to another Fox News poll. In a head-to-head matchup between the two candidates in Pennsylvania, Trump and Clinton tie with 44 percent each. (Fox News)
Democrats
Hillary Clinton
- In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, President Barack Obama discussed Hillary Clinton’s email investigation and her performance as secretary of state: “Here’s what I know: Hillary Clinton was an outstanding Secretary of State. She would never intentionally put America in any kind of jeopardy. … I continue to believe that she has not jeopardized America’s national security. Now what I’ve also said is that -- and she has acknowledged -- that there’s a carelessness, in terms of managing e-mails, that she has owned, and she recognizes. But I also think it is important to keep this in perspective. This is somebody who has served her country for four years as secretary of state, and did an outstanding job.” Obama added that the White House was not exerting any “political influence” on the Justice Department or the FBI. “Guaranteed. Full stop. Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department, because nobody is above the law,” Obama said. (Fox News)
- U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) endorsed Clinton on Saturday, making him the final member of the Maryland congressional delegation to publicly support her. ”Families in Baltimore who are hurting right now need more than the promise of a political revolution,” he wrote. Cummings reportedly remained neutral this late in the primary season because of his position as the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Benghazi. (The Washington Post, Politico)
- On Sunday, Clinton rejected the proposition from Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver that she supported a foreign policy which enabled the growth of ISIS. She said, “That is beyond absurd. They're saying a lot of things these days and I'm going to let them say whatever they choose to say. But ISIS was primarily the result of the vacuum in Syria caused by Assad first and foremost. Aided and abetted by Iran and Russia, so I think that let's put responsibility where it belongs." Commenting on other regional issues, she added that she supports “Israel’s right to self-defense” and believes that “Hamas provokes Israel.” (CNN)
- Clinton’s campaign released a new ad set to air in New York attacking Trump’s policies on abortion and immigration. "Donald Trump says we can solve America's problems by turning against each other. It's wrong, and it goes against everything New York and America stand for,” Clinton says at the end of the clip. (ABC News)
Bernie Sanders
- While speaking at the Apollo Theater on Saturday, Bernie Sanders said that former President Bill Clinton should apologize to the country for his defense of Hillary Clinton’s use of the word “superpredator” to describe violent criminals in the 1990s. Asked by the audience if he thought it was a coded word for “black people,” Sanders said, “That’s exactly right.” (The Wall Street Journal)
- Sanders said on Sunday that it was “a little bit condescending” for Clinton to suggest some younger voters did not do their own research. "They're proud of this country. They want to make it a better country. I think they do a whole lot of research and I think that the Internet has opened up the opportunity for them to do a lot of research. And I'll tell you, one of the reasons I think we're doing so well is a lot of those people are going to the Internet and hearing what we have to say and what Bernie Sanders believes in,” Sanders said. (CNN)
- On Sunday night, Sanders’ campaign released a new ad highlighting Sanders’ support for an increase in the minimum wage and tuition-free public college. The ad’s narrator concludes, “New York values, forged in New York. Brooklyn born. Native son. Who knows what we know: we’re all in this together.” (ABC News)
Republicans
- At its state convention over the weekend, the Michigan Republican Party chose who would serve on the rules, credentials, platform, and organization committees of the Republican National Convention. The eight delegates selected were John Kasich and Donald Trump supporters, including one for each candidate appointed to the powerful rules committee. The Wall Street Journal reported that Cruz adviser Saul Anuzis has accused Kasich’s and Trump’s campaigns of colluding to block out Cruz's delegates. (The Wall Street Journal, CNN)
Ted Cruz
- In an interview with The Denver Post on Saturday, Ted Cruz said that the legalization of marijuana in Colorado should be left to the state, although he personally opposes it. “The people of Colorado have made a different decision. I respect that decision. And actually, it is an opportunity for the rest of the country to see what happens here in Colorado, what happens in Washington state, see the states implement the policies, and if it works well, other states may choose to follow. If it doesn't work well other states may choose not to follow,” said Cruz. (The Denver Post)
- Victor Williams, a professor at the Columbus School of Law, has filed to appear on the Republican presidential primary in nine states in order to have standing in each state to challenge Cruz’s eligibility for the presidency. On Monday, a New Jersey state court will hold a hearing on one such claim. (The Washington Post)
John Kasich
- In an interview on Saturday, John Kasich said that he would not have signed the recently passed North Carolina bill which prohibits local governments from passing anti-discrimination laws to protect gay and transgender individuals. "I believe that religious institutions ought to be protected and be able to be in a position of where they can, you know, live out their deeply-held religious purposes. But when you get beyond that, it begins to be a tricky issue. Tricky's not the right word. But it can become a contentious issue,” Kasich said. (Talking Points Memo)
- He also said that it “would be nuts” for the Republican Party to choose a nominee who could not win in the general election, citing the down-ticket consequences of a weak candidate. Kasich said, “We're not just talking about the presidential race, but frankly if we get blown out in the fall, which I think we would with both Cruz and Trump, we could lose the United States Senate. We would lose seats all the way from the state house to the court house. And I think this is going to be a big consideration at the convention." (CBS News)
Donald Trump
- For the first time since November, Donald Trump did not participate in a single Sunday morning interview on television. WNYC Radio host Brian Lehrer said that Trump might be using the “Rose Garden strategy” of a first-term president seeking reelection by avoiding interviews. (CNN Money)
- Paul Manafort, Trump’s convention manager, argued on Sunday that Ted Cruz’s campaign was using “Gestapo tactics” to win delegates. “He's threatening, you go to these county conventions, and you see the tactics, Gestapo tactics, the scorched-earth tactics,” said Manafort. (The Hill)
- Trump toured the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City on Saturday. His campaign released a statement after to praise the monument and what it represented, concluding, “This is what ‘New York values’ are really all about.” Trump also donated $100,000 to the museum. (The Wall Street Journal, NBC News)
- Remarking on the Democratic presidential candidates’ dispute over qualifications, Trump tweeted on Saturday, “Bernie Sanders says that Hillary Clinton is unqualified to be president. Based on her decision making ability, I can go along with that!" (CNN)
- Trump made additional comments about the Democratic primary race in a speech on Sunday, highlighting his disapproval of delegate allocation in both parties’ primaries. “Take a look at what's happening to Bernie. He wins, he wins, and I hear he doesn't have a chance. This is a crooked system, folks,” Trump said. He continued, “I'm not a fan of Bernie. I couldn't care less about Bernie. But he wins, like me.” (Business Insider)
- The Boston Globe issued a satirical front page based on a future Trump presidency on Saturday. “It is easy to find historical antecedents. The rise of demagogic strongmen is an all too common phenomenon on our small planet. And what marks each of those dark episodes is a failure to fathom where a leader’s vision leads, to carry rhetoric to its logical conclusion. The satirical front page of this section attempts to do just that, to envision what America looks like with Trump in the White House,” the editorial board wrote in the accompanying opinion piece. (The Boston Globe)
See also
- Presidential election, 2016
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
- Important dates in the 2016 presidential race
- Polls and Straw polls
- 2016 presidential candidate ratings and scorecards
