Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing - April 18, 2016
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Monday's Leading Stories
- Ted Cruz won all 14 of Wyoming's at-large delegates on Saturday after a slate of his preferred delegates was approved at the state convention. They additionally signed a non-binding pledge to support Cruz on all ballots at the Republican National Convention. (ABC News)
- Bernie Sanders won 16 of the 23 delegates selected at the Colorado Democratic state convention on Saturday, bringing his total delegate haul in the state to 41. Hillary Clinton won the other 25 pledged delegates. (Colorado Public Radio)
- Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) endorsed John Kasich on Saturday. He said in a statement, “John Kasich is the only candidate in the race with a real plan to deliver results, and he is the only Republican who can defeat Hillary Clinton in the fall. I look forward to helping his team spread this message to voters in the months ahead." (CNN)
Polls
- According to a poll released by Optimus on Friday, Donald Trump tops the Republican field in New York with 49 percent support statewide and leads in all 27 congressional districts. Trump also surpassed the 50 percent threshold in 11 of those congressional districts, which would guarantee him all three of each district's delegates. (Political Machination)
- In an NBC 4 New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll of New York voters released on Saturday, Trump’s numbers were even stronger at 54 percent statewide. John Kasich followed with 25 percent support. (NBC 4 New York)
- On Monday, Emerson released a New York poll on Monday finding Trump and Clinton both leading their respective parties in the state with double-digit leads and 55 percent support each. (Emerson)
- Looking ahead to next week’s Republican primary in Pennsylvania, CBS News/YouGov found Trump ahead of Cruz by 20 points with 46 percent support. (CBS News)
Democrats
Hillary Clinton
- Hillary Clinton made appearances at several Democratic fundraisers in California on Friday and Saturday which cost up to six figures to attend. Two events, hosted by actor George Clooney and human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, reportedly brought in $15 million. Bernie Sanders’ supporters protested outside of the Clooneys’ home, throwing $1 bills at Clinton’s motorcade as it passed. Clinton spokesman Christina Reynolds asserted the fundraisers were concerned with down-ticket Democratic outcomes. “Hillary Clinton has made it a priority to raise money for Democrats up and down the ballot and we're grateful to everyone who supports the party. We frequently hear about how much money Senator Sanders is raising, maybe he can send a few of those $27 donations to the DNC and state parties across the country to help the party he hopes to lead,” she said. (CNN, Deadline, RealClearPolitics)
- RNC chairman Reince Priebus is expected to send a letter to Clinton and her tax attorney on Monday to see if she intends to pay the four percent surcharge her tax plan would apply to individuals earning more than $5 million a year. Priebus wrote that he wanted to know if Clinton would “put her money where her mouth is, and pay the additional taxes she is hypocritically proposing that other Americans of similar income pay, but not said she is willing to voluntarily pay herself.” (Breitbart)
- In an interview on Sunday, Clinton commented on President Barack Obama’s defense of her use of a private email server as secretary of state. She said, “I have not spoken to him. I appreciate what he said because of course I never endangered national security. That’s absolutely false. And I’ve said it was a mistake. It wasn’t the best choice. And now we know Colin Powell had a private email account. Aides to Condi Rice. So I think that what’s going on will be resolved. Obviously all of us will go forward knowing what we now know making sure that no one can raise any questions in the future.” (RealClearPolitics)
- The State Department and Judicial Watch reached an agreement late on Friday to allow the deposition of Clinton’s long-time aides Cheryl D. Mills, Huma Abedin, and Patrick F. Kennedy, on the subject of why Clinton had a private email server established. (Associated Press)
Bernie Sanders
- Bernie Sanders briefly met with the Pope Francis in the Vatican on Saturday as he was leaving to fly to Greece. Sanders said of the meeting, “I conveyed to him my great admiration for the extraordinary work that he is doing all over the world in demanding that morality be part of our economy.” In a separate interview, Pope Francis cautioned that the meeting had no political meaning. “I shook his hand and nothing more. If someone thinks that greeting someone means getting involved in politics, I recommend that he find a psychiatrist,” he said. (The New York Times)
- Sanders released his 2014 tax return on Friday night, which showed a reported income of approximately $200,000 and charitable giving of $8,350. (The Washington Post)
- With Donald Trump absent from the Sunday talk show circuit for the second week in a row, Sanders has overtaken him for the most appearances this year with 71 interviews. (USA Today)
Republicans
- Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus said on Friday that he would be “much more comfortable” if the Republican presidential nominee ran against Hillary Clinton rather than Bernie Sanders in the general election. "I'd rather run against Hillary Clinton because she's defined, she's not liked. And you know, in a popular cultural vote in America, that's a really important question, and she doesn't do well on that question. I don't know what's going to happen with the FBI,” he said. (NBC News)
- Bruce Ash, the chairman of the RNC’s rules committee, accused top RNC officials of “a breach of our trust” by not disclosing that Oregon RNC member Solomon Yue had proposed using Robert’s Rules of Order rather than the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives to govern procedure at the convention. Yue had argued that “establishment forces want to hijack the nomination with a ‘fresh face,’ as Karl Rove has said. Nominations should not be reopened without the consent of a majority of the delegates.” According to Ash, the RNC said that Yue’s proposal had not been timely submitted and would not be given priority consideration. (U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Times)
- An attorney for the RNC, John Ryder, responded to Ash’s claims on Saturday. He said that "it is important that the RNC not take action that can be interpreted as attempting to favor one candidate or another ... Major changes now are dangerous and not a good idea, in my humble opinion.” (CNN)
Ted Cruz
- While discussing the details of his flat tax plan in a radio interview on Friday, Ted Cruz accused the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of corruption. “The IRS is absolutely corrupt. It is facilitating illegal immigration. The commissioner has been a party to lawlessness. Indeed the IRS has persecuted American citizens who were perceived to be political opponents of the President. It has gone after conservative groups, it’s gone after tea party groups, it’s gone after pro-life groups, it’s gone after pro-Israel groups, it’s gone after groups that simply defend the Constitution, that’s deemed inconsistent with the political priorities of the Obama administration and that is an abuse of power,” he said. (Breitbart)
- On Saturday, Cruz rejected the Obama administration's regulation of the coal industry while speaking at the Wyoming Republican state convention. He pledged, “America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and we are going to develop our industry.” (Reuters)
John Kasich
- Asked on Friday what he would do to address sexual assault on college campuses, John Kasich discussed improving access to confidential reporting, testing more rape kits, and giving survivors of sexual assault the opportunity to "pursue justice after you have had some time to reflect on it all." He added, “I'd also give you one bit of advice. Don't go to parties where there's a lot of alcohol. OK? Don't do that.” The Democratic National Committee condemned the statement as "blaming victims of sexual and domestic violence.” Kasich elaborated on what he meant later in the day, saying, "I just said be careful where there's alcohol, and the reason why I worry about that is, it obscures the ability of people to seek justice. It gets to be about he said, she said, and there's alcohol and it creates an inability to find the truth. That has nothing to do with saying that somebody who has been a victim is somehow responsible." (CNN)
- Kasich dismissed Donald Trump’s assertion that the Republican primary process was “rigged” in an interview that aired on Sunday. “You've got to have a certain number of delegates to be nominated. It's like saying I made an 83 on my math test so I should get an A just because I think it's rigged that you have to make a 90 to get an A,” he said. (CNN)
- In the same interview, Kasich discussed his position on a Mississippi law preventing the prohibition of LGBT discrimination. He said that people advocating for religious liberty and LGBT rights needed to “strike a balance.” Kasich continued, “So if we would just kind of calm down here, I think things would settle down. And what I like to say is, just relax. If you don't like what somebody's doing, pray for them. And if you feel as though somebody is doing something wrong against you, can you just, for a second, get over it, you know, because this thing will settle down.’ (CNN)
Donald Trump
- During a rally in New York on Saturday, Donald Trump warned that the Republican National Committee would have a “rough July” if it did not “get going and straighten out the system.” He argued that people were upset because they felt disenfranchised. “The people want their vote … They want to be represented properly,” Trump said. (MSNBC)
- North Korean official Ri Jong Ryul said that Trump’s call for Japan and South Korea to protect themselves with nuclear weapons was “absurd and illogical.” Ri said, “The U.S. tells us to give up our nuclear program, is preparing a nuclear attack against us, and on the other hand would tell its allies to have nuclear weapons. Isn't this [a] double standard?" (CNN)
- On the campaign trail, Trump has frequently used negative monikers like “Lyin’ Ted,” “Little Marco,” and “Low Energy Jeb” to slight his presidential rivals. Over the weekend, Trump adopted a new one for Hillary Clinton: “Crooked Hillary.” She reacted to the nickname on Sunday, “I don’t respond to Donald Trump and his string of insults about me. I can take care of myself. What I’m concerned about is how he goes after everybody else.” She then named women, Muslims, immigrants, and people with disabilities as specific targets of Trump. (ABC News, The Hill)
- Trump’s campaign announced that it would provide “lodging and transportation opportunities for delegates” from Nevada in an email to supporters over the weekend. This offer came as Trump criticized Ted Cruz’s grassroots delegate acquisition strategy, suggesting Cruz had purchased support from delegates in Colorado and Wyoming. “I don't want to waste millions of dollars going out to Colorado knowing the system is rigged. I don't want to waste millions of dollars going out to Wyoming, many months before, to wine and dine and essentially pay off all these people, because a lot of it's a payoff, you understand that. They treat them, they take them to dinner, they get them these hotels, I mean the whole thing is a big payoff. Has nothing to do with democracy,” Trump said. (The Washington Examiner)
- On Sunday, reporter Michelle Fields said that she was still considering whether to sue Trump’s campaign for defamation after campaign manager Corey Lewandowski claimed he had never touched her during an incident in March, although video evidence showed he had. Fields said that she “absolutely” thought the campaign had defamed her and that they demonstrated “malice.” For his part, Lewandowski said that he was not going to apologize to Fields for the incident: "To apologize to someone I've never spoken to ... is a little unrealistic right now.” (The Hill)
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
