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Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing - December 15, 2015
From Ballotpedia
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Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential Briefing was sponsored by the Leadership Project for America. | ||||
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Tuesday's Leading Stories
- The final Republican debate of the year will be broadcast on CNN on Tuesday night from Las Vegas, Nevada. CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, who is moderating the debate, said, “We're going to focus on the [number one] issue facing the American people right now, and all the polls suggest that it is the fear of terrorism, ISIS.” (CNN)
- Mike Huckabee’s campaign lost its lead spokesperson on Monday when Alice Stewart announced she would no longer serve as communications director. Huckabee said her departure does not indicate anything about the state of his campaign. “We hate to lose Alice, but she's decided that she's I think exhausted from the campaign. If people try to read more into it than is there, they're going to be making a huge mistake,” he said in an interview. (Politico, CNN)
- Poll: Donald Trump broke the 40 percent threshold for the first time in a new national poll from Monmouth University released on Monday. With 41 percent support, Trump held a significant lead over Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio who registered 14 percent and 10 percent, respectively. When likely Republican voters were asked if they would support Trump as the Republican nominee, 67 percent said they would be “enthusiastic” or “satisfied.” (Monmouth University)
- Poll: In a Quinnipiac University poll released on Monday, Trump and Cruz were nearly tied in Iowa for first place with 28 percent and 27 percent, respectively. Peter Brown, the assistant director of Quinnipiac University, said the caucus winner will be determined by who “has the best turnout operation.” (Quinnipiac University)
- Poll: Hillary Clinton topped the Democratic field in Iowa with 48 percent in a Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll released on Monday. Bernie Sanders followed with 39 percent and Martin O’Malley with 4 percent. “Most Iowa Democrats like both of their leading candidates, the new poll shows. Eighty-two percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers have favorable feelings toward Clinton, and 80 percent of them have favorable feelings toward Sanders,” The Des Moines Register reported. (The Des Moines Register)
Democrats
Hillary Clinton
- Hillary Clinton announced endorsements from 78 New Hampshire state legislators, comprising nearly half of the Democratic contingent, on Monday. (MSNBC)
- Speaking at the National Immigration Integration Conference on Monday, Clinton challenged Marco Rubio’s and Donald Trump’s positions on immigration reform in an interview on Sunday. She said Rubio was moving to “extremes and away from the rest of America.” Invoking Trump’s campaign slogan, she also said, “You see I disagree with those who say make America great. We are great and we’re going to stay great, and we’re going to get greater. … They promise if elected to round and deport millions of people, build a mammoth wall, militarize the border, tear families apart. And after the terror shootings in San Bernardino at a time when a lot of Americans are fearful about future attacks here at home, some candidates are even stroking those fears more and turning people against Muslim Americans.” (ABC News)
- U.S. Rep. Brad Ashford (D-Neb.) endorsed Clinton on Tuesday. “Her decades of public service have prepared her to lead our nation during these turbulent times. We need more than rhetoric; we need a leader who will bring people together to grow our economy, keep promises to our veterans and protect our nation from terrorism,” Ashford said in a statement. (Omaha.com)
Martin O’Malley
- STAR*PAC, an anti-war political action committee in Iowa, endorsed Martin O’Malley on Monday. “Governor O’Malley knows the peril of beating the drums of war, and would adopt a more far-seeing foreign policy approach to peacefully elevate America’s strength at home and abroad,” Tom Leffler, the PAC’s chairperson, said. (The Des Moines Register, STAR*PAC)
Bernie Sanders
- During a town hall in Iowa on Sunday, a Mexican-American woman asked Bernie Sanders if the government could legislate to require greater diversity on public broadcasting television. Sanders answered, “I want to broaden your point. … Is the reality, the pain of America, reflected on television? The struggle people are making. Half of people 55 years of age or older, have zero savings for retirement. Got that? You're 57 years old, you got nothing in the bank. How do you think you're feeling? You're scared to death. See that on television? CNN? NBC? ABC? Soap operas? Not so much. … We are a country where millions of people are in despair. Black, white, brown. They want to see a reflection of their life, of their reality, in media, and in many respects, they are not. And then they say, who the hell is talking about me? Who knows about my life? Why should I vote? No one cares -- No one even knows what's going on in my life. So media becomes an important part of the reality of America, and I think we need some big changes there.” (RealClearPolitics)
- Last week, Sanders called on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to support salary increases for City University of New York (CUNY) professors. “As a college degree becomes increasingly important for economic security in our vastly unequal society, CUNY has historically represented the possibility that a college education of the highest quality could be accessible to all. It should continue to represent that possibility. That is why I am troubled by New York State’s refusal so far to invest in a fair contract for the university’s faculty and staff,” Sanders wrote in a letter. (The New York Times)
- Carrie Dan of NBC News wrote on Monday that Sanders will need to expand the diversity of his coalition if he is to compete with Hillary Clinton. “In fact, there are only two major subgroups among Democratic primary voters that back Sanders over the former secretary of state: Voters under 50 (48 percent for Sanders, compared to 46 percent for Clinton) and those who identify as independent or Republican-leaning rather than as traditional Democrats. Among Democratic men, the two candidates are essentially tied,” Dan noted. (NBC News)
- Citizen Action of New York, a grassroots organization with 30,000 members supporting social and environmental justice, endorsed Sanders on Monday. “We desperately need a president who will fight back against the schemes that CEOs and Wall Street bankers have used to destroy our economy and steal wealth from our communities, especially communities of color,” said the organization’s president, Ivette Alfonso. (Bernie Sanders for President)
Republicans
- Jim Gilmore and George Pataki were the only two Republican candidates to miss the filing deadline for the Texas primary on Monday evening. The Texas Tribune reported that “Getting on the ballot for the Texas primary was relatively easy. Republican candidates had to pay a $5,000 filing fee or turn in 300 signatures from registered voters in each of 15 of Texas' 36 congressional districts.” (The Texas Tribune)
Jeb Bush
- Jeb Bush discussed U.S.-China relations in an interview with Business Insider published on Monday. He said the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” was offensive to Europe and “one of a series of mistakes that this administration and Hillary Clinton, when she was secretary of state, bragged about.” He added that the U.S. should be on guard that China is “going to cheat,” “push,” and “probe” for weakness, and recommended the U.S. continue to invest in its Navy given the tension in the South China Sea. (Business Insider)
- Ed Davis, the former Boston police commissioner and a Democrat, endorsed Jeb Bush on Monday. Davis said that “[policing and terrorism] are the most pressing issues the country, and I like what the governor is saying.” (The Boston Globe)
Ben Carson
- In an interview with Sky News published on Monday, Ben Carson said climate change should be treated with “the significance it deserves” but not as “the overarching driver of [his] policies.” He added that he would have attended the U.N. Climate Change Conference if he were president, but rejected the idea that climate change was the “premier issue in the world, and the cause of terrorism and everything.” (Sky News)
- Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler, said in an open letter on Monday that he would give $1 million to anyone who could prove the allegations that Armstrong Williams, an adviser to Carson, was guilty of sexual harassment of his male personal trainer. In the open letter, Flynt briefly discussed Carson’s advocacy of “traditional family values” and wrote, “Why have you invested your money, your trust and your future in this alleged sexual predator? … You, sir, are a hypocrite!” (The Huffington Post, The Hollywood Reporter)
- Carson wrote an op-ed in The Boston Globe on Tuesday to highlight his proposal to create “Health Empowerment Accounts” (HEAs). He wrote that they “will be available to anyone with a valid Social Security number. These accounts will be owned specifically by the individual and not by the government or large corporations. The accounts will also remain with the owner through job changes or state-to-state relocation. HEAs will be created for every child at birth and are freely transferable from one family member to another.” (The Boston Globe)
Chris Christie
- America Leads, a super PAC supporting Chris Christie, is airing in Boston and New Hampshire markets a new ad focused on Christie’s opposition to “radical Islamic terrorism.” He says in the video, “Anybody, in any religion, who tries to use violent means to impose their religion, is a radical. … If we don’t protect each other, no one else will.” (The Washington Post)
Ted Cruz
- Ted Cruz encouraged his supporters on Sunday to help Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) pay off his presidential campaign debt, tweeting, “#CruzCrew - I stand with my friend @ScottWalker & hope you will too!” (Talking Points Memo)
- The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Cruz’s campaign hired statisticians and behavioral psychologists to develop “psychographic targeting” of voters. “Some of the data comes from typical sources, such as voters’ consumer habits and Facebook posts. Some is homegrown, such as a new smartphone app that keeps supporters in touch while giving the campaign the ability to scrape their phones for additional contacts. Another emerging tactic that the campaign has employed is ‘geo-fencing,’ a technique that allows people to send messages to digital devices in narrow areas, such as a city block or a single building,” Tom Hamburger of The Washington Post wrote. Using this information, emails to supporters were tweaked based on what voter archetype they matched. According to Hamburger, campaign officials credit this targeted approach for Cruz’s recent surge in several polls. (The Washington Post)
- Following a meeting between Hispanic conservatives and campaign officials from five presidential campaigns, the group held a press conference "where they criticized Cruz’s immigration plan. “We learned today that Sen. Cruz believes in attrition through enforcement,” Alfonso Aguilar of the American Principles Project’s Latino Project said, likening it to “self-deportation.” Mario Lopez of the Hispanic Leadership added, “You can ask President Mitt Romney” about the political consequences of support self-deportation. (BuzzFeed)
Carly Fiorina
- In an interview with Breitbart on Monday, Carly Fiorina said she would do three things to improve cybersecurity in the U.S. She said she would “retaliate against China and Russia” for hacking into “sensitive systems,” “stand up a centralized cyber command, and that command would be responsible for all aspects of our government response,” and enable the private and public sector to engage more by passing a law to make information-sharing legal. (Breitbart)
Lindsey Graham
- In a radio interview published on Monday, Lindsey Graham criticized Donald Trump’s rhetoric around Muslims, saying, “What Mr. Trump said a couple of days ago makes it almost impossible to partner with people in the region like the king of Jordan, the president of Egypt. The way to win the war is to partner with people in the faith who want to destroy the ideology as much as you do.” When asked if he was actually campaigning for the position of secretary of defense, Graham said, “I think I’m the best qualified to be commander-in-chief. Sen. McCain endorsed me in New Hampshire. If I don’t do well in New Hampshire, I’ll have to re-evaluate my campaign.” (WBUR)
Mike Huckabee
- After it was announced that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl would face military charges for desertion, Mike Huckabee released the following statement on Monday: “Horse-trading with Taliban terrorists for Bowe Bergdahl adds one more national security stupidity notch to Obama’s belt. In World War II, Bergdahl would have been sentenced to death by a firing squad for deserting his post, but Obama showers him with celebration. We have to quit accommodating for radical Islam. We need a commander in chief who’ll do everything in his power to protect Americans, not praise traitors or obsess over weather patterns. It’s time we put Americans first.” (Breitbart)
John Kasich
- New Day for America began airing a new ad in New Hampshire on Monday calling Donald Trump a “hypocrite” and comparing him to a “bellowing” hippopotamus. “Donald Trump repeatedly says one thing, does another. The hypocrite says he’s champion of American workers, but had his line of Trump ties made in China. Some of the laborers on his palatial DC hotel? Illegal immigrants. … Voters deserve the truth and they deserve a proven, honorable leader like John Kasich, not a bombastic hypocrite,” the ad’s narrator says. (The Columbus Dispatch)
Rand Paul
- On Monday, Rand Paul released a 90-second video in Iowa and New Hampshire on the Syrian refugee crisis. Called “Learn from Mistakes," the ad promotes Paul’s plan to restrict visas for individuals from areas “with high risks of terrorism” and features the story of two Iraqi refugees who came to the U.S. in 2009 and were involved in terrorist activity. It also presents Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio as being accepting of refugees. (CNN)
Marco Rubio
- Last week, Marco Rubio joined seven other U.S. senators in a letter to the chair of the Federal Communications Commission to request that states be permitted to block municipal broadband service providers. (The Intercept)
- Caitlin Conant, the communications director for U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), has joined Rubio’s campaign as the head of regional and surrogate communications. (The Washington Post)
- Seventeen Latino members of Congress sent an open letter on Rubio requesting he stop blocking the nomination of Roberta Jackson as U.S. ambassador to Mexico “for reasons that have nothing to do with her qualifications or even the [Obama] Administration's policies.” U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), one of the signatories, said in a statement, “At a time when our nation faces security threats abroad, it is more important than ever to make sure our security partnership with our neighboring countries remains strong. Rubio is putting our nation's security and our economic ties with Mexico at risk, and it's time he put his grudges aside and did what was best for this country."( Latin Post)
Rick Santorum
- In a new radio ad from Working Again PAC, Rick Santorum is presented as a “true conservative who understands the enemy we face and knows how to defeat them” in the face of “World War III.” (Politico)
Donald Trump
- Michael Bender of Bloomberg wrote on Monday that Donald Trump has “neutralized” the influence of well-funded super PACs. According to Bender, part of this shift in politics comes from the difference between how paid media, in the form of advertisements, and “earned media” are received by the public. The Sunlight Foundation’s Richard Skinner said, “There’s really no precedent for the amount of free media that Trump is able to get. In part just because he’s a celebrity in a way we’ve really never seen before in a presidential candidate. His name ID is comparable to a sitting president. And this is his career. It’s what he’s been doing for the past several decades, which is generating lots and lots and lots of free media." (Bloomberg)
- It is unlikely Trump will be able to appear on the Ohio ballot as an independent if he were to leave the Republican Party. A spokesman from the Ohio secretary of state’s office said, “Since Donald Trump has filed a declaration of candidacy with our office as a Republican, has filed with Federal Election Commission as a Republican candidate and voluntarily took part in the Republican presidential debates, the first of which was held in Ohio, there is no way for Mr. Trump to disaffiliate from the Republican Party 'in good faith' during this election cycle.” (Cleveland.com)
- Trump’s personal physician announced on Monday that Trump’s lab results were “astonishingly excellent.” He continued to say that Trump would be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” (The New York Times)
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
