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Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing - July 15, 2016
From Ballotpedia
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Friday's Leading Stories
- Donald Trump announced Thursday evening that he would postpone his vice presidential announcement scheduled for Friday morning, citing the apparent terror attack in Nice, France. Earlier in the day, CNN reported that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) had been asked to serve on Trump’s ticket and accepted the offer. Trump said on Thursday evening, however, that he had not yet made his “final, final decision.” (Politico, CNN)
- Both Trump and Hillary Clinton responded to the Nice attack in interviews on Thursday night, drawing a contrast between their counterterrorism approaches. (CNN)
- Trump said that he would seek a declaration of war from Congress against ISIS. He also connected the war on terror to the admission of Syrian refugees to the U.S. “You know, in the old days, we would have uniforms, you knew what you were fighting. We are allowing people into our country who we have no idea where they are, where they're from, who they are, they have no paperwork, they have no documentation, in many cases,” he said.
- Clinton said efforts against ISIS should be focused on intelligence rather than military force. “They would love to draw the United States into a ground war in Syria. I would be very focused on the intelligence surge. I would be very focused on working with our partners and allies and intensify our efforts against the ideologues that pedal radical jihadism online,” she said.
Polls
- In an Associated Press GfK national poll released on Thursday, Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump, 34 percent to 30 percent. Gary Johnson registered 4 percent support and Jill Stein 1. (Associated Press GfK Poll)
- Univision released a survey on Thursday finding that Clinton leads Trump among Latino voters by a wide margin, 67 percent to 19 percent. “According to the same survey, 79% of registered Latino voters oppose building a border wall between the United States and Mexico, one of Trump’s signature policy positions. In addition, almost three-fourths of Latino voters polled said that they believe Trump is a racist. The news isn’t all bad for Trump. The survey found that a plurality of registered Latino voters, 42%, believe Hillary Clinton is a liar, compared with 39% who said she is not and 19% who said they were unsure,” Fusion reported. (Fusion, Univision)
- In a Rasmussen Reports national poll released on Thursday, Trump had one of his best poll performances, leading Clinton by seven points with 44 percent to Clinton’s 37 percent. (Rasmussen Reports)
- NBC/WSJ/Marist released a series of battleground state polls on Friday with Clinton leading by six to nine points in all four states surveyed. (NBC News)
- Colorado: Clinton (43 percent) vs. Trump (35 percent);
- Florida: Clinton (44 percent) vs. Trump (37 percent);
- North Carolina: Clinton (44 percent) vs. Trump (38 percent);
- Virginia: Clinton (44 percent) vs. Trump (35 percent).
Democrats
Hillary Clinton
- Speaking at the League of United Latin American Citizens National Convention on Thursday, Hillary Clinton discussed immigration reform and Donald Trump’s comments on Latinos. She pledged to create “a simple, straight-forward system where people with sympathetic cases or who can show a history of service to their communities can make their case and be eligible for deferred action.” Commenting on prejudice against Latinos, she added that there is “no innuendo or dog whistle anymore. It’s all out in the open now. So we’ve got to come back twice as strong and twice as clear. We have got to say with one voice that Latinos are a vital part of the American community.” (The Huffington Post)
- AL.com reported on Thursday that former President Bill Clinton traveled to Alabama this week where he raised more than $250,000. The Clinton campaign is also airing ads in the state, which is a reliably conservative draw in the presidential race. Republican strategist Brent Buchanan noted the attention given to the state could be explained by its proximity to Florida with the Mobile-Pensacola TV market receiving the bulk of ad buys. (AL.com)
- Since Clinton clinched the Democratic nomination in June, she has aired at least 30,700 ads on broadcast TV, according to The Associated Press. The Trump campaign aired no ads over the same time period. (The Associated Press)
Republicans
- The Rules Committee of the Republican National Convention rejected a proposed “conscience clause” that would have allowed delegates to vote for the candidate of their choice. “Anti-Trump people get crushed at Rules Committee. It was never in doubt: Convention will honor will of people & nominate @realDonaldTrump,” Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort tweeted. Kendal Unruh, the Colorado delegate who led the effort to establish a conscience clause, said after the meeting, “Go buy brass knuckles for the floor fight.” (The Wall Street Journal)
Donald Trump
- Nearly 150 leaders from the technology sector, including co-founders of and executives from Slack, Flickr, Trulia, Reddit, and Twitter, signed on to an open letter charging that “Trump would be a disaster for innovation.” They continued, “Donald Trump articulates few policies beyond erratic and contradictory pronouncements. His reckless disregard for our legal and political institutions threatens to upend what attracts companies to start and scale in America. He risks distorting markets, reducing exports, and slowing job creation. We stand against Donald Trump’s divisive candidacy and want a candidate who embraces the ideals that built America’s technology industry: freedom of expression, openness to newcomers, equality of opportunity , public investments in research and infrastructure, and respect for the rule of law.” (Medium)
- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a statement on Thursday that she regretted making negative comments about Trump and the presidential race. “On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them. Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect,” she said. (CNN)
- Bloomberg profiled the state of pro-Trump super PACS and large donors on Thursday. It found that billionaire investor Tom Barrack, who reportedly collected $32 million in donations last month, did not intend to contribute such a large sum of money to any super PAC. Bloomberg also reported, “Earlier this year, the Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson told Trump he'd give $100 million to support the presidential bid and explored forming his own super-PAC to direct the spending. But Adelson isn't currently pursuing his own super-PAC, according to Andrew Abboud, a top Adelson aide, confirming an earlier report in the Los Angeles Times. A spokesman for Adelson declined to comment on whether Adelson is sticking with the $100 million pledge.” (Bloomberg)
Third Party Candidates
Jill Stein (Green Party)
- U.S. Uncut reported that donations to Jill Stein’s presidential campaign have increased tenfold since Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. (U.S. Uncut)
- Although the Green Party failed to timely submit paperwork to appear on the ballot in Arizona, Secretary of State Michele Reagan requested state Attorney General Mark Brnovich agree to a court order to permit their inclusion on the ballot rather than fight a lawsuit they filed in federal court. (The Tucson Sentinel)
Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party)
- Gary Johnson was featured in a GQ profile on Thursday where he discussed, among other issues, the federal deficit, Hillary Clinton, and marijuana legalization. (GQ)
- On how to balance the budget: “First, you have to have a template to make that happen. If we're elected, coming up with that balanced budget. Also, recognize that if we were to just decrease the rate of spending, that would be unprecedented, because of the entitlements. Entitlements are what they are. They're entitlements. They are an escalating sum of money from one year to the next, and I'm confident that we will significantly reduce the historic rate of growth in government. But there should be a goal. And that would be to balance the federal budget. That would be commensurate upon, in fact, reforming the entitlements.”
- On Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy: “Hillary Clinton is about as establishment as it gets. Her answer to everything is "more government." And that will result in higher taxes. I'm not saying that she's done this on purpose—she hasn't—but she's been an architect of our foreign policy that has us in support of the opposition forces in Libya and Syria, and those opposition forces are aligned with ISIS, Al Qaeda, jihadists. That's not intentional, but that's what's happened. And you can't make that up. So I don't see her changing that course being elected president. Things are gonna get more dangerous, not less.”
- On marijuana use: “People need to make their own choices. So what I don't want to be saying here is, if you consume marijuana, or have a couple of drinks every evening, I don't want to say that you shouldn't be doing that. Okay? Make decisions in your own life. And I am not casting judgment on you. I don't care if you knock yourself out every single night, as long as you don't get behind the wheel of a car.”
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
