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Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing - June 6, 2016
From Ballotpedia
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Monday's Leading Stories
- Hillary Clinton won the Democratic caucuses in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico over the weekend, bringing her within 30 delegates of the 2,383 needed to claim the Democratic presidential nomination, if superdelegates are included in the tally. Clinton will look to primary contests in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, and South Dakota on Tuesday to end the Democratic primary process. (Associated Press, Ballotpedia)
- On Friday, Donald Trump was pressed in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper more than 20 times to state whether his opposition to federal judge Gonzalo Curiel because of his Mexican heritage was racist. Trump rejected the assertion and said of Curiel’s alleged bias, “He's a Mexican. We're building a wall between here and Mexico." (CNN)
- Alberto Gonzales, who served as the U.S. attorney general during the George W. Bush administration, defended Trump in an op-ed in The Washington Post on Saturday. “If the criticism is solely based on Curiel’s race, that is something voters will take into account in deciding whether he is fit to be president. If, however, Trump is acting from a sincere motivation to protect his constitutional right to a fair trial, his willingness to exercise his rights as an American citizen and raising the issue even in the face of severe criticism is surely also something for voters to consider,” Gonzales wrote. (The Washington Post)
- When asked in an interview on Sunday if a Muslim judge would also be unable to be impartial in a case involving him, Trump said, “Yeah. That would be possible. Absolutely.” Trump again discussed Curiel, saying, “He is a member of a club or society, very strongly pro-Mexican, which is all fine. But I say he’s got bias. I want to build a wall. I’m going to build a wall. I’m doing very well with the Latinos, with the Hispanics, with the Mexicans, I’m doing very well with them, in my opinion.” (The New York Times)
- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R), who is frequently named as one of the contenders on Trump’s vice presidential short list, said, “I don’t know what Trump’s reasoning was, and I don’t care. His description of the judge in terms of his parentage is completely unacceptable.” Gingrich also warned, “If Trump doesn’t start consulting and coordinating with his allies, he will not have any.” In an interview on Monday morning, Trump called Gingrich’s criticism “inappropriate.” (The Washington Post, ABC News)
Polls
- In a CBS News/YouGov poll released on Sunday, Hillary Clinton narrowly leads Bernie Sanders in California, 49 percent to 47 percent. She leads Sanders in New Jersey by a far greater margin, 61 percent to 34 percent. Sanders outperforms Clinton in both states in head-to-head general election matchups with Donald Trump: (CBS News)
- California: Clinton (48 percent) vs. Trump (33 percent);
- California: Sanders (55 percent) vs. Trump (32 percent);
- New Jersey: Clinton (49 percent) vs. Trump (34 percent);
- New Jersey: Sanders (52 percent) vs. Trump (34 percent).
Democrats
- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has reportedly been promoting U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to be Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential pick. Since Massachusetts has a Republican governor, Charlie Baker, Democrats are concerned with the rules and regulations governing how Warren’s seat would be filled if she were to accept that role. “In the event of a Senate or House vacancy, Massachusetts currently requires a special election to be held within 145 to 160 days. In the interim, the governor has the authority to appoint a successor. But Reid’s team has identified a portion of the law that allows an officeholder to start the special election clock by filing a resignation letter, but also announcing an intention to vacate the seat at a later date. In theory, Warren could file such a letter 145 days before the Jan. 20, 2017 inauguration and successfully block Baker from picking any temporary replacement,” according to The Boston Globe. (Politico, The Boston Globe)
Hillary Clinton
- Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group funded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, endorsed Hillary Clinton on Friday. “We’re doing it now because it really matters. We wanted to hear from our supporters, we wanted to take their pulse to see what they’ve been learning, and it became clear to us that it was our time to act,” said Everytown’s president, John Feinblatt, about the organization’s first-ever presidential endorsement. (Politico)
- On Sunday, Clinton was asked if she accepted the State Department inspector general report finding that she was “unmindful of the rules” governing digital communications. She said, “Everybody in the department knew that I was e-mailing from a personal address. Hundreds of people knew it. People around the government knew it. And, uh, you know, that was what the practice had been and that's what I did, as well.” She added that she has not been asked to participate in an interview for the FBI investigation into her private email server. (RealClearPolitics)
- Although Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon said on Sunday that Clinton "oftentimes" answered questions from her traveling press corps for 15 to 20 minutes at the end of the day, CNN reported that Clinton has only conducted nine of these informal sessions this year. (CNN)
- Clinton was asked on Sunday if she still supported a 25 percent sales tax on guns, as she had during a Senate Finance Committee hearing in 1993. She said she was “not going to commit to any specific proposal” and clarified that her position was motivated then by how the U.S. could create more revenue. “What I was saying back then was that we have a lot of public health costs that taxpayers end up paying for through Medicaid, Medicare, through uncompensated care, because that was in the context of the push for health care reform and that we needed some way to try to defray those costs,” she said. (ABC News)
- In an interview on Sunday, Clinton said that she expected the Democratic Party to unify after the six primaries and caucuses on Tuesday. “After Tuesday, I'm going to do everything I can to reach out, to try to unify the Democratic Party, and I expect Sen. Sanders to do the same,” she said. (CNN)
Bernie Sanders
- Bernie Sanders said on Sunday that he believed Hillary Clinton’s involvement with the Clinton Foundation was a potential conflict of interest. He said, “If you ask me about the Clinton Foundation, do I have a problem when a sitting secretary of state and a foundation run by her husband collects many millions of dollars from foreign governments, governments which are dictatorships?” Sanders continued, “You don’t have a lot of civil liberties or democratic rights in Saudi Arabia. You don’t have a lot of respect there for opposition points of view for gay rights, for women’s rights. Yes, do I have a problem with that? Yes, I do.” (The New York Times)
- Betsy Franceschini, a regional director of Latino voter outreach for the Sanders campaign, accused officials from the Puerto Rico Democratic Party of fraud because they failed to certify several poll workers from the Sanders campaign for work at correctional facilities. “Our Bernie Sanders officials were never certified. We had 40 officials we submitted in time for the prisons. Not one of them was certified, while all of theirs [Hillary Clinton’s] went in. Attorney Manny Suárez had to go in order for us to be let in. This is a great fraud,” Franceschini said. (The Hill)
- Roberto Prats, the president of the Puerto Rico Democratic Party, said on Saturday, “Ms. Franceschini is playing a preemption game because she knows of a potentially serious issue regarding one of their poll workers who took two boxes full of cast ballots from one of the prisons and later that evening delivered them to a regional elections committee center, claiming she did not know what to do with them. The matter is under investigation.” (Caribbean Business)
- Sanders said on Saturday that the Democratic National Convention in July would be a “contested convention” because Clinton “will not have the requisite number of pledged delegates to win the Democratic nomination at the end of the nominating process on June 14. Won't happen. She will be dependent on superdelegates.” (The Hill)
- Several members of the New York delegation to the national convention supporting Sanders may conduct protests inside the event, “raising the prospect of an embarrassing spectacle on prime-time TV,” Politico reported on Friday. Linda Sarsour, the executive director of the Arab-American Association of New York and an at-large delegate supporting Sanders, said, for example, “Not behaving is protesting. I’m not expecting violence or assaults, but chanting, doing mass walk-outs. It depends on what happens there. What you’re going to watch unfold is democracy. The onus is on the party to make sure our voices are heard.” (Politico)
Republicans
Donald Trump
- Donald Trump continued to respond to Hillary Clinton’s criticism on Friday, saying she was “unfit” and “not respected by other countries.” He added, “If you choose Hillary Clinton, this country is gonna die. It’s gonna die.” (Politico)
- Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) said on Friday that he would “pass on” serving as Trump’s vice president, but expressed interest in working with him. "I'll have two years left when Donald gets elected president. I want to finally have a federal partner that's going to focus on jobs," he said. Scott was scheduled to meet with Trump on Monday, but postponed the strategy meeting in order to monitor a tropical storm approaching his state. (The Hill, The Washington Post)
- Trump condemned the violence at his rally in San Jose, California, last week, calling the perpetrators “thugs.” He said that the event was "a love fest inside,” but his supporters "walked out and they got accosted by a bunch of thugs.” (Reuters)
- In an interview on Sunday, Trump appeared to reverse his position on Libya, saying that he would have supported a “surgical” strike to remove Muammar Qadhafi. During a debate in February, Trump had previously held, “We would be so much better off if Qadhafi would be in charge right now." Asked to explain this shift in policy, Trump said, “I wasn't for what happened. Look at the way — I mean look at with Benghazi and all of the problems that we've had. It was handled horribly. … I was never for strong intervention. I could have seen surgical where you take out Qadhafi and his group.” (Politico)
- On Saturday, Trump made his first congressional endorsement in a robocall to support incumbent U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.). “I need her help in Washington so we can work together to defeat ISIS, secure our border and bring back jobs and frankly, so many other things. Renee knows how to do it. She gets it. And together, we will make America great again,” Trump said in the recording. (The Washington Examiner)
- Jim Murphy, who worked on Bob Dole’s 1988 and 1996 presidential campaigns, has been selected by the Trump campaign to replace former national political director Rick Wiley. (The New York Times)
Third Party Candidates
- Mother Jones reported on Saturday that the California Green Party has lost 30 percent of its membership since Bernie Sanders launched his presidential campaign. California Green Party spokesman Mike Feinstein said he was “apoplectically mad” about the loss of support. He asserted that the Sanders campaign “intentionally went after our voters because they are low-lying fruit on the issues.” (Mother Jones)
Jill Stein (Green Party)
- In an open letter on Friday, Jill Stein encouraged Democrats and unaffiliated voters in California to vote for Bernie Sanders. “At this historic moment, as voters reject the Clinton and Trump campaigns with record high levels of dislike and mistrust, I ask not just for your vote for me, but also for your vote for Bernie. These votes are powerfully synergistic as we build an historic grassroots movement and a political vehicle to carry it forward,” she wrote. (Inquisitr)
Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party)
- Gary Johnson said on Sunday that he had not reached out to former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) or other members of the #NeverTrump movement. “I've never found it effective to reach out to anybody. When they reach out to your side, that's when it's actually effective. And that's what we're finding. People are actually reaching out to us, and I'm talking too about my running mate Bill Weld, I think it's terrific that he joined this ticket. Two republican governors serving in heavily blue states that got reelected by wide margins,” he said. Johnson also said that he did not believe he would be a “spoiler” because he took support from both Democrats and Republican. (NBC News)
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
