Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing - March 11, 2016
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Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential Briefing was sponsored by the Leadership Project for America. | ||||
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Friday's Leading Stories
- According to a Ballotpedia Insider’s Poll, Hillary Clinton was the “biggest winner” of Wednesday’s Democratic debate. “Clinton held up well under a barrage of questions that one way or another cut to her character.” (Ballotpedia)
- Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) endorsed Ted Cruz on Thursday. In a statement, he said, “Ted has kept those promises and every other promise he has made to the people of Texas. It is with that trust that he's earned that he's going to move forward and unite our party.” Lee is the first senator to endorse Cruz in the Republican presidential race. (CNN)
- Ben Carson endorsed Donald Trump on Friday morning at Mar-a-Lago, a club owned by Trump. He said of Trump, “He's actually a very intelligent man who cares deeply about America. There's two different Donald Trumps. There's the one you see on stage and the one that's very cerebral, sits there and considers things very carefully.” Carson and Trump reportedly met at the club on Thursday morning to finalize the endorsement, and Trump publicly announced the endorsement during Thursday’sRepublican debate. (CNN)
Polls
- A Civitas poll of 500 likely Democratic voters in North Carolina shows Hillary Clinton leading with 57% to Sanders’ 28%. A poll of 500 likely Republican voters was also conducted, showing Donald Trump leading the field with 32%, followed by Ted Cruz with 26%. Marco Rubio and John Kasich both trailed with 11%. (Civitas)
- A Florida poll conducted by Opinion Savvy and sponsored by the Florida Times-Union of 590 likely Republican voters shows Donald Trump leading with 43%, followed by Marco Rubio with 24%. Ted Cruz got 21% and John Kasich trailed with 10%. The poll was conducted on March 9. (Opinion Savvy)
- Polls of 400 likely Republican and Democratic primary voters in Maryland were conducted by OpinionWorks of Annapolis for The Baltimore Sun. The Democratic poll shows HiIllary Clinton leading with 61% to Bernie Sanders’ 28%. The Republican poll shows Donald Trump in the lead with 34%. Cruz followed with 25%, while Kasich took 18% and Rubio 14%. (The Baltimore Sun)
Democrats
Hillary Clinton
- On Thursday night, Hillary Clinton held a rally in Vernon Hills, a northern suburb of Chicago. At the event, she criticized Republican candidates and in particular Donald Trump. She said, “I listen to some of the other candidates, they are so pessimistic, so negative about us. I'll tell you that's not how I see us and our country. I don't think you make America great by tearing down everything that made America great in the first place.” (The Chicago Tribune)
- In response to a tweet quoting the man who punched a protester at a Trump rally saying, “Yes, he deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him,” Clinton responded with a Facebook post saying “This kind of behavior is repugnant. We set the tone for our campaigns—we should encourage respect, not violence.” During the Republican debate, Clinton also tweeted at Donald Trump, “condoning violence against protesters and press at your rallies is the real disgrace.” (Facebook, Twitter)
- Clinton also tweeted about climate change on Thursday night. She said, “Climate change is too urgent a threat to wait on Congress. Proud of the US-Canada announcement to take steps to reduce methane emissions.” (Twitter)
Bernie Sanders
- While campaigning in Florida, Sanders spoke to thousands of supporters, urging them to get out and vote for him despite polls showing him trailing significantly in Florida. He likened the state to Michigan, saying, “This coming Tuesday, you have a very important primary here in Florida. Now, about a week ago, we were 20 or 30 points behind in Michigan, and what all of the pundits said and what all of the media said, ‘Bernie Sanders and the political revolution can’t win in Michigan.’ Guess what? We won in Michigan. If you come out and your friends and family and neighbors come out, we are going to win here in Florida.” (The New York Times)
- On Wednesday night, Bernie Sanders tweeted his support for the Chicago Teacher’s Union after the union announced plans for a one-day strike. He tweeted, “I stand with Chicago teachers. We shouldn't close schools and lay off teachers to reward Wall Street.”(NBC Chicago)
Republicans
- The following comments from last night’s Republican debate in Miami, Florida, are from an annotated transcript prepared by The Washington Post
Ted Cruz
- On why the illegal immigration problem has not been solved yet: “The Democrats support illegal immigration because they view those illegal immigrants as potential voters and far too many of the Republicans are doing the bidding of Wall Street and the special interest and they view it as cheap labor. We need instead leadership that works for the working men and women of this country. We need an immigration system that takes care of the jobs of the working men and women of this country.”
- On Common Core: “Common Core is a disaster. And if I am elected president, in the first days as president, I will direct the Department of Education that Common Core ends that day.”
- On Donald Trump’s foreign policy: “But the answer is not simply to yell, "China bad, Muslims bad." You've got to understand the nature of the threats we're facing and how you deal with them. And yes, it is true there are millions of radical Islamic terrorists who seek to kill us. We need a president, commander in chief focused on fighting them. And I'll tell you, frankly one concern I have with Donald is that although his language is quite incendiary, when you look at his substantive policies on Iran, he has said he would not rip up this Iranian nuclear deal. I think that's a mistake.”
- On the potential for a contested Republican convention: “You know, there are some in Washington who are having fevered dreams of a brokered convention. They are unhappy with how the people are voting and they want to parachute in their favored Washington candidate to be the nominee. I think that would be an absolute disaster and we need to respect the will of the voters.”
John Kasich
- On his advocacy for trade deals: “But my position has always been we want to have free trade, but fair trade. And I've been arguing all along that it is absolutely critical that when other countries break those agreements, we don't turn the process over to some international bureaucrat who comes back a couple years later and says, "Oh, America was right," and people are out of work.”
- On legal immigration: “Immigration is something that brings youth and vibrance and energy to our country. But we clearly have to control our borders. We can't have people just walking in. Look, we lock our doors at night in our homes. The country has to be able to lock its doors as well. So, we -- I have a comprehensive plan to deal with this problem of immigration.”
- On the Veterans Affairs Department: “And let me just say about the V.A. When a veteran comes home, they ought to have access to healthcare wherever they want to go at any time, number one. Number two, the Veterans Administration needs to be restructured. It needs to be downsized and spread out. It needs to be so responsive to the needs of the veterans.”
- On climate change: “Well, I -- I do believe we contribute to climate change, but I don't think it has to be a, you know, either you're for some environmental stringent rules or, you know, you're not going to have any jobs. The fact is, you can have both... We want all the sources of energy. We want to dig coal, but we want to clean it when we burn it. We believe in natural gas. We believe in nuclear power. And you know what else I believe in? I happen to believe in solar energy, wind energy, efficiency, renewables matter.”
Marco Rubio
- On the H-1B visa program which allowed Disney to replace American workers with foreign workers: “If it's being abused the way Disney did. Understand that program, it is illegal now under that program to use it to replace American workers. Under that program, you have to prove not only that you're not replacing Americans, but that you've tried to hire Americans. And if a company is caught abusing that process, they should never be allowed to use it again.”
- On increasing the retirement age: “So the thing is that my -- my generation, someone my age would retire at 68. We would continue to allow it to increase the retirement age for future generations until it hit 70. And so my children would retire at 70. I would retire at 68. It would be a graduating scale over a period of time.”
- On Donald Trump’s plan to save Social Security by eliminating “waste fraud and abuse”: The numbers don't add up. You know, when I ran for the Senate in 2010, I came out and said we're going to have to make changes to Social Security, and everyone said that's the end of your campaign. In Florida, you can't talk about that, but people know that it's the truth here in Florida. Fraud is not enough. Certainly, let's wipe out the fraud, but as you said, it won't add up.”
- On climate change legislation: “If we pass -- if you took the gift list of all of these groups that are asking us to pass these laws and did every single one of them, there would be no change in our environment. Sea level would still rise. All these other things that are happening would continue to go on for a lot of different reasons. One, because America is not a planet. It's a country. And number two, because these other countries like India and China are more than making up in carbon emissions for whatever we could possibly cut.”
Donald Trump
- On whether he meant all Muslims hate us when he said “Islam hates us”: “I mean a lot of them. I mean a lot of them. Well, you know, I've been watching the debate today. And they're talking about radical Islamic terrorism or radical Islam. But I will tell you this. There's something going on that maybe you don't know about, maybe a lot of other people don't know about, but there's tremendous hatred. And I will stick with exactly what I said to Anderson Cooper.”
- On the potential for a contested Republican convention: “First of all, I think I'm going to have the delegates, OK? I think that whoever gets the most delegates should win. That's what I think.”
- On Israel: “First of all, there's nobody on this stage that's more pro Israel than I am. OK. There's nobody... I'm a negotiator. If I go in, I'll say I'm pro-Israel and I've told that to everybody and anybody that would listen. But I would like to at least have the other side think I'm somewhat neutral as to them, so that we can maybe get a deal done. Maybe we can get a deal. I think it's probably the toughest negotiation of all time. But maybe we can get a deal done.”
- On the violence that took place at a Trump rally in North Carolina: “There is some anger. There's also great love for the country. It's a beautiful thing in many respects. But I certainly do not condone that at all, Jake.”
- On authoritarian dictators: “...strong doesn't mean good. Putin is a strong leader, absolutely. I could name many strong leaders. I could name very many very weak leaders. But he is a strong leader. Now I don't say that in a good way or a bad way. I say it as a fact.”
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
