Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing - March 25, 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
- The personal feud between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz escalated on Thursday after Trump retweeted an image juxtaposing Melania Trump with Heidi Cruz. “No need to ‘spill the beans.’ The images are worth a thousand words,” the tweet was captioned. On Thursday, Cruz said, “I don't get angry often. But you mess with my kids, you mess with my wife, Donald, you’re a sniveling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone!” He added, “Donald does seem to have an issue with women. Donald doesn’t like strong women. Strong women scare Donald and Donald is scared a lot these days.” (ABC News, TIME)
Polls
- According to a poll from the Public Policy Institute of California released on Thursday, Donald Trump leads Ted Cruz in California, 38 percent to 27 percent. Hillary Clinton tops Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race with 48 percent to Sanders’ 41 percent. (Public Policy Institute of California)
Democrats
Hillary Clinton
- Resi Cooper, an aide to Hillary Clinton during her Senate days, has joined Clinton’s presidential campaign as its New York state director. (The New York Times)
- During a roundtable in Los Angeles on Thursday, Clinton warned against the use of “hot rhetoric and...demagoguery” in counterterrorism discussion, describing it as “not only often offensive, but dangerous.” She continued, “We cannot allow our nation to be pitting groups of people against one another, we cannot give in to panic and fear. It's not in keeping with our values, it's not effective in protecting us and it plays into the hands of terrorists who want nothing more than to intimidate and terrorize people, turn against each other--which leads to radicalizing more people and creating even greater problems for us.” (CBS News)
- The Daily Caller reported on Thursday that Clinton only received one briefing during her tenure as secretary of state on the proper handling of classified documents, even though State Department regulations require at least one security training each year. (The Daily Caller)
Bernie Sanders
- The International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union, which represents 50,000 members in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii, endorsed Bernie Sanders on Thursday. (The Huffington Post)
- Following Sanders’ decisive victory in the Idaho caucuses this week, Idaho superdelegate Pete Gertonson said that he would cast his vote for Sanders. (Politico)
- Ahead of a court-ordered deadline on Thursday, Sanders’ campaign filed a lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee over access to voter information files. The filing notes that both parties will "continue to engage in cooperative discussions in their efforts to resolve the pending litigation.” (The Hill)
- According to The Huffington Post, Sanders said that if he did not “make it” to the Democratic nomination, he would back Hillary Clinton if she supported the following policies: “a single-payer health care system, a $15 an hour minimum wage, tougher regulation of the finance industry, closing corporate tax loopholes and ‘a vigorous effort to address climate change.’” (The Huffington Post)
Republicans
- Thousands have signed an online petition to permit the open carry of guns at the Republican National Convention. "We must take a stand. We cannot allow the national nominating convention of the party of Lincoln and Reagan to be hijacked by weakness and political correctness. The policies of the Quicken Loans Arena do not supersede the rights given to us by our Creator in the U.S. Constitution,” the petition reads. Although Ohio is an open carry state, the venue of the convention, the Quicken Loans Arena, prohibits “weapons of any kind.” (U.S. News & World Report)
Ted Cruz
- The New York Appellate Division upheld on Thursday the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging Ted Cruz’s eligibility to appear on the ballot because he was born in Canada. Since the case was dismissed because the petitioners had filed too late, its merits were not discussed. (Reuters)
- On Thursday, The New York Times profiled Cruz’s half-sister, Miriam Cruz, who died in 2011 due to an accidental drug overdose. Although Cruz has rarely discussed Miriam on the campaign trail and declined to be interviewed for the article, he has tacitly referenced her before discussing his support for strengthening border security to reduce the flow of illegal drug traffic. (The New York Times)
- When Cruz was asked on Thursday if he would support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee given Trump’s negative comments regarding his wife, Cruz repeated three times that “Donald Trump will not be the nominee.” (CNN)
John Kasich
- Although U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) endorsed Ted Cruz, he said on Thursday that John Kasich would make a better president. (Politico)
- Kasich’s campaign named state Sen. Tony Hwang (R) as the chair of his campaign in Connecticut on Thursday. "We need to elect leaders who have made positive differences in governing, not just rhetoric and anger to raise false hopes, Hwang said in a statement. (The Hartford Courant)
- An ad released by Club for Growth on Thursday and set to begin airing in Wisconsin on Saturday argues that Kasich cannot defeat Donald Trump. “A vote for Kasich actually helps Trump by dividing the opposition. It’s time to put differences aside. To stop Trump, vote for Cruz,” the narrator says. (The Hill)
Donald Trump
- According to Kantar Media, groups opposing Donald Trump’s candidacy have spent $67 million on advertising. The most-aired ad, “Serious,” portrays Trump as "erratic" and "unreliable.” (CNN)
- Although former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R) has not formally endorsed Trump, he has reportedly been advocating for him in private settings. “For some time now Gingrich has been stumping for Trump behind the scenes, on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Last week in a closed-door meeting before more than 100 Republican chiefs of staff from the House and Senate in Baltimore, Gingrich raved about the Republican frontrunner, calling him a ‘blue-collar bar room brawler,’” The Daily Beast noted. (The Daily Beast)
- On Thursday, Trump continued to criticize the mission and expense of NATO. He tweeted that the alliance “is obsolete and must be changed to additionally focus on terrorism as well as some of the things it is currently focused on” and that the U.S. shoulders “a disproportionate share” of its cost. (Politico)
- In a nine-minute video released by the Islamic State to celebrate the Brussels terrorist attacks on Thursday, comments Trump made in a phone interview about the city are featured. “Brussels was one of the great cities — one of the most beautiful cities of the world 20 years ago — and safe. And now it’s a horror show — an absolute horror show,” Trump says. (The Washington Post)
- U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) intensified her criticism of Trump on Thursday, telling reporters, “Donald Trump claims that the reason he’s qualified to be president of the United States is that he is a very, very, very successful businessman. Donald Trump inherited a fortune from his father and then he maintained it by cheating people, by defrauding people and by skipping out on paying his creditors through Chapter 11.” She also responded to Trump calling her “the Indian” earlier this week, referencing her history of self-identification as Native American. “Scott Brown tried the same sort of thing, and if Donald Trump thinks that by using Scott Brown’s hate-filled attacks on my family that he’s going to shut me down, then he better think again,” she said. (TIME)
Third Party Candidates
Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party)
- According to a Monmouth University poll released on Thursday, Gary Johnson would win 11 percent of the vote against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in a general election contest. Clinton would take the top spot with 42 percent support and Trump would follow with 34 percent. (Monmouth University)
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
