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Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing - November 5, 2015
From Ballotpedia
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Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential Briefing was sponsored by the Leadership Project for America. | ||||
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Thursday's Leading Stories
- Fox Business is set to announce next week’s Republican debate lineup on Thursday night. Based on recent national polls, Lindsay Graham, Bobby Jindal and George Pataki are in danger of not qualifying for the undercard debate. With some decline in their poll numbers, Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee may also be shifted from the primetime debate to the undercard debate. (ABC News)
- Poll: According to a national Fox News poll released on Wednesday, Donald Trump narrowly retains his lead over the Republican field with 26 percent to Ben Carson’s 23 percent. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio form a second tier with 11 percent each. Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee follow with 4 percent each. Hillary Clinton leads the Democratic candidates with 56 percent to Bernie Sanders’ 31 percent. Martin O’Malley has 2 percent support. (Fox News)
Democrats
Hillary Clinton
- At a town hall on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton said that climate change was a contributing factor to refugee crises, in addition to “terrible governance” and “conflict.” On Wednesday, an aide to Clinton reiterated her statement. The aide said, "As experts have noted, climate change is one of the factors that can contribute to displacement and exacerbate refugee situations.” (CNN)
- Yahoo reported on Wednesday that it had obtained a memo from the Clinton campaign on its African-American outreach strategy. According to the memo, the campaign is “focused on outreach in ‘places of worship, community centers,’ on social media, and at ‘organizing events’ held at a variety of locations ‘including at barber shops.’” (Yahoo)
- The State Department said it would be unable to meet a deadline for a FOIA request for Clinton’s “daily calendar of appointments, phone calls and meetings” when she served a secretary of state due to technical issues with Microsoft Outlook. Previous delays for this FOIA request and others have been attributed to a lack of personnel in July 2015. (Politico)
Martin O’Malley
- Martin O’Malley became the first Democratic presidential candidate to submit his papers to appear on the New Hampshire ballot, appearing in person to file. He said, “I feel like we really just turned the corner in this race. Most voters here in New Hampshire and in Iowa are only now into that decision window. Everything prior to this was pre-season. ... And it's out of our party that new leaders emerge. That's what I think is going to happen here." (The Denver Post)
- Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) accused O’Malley’s administration of “cheating” on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exams in his state by excluding some students with special needs. Hogan said, “The administration was cheating on the scores. They weren’t counting disabled, disadvantaged kids as other states were. This was the final report card for the O’Malley administration on education.” (The Washington Post)
Bernie Sanders
- Bernie Sanders introduced the Keep It in the Ground Act on Wednesday to prohibit “offshore drilling in the Arctic and the Atlantic and stops new leases and ends nonproducing leases for offshore drilling in the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico.” (U.S. Senator for Vermont, Bernie Sanders)
- Sanders also introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act on Wednesday which would “strike marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, allowing states to decide whether they want to legalize pot for recreational or medical use without federal intervention.” (The Huffington Post)
- In an interview on Wednesday, Sanders said he believed there were “valid questions” surrounding Hillary Clinton’s private email use. In reference to comments he made at the first Democratic presidential debate, he said, “You get 12 seconds to say these things. There’s an investigation going on right now. I did not say, ‘End the investigation.’ That’s silly.…Let the investigation proceed unimpeded.” (The Wall Street Journal)
Republicans
- Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump are scheduled to speak at the American Conservative Union (ACU) Conservative Political Action Conference in 2016. Chairman of the ACU Matt Schlapp said, “This is the year of the conservative grassroots activist. We need to restore and protect our Constitutional freedoms and put a stop to Obama’s liberal run-away train. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina are each battling to represent conservatives in the nomination contest, and CPAC 2016 will allow activists to hear their vision.” (Breitbart)
- Dante Ramos of The Boston Globe commented on why many Republican candidates remained in the presidential race despite poor poll numbers. He wrote, “Trump and Ben Carson, the outsider front-runners, are only polling in the 20s, and few prognosticators give either one much chance of winning a general election. Among the candidates with more conventional backgrounds, there’s not much distance between the back of the pack and the front. In the Real Clear Politics polling average earlier this week, only 8 points separated Lindsey Graham and Bobby Jindal from third-place Marco Rubio.” (The Boston Globe)
Jeb Bush
- In a phone call with donors on Wednesday, Jeb Bush attempted to allay concerns over his performance in the debates and declining poll numbers. “I promise you I'll do better. All the nervous nellies on the call, chill out. We're going to do better, I promise you. And this is going to be a fun campaign,” said Bush. (NBC News)
- Bush apologized for comparing Marco Rubio’s attendance in the Senate to a “French work week.” He said, “I now know that the average French work week is actually greater than the German work week. So, my God, I totally insulted an entire country—our first ally—that helped us become free as a nation! And I apologize. That did a huge disservice to France. It didn’t really get to the magnitude of the problem: Three day work week.” (TIME)
- On Wednesday, Bush expressed opposition to the Federal Drug Administration’s approval of a slow-release OxyContin for children. “This is not appropriate. We have to take a pause and recognize that pain is part of life. You have to monitor pain and deal with it. But overprescribing creates all sorts of adverse problems as well,” he said. (Politico)
Ben Carson
- On Wednesday, BuzzFeed posted footage from a 1998 commencement address where Ben Carson said the Egyptian pyramids were built to store grain by the biblical figure Joseph rather than as a tomb for pharaohs, a predominant theory among archeologists. Michael E. Miller of The Washington Post noted the Internet “overflowed with scorn” in response to the article, but suggested some of Carson’s critics were ignoring the context. He wrote, “First, there was the rest of the video: roughly 14 more minutes that frame Carson’s pyramid quote in the context of a bigger critique of both science and ignorance. Second, it’s precisely that critique, that strange blend of surgical knowledge and scientific skepticism, that may have Carson positioned atop polls in Iowa and in contention for the GOP presidential nomination.” (BuzzFeed, The Washington Post)
- When asked about the “wet-foot, dry-foot policy” and Cuban Adjustment Act, which give Cubans special immigration status, Carson said he was not familiar with either. “I have to admit that I don’t know a great deal about that, and I don’t really like to comment until I’ve had a chance to study the issue from both sides,” he said. (Miami Herald)
Chris Christie
- A video of Chris Christie discussing treatment for addicts and how addiction has touched his life has gone viral with 3 million views. “Christie isn't the first candidate to talk about treatment rather than incarceration -- his fellow Republican Rand Paul has long decried the disproportionate jailing of black drug offenders. Christie's just the first to get so much attention. It's become a safe topic now that the scourge is devastating the middle class,” wrote Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg View. (The New York Times, Bloomberg View)
- According to recent national polls, Christie averages 2.25 percent support. This places Christie below the threshold for participation in the primetime debate. (Business Insider)
Ted Cruz
- Ted Cruz introduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act on Tuesday seeking to express the “sense of Congress” that the Muslim Brotherhood qualified as a terrorist organization and to require the State Department respond in 60 days whether it agreed. (The Hill)
- In an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on Tuesday, Kelly questioned how Cruz would implement his suggestion that only conservatives moderate Republican presidential primary debates. “Do you have any idea whether Bret Baier or Chris Wallace have voted in a Republican primary?” Kelly asked. Cruz responded, “My guess is that they probably have voted in a Republican primary. I can certainly tell you that Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly are not liberals.” (The Huffington Post)
Carly Fiorina
- The Hill published a profile of Frank Fiorina, Carly Fiorina’s husband, on Wednesday. “In 1998, Frank, then 48, recognizing that Carly was the family's star, took early retirement from AT&T in order to run their house and support Carly. He accompanied her on business trips and served as her armed bodyguard,” The Hill reported. (The Hill)
Jim Gilmore
- On Wednesday, Jim Gilmore visited the Henrico County Jail West in New Hampshire to learn about the community’s struggles with heroin addiction. “What is going on in New Hampshire, a beautiful land of mountains and small towns, is frightening. That it’s happening there makes no sense, but it’s what people are talking about and I want to be ready. I want to know what I’m talking about,” Gilmore said. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Lindsey Graham
- Lindsey Graham said on Wednesday he did not believe allegations a Russian passenger jet had been downed by a terrorist act would change Russia’s policy in Syria. He said, “It’s laughable when I hear people saying, ‘Oh, Russia is in a bad spot.’ Russia is going to have a warm water port, they’re going to have an air base, they’re going to have control over Damascus, because if it’s not Assad, it will be some puppet of Iran and Russia controlling Syria.” He added, “It’s not like they don’t care about their people. But the equation here that somehow Russia’s going to back off and leave their interests, abandon their interests in Syria because of this terrorist attack is really laughable.” (Daily Caller)
Bobby Jindal
- Bobby Jindal said on Wednesday that the U.S. needs to promote assimilation to avoid “what’s happening in Europe” with “second and third generation immigrants that don’t consider themselves parts of those societies, those cultures, those values.” Jindal said, “One of the things that America is so proud of is, and rightfully so, we have been this melting pot for so long. The Left doesn’t want that anymore. They want to call us a salad bowl. They think it is culturally arrogant, or xenophobic, to insist that people that want to come to America to assimilate, and that’s nonsense. … Let’s be really honest about this: Immigration without assimilation is not immigration; it’s an invasion.” (Breitbart)
John Kasich
- When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper how he would respond to unofficial reports that the Russian airliner that crashed in the Sinai was downed by a bomb, John Kasich said securing “robust intelligence” was essential. He added, “I would just hope that our Western friends and people that share our Western values would realize that the time has come to destroy ISIS as part of a coalition. And if that means that U.S. boots have to be on the ground, so be it, because to allow this to linger, to put this off, to think that somehow this is going to go away is naive at best.” (CNN)
George Pataki
- Americans for Tax Reform announced on Wednesday that George Pataki had signed a pledge to “oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes.” (Americans for Tax Reform)
Rand Paul
- On Wednesday, Rand Paul reintroduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2015 to bypass a committee vote and place it directly on the Senate calendar. “The Fed operating under a cloak of secrecy has gone on for far too long. The American people have a right to know exactly how Washington is spending their money. The time to act is now," Paul said. A vote has not yet been scheduled. (The Hill, U.S. Senator for Kentucky, Rand Paul)
Marco Rubio
- Marco Rubio dismissed allegations he had used a Republican Party of Florida credit card for personal expenses on Wednesday. "It wasn't a credit card, it was an American Express charge card secured under my personal credit in conjunction with the party. …If there was a personal expense, I paid it. If it was a party expense, the party paid it. Now, I recognize in hindsight, I would do it different to avoid all this confusion. But the Republican Party never paid a single expense of mine -- personal expense,” he said. (CNN)
- At a campaign event in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Rubio distinguished between communism and socialism after an attendee suggested his family had escaped from the latter. “In fairness, they fled communism. There is social democracy, right, like you see in Europe, where government provides for every aspect of your life, but there's consequence to that. They fled communism, which is beyond socialism, obviously where government controls society, but also government controls politics, life, the banning of religion, people were being executed,” Rubio said. He added that although he does not believe socialism would work in America, he “appreciate[s]” that Sanders is “honest” about his political beliefs. (CNN)
- U.S. Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) became the third senator to endorse Rubio this week. “Having worked with Senator Rubio since his early days in the Senate, I have been greatly impressed with his understanding and quick grasp of the serious issues that arise here. … Marco brings a fresh view to the many challenges facing America today, domestically with our serious financial problems and internationally with our security and standing on the world stage both dramatically deteriorating,” Risch said in a statement. (Politico)
- Rubio said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program “cannot be a permanent policy of the United States” on Wednesday. He added that ideally it would end because Congress had passed comprehensive immigration reform. (The Huffington Post)
Rick Santorum
- When asked if he supported anti-discrimination rulings for transgender youth, Rick Santorum said on Tuesday, “I don’t know why children at that age — why this is even an issue, the idea that we are introducing this type of real dangerous confusion for young people at this early age. … I mean, this is really dangerous, and it’s going too far because it is having an impact on not just folks who may be in a difficult situation at an early age but many who would never have been in that situation but now are being confronted with it.” (The Advocate)
Donald Trump
- Donald Trump has released his first radio ads in a $300,000 ad buy in Iowa, New Hampshire South Carolina. In one, a narrator says, “Donald Trump will protect Israel, and brutally and quickly cut the head off of ISIS." Another narrator states, “He will negotiate great trade deals and make our military so strong no country will ever mess with us.” (Politico)
- Trump again said the media was unfairly reported on him in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. Singling out CNN’s Sara Murray, he said, “You [Tapper] are top notch. I don’t see it with Sara Murray. … She never reports on my crowd sizes … never scans the room and shows the tremendous crowds I’m getting.” He added that “either she’s a very unemotional person or she’s not a very good reporter, one or the other.” (The Washington Post)
- On Wednesday, Trump removed a retweet on his Twitter account featuring images of Jeb Bush with a swastika next to his face and wearing a sombrero. The tweet read, “ADIOS, JEB aka JOSÉ." Trump’s spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said, "He did not see the accompanying image and the retweet has since been deleted.” (CNN)
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
