A new Fox News poll finds Joe Biden holding on to a steady lead from a pre-debate poll in the latest piece of good polling news for the former vice president after faltering in the first debate.
“The former vice president leads the field with 33%. He’s followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 15%, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 12% and Sen. Kamala Harris’ 10%.”
President Trump renewed his attacks on Fox News, complaining that the network’s pollsters weren’t favorable enough to him, Politico reports.
“The poll he appears to be referencing shows the president losing a handful of hypothetical matchups against 2020 frontrunners. The national survey found that Trump would lose to Joe Biden by 10 points, and to Sen. Bernie Sanders by 6 points. It showed him beating both Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, though, by a slim 1-point margin, within the poll’s margin of error.”
Philip Bump: “Now, we will hasten to point out that Trump’s objection to Fox News polling is possibly largely due to the fact that they’re good polls. Fox’s on-air programming is often heavily weighted in Trump’s favor, but their polling isn’t.”
“After recruiting thousands of donors for the American Conservative Union — the powerful organization behind the annual CPAC conference — a Republican political operative pushed the same contributors to give millions to a PAC that promised to go after then-President Barack Obama, but then steered much of their donations to himself and his partners,” ProPublica reports.
“The PAC, called the Conservative Majority Fund, has raised nearly $10 million since mid-2012 and continues to solicit funds to this day, primarily from thousands of steadfast contributors to conservative causes, many of them senior citizens. But it has made just $48,400 in political contributions to candidates and committees.”
“Wealthy Republican donors frightened of a socialist takeover in Washington have boosted support for House Republicans despite concerns about the party’s direction, providing a ray of hope for recapturing the majority in 2020,” the Washington Examiner reports.
“Democrats scoff at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for insisting Democrats in Congress are a bunch of socialists led by ‘the squad,’ … But the message is paying dividends, literally, with Republican donors writing five, six and seven figure checks to the party’s congressional campaign committees and affiliated super PACs.”
“President Trump, his top political advisers and congressional leaders gathered for an extensive political briefing at the White House on Thursday — and one topic of discussion centered on which Democratic candidates pose the biggest threat to his reelection,” Politico reports.
“Toward the end of the meeting, Trump, who was joined in the Blue Room by Vice President Mike Pence, went around the room and asked for opinions on the Democratic contenders. Campaign manager Brad Parscale noted that Elizabeth Warren was rising, Republican National committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said Kamala Harris could pose a threat in Michigan, and Trump 2020 adviser Bill Stepien highlighted Joe Biden as a potentially formidable threat.”
Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) announced that he is retiring from Congress, the Texas Tribune reports. “The retirement sets up what will likely be one of the most competitive House races in the country. Olson narrowly won re-election last year against Sri Kulkarni (D), who is running again.”
“A pro-Trump Republican candidate for Congress who is aiming to unseat Ilhan Omar in Minnesota has been charged with a felony after allegedly stealing from stores,” the Guardian reports.
“Danielle Stella was arrested twice this year in Minneapolis suburbs over allegations that she shoplifted items worth more than $2,300 from a Target and goods valued at $40 from a grocery store.”
Associated Press: “The upcoming presidential campaign offers a critical test for Democrats of whether they can ever again rely on the multiracial coalition that helped propel Obama to the White House twice. Young black voters… are critical to that effort, especially in states like Michigan, which Democrats lost by just over 10,000 votes in 2016, ceding a state that hadn’t backed a Republican since 1988. Reclaiming it, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, would put Democrats on a firmer path to the presidency.”
“Black voters are the base of the Democratic Party and its most consistent and loyal voting bloc. Black people voted in record numbers for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton in 2016.”
“But nationally, the African American turnout rate dropped 7 percentage points in 2016 from its record high during Obama’s 2012 reelection, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Other groups did not see a comparable decrease — white turnout increased slightly while Latinos held steady.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign is set to announce on Friday that it has received more than 1 million donations this election, CNN reports.
“It will bolster the argument that the Warren team’s big bet on small-dollar and grassroots fundraising is working — the senator has vowed not to solicit money from wealthy donors, including in phone calls and fundraisers, during the primaries.”
Nate Silver: “Last week, I noted that Bernie Sanders is winning over Democratic primary voters on health care. Whether you love, hate or are indifferent toward his ‘Medicare for All’ plan, polls show Sanders leading when Democratic voters are asked which candidate they think is best able handle to health care.”
“The thing is, though — according to new polling from Marist College this week — Sanders’s plan isn’t actually the most popular idea in the field. Instead, that distinction belongs to what Marist calls ‘Medicare for all that want it,’ or what’s sometimes called a public option — something very similar to Joe Biden’s recently unveiled health care plan, which claims to give almost everyone ‘the choice to purchase a public health insurance option like Medicare.’”
“In the Marist poll, 90% of Democrats thought a plan that provided for a public option was a good idea, as compared to 64% who supported a Sanders-style Medicare for All plan that would replace private health insurance. The popularity of the public option also carries over to independent voters: 70% support it, as compared to 39% for Medicare for All.”
Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) said she will not stand for re-election next year, the Montgomery Advertiser reports. Roby did not specify a reason for her departure from Congress in a statement emailed on Friday and posted on Twitter.
Roll Call: “Roby is one of just 13 Republican women in the House. She’s the second Republican woman to announce her retirement, following Indiana’s Susan W. Brooks and the fifth Republican to announce this year that they will not run for re-election.”
Joshua Green: “One way to understand her urgency is as the result of a radicalizing moment: Trump’s victory. Four years ago there was talk of a Warren presidential campaign, but she decided not to run, wagering that the best shot to enact her agenda was by working through a powerful Democrat she believed could win—Hillary Clinton. People close to her say Trump’s surprise election left her shocked and filled with regret.”
“Friends say what’s driving her now is a desire to correct that mistake and a conviction that Trump’s election showed voters want change on a scale most Democrats don’t comprehend. She believes Democrats lost in 2016 because they were timid. Trump ditched Republican orthodoxies and brought along union members, blue-collar workers, and other traditionally Democratic voters in the bargain. Warren is making a big bet that taking Trump down requires beating him at his own game: go big and bold or risk losing again on warmed-over incrementalism. That’s why the sweep of her agenda aims for the New Deal or the Great Society.”
Gillibrand and not Gabbard on ending military adventures. No.