A new Fox News poll finds 51% of voters want President Trump impeached and removed from office, while another 4% want him impeached but not removed, and 40% oppose impeachment altogether.
“Since July, support for impeachment increased among voters of all stripes: up 11 points among Democrats, 5 points among Republicans, and 3 among independents. Support also went up among some of Trump’s key constituencies, including white evangelical Christians (+5 points), white men without a college degree (+8), and rural whites (+10).”
A new PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist poll finds 52% of Americans said they supported the House impeachment inquiry, and 49% of U.S. adults said President Trump should be impeached. When asked what should happen after he is impeached, 48% of Americans said Trump should be removed from office.
A new Gallup poll finds 70% of Democrats and 67% of Republicans say they’ve given “quite a lot” of thought to the 2020 presidential race, while 50% of independents said the same.
“Democratic parity with Republicans on election thought — as is the case now — is uncommon… However, Democrats’ staunch opposition to Trump may have ushered in an era when politics is as top-of-mind for Democrats as it is for Republicans.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders “tamped down on speculation that he would slow his presidential campaign after he suffered a heart attack last week, saying he plans to compete as vigorously as ever for the 2020 Democratic nomination,” NBC News reports.
Said Sanders: “I misspoke the other day, I said a word I should not have said and media drives me a little bit nuts to make a big deal about it. We’re going to get back into the groove of a very vigorous campaign, I love doing rallies and I love doing town meetings.” He added: “I want to start off slower and build up and build up and build up.”
Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) repeatedly refused to answer a “hypothetical question” from KDVR about whether it would be acceptable for a president to request election assistance from a foreign power.
“Presidential candidates often keep a running list of influential individuals who they will informally call for ideas, advice, and, perhaps, to scope them out as a potential running mate,” the Daily Beast reports.
“And for several candidates, including at least one in the top tier, former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum is on speed dial. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), in particular, has been in contact with Gillum over the past several months.”
“Two sources said the talks between Warren and Gillum resemble the kind of courtship that happens when a leading presidential candidate is exploring potential vice presidential contenders.”
A new Pew Research survey finds that 55% of Republicans say Democrats are “more immoral” when compared with other Americans; 47% of Democrats say the same about Republicans. Three years ago, 47% of Republicans and 35% of Democrats said members of the other party were less moral than other people.
For the most part, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to ascribe negative characteristics to people in the opposing party, with one exception: 75% of Democrats say Republicans are ‘more closed-minded’ than other Americans, while 64% of Republicans say the same about Democrats.
New York Times: “Republicans have tried to brand her as a socialist, attack her policy ideas and portray her as too left-wing for the American electorate. None of those arguments have diminished her political momentum, robust fund-raising or polling.”
“But in the past week, conservative news sites have challenged Ms. Warren’s story about how a public school principal forced her out of a teaching job in 1971 because she was ‘visibly pregnant,’ and the Republican National Committee grabbed onto the issue to wage its own attack. In doing so, Republicans employed a tactic — questioning a female candidate’s authenticity — that is at once often a sexist trope in politics and a strategy used against Hillary Clinton in 2016.”
Margaret Sullivan looks at the story that challenged Elizabeth Warren’s claim that she was fired as a teacher for being pregnant and concludes, “A news report can be narrowly factual, and still plenty unfair.”
“There is no big controversy here. No apparent lie and no ‘character issue’ that should unduly concern the voting public. If there is a scandal here, it’s how — in the bad-faith media world — narrowly presented facts without sufficient context can do unfair harm.”
“They can and will be weaponized, falsely regurgitated and twisted beyond recognition.”
George Will: “The canine loyalty of Senate Republicans will keep Trump in office. But until he complies with House committee subpoenas, the House must not limply hope federal judges will enforce their oversight powers. Instead, the House should wield its fundamental power, that of the purse, to impose excruciating costs on executive branch noncompliance. This can be done.”
“In 13 months, all congressional Republicans who have not defended Congress by exercising ‘the constitutional rights of the place’ should be defeated. If congressional Republicans continue their genuflections at Trump’s altar, the appropriate 2020 outcome will be a Republican thrashing so severe — losing the House, the Senate and the electoral votes of, say, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and even Texas — that even this party of slow-learning careerists might notice the hazards of tethering their careers to a downward-spiraling scofflaw.”
“In a statement to NBC News, the Warren campaign clarified that the candidate would indeed attend high-dollar events for the party (where individuals can donate tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars) — though not for the campaign (where the maximum primary and general election donation is a combined $5,600).”
Warren previously said she would forgo big money events if nominated.
Wall Street Journal: “When Donald Trump took the stage last month in Fayetteville, N.C., to support Republican candidate Dan Bishop in a special election, thousands of people showed up.”
“Unknown to the crowd, the Committee to Defend the President, a Republican political-action committee that supports Mr. Trump, had hired a company to collect unique identification numbers from attendees’ smartphones that evening, based on location data those phones were sending to third parties. The goal was to target ads at people it could drive to the polls the next day. Mr. Bishop won by about 3,800 votes.”
“The PAC now plans to use the technique, which is called geofencing, in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election in about half a dozen swing states to find people who may not be registered to vote, said its chairman, Ted Harvey.”
Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) told KMOX that President Trump’s decision to pullout of Syria was “terrible and despicable.” Shimkus added that he told staff “to take my name off the I support Donald Trump list” and that he is “saddened for the Kurdish people.” Shimkus is not running for re-election.
House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) announced that she is not running for reelection, Roll Call reports.
“Amy McGrath, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s leading Democratic opponent in the 2020 Kentucky Senate race, raised $10.7 million in the third quarter of 2019 after launching her campaign in July,” CBS News reports.
Bloomberg: “Trump super-PAC America First Action has placed Georgia among its six ‘tier one’ states that it will compete heavily in — along with the perennially competitive swing states of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan. Now they say they’re prepared to pour resources into hanging on to what has been a conservative bastion.”
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) says she may boycott the Democratic presidential debate next week, accusing the Democratic National Committee and media of “rigging” the primary contest against outsider candidates such as herself, The Hill reports.
Gabbard pointed to what she described as “arbitrary” and nontransparent qualification requirements as evidence party leaders “are trying to hijack the entire election process.”
Good.
The DiFi endorsement is not a good look for Biden. It’s also a pretty clear snub of Harris.
Scolding a child for caring about the future of the planet is her legacy. Cant change my mind.