Fascinating post from Charles Stewart: Donald Trump’s relentless messaging about a “rigged election” is having an effect on the confidence voters have that their votes will be counted accurately. But, it’s not the effect you think. I came to this … Continue reading
Category Archives: campaigns
Here’s Jennifer Rubin in today’s WaPo: Claims of massive fraud and efforts to discredit the election system are preposterous on their face, but injurious to our democratic system. Long before Trump arrived on the scene Republicans helped manufacture an environment … Continue reading
WaPo: At a campaign rally here Monday evening, Dave Radtke, 66, said he expects Democrats will load people on buses in Chicago and bring them to Wisconsin to vote, where legal residents are allowed to register on Election Day. Josh Eilers, 22, said … Continue reading
WaPo: Donald Trump’s escalating effort to undermine the presidential election as “rigged” has alarmed government officials administering the vote as well as Democratic and Republican leaders, who are anxiously preparing for the possibility of unrest or even violence on Election … Continue reading
Josh Douglas for CNN. … Continue reading
Byron Tau for the WSJ: But his rhetoric could also have the impact of hurting his own campaign, according to some of the latest research into the topic. In one experiment conducted by Adam Seth Levine of Cornell University and … Continue reading
WaPo editorial: Now, for the first time in modern history, a major-party candidate rejects both sides of that equation. If he loses, Donald Trump says, it will be due to cheating that makes the result illegitimate. If he wins, he … Continue reading
NYT editorial: Instead of disavowing this absurdity outright, Republican leaders sit by in spineless silence. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, are the two most powerful Republicans in the country and should … Continue reading
WaPo: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday called for tighter restrictions on Washington’s revolving door, proposing a five-year ban on members of Congress and executive branch officials who want to become lobbyists after leaving government. Trump also proposed a lifetime ban on senior … Continue reading
Tierney Sneed for TPM: Donald Trump is engaging in an unprecedented campaign of voter fraud fear-mongering. Not only is he putting Americans’ trust in the bedrock of U.S. democracy at risk, but what he has urged his supporters to do … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
I spoke with Alex Cohen of KPCC’s Take Two. … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
Morning Consult: Eighty percent of Americans say they are confident their vote will be accurately counted in the election. But independent voters are markedly less certain their votes will count, with just 68 percent saying they are confident their vote … Continue reading
AP: Four years after spending heavily in a futile effort to prevent President Barack Obama’s second term, the Kochs have pushed all of their resources down ballot. And their resources are ample: They’re on track to spend about $250 million … Continue reading
Arizona’s Politics. … Continue reading
NYT editorial: Whatever voters’ disappointment with the fractious and bitter election campaign, the moneyed forces underpinning the candidates are quietly doing very well. It’s estimated that the $6.3 billion record set for election spending by presidential and congressional candidates in … Continue reading
Watch Brian Stelter on CNN. It’s important. … Continue reading
The Charlotte Observer reports: “Hillsborough police said somebody threw a bottle of flammable liquid through the window of Orange County’s GOP headquarters, setting campaign signs, supplies and furniture ablaze before burning itself out….A swastika and ‘Nazi Republicans get out of … Continue reading
NYT: Donald J. Trump on Sunday intensified his claims that the presidential campaign is “rigged” against him, sowing doubts about the integrity of the country’s democratic process even as his own running mate and other Republican leaders sought to assure … Continue reading
Chris Geidner for BuzzFeed: Even as leaders of and lawyers for both major political parties denounce Donald Trump’s warnings that next month’s election could be “rigged,” one top Republican legal group is standing by the nominee. “History has proven that … Continue reading
Despicable: The weekend firebombing of a North Carolina Republican headquarters drew national attention Sunday, with one state GOP official calling it an act of “political terrorism.” Hillsborough police say the incident at the Orange County GOP headquarters occurred when a … Continue reading
New Mexico in Depth: “When Democrats win the election and you didn’t do your part to stop it… Your neighbors will know.” That’s the message on a mailer from the New Mexico Republican Party encouraging early voting. But not everyone … Continue reading
Daily Caller: Emails hacked from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta cites two attorneys and “old friends of the Clintons,” James Lyons and Michael Driver, tasked with “caucus protection, election protection and to raise hard $” for … Continue reading
NYT: After raising $100 million in partnership with Republican Party organizations in September, Mr. Trump and committees linked to his campaign began October with $75 million in cash on hand. Mrs. Clinton raised $154 million in September and began October … Continue reading
This Sheera Frenkel BuzzFeed story is something else: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and another 20 people from the Democratic National Convention (DNC), according to research published by the cybersecurity firm SecureWorks. They found the emails by tracing the … Continue reading
WaPo: A progressive advocacy group is launching an advertising campaign accusing Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who also is the Republican vice-presidential nominee, of allowing voter suppression after state police raided the offices of a voter registration program aimed at signing … Continue reading
This is big, and it is important. I hope Senator McConnell follows suit. … Continue reading
I had missed this excellent Jamelle Bouie piece from Oct. 6. … Continue reading
Must-read Nate Persily and Jon Cohen in WaPo: If there had been any doubt, it has now become clear that this election campaign is about more than the selection of a president: The values that support American democracy are deteriorating. Large … Continue reading
Worthy tweetstorm from Republican lawyer Chris Ashby. … Continue reading
Derek Muller has written this WSJ oped, with the subhead: “Should the Johnson or Stein campaigns earn 5% of the popular vote, their parties could receive public funding in 2020.” It seems odd to me that Derek’s post does not … Continue reading
National Post reports. … Continue reading
FiveThirtyEight. … Continue reading
Jerusalem Post: Several US citizens in Israel complained that get-out-the-vote organization iVoteIsrael did not mail in their ballots ahead of deadline. Absentee ballot requests must be postmarked by Friday at the latest in order to be accepted in New York, … Continue reading
San Diego Union-Tribune: Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, has been pushing the U.S. Coast Guard to buy or lease a polar ice-breaking ship owned by one of his top campaign contributors, although the Coast Guard has repeatedly said the vessel doesn’t … Continue reading
CNN reports. … Continue reading
Daily Beast: And it has a history of sending out mailers that raise serious ethical questions—and that may prey on senior citizens with dementia and Alzheimer’s. Citizens United, David Bossie, and the Trump campaign did not respond to multiple requests … Continue reading
Tampa Bay Times: So when the incumbent Republican congressman saw an image Tuesday night that depicted him shaking hands with Trump flicker across a TV screen while attending an event at Bella Brava restaurant, he did a double-take. “Not only … Continue reading
WSJ: Donald Trump, faced with opposition inside and outside his party, plans to renew the nationalist themes that built his base and amplify his no-holds-barred attacks againstHillary Clinton to depress Democratic voter turnout, his advisers said. Following the release of … Continue reading
“Your vote really, really, really counts — a lot. You can consider me as an exhibit A of that group. Now, for those of you who are younger than 25, you might not remember the election of 2000 and what … Continue reading
Bryan Lowry reports: Kobach, who made no public comments about the tape over the weekend, said he remains committed to supporting Trump. He cited issues such as border security and the national debt as the reason. “These issues are so … Continue reading
TPM: Donald Trump read from an article ripped from Sputnik News, the Kremlin-backed news outfit, that misattributed quotes to a Hillary Clinton adviser to make the case at a Monday rally that her advisors thought she could have “done something” … Continue reading
NYT: Democrats are requesting more absentee ballots in Florida than they were at this point in 2012, with increases of 50 percent in the heavily Hispanic areas around Miami and Orlando. In North Carolina, where Mitt Romney built enough of … Continue reading
I made this point in Plutocrats United, and here it is in relation to opposition to the American-US Air airline merger, via ProPublica: While labor was the friendly face of the merger, Tom Horne, the former Arizona attorney general, who … Continue reading
WSJ: WikiLeaks’ latest release of what the website says are emails taken from the Clinton campaign reveals the close ties between campaign and its allied super PAC, illustrating a growing trend this election cycle. The emails—whose authenticity the Clinton campaign declined to verify—purport … Continue reading
Paul Blumenthal for HuffPo: Overall, super PACs have raised approximately $955 million this year, according to FEC reports, far more than they did at this point in the 2012 campaign. What’s more, the biggest contributors are responsible for a growing … Continue reading
Great find by Ken Vogel showing how those on the left are taking full advantage of the deregulating campaign finance system created by Republicans. … Continue reading
Jonathan Swan for The Hill. … Continue reading
Melanie Mason for the LAT. … Continue reading