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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Political Strategy Notes

House Democrats will work a new theme to win seats in November, reports Carl Hulse at the New York Times: “After months of polling, focus groups and consultation with experts, Democrats have settled on “Stronger America: A New American Security Agenda,” unveiling it just in time to give lawmakers a chance to test it out over the coming seven-week break…All of that research comes down to one thing,” said Representative Steve Israel, Democrat of New York, who is in charge of the party’s communications and messaging. “We are in an intense security environment. People are concerned about their security.”

“A massive new poll by Morning Consult finds Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, would collect 320 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 212, far more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House,” reports Gabrielle Levy at U.S. News. What makes this poll with results for all 50 states a little more credible than other recent Trump-favorable polls trumpeted by conservatives is the sample size: 60,000.

“…The Sanders campaign will not further contest the makeup of the Democratic platform at the convention, even though Sanders did not get all the changes to the platform he had hoped for,” notes Greg Sargent at The Plum Line. “Previously, the Sanders campaign had intimated that — even after he endorsed Clinton — it would file minority reports indicating his disagreement with various aspects of the Dem platform, which could have perhaps led to continuing disillusionment among his 13 million voters, whom Clinton very much wants to win over starting now…This matters for two reasons: First, it shows that Sanders actually did get a great deal of what he had hoped for into the platform. And second, it suggests that, while there may still be some lingering conflicts over various matters involving rules, the convention will go a lot more smoothly than many had expected — and so will the process of Democratic unity.”

The Monkey Cage’s Josh Putnam explains why the “Never Trump” grumblers in the GOP are not likely to get much traction at the Republican convention.

list of speakers for the GOP convention released this morning includes: Pastor Mark Burns; Phil Ruffin; Congressman Ryan Zinke; Pat Smith; Mark Geist; John Tiegen; Congressman Michael McCaul; Sheriff David Clarke; Congressman Sean Duffy; Darryl Glenn; Senator Tom Cotton; Karen Vaughn; Governor Mike Huckabee; Mayor Rudy Giuliani; Melania Trump; Senator Joni Ernst; Kathryn Gates-Skipper; Marcus Luttrell; Dana White; Governor Asa Hutchinson; Attorney General Leslie Rutledge; Michael Mukasey; Andy Wist; Senator Jeff Sessions; Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn; Alex Smith; Speaker Paul Ryan; Congressman Kevin McCarthy; Kerry Woolard; Senator Shelley Moore Capito; Dr. Ben Carson; RNC Co-Chair Sharon Day; Natalie Gulbis; Kimberlin Brown; Antonio Sabato, Jr.
; Peter Thiel; Eileen Collins; Senator Ted Cruz; Newt Gingrich; Michelle Van Etten; Lynne Patton; Eric Trump; Harold Hamm; Congressman Chris Collins; Brock Mealer; Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn; Governor Mary Fallin; Darrell Scott; Lisa Shin; Governor Rick Scott; Chairman Reince Priebus; Tom Barrack; Ivanka Trump; Attorney General Pam Bondi; Jerry Falwell Jr.
; Rabbi Haskel Lookstein; Chris Cox; Senator Mitch McConnell; Tiffany Trump; Governor Chris Christie; Donald J. Trump Jr.
; and Governor Scott Walker. Trump’s running mate will also get a slot and others will likely be added to the program. No Bushes, McCain, Kasich, Fiorina or Graham, and hey, where’s Palin? Don’t expect an empty chair, but there will be plenty of empty suits.

Not a shocker, but Alexander Bolton reports at The Hill that Gov. Mike Pence is the favorite running mate choice of the GOP estabs.

A tidbit from Laurie Goodstein’s NYT article on a Pew Research poll indicating that white evangelicals favor Trump by nearly 4-1 ratio: “The poll also found that Roman Catholics favored Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, over Mr. Trump by 17 percentage points — a significant shift from the 2012 presidential race, when Election Day exit polls showed Catholics split almost evenly between Mr. Romney and the Democratic incumbent, President Obama…The change is largely because of the support of Hispanic Catholics, who make up about one-third of Roman Catholics in the United States and favor Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Trump by an overwhelming 77 percent to 16 percent. White Catholics narrowly favor Mr. Trump over Mrs. Clinton, 50 to 46 percent, but Mrs. Clinton has a 19-point advantage among all Catholics who say they attend Mass weekly.”

Regarding recent horse-race polls, E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes in his syndicated column: “There is also no doubt that Hillary Clinton has suffered some damage from FBI Director James Comey’s sharp criticisms of her use of a private email server…Still, there is reason to believe that Clinton, like Bush and her husband, has an opportunity to win over new sympathizers, especially since voters have revised their judgments in her favor before. Her favorable ratings in the Gallup poll reached as high as 67 percent in late December 1998, and 66 percent in May 2012…Clinton almost certainly has more room to grow than Trump does, given her past high marks and the fact that even at her lowest points this year, Clinton’s favorability still has outpaced Trump’s in most surveys.”

Turns out Justice Ginsburg does regret making “ill-advised” comments about Trump, including calling him “a faker” following a GOP-driven media storm. But she didn’t say her comments weren’t true.

One comment on “Political Strategy Notes

  1. Ben Fulton on

    A security agenda? What a perfectly terrible idea. Did Democrats learn so little from the Sanders campaign that all they can do is go out and repeat Republican talking points?

    Reply

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