Presidential Primary Brief: 315 days until Election Day

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2016 Presidential Primary Brief_21 Dec Update

112 days until AL Presidential Primary
315 days until Election Day

Convention Dates: Republican July 18-21, 2016, Democratic July 25-28, 2016

Weekly Headlines:

Primary Brief_GOP Polls_28 Dec 2015

Primary Brief_Dem Polls_28 Dec 2015
Press Clips:

Bernie Sanders in ‘negotiations’ with DNC over data breach (Politico 12/27/16)  

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said Sunday he’s in “negotiations” with the Democratic National Committee following an ugly spat that led to the firing of a Sanders campaign staffer accused of accessing voter data belonging to the Hillary Clinton campaign. “We’re trying to work with the DNC to put this whole thing behind us,” Sanders said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Frankly,” the Vermont senator added, “I think for the American people there are far more important issues having to do with the disappearance of the American middle class and huge income and wealth inequality and climate change.”

Ben Carson tries to explain his campaign’s decline (CBS News 12/27/15)

Ben Carson said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday that he is prepared to makes changes or tweaks to his struggling presidential campaign, including being more aggressive about responding to negative stories. “I want to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can do — to make sure that the American people absolutely recognize the choice that they have,” Carson said on “Face the Nation.” “If there are some things that need to be changed or tweaked, we certainly are going to be open to doing those things. Last week he said in an interview with the Associated Press that he plans to shake up his strategy or staff now that his poll numbers have slipped so badly.

Jeb Bush shows signs of life in New Hampshire (Politico 12/22/15)

 No candidate can be happier to say goodbye to 2015 than Jeb Bush, whose months of futility in the face of Donald Trump’s attacks relegated him to an afterthought in a wild and unpredictable Republican primary. And yet, at year’s end, there are signs that people in New Hampshire, the state that could key an unlikely comeback, still take him seriously.

Take the 200-person crowds showing up at his four Saturday town halls. Take the current polls in New Hampshire that put him within striking distance of every GOP rival but Trump.

Clinton announces plan to battle Alzheimer’s (Reuters 12/22/15) 

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Tuesday announced a slate of proposals to battle Alzheimer’s disease and seek a cure by 2025, including an increase in funding for research on the disease and related disorders. Clinton called for a decade-long investment of $2 billion per year for research, which her campaign called a fourfold increase over last year’s $586 million. Clinton’s campaign scheduled a conference call with reporters on Tuesday to discuss details of the proposal. Clinton, the front-runner for her party’s nomination for the November 2016 presidential election, will discuss it later in the day in an appearance in Fair field, Iowa.

Trump’s attacks on Clinton get very, very personal (Politico 12/21/15)

Donald Trump is taking his criticism of Hillary Clinton into new territory.

The Republican front-runner mocked his Democratic counterpart for a “disgusting” bathroom trip she made during Saturday night’s debate, and said Barack Obama “schlonged” her in the 2008 primaries at a raucous rally here on Monday night.

How Marco Rubio could lose all the key early states and still win (New York Times 12/22/15)

People who make bets on the presidential election give Marco Rubio a slight edge for the Republican nomination. But there’s a catch: The same betting markets show that he’s an underdog in all of the early states, and not favored in any of the Super Tuesday states. It’s not clear even the Rubio team disagrees. My colleague Jeremy W. Peters reported that the campaign doesn’t have a plan to focus on any early state. That has supporters concerned. And with good reason. Mr. Rubio would have a much surer path to the nomination if he led in an early state. His difficulty finding a place to break through is a result of what has always been his biggest problem: carving out a niche in a deeply factionalized party.

29 craziest things that came out of candidates’ mouths in 2015 (Politico 12/26/15) 

The presidential campaign in 2015 generated no shortage of head-scratching quotes, zingers, one-liners and out-of-left-field remarks from candidates in both parties. From Hillary Clinton’s self-professed ignorance about how servers work, to Ted Cruz’s vow to

find out “if sand can glow in the dark,” to practically everything that has come out of Donald Trump’s mouth, voters have a lot to chew on as they consider their choices less than two months before the first primaries and caucuses.

Jeb Bush burns through campaign cash, slides in polls (Washington Times 12/24/15)

After starting 2015 as the presumptive front-runner with a huge bankroll, Jeb Bush has to be ending the year wondering what went wrong with his presidential campaign, what happened to his Republican Party and where all his money went. Mr. Bush and his super PAC burned through more than half of the $133 million they raised in the first three quarters this year. The return on that investment has been a drop in polls from about 15 percent when he entered the race in June to about 4 percent in recent surveys.

Christie sharpens attacks on Rubio in New Hampshire (Politico 12/22/15)

 Chris Christie slammed Marco Rubio on Tuesday for missing last week’s vote on the omnibus spending bill, arguing that it highlights a distinct difference between the two candidates vying for the Republican nomination. Christie, who is betting big on New Hampshire, has been sharpening his attacks on Rubio — a ripe target for Christie considering that the Florida senator holds only a slight edge over Christie in the state.

Trump beats Republicans, not Clinton, in one-on-one matchups (Reuters 12/21/15)

 Donald Trump would win a hypothetical head-to-head contest against either of his two closest Republican U.S. presidential rivals, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, but he would fall short of beating Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton if the election were held today, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Monday. If the Republican primary featured a face-off between Trump and Cruz, a Texas senator, Trump would win the support of 41 percent of Republican and independent voters, the poll showed. Cruz would take 31 percent, while 28 percent said they would not vote in a Cruz-Trump contest.

T. Boone Pickens calls for bipartisan panel to screen candidates for president (Politico 12/21/15)

BP Capital founder T. Boone Pickens, a billionaire Republican donor, is calling for a bipartisan panel to determine who can run for president. According to the Library of Congress, the only stipulations for running for president include being a natural-born citizen, a resident of 14 years and at least 35 years old. Such limited standards allow political outsiders like Republican front-runner Donald Trump to run for president —and Pickens thinks they’re not stringent enough.

The Great Republican Revolt (The Atlantic 12/27/15)

 The angriest and most pessimistic people in America aren’t the hipster protesters who flitted in and out of Occupy Wall Street. They aren’t the hashtavists of #BlackLivesMatter. They aren’t the remnants of the American labor movement or the savvy young dreamers who confront politicians with their American accents and un-American legal status. The angriest and most pessimistic people in America are the people we used to call Middle Americans. Middle-class and middle-aged; not rich and not poor; people who are irked when asked to press 1 for English, and who wonder how white male became an accusation rather than a description.

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