Gov. Kay Ivey deploys personnel, resources to N.C. ahead of Hurricane Florence
Ahead of Hurricane Florence’s expected landfall late Friday, Gov. Kay Ivey announced the State of Alabama is deploying state personnel and resources to assist with hurricane response efforts in North Carolina. The Alabama Emergency Management Agency (AEMA) received requests for assistance from North Carolina and South Carolina as Hurricane Florence approaches the East Coast. Currently AEMA has one mobile communication site vehicle, one AEMA staff member and one Mobile County responder in route to a staging area in North Carolina. “As the East Coast makes preparations ahead of Hurricane Florence, Alabama will also be prepared to aid in any way we can. I spoke with the governors of North and South Carolina and offered our support,” Ivey said. “Alabama EMA will continue working with their counterparts in the Carolinas. Taking the necessary precautions ahead of time and having all hands-on deck to respond is of the utmost importance. Alabama stands ready to help.” The Mobile Communication Site Team will support North Carolina in maintaining critical communication links for public safety radio communications. Their primary role will be to support their North Carolina counterparts as they experience an overwhelming need to coordinate their state response efforts. “We are leaning forward to support those states that may be impacted by Hurricane Florence” said AEMA Director Brian Hastings. “We are a close-knit team in FEMA Region IV, and when one state is threatened, we all stand ready to assist our incredible neighbors to prepare, respond and recover to save lives and mitigate human suffering. Alabama is always ready to assist when there is a need.” Additional support currently under consideration for states forecasted for impact by hurricane Florence includes: Nurse strike team Emergency Operations Center personnel Damage assessment teams and debris management personnel Mental health professionals Volunteer services personnel Maxwell Incident Support Base Electrical line maintenance crews Additionally, the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) is prepared to expedite passage of vehicles for disaster response through Alabama to affected areas on the East Coast.
Anxiety over GOP health plan for those with severe illnesses
Unease and uncertainty are settling over Americans with serious illnesses as Republicans move closer to dismantling Democratic former President Barack Obama‘s health care system. A New Orleans attorney with multiple sclerosis fears he’ll be forced to close his practice if he loses coverage, while a Philadelphia woman with asthma is looking at stockpiling inhalers. The Republican health care bill pushed through the House on Thursday leaves those with pre-existing conditions fearful of higher premiums and losing coverage altogether if the Affordable Care Act is replaced. The bill sets aside billions of dollars more to help people afford coverage, but experts say that money is unlikely to guarantee an affordable alternative for people now covered under a popular provision of the existing law that prevents insurers from rejecting them or charging higher rates based on their health. What happens to those with pre-existing conditions under the Republican plan remains unknown. Several people unsettled by the prospects expressed these concerns. ___ FORMER UTAH CHEF Jake Martinez said he’s worried about getting health insurance in the future because he has epilepsy, considered a pre-existing condition by insurers. For the last several years, he, his wife and their three children have settled into a comfortable place using health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. But now the Murray, Utah, residents are worried about what may happen with this new health care bill. “Today, it really kind of sunk in that not only are we not going to potentially have health care coverage but that it was done as a political win rather than a well-thought-out plan,” said Martinez, a 32-year-old former chef who’s studying social work. “That’s what stings about it.” ___ KENTUCKY ATTORNEY Shortly after being diagnosed with type I diabetes, Amanda Perkins learned about the perils of pre-existing conditions when she starting trying to buy health insurance. Now she worries that protections under the Affordable Care Act that made sure certain essential health benefits, like insulin prescriptions, could be eliminated. The new Republican plan would let some states allow insurers to charge higher premiums for people with pre-existing conditions, but only if those people had a lapse in insurance coverage. Supporters say those states would need to have programs in place to help people pay for expensive medical treatments, including high-risk pools. But Perkins said Kentucky’s previous high-risk pool had a 12-month waiting period and was too expensive for her. “I bought a house just a couple of months ago. Will it come down to me paying my mortgage payment or paying my health insurance so I don’t have a lapse in coverage?” said Perkins, an attorney for a small firm in Lexington, Kentucky. ___ KANSAS GRAPHIC DESIGNER Janella Williams has a rare neurological disorder that forces her to receive expensive IV drugs every seven weeks. Without it, she would not be able to walk. Williams, who owns her own graphic design company in Lawrence, Kansas, pays $480 under an Obamacare plan. It keeps her out-of-pocket maximum at $3,500 a year and provides her coverage despite her pre-existing condition. “I’m terrified of becoming disabled. If I’m being completely honest, I’ve thought of ending my life if it comes to that,” she said. High-risk pools run by the state are not the answer, she says. The Republican plan would also bring back lifetime caps on coverage, which Williams says she would meet after only her first IV treatment. She and her husband both work full time, but wouldn’t be able to afford the roughly $600,000 a year her treatments cost once the cap is met. “I have really lost my faith in humanity,” she said. “It’s terrible how little we care for the sick.” ___ NORTH CAROLINA FINANCIAL ADVISER John Thompson credits his survival in large part because he bought a family insurance policy through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Thompson, of Greensboro, North Carolina, was laid off in 2013, lost his employer-backed insurance and diagnosed with cancer during the year he was unemployed. If the House proposal allowing insurers to make coverage for pre-existing conditions unaffordable takes hold, he fears his cancer history will make him uninsurable if he would lose his current job as a retirement financial adviser. “Like many of us here, whether you have asthma or a heart condition or diabetes or like me, cancer, any type of pre-existing condition, you go back to the way it was before, you give insurance companies carte blanche to do their underwriting and to exclude you,” Thompson said. ___ FLORIDA MOM Shelby Jehlen, of New Port Richey, Florida, was diagnosed six years ago with leukemia and says she wouldn’t be able to afford insurance if she lost her roughly $400 a month subsidy. Jehlen saves about $1,000 every three months to see her cancer doctor under her Obamacare plan, but still pays about $1,500 for the check-ups. She was forced to quit work because of all the X-rays and other chemicals she was exposed to daily as a veterinary assistant and now cuts corners, sacrificing phones and school activities for her two teen daughters, to afford the monthly premiums. The stress has caused her to struggle with depression and anxiety. “Absolutely, I’m scared. I’m worried I’m going to have to figure out what I’m going to do with all my side effects with my leukemia if they take this away from me,” she said. ___ PHILADELPHIA BUSINESSWOMAN Adrienne Standley has been preparing for the possibility of losing her insurance since President Donald Trump took office. Three days after the inauguration, she set up an appointment for a birth control implant so she would be covered for four years, no matter what happens. The 29-year-old operations director at a start-up apparel business in Philadelphia also has asthma and attention deficit disorder. “I’m looking at stockpiling, making sure I have an inhaler,” she said. “I’m pretty scared to lose coverage.” ___ NEW ORLEANS ATTORNEY John S. Williams says he’ll be forced to close his practice and find a job with a group insurance
Candidates clash in battleground states, as Donald Trump’s path narrows
Election Day just 15 days off, Donald Trump is fighting to preserve his narrow path to the presidency in must-win Florida on Monday as Hillary Clinton tries to slam the door on her Republican opponent in battleground New Hampshire. At the same time, Democrats continue to get help from President Barack Obama, whose high job approval numbers have made him a political force in the sprint to Nov. 8. The president lashed out at Trump and praised Clinton as he campaigned Sunday in Nevada, a competitive state in the race for the White House and the Senate. Obama told Nevadans they have a winning hand in Clinton and Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto, who is locked in a tight race to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Harry Reid. Democrats need to retain the Nevada Senate contest and pick up four new seats elsewhere to claim the Senate majority if Clinton wins. Many Republicans fear that Trump’s struggles could drag down his party’s chances in competitive House and Senate elections across the nation. The president was unsparing Sunday in his criticism of Trump, describing the billionaire businessman as unfit to be president. Obama also railed against Republicans and conservative media outlets for promoting “all kinds of crazy stuff” about him and his party’s leaders. He cited as an example the years-long questions from Trump and others about whether he was born in the U.S. “Is it any wonder that they ended up nominating somebody like Donald Trump?” Obama said. Trump, meanwhile, lashed out at his Democratic opponent on Twitter on Monday, claiming that “Crooked Hillary” wants the United States to accept “as many Syrians as possible” from the war-torn region. Clinton has said Obama’s plan to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees this fiscal year is a good start, but that the nation “needs to do more.” Trump was campaigning Monday in Florida, a state his advisers concede he must win to have any chance at becoming president. The spotlight on Florida shined brighter on Monday also because in-person early voting was beginning across 50 counties, including the state’s largest: Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Orange and Palm Beach. The remaining counties will start in the coming week. Early voting by mail has been underway for weeks. Nearly 1.2 million voters in Florida have already mailed in ballots. The state has nearly 13 million registered voters. Clinton’s running mate, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, was set to make two campaign stops in Florida on Monday. Clinton plans to visit the state Tuesday. Clinton’s focus on Monday was New Hampshire, a state that offers just 4 electoral votes compared to Florida’s 29, but marks a key piece to Trump’s increasingly narrow path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. The Trump campaign acknowledged its challenge in a Monday fundraising email, conceding that victories in tossup states like Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and North Carolina wouldn’t be enough to reach 270. “Polls show us close in New Hampshire, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. Winning just any one of those states would lead us to victory,” the campaign wrote. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump belittles accusers as more turn up with sordid stories
Donald Trump acted out onstage an accuser’s allegations and suggested another wasn’t worthy of his attention the same day two more women came forward with years-old stories of unwanted sexual encounters with the Republican presidential nominee. With eight women accusing Trump of unwanted kissing, groping or more, the New York businessman maintained his innocence and his denunciation of opponent Hillary Clinton and an international media conspiracy aimed at denying him the White House. “100 percent fabricated and made-up charges, pushed strongly by the media and the Clinton Campaign, may poison the minds of the American Voter. FIX!” Trump tweeted on Saturday morning. Clinton maintained a relatively low profile as Trump stormed, but more hacked emails from WikiLeaks raised anew questions about her private versus public pronouncements. Those released Friday showed her campaign had asked former President Bill Clinton to cancel a speech to an investment firm last year because of concerns that the Clintons might appear to be too cozy with Wall Street just as she was about to announce her candidacy. Such revelations were no match for the sordid new accusations against Trump. Summer Zervos, a former contestant from Trump’s NBC show “The Apprentice,” said the series’ star became sexually aggressive at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2007. He kissed her open-mouthed and touched her breasts in a private room, she said during a news conference. Late Friday night, the Trump campaign released a statement in which a cousin of Zervos said he was “shocked and bewildered” by her account. John Barry of Mission Viejo, California, said Zervos “wishes she could still be on reality TV, and in an effort to get that back she’s saying all of these negative things about Mr. Trump.” In response, Summer’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, said in a statement that Barry worked at Zervos’ family restaurant until several months ago, “when his employment ended. Since then he has expressed hostility and ill will toward Summer.” In a story published online Friday, Kristin Anderson told The Washington Post that she was sitting on a couch with friends at a New York nightclub in the early 1990s when a hand reached up her skirt and touched her through her underwear. She said she pushed the hand away, turned around and recognized Trump as the man who had groped her. Trump called his accusers liars and “sick” women seeking fame or money. During a rally in North Carolina, Trump dismissed one of them by saying, “She would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.” In alleging a widespread conspiracy, Trump assailed The New York Times in particular, noting its connection to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, a major shareholder in the media company. Spokesman Arturo Elias Ayub later said Slim doesn’t know Trump at all “and is not the least bit interested in his personal life.” The WikiLeaks release of emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta‘s personal account showed aides having to convince the former first lady to persuade her husband to cancel the Wall Street speech ahead of her campaign rollout. The Clintons’ paid speeches have been an issue throughout the campaign, particularly lucrative speeches to financial interests. In remarks at a fundraiser Friday, Hillary Clinton spoke of a need for national healing. “I take no satisfaction in seeing what Trump does and says because it hurts — it hurts me and it hurts our country,” she said. Polls suggest Trump has fallen further behind Clinton nationally and in most battleground states. Early in-person voting is underway in 20 states, including Ohio, where President Barack Obama railed against Trump a day after first lady Michelle Obama declared in a passionate speech, “Enough is enough.” The Obamas both seized on Trump’s words, captured in a video released last week, bragging about kissing and groping women without their permission. The 70-year-old billionaire has apologized, but also repeatedly dismissed his comments as “locker room talk.” “You don’t have to be a husband or a father to know that that kind of language, those kinds of thoughts, those kinds of actions are unacceptable. They’re not right. You just have to be a decent human being,” President Obama charged in Columbus, Ohio. Even before the mounting allegations, there was evidence that Trump’s troubles were hurting the Republican Party’s ability to raise money. The Republican National Committee has raised about 25 percent less over the past three months than it did over the same period four years ago, when Mitt Romney was atop the ticket. The RNC said Friday that it raised $39.4 million last month, compared to $48.4 million in September 2012. It says it has raised $262.3 million since January 2015, about $20 million more than it had by this time in 2012. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
More women accuse Donald Trump of unwanted sexual touching
Two more women came forward on Friday to accuse Donald Trump of unwanted sexual touching, including a former contestant from a reality show that starred the Republican presidential nominee. The latest accounts come after several women reported in recent days that Trump groped or kissed them without their consent. At a campaign rally in North Carolina on Friday, Trump sought to discredit his accusers. He said because there were no witnesses to the interactions, the allegations were not credible. “Right now I am being viciously attacked with lies and smears,” Trump said at an outdoor amphitheater. “It’s a phony deal. I have no idea who these women are.” Trump also suggested the women who have come forward to accuse him were not physically attractive enough to merit his attention. “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you,” he said when speaking of one of the women. Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” said Trump made unwanted sexual advances toward her at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2007, while photographer Kristin Anderson alleged Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York nightclub in the early 1990s. Zervos, 41, appeared at a news conference Friday with Gloria Allred, a well-known Los Angeles attorney who has previously represented women who have accused celebrities of sexual misconduct. Zervos was a contestant on “The Apprentice” in 2006 and said she later contacted Trump to inquire about a job with one of his businesses. Zervos said she had an initial meeting with Trump, where he discussed a potential job with her. When they parted, he kissed her on the lips and asked for her phone number, she said. She said weeks later Trump called to invite her to meet him at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where she said she was expecting to have dinner with the New York billionaire. Instead, she described a series of unwanted kisses and touching by Trump, which she said she repeatedly rejected. “He tried to kiss me again … and I said, ‘Dude, you’re tripping right now,’ attempting to make it clear I was not interested,” she said. Zervos said Trump eventually stopped and began talking as if they were in a job interview. She said she was later offered a low-paying job at a Trump-owned golf course. At the time, Trump had recently married his third and current wife, Melania Trump, and the couple had an infant son. Zervos said she is a Republican and has no political agenda in coming forward. Allred said her client told her parents and others about the incident shortly after it occurred. In a story published online Friday, Anderson told The Washington Post that she was sitting on a couch with friends at a New York nightclub in the early 1990s when someone’s hand reached up her skirt and touched her through her underwear. Anderson, then in her early 20s, said she pushed the hand away, turned around and recognized Trump as the man who had groped her. Then recently divorced, Trump was then a frequent presence in the New York tabloids, and he was regular presence on the Manhattan club scene. “He was so distinctive looking — with the hair and the eyebrows. I mean, nobody else has those eyebrows,” Anderson, 46, told the newspaper. She said the assault was random and occurred with “zero conversation.” Anderson did not immediately respond to a phone message from The Associated Press. She told the newspaper said she does not back Trump or Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. At the time of the incident, Anderson was trying to start a career as a model while working as a makeup artist and restaurant hostess. She said the episode lasted no more than 30 seconds. Anderson told the Post that she and her companions were “very grossed out and weirded out” and thought, “OK, Donald is gross. We all know he’s gross. Let’s just move on.” The Post said it contacted Anderson after a friend she had told about the incident recounted it to a reporter. Other friends also told the Post that Anderson recounted the same story to them years ago. At the North Carolina rally, Trump physically acted out two of alleged incidents. “Somebody that you’ve never seen that said, ‘Oh, in 1992, he went like this,’” he said at one point, appearing to mimic pawing at a woman’s chest in a downward motion. Anderson’s decision to speak publicly about her experience follows last week’s disclosure by the Post of a 2005 video in which Trump boasted that his celebrity gave him the ability to grab women “by the p—-. You can do anything.” Trump apologized for those remarks, but also dismissed them as “locker-room talk.” Anderson disagreed that Trump’s behavior is harmless. “It’s a sexual assault issue, and it’s something that I’ve kept quiet on my own,” she told the Post. “And I’ve always kept quiet. And why should I keep quiet? Actually, all of the women should speak up, and if you’re touched inappropriately, tell somebody and speak up about it. Actually, go to the authorities and press some charges. It’s not OK.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Early voting offers positive signs in key states for Hillary Clinton
Advance voting shows positive signs for Hillary Clinton in two states that could help her lock up the presidency, North Carolina and Florida, as the election enters a critical, final stretch. There are encouraging signs for Donald Trump in Ohio. That’s a vital state for the Republican presidential nominee, but a victory there would be only one of many steps he would need to win. The latest data, representing at least 758,000 ballots cast – and millions more requested – highlight Trump’s difficult path to the White House. And these numbers may understate his problems: The figures don’t yet reflect any voter response to the recording released last Friday of Trump making crude remarks about women. Even if Trump can capture two states he’s targeted – Pennsylvania and Ohio – he would need to pull off major upsets in multiple Democratic-leaning states to reach the 270 electoral votes in the state-by-state contest for the presidency. If Clinton picks up states Republicans won in 2012, Trump’s task becomes harder. In a statement, the Republican National Committee, which provides much of the get-out-the-vote effort for Trump as well as congressional candidates, said it remained confident its “significant and early investment” will put the party in a strong position. But Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who worked on past presidential campaigns, sees the Democrats with the advantage. Madden cited the Clinton campaign’s especially heavy investment in data analytics and getting supporters to vote. “For Clinton, it may be now starting to pay its dividends,” he said. Advance voting has surged nationally as states try to boost turnout. Early voting can be done by mail or in voting booths that open before the Nov. 8 Election Day. More than 45 million people are expected to vote early, with preliminary data compiled by The Associated Press suggesting that advance voting could reach 40 percent of all votes nationally. While Democrats tend to do better in early voting, Republicans usually post an initial lead with mail-in ballots before Democrats surpass them when most in-person voting begins in mid- to late October. In North Carolina, a must-win state for Trump, early voters typically make up 60 percent of total ballots. At least 141,000 have been requested and 31,000 have been returned, according to AP data. By party, Republicans had a slight edge over Democrats in ballots returned, 38 percent to 37 percent, or 300 ballots. At this point in 2012, Republicans had posted a significant 2-to-1 lead, boosted by older white voters. Republican Mitt Romney narrowly won the state. So far in 2016, white votes are down by more than one-third while the number of black voters, who tend to favor Democrats, slipped lower. In-person voting, critical for Clinton, begins in the state next Thursday. Democrats are stepping up outreach in North Carolina and will begin launching “souls to the polls” programs on Oct. 23, taking church attendees to vote immediately after Sunday services. Popular among African-Americans, “souls to the polls” played a substantial role in boosting Democratic turnout and record shares of black voting for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. In Florida, a record 2.9 million people have requested ballots, or more than one-third of the total voters in 2012. Republicans are running ahead in ballot requests, 41 percent to 38 percent. But that reflects a narrowing gap. Two weeks ago, Republicans led by 5 percentage points, as state Democrats stepped up efforts to boost mail-in balloting among blacks and Hispanics. In the last week, new ballot requests from Democrats outnumbered those from Republicans by nearly 2-to-1, according to data analyzed for the AP by Catalist, a Democratic firm that helped run data operations for Obama’s 2008 race. A change in Florida laws is likely partly responsible for the increase in ballot requests – those who voted in 2014 were able to automatically receive ballots this year. It’s a much better initial position for Democrats compared to 2008, the most recent data available. At that time, Republicans held a much bigger lead in ballot requests, 50 percent to 32 percent. Obama won the state by 2.8 percentage points. Still, Trump may be holding steady elsewhere, such as Ohio. After a record pace for weeks, the number of ballot requests fell 2.6 percent from a similar period in 2012. The state does not provide breakdowns by party registration, but data compiled by Michael McDonald, a University of Florida professor who runs the U.S. Elections Project, show bigger declines in requests in the heavily Democratic counties of Cuyahoga and Franklin. By race, voter modeling by Catalist for the AP found the share of Ohio ballot requests by white voters was up, to 91 percent from 89 percent. The black share declined from 9 percent to 7 percent. Early voting started a week later for Ohio in 2016 after the Supreme Court last month declined to restore the state’s “Golden Week,” a period when voters could register and vote at the same time. That period was popular among black voters. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump campaign doubles spending, not ground game
Donald Trump‘s campaign expenses more than doubled last month, even as the Republican presidential nominee held his payroll to about 70 employees, aired zero television advertisements and undertook no significant operational build out across the country. Instead, about half of the campaign’s $18.5 million in spending was vacuumed up by Giles-Parscale, a web design and marketing firm new to national politics, Federal Election Commission filings show. It’s a crossover vendor from Trump’s real estate organization. The campaign paid Giles-Parscale $8.4 million in July, about twice what the San Antonio firm had collected from it over the course of the preceding year. Brad Parscale, the president, is the campaign’s director of digital marketing. The big expense came as Trump put a new emphasis on online fundraising, after paying for his primary run mostly out of his own pocket. Millions more went to air travel. The campaign paid about $2 million for private jets other than Trump’s own TAG Air, which also collected $500,000. Some of Trump’s consultants are also mysteriously well-paid. Chess Bedsole, the campaign’s Alabama state director, was paid $64,000 last month for field consulting. His last campaign payment was for $15,000 in December. Yet the campaign’s payroll remained thin, and there did not appear to be much new in the way of office leases across the country, including in critical battleground states such as Ohio. Trump has relied heavily on the Republican National Committee for conventional campaign infrastructure. And he’s boasted of holding the line on his campaign spending. But he’s running critically low on time to build an operation that can compete with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In addition to being ahead of Trump in polls in key states, Clinton has maintained a staff of about 700 for months, opened up offices across the country and already spent $67 million on general election ads. Trump put out his first ads days ago, spending $5 million to air them in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Her campaign spent $38 million in July, about double his spending. Clinton can afford to spend more than Trump, the July campaign finance reports show. Her campaign raised $52 million while his brought in $37 million for the month, including a $2 million contribution from Trump himself. The candidates also raise money for their parties, enabling them to ask for contributions far higher than the $2,700-per-donor limit to the campaigns. Overall in July, Clinton raised $90 million for her campaign and Democratic partners, while Trump raised $80 million for the campaign and Republican groups. Trump did bring aboard some new campaign consultants in July. He paid $100,000 to Cambridge Analytica, a deep-dive data firm that did business with GOP opponent Ted Cruz. Hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, who contributed $2 million to a pro-Trump super political action committee in July, is an investor in Cambridge. The Trump filings also show some old ties. Two weeks after the ouster of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign cut his firm, Green Monster Consulting, another $20,000 check. That’s about the same amount it had paid him each month while he was running the campaign. At the time of the latest payment, Lewandowski was already on the payroll of CNN, where he is a political contributor. The campaign also paid Trump Organization employee Meredith McIver, who has worked as a Trump ghostwriter over the years. She took credit — and then blame — for writing Melania Trump‘s speech at the Republican National Convention that included similar lines from Michelle Obama‘s speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The campaign valued McIver’s time, accounted for as payroll from the Trump Organization, at $356.01. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Hillary Clinton sets out most efficient path to get to 270
Hillary Clinton doesn’t appear all that interested in making scenic stops on her state-to-state quest to become president. The Democratic nominee is instead programming her GPS to take her on the quickest route to collect the 270 Electoral College votes she needs to win the White House. With three months until Election Day, Clinton’s campaign is focused on capturing the battleground states that have decided the most recent presidential elections, not so much on expanding the map. Clinton’s team doesn’t rule out an effort at Arizona, a state with a booming population of Latino voters that polls find are loath to support Trump. And Georgia, a bastion of the Deep South, echoes recent population trends in other Southeastern states where Clinton is competing aggressively. But neither is among the 11 battleground states that Clinton’s television advertising plans and her travel schedule point to as her focus. Those states are the perennial top-tier targets Florida and Ohio, plus Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. President Barack Obama carried them all in 2008, and missed out on only North Carolina during his 2012 re-election campaign. “The last two elections have given Democrats an electoral path for victory,” said Clinton campaign adviser John Anzalone. “And our strategy is to efficiently use our resources to lock down the support we need to reach 270 electoral votes.” After a bump in support for Clinton in national polls that followed the Democratic convention and tracked Trump’s recent gaffes, the number of states where Clinton will invest her time and money may get smaller than 11. When the Clinton campaign booked more than $23 million in new television ad time late this past week to start on Monday, it spent most of the money in just three states: Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Feeling good about Colorado and Virginia, the campaign passed on giving those states a fresh injection of ad dollars, though they remain heavily staffed with organizers. Likewise, officials with the pro-Clinton group Priorities USA say they have put its advertising plans there on hold. Meanwhile, Trump’s travel following the Republican convention suggests he’s given up on plans to force Clinton to defend traditional Democratic bastions California and New York. Beyond that, it’s not clear how he plans to chart his course to 270. “I have states that no other Republican would do well in that I think I’m going to win,” Trump told The Washington Post this past week. “But I don’t want to name those states.” Trump’s campaign has yet to run a single television ad and has made curious decisions about where to send its candidate. This past week, for example, Trump spent a day in Portland, Maine, chasing after the single electoral vote at stake along the state’s largely Democratic southern coast. There have been no such distractions for Clinton since the end of her convention, aside from a quick stop in Nebraska, a visit that was probably as much about spending time on stage with billionaire investor Warren Buffett than picking up the one electoral vote in the Omaha area. (Maine and Nebraska are the two states that award electoral votes by congressional district instead of a statewide winner-take-all vote.) This coming week, Clinton will be in Florida. So will Trump. That’s no surprise, as a win there plus victories in every state (and the District of Columbia) that have voted Democratic since 1992 would give Clinton a winning total of 271 electoral votes. Florida Republican consultant Brett Doster said simply of his state: “If we don’t win here, I just don’t see how we win.” Despite the 2016 campaign’s unscripted form, Democrat and Republican pollsters alike said in the past week that Florida is competitive and is expected to stay that way into the fall. The largest share of single-state spending in Clinton’s most recent ad buy came in Florida, at more than $4.2 million, and that, plus an aggressive pursuit of Latino voters, may give her a narrow edge. In Florida’s Orange County, which includes Orlando, the Democratic edge among registered voters has grown by 15 percent since 2008. Since late last year, roughly 1,000 Puerto Rican families a month have relocated to Florida due to the U.S. territory’s fiscal crisis, many of them concentrating in and around Orlando’s heavy service-sector job scene. Bilingual teams of Clinton employees are registering first-time Puerto Rican voters at grocery stores, malls and community centers. Republican pollster Whit Ayres said Trump’s problems in Florida go deeper than his lack of advertising and overwhelmingly unpopular standing among Latinos. He said Trump’s recent criticism of the Muslim family of a fallen U.S. soldier is not likely to sit well in a state with 22 military installations and more than 1.5 million veterans. “The attack on the Gold Star family makes it unlikely for him to expand in Florida beyond where he is right now,” said Ayres, an adviser to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. While Trump may not have a path without Florida, Clinton can lose the state and still find another way through the battlegrounds to reach 270. That’s no doubt why from June 8 through Monday, Clinton and Democratic groups supporting her will have outspent Republican groups by 15 to 1 in those states, according to data from Kantar Media’s CMAG political advertising tracker. The Clinton campaign and deep-pocketed Democratic groups such as Priorities USA have poured a combined $66 million into television and radio advertising in those 11 states. Trump’s campaign hasn’t spent a dollar on television advertising, while Republican groups have only spent about $4.3 million. Put simply, Anzalone said, Clinton has options. “But this is a dynamic race and we will continue to look at all pathways as this race develops,” he said. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
U.S. Supreme Court to rule on use of race in redistricting
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether Republican lawmakers relied too heavily on race when they redrew North Carolina’s congressional districts to give the GOP a powerful advantage in the swing state. The justices will hear the case in the fall — almost certainly too late to affect November’s elections. But in the years ahead, it could impact partisan efforts to create electoral districts aimed at swaying the balance of power in Congress and in state legislatures. The Supreme Court could consider it together with a similar appeal from Virginia, where challengers say Republicans packed black voters into a dozen statehouse districts, strengthening GOP control of neighboring territories. Five of the eight current justices appear sympathetic to such claims brought by minority voters, based on a 2015 ruling in an Alabama case, according to election-law expert Rick Hasen at the University of California at Irvine. North Carolina’s GOP leaders deny factoring in race to an illegal extent, saying their 2011 map was designed primarily to give Republicans an edge while complying with the federal Voting Rights Act after the 2010 census. “We continue to believe the maps are fair, legal and constitutional and look forward to our day in court,” state Sen. Bob Rucho, a chief architect of the maps, said Monday. Opponents say they unfairly stacked black voters into two districts that were already electing African-American representatives, thus diluting their influence in neighboring territories. A federal court ruled in February that race was the predominant factor in drawing the two districts and ordered them redrawn. A new map of 13 congressional districts was used in an unusual June 7 primary, separate from most other races. A high court ruling also should influence a separate court challenge of North Carolina’s state legislative districts. North Carolina is a swing state whose voters split almost evenly in the last two presidential elections. But the GOP’s maps created veto-proof majorities in the state legislature, and the congressional delegation now has 3 Democrats to 10 Republicans. The latest court-ordered map essentially created a new district without an incumbent, but the Republican-leaning territory is expected to help the GOP maintain this 10-3 edge. It also upended the former territories of two Republican members of Congress, pitting them against each other in the primary. State Rep. George Holding beat state Rep. Renee Ellmers after groups including the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity funded ads questioning her conservative credentials. Holding is expected to beat a Democrat in November. The state’s lawyers, meanwhile, say the federal court’s logic forces North Carolina into the difficult situation of having to consider race to comply with federal voting rights laws, while also triggering “strict scrutiny” of its maps for doing so. “The three-judge court’s approach would trap states between the threat of vote dilution claims and the hammer of a racial gerrymandering claim,” they wrote in a Supreme Court filing. Their challengers argue that GOP mapmakers illegally gerrymandered the 2011 map, drawing boundaries “whose grasping tendrils were necessary to capture disparate pockets of black voters.” The case is McCrory v. Harris, 15-1262. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.
Donald Trump voices opposition to transgender bathroom law
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Thursday that transgender people should be able to use whichever bathroom they choose, voicing opposition to part of a far-reaching North Carolina law that critics says is discriminatory. Speaking at a town hall event on NBC’s “Today” Thursday, Trump was asked about North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom law,” which, among other things, requires transgender people to use bathrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate in state government buildings as well as public schools and universities. Trump said the law had caused unnecessary strife for the state, which he said had paid “a big price” economically. “There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate,” said Trump. “There has been so little trouble.” Trump’s main rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, immediately fired back, saying that Trump is giving in to “political correctness.” “Grown adult men, strangers, should not be alone in a bathroom with little girls,” Cruz said, calling his view “basic common sense.” After the law was signed in late March, Deutsche Bank halted plans to add 250 North Carolina jobs, while PayPal reversed a decision to open a 400-employee operation center in Charlotte. Local tourism boards have also said they’ve lost millions of dollars thanks to cancelled conventions and business meetings. The comments came as Trump drew closer to clinching the Republican nomination with a big win in his home state of New York earlier this week. If he becomes his party’s nominee, Trump is likely to face pressure to moderate some of his stances to appeal to independents and women in the general election. Trump said at the town hall that he didn’t know if any transgender people work for his organization, but said that some “probably” did. Asked about Caitlyn Jenner, an Olympic gold medal winner then-known as Bruce Jenner, walking into Trump Tower using the bathroom, he said would be fine with her using any bathroom she chooses. Still, Trump said he’s opposed to efforts to create new, transgender bathrooms alongside single gendered ones, calling that push “discriminatory in a certain way” and “unbelievably expensive for businesses and the country.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
