Recent News

“Which states are you watching?” That’s a question I get a lot. There are Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, of course. Even more peripheral states like Georgia have made some news. But I’m increasingly interested in a state that few people seem to be talking about: Missouri. Polls show not only a tight presidential race in the Show-Me State, but also a fairly close Senate race. Oh, and Missouri may keep a Democrat in its governor’s mansion.

Hillary Clinton garnered a majority of the support in a new poll released today, passing 50 percent in a head-to-head matchup with Donald Trump and solidifying a lead built up after the party conventions a month ago.

The poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University, shows Clinton receiving 51 percent support from likely voters, giving her a 10 point margin over Donald Trump. The GOP nominee was backed by 41 percent of those surveyed, with a margin of error of +/- 2.5 points.

The top­ic du jour is Don­ald Trump’s at­temp­ted walk-back of his po­s­i­tion on im­mig­ra­tion—roughly speak­ing, from an ab­so­lut­ist policy to one that’s merely tough. The op­er­at­ive ques­tion is wheth­er he can strike a bal­ance, en­ti­cing in­to his column the un­de­cided voters that he pre­vi­ously ali­en­ated with his “send ‘em all back” po­s­i­tion, while sim­ul­tan­eously hold­ing onto those who sup­por­ted his ori­gin­al, hard-line po­s­i­tion. This is es­sen­tial to his win­ning the elec­tion; he can­not win with just the sup­port he cur­rently has, as he is now a hand­ful of per­cent­age points and dozens of elect­or­al votes shy of win­ning this elec­tion.

Donald Trump is testing a novel way to fix a problem that no modern Republican presidential nominee has had.

His quest this week to reach out to black and Hispanic voters has a covert agenda, Republican strategists say, of winning back college-educated whites who historically prefer Republicans but seem to be turned off by Trump’s nativist appeals.

GOP insiders: Moderating on immigration helps Trump

Donald Trump signaled this week he will “soften” his proposals on immigration policy — and nearly two-thirds of Republican insiders in battleground states think a more moderate stance would help the GOP nominee win the presidency.

That’s according to The POLITICO Caucus — a panel of activists, strategists and operatives in 11 swing states.

How many votes will Trump give up by not running a professional campaign? A lot.

Stories about the ramshackle nature of the Trump campaign are abundant. A recent article called Donald Trump’s organization “more concert tour than presidential campaign.” A 12-year-old appears to be running Trump’s field office in a populous Colorado county. Sixty percent of registered voters — and even 40 percent of Republicans — believe that Trump’s campaign is “poorly run.”

When Donald Trump expressed regret for causing “personal pain,” he might as well have been apologizing to Republicans alarmed at the way he has run his campaign since accepting the party’s nomination. Yet, for all his problems, Trump is still within striking distance in national polling. For that, he can thank the bad headlines that Hillary Clinton just can’t seem to shake.