Presidential Race
NBC News: It’s Donald Trump’s GOP After Ted Cruz Drops Out
Benjy Sarlin
In a result that once seemed unthinkable to many Republicans, Donald Trump became the likely GOP nominee on Tuesday as top rival Senator Ted Cruz withdrew from the race.
“We are going to win again and we are going to win again bigly,” a confident Trump declared from Trump Tower in New York.
Trump cut a swath through a 17-person GOP field as opponents lambasted him for making controversial statements about Muslims, Mexicans and African-Americans, appearing to incite violence against protesters, and leveling misogynist attacks against his female critics.
He will now represent the party of Abraham Lincoln in the general election despite little connection to any leg of the party’s traditional trio of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and national security conservatives. Implausibly, he will now lead all three groups against Hillary Clinton.
Independent Groups
CNN: The anti-Trump movement spent upwards of $75 million and ultimately lost
Gregory Wallace
In surviving a tumultuous Republican primary, Donald Trump also weathered nearly 64,000 television advertisements critical of him, according to data from the ad tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG on Tuesday.
The ultimate bill: an estimated $75,723,580. That figure is for broadcast television alone, and does not include ad spending on cable and satellite television, which are harder to track and generally comprise a smaller portion of campaign ad spending.
Business Insider: How ‘Stop Trump’ failed
Michelle Conlin and Steve Holland, Reuters
The movement suffered a major setback when Republican mega donors declined to play the role of “Trump Slayers.”
Both casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers decided not to repeat their experience in 2012, when they lavished hundreds of millions of dollars on Republican candidates only to see no returns.
Deprived of such major financial backers, Club for Growth and Our Principles PAC together spent only $27 million on anti-Trump messaging, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s campaign and super PAC have spent at least $78 million so far, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
The groups and their associates focused their messaging over the winter and spring on television and social-media ads and Twitter blasts highlighting Trump’s comments about women being “bimbos,” “dogs” and “fat pigs,” as well as his statements supporting universal healthcare and higher taxes.
Effects of Campaign Spending
Roll Call: It’s Official: Men Don’t Listen
Alex Roarty
Evolving Strategies, a Republican data and analytics firm, recently tested the effectiveness of four anti-Trump TV ads ahead of Indiana’s primary on Tuesday. The results showed a deep split between the sexes.
Three of the four spots convinced a significant number of women — eight percent of those tested — to abandon the Republican front-runner.
But those ads didn’t work with men. The percentage of men who supported Trump didn’t waver even after viewing each of the four ads, the analysis found.
That reaction explains why, to date, the blitz of televised negativity targeting Trump have yet to visibly slow his march toward the GOP’s presidential nomination, said Adam Schaeffer, who co-founded Evolving Strategies.
Corruption
Washington Post: When it comes to politics, corruption is subtler than you think
Trevor Burrus
If we seek to rein in corruption in Washington, we shouldn’t confine our focus exclusively to campaign finance law. Much of the corruption in D.C. is subtle, more insidious but less invidious: It’s two old friends — one from the Securities and Exchange Commission and one from the Hill — having drinks and making a deal; it’s a former member of Congress, now at a lobbying firm, reaching out to his connections and old friends to influence policy; it’s lobbying firms being used as a de facto research arm of Congress.
We can raise the pay for members of Congress so they are less likely to leave to earn more lobbying. We can raise the pay and increase the size of congressional staff. Staff members are underpaid and overworked, and they are expected to have some amount of expertise in too many subjects. Thus, when a bill comes up that subtly changes how concrete is regulated, whom do they call to get up to speed? The only people who are already up to speed: those in the relevant industry.
Finally, we should liberalize existing campaign finance rules. Ever since the Federal Election Campaign Act was amended in 1974 to limit contributions to federal candidates and political parties, it has become harder to dethrone incumbents. Challenging incumbents takes money, and current laws make acquiring money difficult, especially money a candidate can control. In 2014, about 95 percent of congressional incumbents were reelected.
By raising contribution limits, we’ll cut down on “outside” spending by super PACs and other groups to be redirected to candidates; we’ll lower the amount of time candidates spend fundraising; and, most important, hopefully kick some incumbents out of office. If sitting politicians were really in favor of “fair” elections, they would triple the contribution limits for challengers — but I won’t hold my breath.
Free Speech
Washington Free Beacon: Dem AG Targets 90 Conservative Groups in Climate Change Racketeering Suit
Lachlan Markay
Walker’s subpoena is part of a coordinated effort by Democratic attorneys general spearheaded by New York’s Eric Schneiderman and undertaken in consultation and cooperation with leading environmental advocacy groups.
The participants huddled at a Jan. 8 meeting at the headquarters of the Rockefeller Family Fund, a left-wing foundation.
At the meeting, RFF, Greenpeace, other environmental groups discussed ways to “delegitimize [ExxonMobil] as a political actor,” “force officials to disassociate themselves from Exxon,” and “drive divestment from Exxon,” according to a copy of the meeting agenda obtained by the Washington Free Beacon last month.
One strategy that activists discussed was to enlist like-minded state attorneys general to use their powers to go after the oil company.
Donor Privacy
Orange County Register: Free speech victory for non-profit donors
Editorial Board
Free speech is crucial to our democracy. And after explicitly backing candidates or initiatives, essential to free speech is financial privacy. It’s good to know, for example, who is giving money to a political candidate because politicians have direct control over our lives. But if non-profit groups and foundations cannot keep donor lists secret, then the donors can be harassed into ending their gifts, silencing the groups’ work.
That’s why we cheer federal Judge Manuel Real’s decision this month to keep secret the donor lists of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. Reported the Wall Street Journal, since 2013 California Attorney General Kamala Harris “has been demanding that nonprofits provide unredacted donor names if they want to solicit donations in the state,” but the judge “declared her disclosure requirement an unconstitutional burden on First Amendment rights.”
FEC
Chicago Sun Times: Fumbling FEC just can’t seem to find Jesse Jackson Jr.
Lynn Sweet
Monday marked the 14th time the FEC sent a letter to a nonexistent campaign treasurer, addressing it to Chicago Post Office Box 490286. That’s a P.O. box the former treasurer told the FEC years ago she knows nothing about.
At issue: After former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., pleaded guilty to looting his campaign chest of $750,000, his campaign committee stopped filing the required quarterly reports. The last report, covering the period Jan. 1, 2011, through Nov. 26, 2012, showed $105,703 cash on hand…
Yet each quarter the FEC churns out a letter with toothless threats to the nonexistent treasurer at a non-responsive P.O box to “immediately” file a report on receipts and disbursements.
That’s one letter in 2012; four each in the years 2013, 2014 and 2015 and one so far in 2016.
The Media
Gizmodo: Want to Know What Facebook Really Thinks of Journalists? Here’s What Happened When It Hired Some.
Michael Nunez
The former contractors Gizmodo interviewed said they were asked to write neutral headlines, and encouraged to promote a video only if it had been uploaded to Facebook. They were also told to select articles from a list of preferred media outlets that included sites like the New York Times, Time, Variety, and other traditional outlets. They would regularly avoid sites like World Star Hip Hop, The Blaze, and Breitbart, but were never explicitly told to suppress those outlets. They were also discouraged from mentioning Twitter by name in headlines and summaries, and instead asked to refer to social media in a broader context.
News curators also have the power to “deactivate” (or blacklist) a trending topic—a power that those we spoke to exercised on a daily basis. A topic was often blacklisted if it didn’t have at least three traditional news sources covering it, but otherwise the protocol was murky—meaning a curator could ostensibly blacklist a topic without a particularly good reason for doing so.
Washington Times: Trump dominates TV news, draws 3 times as much coverage as Cruz, 15 times more than Kasich
Jennifer Harper
“The networks awarded Donald Trump far more airtime than any of his rivals. Over the past four months, Trump received three times as much TV news coverage as his closest rival, Ted Cruz, and a whopping 15 times as much as John Kasich,” Mr. Noyes said.
It is significant advantage, considering that the combined viewing audience for evening news on all three networks is about 25 million.
From January through mid-April, Mr. Trump was showcased in 62 percent of all primetime presidential coverage on the “Big Three” networks, for a total of 776 minutes. Mr. Cruz drew 20 percent, or 254 minutes, and Mr. Kasich 4 percent, or 52 minutes…
“When political scientists analyze the 2016 presidential primaries, it will be impossible to ignore the huge advantage in free TV airtime that the networks awarded to the GOP front-runner — and how it contrasts with the reasonable balance they maintained in their coverage of the Democratic race,” Mr. Noyes said.
Candidates and Campaigns
Washington Post: How the shows you watch determine which candidates’ ads you see
Philip Bump
We took data for 51 of the shows with the most 2016 advertising and made a tool that lets you compare which shows you watch with the campaigns most likely to focus their ad spending on those programs. This isn’t a terribly refined calculation; we make no promise that we can tell you your party registration or anything like that. What it will tell you is, given only these shows, which candidates would be most likely to run spots that you’d see.
The States
Albany Times Union: Sheldon Silver sentenced to 12 years in prison
Matthew Hamilton
“Today’s stiff sentence is a just and fitting end to Sheldon Silver’s long career of corruption,” said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara, whose office’s investigation led to the lawmaker’s arrest in January 2015.
In a brief statement before Caproni announced her sentence, Silver said he let down his family, colleagues and constituents, “and I am truly, truly sorry for that.”
Great Falls Tribune: Montana defends campaign finance law ahead of elections
Matt Volz, Associated Press
Montana attorneys on Tuesday defended the state’s new campaign finance disclosure law against a gun-rights organization that wants parts of it struck down before next month’s primary elections.
The Virginia-based National Association for Gun Rights claims the law passed by state legislators last year would force it to register as a political committee for making issue-advocacy statements that are protected by the First Amendment. The law imposes burdens – filing reports, disclosing contributors and opening a bank account among them – on groups that “simply desire to talk about matters of public concern,” the association’s attorney, Matthew Monforton, said in court filings.
Idaho Statesman: 2 charged in investigation of northern Idaho PAC
Kimberlee Kruesi, Associated Press
M.C. “Chick” Heileson and Bonneville County GOP Chairman Doyle Beck were charged with one misdemeanor each Friday. Attorney General Lawrence Wasden’s office contends Beck and Heileson “knowingly and willfully” violated the state’s campaign finance law — which is punishable by up to six months of jail time…
“I’m in the middle of an election. Am I going to win now? I doubt it,” Heileson said. “This has been kind of nerve-wracking on my wife. She handled the money.”
Beck recently accused Republican leaders of creating a secret society to oust him from his position inside the party.
