Mondays Musings: Ted and Donald, Millennials in Play? Debates matter
Trump and Cruz rising, Hillary losing a bit of steam? - Lots of new polls out these last few days, all showing the same thing - Trump and Cruz have momentum. 6 weeks now till the Iowa Caucuses and at this point Trump and Cruz seem to be creating a new upper tier in the race, with Rubio perhaps being in the second tier all by himself and everyone else in tiers below. The GOP race, with perhaps five candidates still holding out hope (add Bush and Christie to the top three), enters a very intense period now with three debates in the next six weeks, 2 more in February and of course the first four states voting also in February. The Republicans debate tonight on CNN – be sure to watch! (and you can catch me discussing Trump from O’Reilly’s show last Friday night and this extended clip from Howard Kurtz’s Sunday show on Fox).
On the Democratic side there is some evidence of Hillary coming back down to earth after her strong debate performances, and day long Benghazi testimony. In the NBC/WSJ poll Rubio gains 6 points against her and now bests her in a direct head to head 48/45, and Cruz moves from 41/49 to 45/48. The best Iowa poll now has it Clinton 48/39, a bit too close for comfort for Clinton who has lead in some Iowa polls by 20 or more. Even the new WaPo/ABC poll out this morning has her only beating Trump by 6 points among registered voters, 50/44. Since her Benghazi testimony she has been out of the public eye – we are seeing some evidence now that this could be making a difference. All of this data points to the simple reality that nothing is being handed to Hillary Clinton, and she is going to have to fight hard to win the nomination and the general election next year.
Millennials in play? - I am quoted in a Greg Sargent Washington Post piece yesterday looking at what has to be considered a potentially ominous development for the Democrats – Rubio matching Hillary Clinton with millennial voters (and thus beating her 48/45) in the new NBC/WSJ poll. Greg’s piece is well worth reading in its entirety.
The debates matter - Pew has a new poll out showing just how important the debates have been this year to the public discourse. And from NDN’s point of view, just how risky the DNC’s duck and cover strategy has been. As a reminder so far this year 73m people have watched the GOP debates, 25m the Democratic ones.
SNL - Be sure to watch Will Ferrell's return as W Bush in a brand new off the charts awesome SNL skit.
"Monday Musings" is a new column looking at the national political landscape published most Mondays here on the NDN site. You find previous versions here.
