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RICHMOND Widespread opposition to President Trump and his policies has heightened the challenge for Republicans hoping to retake the Virginia governors mansion this year, with GOP front-runner Ed Gillespie trailing both Democratic contenders by double digits in a new Washington Post-Schar School poll.

The Virginia governors race offers a significant test of how much Trumps sagging job approval ratings could hurt Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections and gauges whether anti-Trump activism will benefit Democrats. Although the general election isnt until November, the poll suggests a hostile environment for Republicans.

Republican favorite Gillespie, who has a wide lead in the partys three-way primary race, trails both Democratic candidates by almost identical margins: Tom Perriello by 50percent to 37percent, and Ralph Northam by 49percent to 38percent among registered voters.

[Post-Schar poll finds Ed Gillespie with big lead for GOP nomination]

Voters seem to be punishing Gillespie for Trumps performance, which they dont like. Trumps job approval rating is at 36percent, while 59percent of Virginia residents disapprove of his performance as commander in chief. More than half say they strongly disapprove, according to the poll, which was co-sponsored by The Post and George Mason Universitys Schar School of Policy and Government.

Unfortunately for Republicans running this year, they will carry the negative taint of the Trump administration with them no matter how hard they try to separate themselves, said Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School.

And theres no easy way out, because going too far in repudiating Trump risks alienating the partys base, which still approves of the president.

Its a tough act to perform ... I really dont envy them trying to do that, Rozell said. The way it looks right now, thats a lose-lose situation for a Republican.

A majority 77 percent of Republicans in Virginia say they approve of the way Trump is handling his job, though just under half strongly approve, at 48percent.

Among self-identified independents, more than 6 in 10 voters who disapprove of Trump support Northam and Perriello over Gillespie, with the Democrats receiving similarly wide support among independents who oppose the Republican health-care bill passed earlier this month by the House.

Fifty-eight percent of registered voters oppose the House Republican plan endorsed by Trump to replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Just 34percent of registered Virginia voters support the proposed replacement, the American Health Care Act.

Gillespie has been cautious on Trump he was slow to endorse him last year and has been careful in responding to the regular flow of controversy that has marked Trumps presidency.

His problem is clear in the stance of a voter like Beverly Snead, 65, a political independent from Chesapeake. She voted for Hillary Clinton last fall but was willing to give Trump and any Republicans running for governor a chance this year.

But Trumps behavior in office has turned her off and Gillespies silence about it prevents her from supporting him, she said.

I have no problem with Republicans, Democrats, running the United States. Just do the right thing, said Snead, who is concerned about Trumps possible ties to Russia and thinks he has hurt race relations with the things that come out of his mouth.

If you see someone in your party doing wrong, speak up and do the right thing, she said.

Gillespie is one of three candidates vying for the Republican nomination in the June13 primary, along with state Sen. Frank Wagner (Virginia Beach) and Prince William County Supervisor Corey Stewart.

The winner will take on whoever prevails in the Democratic nominating battle, also culminating June 13, a tight contest between Northam, who is lieutenant governor, and former congressman Perriello. The poll did not measure general election preferences with Stewart or Wagner as the Republican nominee, both of whom trail Gillespie by a wide margin in the primary race.

[Race between Democrats running for Virginia governor is neck and neck]

Both Democrats are running hard against Trump, with Perriello leading that effort through an influx of national money, support from progressive darling Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and viral online videos.

Democrats strength in the governors race comes despite the lukewarm popularity of current Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe. At 49percent approval and 25percent disapproval, McAuliffes ratings are largely positive but below the average for past governors and significantly lower than Marylands Republican governor, Larry Hogan, who has a 65percent approval mark in his state.

On the Republican side, the candidate who has most enthusiastically embraced Trump is Stewart, who was Trumps campaign manager last year in Virginia before being fired for protesting against party leaders he thought were not supportive enough of Trump. He has turned his verbal flamethrower on Gillespie for not strongly defending the president, but Stewarts stance hasnt translated into voter support.

Gillespie has double the voter support of either Stewart or Wagner among likely Republican primary voters, according to the Post-Schar poll.

Some Republican voters who approve of Trump say they would like a Republican governor to embrace him, but that it wont necessarily affect their vote in November. Its important that he supports [Trump], but I think state government is quite a bit different than the federal government, said Nancy Hass, 52, a contract specialist from Virginia Beach.

Kevin Thompson, a 58-year-old Fairfax resident, said he wouldnt back an establishment Republican candidate like Gillespie in a primary but would still back him in a general election against a Democrat unless theres a very strong third-party candidate.

With overall Trump approval so low, though, the math is tough for any Republican nominee in the general election. Gillespie trails Northam and Perriello by similar margins even if you filter out people who are not all that interested in politics those who did not vote last year, or in 2013, or who are not following the governors race closely.

One factor that could help the Republican nominee is low turnout. Virginia elections typically draw far fewer voters in years when there is no presidential race. That can tend to favor Republican candidates, whose supporters generally are more likely to be white and older groups that are statistically more likely to vote.

At this relatively early point in the race, similar shares of registered voters who are Democrats (59percent) and Republicans (53percent) say they are paying close attention to the election though fewer than 1 in 5 of either party says they are following it very closely.

Democrats are hoping that one side effect of the controversies around Trump is that more people are motivated to vote. Colin Dillon, 23, was old enough the last time Virginia picked a governor but was away at college and didnt bother.

Now a financial analyst living in McLean, he plans to show up this year for the Democratic primary as well as the general election. He credits Sanders for stirring his interest in politics, although his opposition to Trump is also driving him.

I would say Im definitely more engaged, said Dillon, who supports Perriello in the primary but would vote for Northam if he emerges as the Democratic nominee. The current state [of Washington] has made me more focused on it and also more willing to bring up the discussion of you should vote with people.

Monday is the last day to register to vote in the June13 primaries.

The Post-Schar School poll was conducted by telephone May 9-14 among a random sample of 1,602 adults and 1,395 registered voters in Virginia, including landline and cellphone respondents, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three points among adults and registered voters.

Emily Guskin, Laura Vozzella and Fenit Nirappil contributed to this report.

Excerpt from:
Poll: Democrats have edge over Republican front-runner in Va. governor's race - Washington Post

New York Post

Democrats shy from impeachment and other notable comments New York Post Impeach Trump? Not so fast, say . . . Democrats. According to Mike Lillis at The Hill, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and House Democratic Caucus chairman Joe Crowley have all tried to lower the volume on the impeachment ... Pelosi wants independent commission on Russia despite special counsel appointmentThe Hill all 59 news articles »

Excerpt from:
Democrats shy from impeachment and other notable comments - New York Post

Unless the Trump-Russia nexus is much deeper and darker than it appears, the intelligence disclosure to Russia most likely doesnt expose Trump to any legal jeopardy, but the legal scholars of the website Lawfarewhich is not exactly a hotbed of resistance organizingreasoned persuasively that the breach may have violated his oath of office.

Congress has alleged oath violationsalbeit violations tied to criminal allegations or breaches of statutory obligationsall three times it has passed or considered seriously articles of impeachment against presidents, they wrote. Theres thus no reason why Congress couldnt consider a grotesque violation of the Presidents oath as a standalone basis for impeachmenta high crime and misdemeanor in and of itself.

It is certainly awkward that Trump made himself vulnerable to impeachment so quickly after inauguration, but that is a testament to his overreach, not Democrats.

The central risk of admitting this publicly isnt overreach so much as over-promising. Republicans in Congress arent likely to impeach Trump, and even if Democrats reclaim control of both the House and Senate next year, removing him from office would require many Republicans to vote to convict him. But this is only a problem if Democrats are incapable of distinguishing between the abstract merits of impeaching Trump and the political feasibility of it. By impeaching Clinton, Republicans demonstrated that its possible for the political climate to allow for the impeachment of officials who do not deserve it. Our current circumstances are precisely backward. Trump deserves impeachment urgently, but politics will insulate him from it for the foreseeable future.

But that shouldnt spook Democrats out of telling voters they understand how critical removing Trump from office isand that they will fight as hard as they can to do so, even if they ultimately fall short. In many ways the 2016 Democratic primary underscored the importance of finding this very kind of middle ground between promising to deliver popular endslike Medicare for alland opposing those ends outright on political-feasibility grounds. The promise to fight is an easy promise to keep.

I know that there are those who are talking about Well, were gonna get ready for next election, Waters, the House Democrat, rightly said last week. No. We cant wait that long. We dont need to wait that long. He will have destroyed this country by then. We cannot wake up every morning to another crisis, to another scandal.

It is extremely unlikely that Trump will find remedies for the problems hes created for himself by the end of next yearthat he will liquidate his business, disclose his finances, nominate a consensus FBI director, and be fully exonerated by Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller. Unless Trump does, he should not be president, and politicians arent serving the public well by pretending otherwise.

Read more from the original source:
Democrats Should Proudly Call for Trump's Impeachment - New Republic

There wasn't a single Republican in the room on April 28, but Wall Street was well represented.

House Democrats had gathered inside the Financial Services Committee for a special minority hearing to discuss the dangers of rolling back the Dodd-Frank Act's sweeping regulations. Instead of bankers or traders or regulators, Democrats called none other than Sen. Elizabeth Warren to testify.

Warren loves to talk tough as though she is the crusading scourge of Wall Street. But is that really so?

There was a tension over what to do with Dodd-Frank. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein said just after the 2016 election, "I wouldn't want regulation to be repealed in total." In a 2013 interview, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon bragged that Dodd-Frank helped his bottom line by building a "bigger moat" making it harder for competitors to get into the citadel of riches. As Congress considered the bill in 2010, Blankfein admitted that his bank would be "among the biggest beneficiaries" of Dodd-Frank.

So Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling hit the bullseye when he called the faux hearing "awkward for the Democrats."

"Barack Obama is pocketing $400,000 for a Wall Street speech and Prof. Warren is joining Wall Street CEOs in defending Dodd-Frank. How awkward for the Democrats," Hensarling said. "Community banks and credit unions are supporting the Financial CHOICE Act," Hensarling's bill to replace Dodd-Frank. "Wall Street CEOs and Democrats are the ones saying, Don't repeal Dodd-Frank.' "

The Congressional Budget Office on Thursday added heft to Hensarling's argument. It scored the CHOICE Act as saving taxpayers more than $24 billion, in a very special and telling way. The CBO reports that the bill "would repeal the FDIC's authority to use the [Orderly Liquidation Fund] to resolve large, systemically important financial firms (including banks and nonbank firms) that become or are in danger of becoming insolvent, subject to certain conditions."

The translation of this legalese is that Dodd-Frank's process for liquidating big banks risks taxpayer money. By removing that risk, the CHOICE bill would reduce the deficit. The odds of a bailout through the OLF is small, the CBO said, but it's still a risk. "Although the probability that the FDIC would have to liquidate a systemically important firm in any year is small, the potential associated cash flows would probably be large." By CBO's accounting, removing this risk counts as a $15.5 billion in savings over a decade.

Here's the other telling part of the CBO report. It says the biggest banks don't want to be freed from Dodd-Frank's regulations. Let's just say that again: big banks don't want to be freed from Dodd-Frank regulations. And we're supposed to believe the Democrats are crusaders against big banks? Seriously?

Dodd-Frank imposed regulations on banks with the aim of preserving safety and soundness. They were complicated, complex, and costly. The CHOICE Act's name derives in part from the choice it offers banks, the option to get out from the under these rules and all dealings with regulators and reporting requirements by setting aside more reserves as a bigger cushion. In other words, if a bank takes the traditional approach to safety and soundness, which is to set aside sufficient reserves, it doesn't have to live by some of Dodd-Frank's other rules.

But the big guys won't take this offer. "CBO anticipates that, for example, the eight large banks headquartered in the United States that are characterized as globally systemic important banks (G-SIBs) would not make the election because they would have to raise much more capital," the CBO concludes.

The clear implication is that the behemoths, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Morgan Stanley, are content with Dodd-Frank's regulations. They can afford the lawyers, lobbyists, and financial gymnastics to fit their risk-taking into whatever rules the regulators (many of whom will someday work for the banks they are regulating) throw at them.

Regulation of any industry adds to costs, which big business is most able to absorb. The more government gets involved, the bigger the advantage for banks who have the best team of lawyers and lobbyists. And that's never Mom n' Pop of community banks.

The CHOICE Act would take some deregulatory steps that please the big banks, including repealing some Dodd-Frank rules for all banks and taming the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Nonetheless, the CBO report helps rebut a standard Democratic myth, that their big-government policies stick it to the big guys while the GOP's opposition sticks it to the little guys.

The truth, which the big bankers admit, is that regulation and bailouts, that is, big government, is their preferred environment.

When it comes to banking, as when it comes to so many other things such as job creation, the Democratic Party is the party of the 'haves' and the GOP is the party of the 'have-nots.' That's doesn't fit with popular political myth, but it's the truth. It's a pity the Republicans are so bad at conveying this message, but that's another story.

Read the original here:
Big banks love Democrats' big government - Washington Examiner

Every controversy enveloping President Donald Trump spurs Democratic optimism about their partys future prospects. And just as the maneuvering for 2020 has started, so, too, has speculation about likely nominees.

Based on recent presidential campaign history, the ultimate Democratic winner might well be one of those making early trips to Iowa or New Hampshire.

But early polls and dope sheets will almost certainly be wrong or at least misleading.

More likely than not, the next president, to be elected in either 2020 or 2024, will be someone barely on the current radar screen. (Trump has already begun his own re-election race, but Republican 2020 speculation may be even less predictable than Democratic.)

Just look back four years to the initial jockeying to succeed Barack Obama. A 2013 fivethirtyeight.com analysis of early 2016 polling showed Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida leading 13 other Republicans. Not even mentioned: Trump, who even then was thinking of running but was not being taken seriously.

Among Democrats, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the overwhelming front-runner, as she had been eight years earlier when she wound up losing to Obama. The seven others with some support did not include Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who nearly took the nomination from Clinton in 2016.

The next Democratic race will probably resemble the large 2016 GOP field, attracted by Trumps low approval numbers and his failure to expand his political base into believing that one of them will win in 2020. In a recent Fox News poll, a significant majority said theyd likely vote for someone new against Trump.

Those numbers, of course, are hardly more meaningful than the recent analysis by CNNs Chris Cillizza, listing 22 potential Democratic candidates, of whom three he said have a real chance to win the nomination if they run: Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Sanders will be 78, Biden 77 and Warren 70 in 2020, and many Democrats will want someone younger.

His lists main value may be its inclusiveness, though he omitted such rising younger Democrats as former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who might satisfy voters likely desire for someone new.

He included six senators, six current and former governors, two mayors, one House member, plus four business executives, including Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

Of the best known three, its unclear which, if any, will run, though Sanders may be best in position to influence the race with the large organization he is building.

The more interesting names were on Cillizzas list of eight with potential to be a major contender.

They included two senators already making quiet 2020 moves, New Jerseys Cory Booker and Californias Kamala Harris; two governors showing definite signs of interest, New Yorks Andrew Cuomo and Virginias Terry McAuliffe; 2016 vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine; little-known Washington Gov. Jay Inslee; and, perhaps most interestingly, comedian-turned-Minnesota Sen. Al Franken and Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy.

Of those, Booker seems the likeliest to run, McAuliffe and Murphy perhaps the most promising. Kaine lacks a political base, and Cuomo and Harris might be ill-suited for the retail politics of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Frankens Minnesota colleague, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who recently headlined an Iowa Democratic fundraiser, was in a secondary group rated as having a chance. It also included former Maryland Gov. Martin OMalley, who never stopped running after flopping in 2016; and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. Lastly were the rich business people like Cuban, Zuckerman and Sheryl Sandberg.

If I were betting, Id take the field against Biden, Sanders and Warren. And Id watch carefully for early responses in Iowa or New Hampshire to any of these lesser-known figures or perhaps someone else as yet unmentioned. Sanders May 2015 Iowa crowds were the first sign he might become a major 2016 player.

Despite the Trump experience, early efforts have been a tipoff ever since John F. Kennedy decided to seek the White House right after narrowly losing the vice presidential nomination at the 1956 Democratic Convention.

Another valuable sign: look for the non-Trump. Voters tend to pick someone clearly different from the incumbent. For the Democrats, that means someone younger with governmental experience and less of an alpha male.

Like most out of power parties, the Democrats are leaderless now. That ultimately will change. And it wont stop pundits and pollsters from producing multiple analyses of which one might emerge.

But the meaningful ones may only be evident in retrospect.

Originally posted here:
Carl Leubsdorf: Democrats already looking to 2020 - Omaha World-Herald