President/National:
2020: The Trumpster raised over $18 million in the third quarter and has raised an unprecedented $106 million so far for his 2020 reelection campaign.
2018: Things are not going that well for Congressional Republicans, as 92 Democratic candidates raised more in the 3rd quarter than the GOP incumbents they’re facing. This too, apparently, is unprecedented. Historically, fundraising has been seen as maybe the most important indicator of electoral success, but in an environment where the airwaves are saturated and where most of the attention is focused on Trump and whoever he’s in a twitter-feud with at the moment, maybe it’s not that simple anymore.
2020: Politico states the fairly obvious – that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) in her attempt to prove Native American ancestry has made a big round target of herself, both from the left and from the right. Identity obsessed leftists are outraged that she tries to “appropriate” ancestry and moderates are just angry that she took the bait and created this much of a distraction so close to the midterms. The right (as seen here on RRH) ridicules the tiny percentage of Native ancestry in her DNA.
2020: The latest candidate to be floated in New Hampshire is California Congressman Adam Schiff (D), who was asked about presidential ambitions and gave the standard reply of “never say never”. The article goes on to detail Schiff’s long-thwarted ambitions for higher office, stating “Schiff may be feeling “boxed in” as a white, male politician” in the words of one observer. Welcome to identity politics, I guess.
Court packing: It didn’t take ’em long. Liberal Harvard professors suggest appointing a further four Justices to SCOTUS in 2021 – assuming a Democratic win of course. A Republican doing the same would surely be “obstruction, theft and procedural abuse”, as they call the appointment of Trump-nominated judges on the lower courts. This might turn out to be a salient proposal for Republicans, come 2020; I can’t think of many issues that would fire up both the base and independents more than preserving the process and the institutions of the Judiciary….