Month: August 2016

The Week in Review

Last week, both presidential candidates sharpened their rhetoric against each other with Hillary Clinton seeking to link Donald Trump to white nationalism and the “alternative right” and Trump responding by casting Clinton as a “bigot.” While name-calling is hardly a new development in presidential campaigns, there is little doubt that Clinton and Trump are entering uncharted territory by directly assigning labels such as “racist” and “bigot” to their opponent. With three months still remaining before Election Day, it has become clear that both campaigns have engaged in an attack strategy that centers on the candidates’ unprecedented unpopularity.

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The Week in Review

Donald Trump stayed in the headlines last week after his campaign decided to make a number of changes in their campaign structure. Steve Bannon, executive chairman of the ultra-conservative Breitbart News, was named chief executive of the campaign while Kellyanne Conaway, a senior adviser and longtime conservative pollster, was promoted to the position of campaign manager. Many analysts viewed the moves as a response to the GOP nominee’s sagging poll numbers, but the Trump team originally cast the changes as an “expansion” of the campaign’s leadership, with campaign chairman Paul Manafort slated to stay on. However, the change of direction for the campaign was confirmed when Manafort offered his resignation on Friday. Manafort, who had come under fire for his ties to the regime of Vladimir Putin, was known for trying to encourage Trump to become a more “traditional” candidate and his exit may signal the candidate’s desire to “double down” on the unconventional tactics that won him the GOP primary.

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The Week in Review

In the presidential race, nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump delivered a pair of policy speeches intended to outline competing visions for the U.S. economy. The latter called for a freeze on all financial regulation, the renegotiation of major trade deals, and the implementation of a child care deduction in the tax code. In her speech later in the week, Clinton touted a plan that would make a significant government investment in infrastructure to create jobs, mandate universal pre-school and paid family leave programs, and tax the richest Americans at a higher rate. Despite the speeches, the week’s news cycle focused on controversies related to both candidates; pundits lampooned Trump over his latest inflammatory remarks – calling President Obama the “founder” of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – and questioned Clinton’s relationship with the family’s charitable organization, the Clinton Foundation, during her time as Secretary of State.  Polls at the end of the week showed Clinton maintaining a sizeable lead in most of the battleground states that will be key to November’s election.

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The Week in Review

In the presidential race, Hillary Clinton opened a significant lead in the latest polls following the Democratic National Convention and a series of controversies involving her opponent, Donald Trump. With just under 100 days until the election, Clinton has approached a double digit lead nationally and carries an advantage beyond the margin of error in most of the critical swing states across the country. However, it remains to be seen whether this is a temporary boost in support – a so-called “convention bounce” – or whether recent polls reflect a more lasting trend going forward.

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The Week in Review

Following the Republican convention in Cleveland two weeks ago, Democrats convened in Philadelphia last week to officially nominate Hillary Clinton for President. The biggest scandal of the convention struck before the gavel even dropped as Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL) was forced to resign amid the release of emails suggesting that the Democratic Party staff favored Clinton over her opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and actively sought to undermine his campaign. However, after that rocky start, the convention featured a heavy-hitting lineup of current and past Democratic leaders that vehemently attacked the ideology and credentials of Republican nominee Donald Trump while also casting an optimistic counter view of American society. 

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