Welcome to The Lid, your afternoon dose of the 2016 ethos… Thanks for checking out our new afternoon newsletter, which we hope will offer a quick take on the day in politics. Think of it as Happy Hour for your brain, except you get breaking news and analysis instead of half-priced drafts, and Dennis from Accounting will never stick you with the check. You have our word.
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‘16 AT 30 THOUSAND
Here at the NBC political unit, we get as excited about new polling as some Target shoppers got about the Lilly Pulitzer launch over the weekend. But we also try to keep in mind that for the great majority of non-nerd Americans, it’s still very early in the 2016 cycle, and all frontrunner status guarantees for a candidate right now is a big target on their back. We mined the NBC/WSJ archives and found that candidates who performed near the top this early in the presidential cycle have included Rudy Giuliani (with 33 percent GOP support in April 2007), Joe Lieberman (who led our April 2003 poll of Democrats with 19 percent support) and even Donald Trump (with 17 percent GOP support in April 2011). And apart from George W. Bush in 1999, no non-incumbent Iowa caucus winner in the past 16 years has led in the polls the April before an election year.
POPPING ON NBC POLITICS
In New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton told reporters “I don't know what [Republicans would] talk about if I weren't in the race.”
Ohio Gov. John Kasich has formally filed paperwork for a 527 organization called New Day for America.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell talked to West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin about his decision to stay in the Senate rather than pursue a gubernatorial bid -- and about whether Hillary Clinton is ready to be president.
Did you miss this morning’s First Read on how Hillary Clinton is dominating the 2016 narrative after only nine days as an official candidate? Cure what ails ya by clicking here.
CAMPAIGN QUICK READS
The folks over at the Washington Post crunched the numbers and found that primaries picked the eventual presidential winner 77.9 percent of the time since 1976, while non-primaries only got it right 64.5 percent of the time.
BUSH: Remember the Jeb Bush hire who abruptly lost his job after some offensive tweets came to light? He’s on a mission to make sure others don’t suffer the same fate. TIME reports that Ethan Czahor is releasing a new app that searches users’ social media feeds for inflammatory material and makes it easy to delete the offending post.
Reuters reports (and NBC confirms) that Bush will visit Germany, Poland and Estonia in June.
O’MALLEY: We’re a family publication here at The Lid, so we’ll just direct you to NPR’s transcript of its interview with Martin O’Malley for what he *really* thinks of Republican economic policy.
FOR THE RECORD…
“Listen, we elected Warren G. Harding. Anybody has a chance. You don't know who you're going to be running against. If the other guy falls on his rear end, you could win."
- FOX News chief Roger Ailes, on Ted Cruz’s chances of winning the 2016 election
TOMORROW’S SKED
Hillary Clinton has a 10:20a ET event in Concord, NH, where she’ll focus on community college programs.
Former President Bill Clinton gives an address on public service at Georgetown University at 10:30am ET.
Chris Christie speaks at the Washington Conference on the Americas at 12:25pm ET.
Carly Fiorina has events in Council Bluffs, Sioux City and Denison, Iowa.
