Welcome to The Lid, your afternoon dose of the 2016 ethos… Actor Mandy Patinkin, who played Inigo Montoya in the 1987 film “The Princess Bride,” says that fan Ted Cruz is missing the point of the cult classic’s message of hope and optimism. In other words: He does not think it means what Ted Cruz thinks it means.
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‘16 from 30,000
Donald Trump may be touting a doctor’s note saying that his health is “astonishingly excellent,” but his political fundamentals aren’t very healthy when it comes to a general election matchup against Hillary Clinton. Sure, we’ll concede that head-to-head polls this far in advance of having presumptive nominees should be taken with a grain of salt, but the numbers inside Clinton’s current 10 point margin over the GOP frontrunner should still be cause for alarm for those who want to see a Republican in the Oval Office. The NBC/WSJ poll found that Clinton leads Trump with women by 24 points, with Latinos by 45 points, with white women by nine points, with suburban women by 24 points and with midwestern voters by 14 points. In fact, Clinton bests Trump - often by double digits - among almost every key swing voter group for the general election. In contrast, Marco Rubio and Ben Carson perform as well or better than Clinton with white women, independents and seniors.
POPPING ON NBC POLITICS
- Monday poll mania! Hillary Clinton would defeat Ted Cruz and trounce Donald Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head general election matchup, but she would lose to Marco Rubio or Ben Carson, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
- A whopping 71 percent of Americans believe that the shootings and random acts of violence that have taken place this year are now a permanent part of American life, the poll also found.
- And from yesterday’s release: Donald Trump has moved back into the lead of the 2016 Republican presidential contest, while Ted Cruz has surged into second place.
- Donald Trump’s physician said the real estate mogul's "physical strength and stamina are extraordinary" and his recent lab tests results were "astonishingly excellent," one of us wrote.
- MSNBC’s Benjy Sarlin reports that non-Trump candidates in New Hampshire are pretty much all sticking to the same game plan: camp out in the Granite State and corner the market on voters turned off by the Trump brand by touting their own experience, gravitas, and mental stability.
- From First Read this AM: The Republican establishment may have a nightmare scenario in the 2016 race.
CAMPAIGN QUICK READ OF THE DAY
The New York Times offers an introduction to Jeanette Rubio, the wife of the Florida senator.
FOR THE RECORD…
“Is the suggestion that Mr. Trump’s doctor has conducted a thorough medical examination of President Jefferson and President Adams? That’s a lot of work,”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest responding to Trump’s physician asserting that he would be the healthiest individual ever elected president.
TOMORROW’S SKED
The fifth Republican debate takes place in Las Vegas. The undercard begins at 6 p.m. ET and the main event will start at 8:30.
Hillary Clinton delivers a counterterrorism speech in Minneapolis at 4 p.m. ET.
Bernie Sanders holds two events in New Hampshire.
