OFF TO THE RACES: Double digits
Our new NBC/WSJ poll from over the weekend shows Clinton with an 11-point lead in a four-way race.
The Wall Street Journal notes Trump’s growing support among women and swing voters.
And there’s this from this morning, from one of us(!): “Hillary Clinton is maintaining a 50-point lead over Donald Trump among Latino voters heading into the final weeks of the presidential election, and more Latinos now say they they're very interested in the November contest, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/ Telemundo poll.”
The Financial Times: “Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has informally approached one of the media industry’s top dealmakers about the prospect of setting up a Trump television network after the presidential election in November.” MORE: “Mr Kushner — an increasingly influential figure in the billionaire’s presidential campaign — contacted Aryeh Bourkoff, the founder and chief executive of LionTree, a boutique investment bank, within the past couple of months, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.”
From NBC’s Alex Jaffe: “The Trump campaign is struggling to operate at even a basic level in many key states, as it lacks funding and relies heavily on sometimes hostile state party organizations. The developments are raising further doubts about the candidate's viability in the final weeks of the race.”
Trump is still going after Paul Ryan on Twitter.
Quite a lead from the Washington Post: “He is preaching to the converted. He is lashing out at anyone who is not completely loyal. He is detaching himself from and delegitimizing the institutions of American political life. And he is proclaiming conspiracies everywhere — in polls (rigged), in debate moderators (biased) and in the election itself (soon to be stolen). In the presidential campaign’s home stretch, Donald Trump is fully inhabiting his own echo chamber. The Republican nominee has turned inward, increasingly isolated from the country’s mainstream and leaders of his own party, and determined to rouse his most fervent supporters with dire warnings that their populist movement could fall prey to dark and collusive forces.”
The New York Times describes “a twilight zone of politics where sexual tawdriness and assault accusations have become consuming issues in the final weeks of the campaign.”
Is Donald Trump at risk of losing Arizona? NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard takes a look.
The Washington Post: “Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton faces a striking choice in the final three weeks of the campaign: to expand her efforts to states that Democrats haven’t won in a generation, or to stay a current course that, if conditions hold, would deliver her a resounding electoral college victory.”
The Wall Street Journal sums up Trump’s claims of a rigged election. “GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump on Sunday intensified his charge that the election is rigged against him by media bias and malfeasance at the ballot box, after his running mate, Mike Pence, tried to temper the nominee’s rhetoric by saying the Republicans would accept the Nov. 8 election result. The mixed messages on the Republican ticket came as the presidential race turns toward this week’s final debate and as both campaigns were pressing the message that controversies dogging their candidacies are being pushed by outside, opposing forces. Democrat Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, Sunday charged that the Russian government is trying to sway the election to Mr. Trump through hacks of campaign emails.”
And the New York Times details officials’ attempts to fight back against the ‘rigged’ claims: “Republican leaders and election officials from both parties on Sunday sought to combat claims by Donald J. Trump that the election is rigged against him, amid signs that Mr. Trump’s contention is eroding confidence in the vote and setting off talk of rebellion among his supporters. In a vivid illustration of how Mr. Trump is shattering American political norms, the Republican nominee is alleging that a conspiracy is underway between the news media and the Democratic Party to commit vast election fraud. He has offered no evidence to support his claim.”
Transcripts of a Goldman Sachs event show that Clinton lamented that U.S. covert actions don’t always stay that way.
Clinton is out with a new ad painting Trump as a bully.
Breaking, from the AP in Iraq: “Iraqi and Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led airstrikes launched coordinated military operations early Monday as the long-awaited fight to wrest the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State fighters got underway. But the battle is likely to be long and it was unclear when the troops would enter the city itself. The fate of more than a million civilians trapped inside Mosul will also be critical as the battle intensifies in the days and weeks ahead amid concerns that IS could use them as human shields.”