So far Congress isn\’t making much news during the month long August recess so our focus remains on the 2016 Presidential primaries. First, news this week that Vice President Joe Biden is considering throwing his hat in the ring in the Democratic Primary. He would be the first credible challenge to presumptive nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Though Biden has been quite circumspect on whether he would run, the continuing questions surrounding Clinton\’s email practices during her time at the State Department is having him take a serious look. That along with the death of son Beau Biden who before passing away encouraged his father to run is giving the Biden camp plenty of ammo to consider a serious challenge. Though sitting Vice Presidents usually have a leg up on the nominating process, Biden would start in a serious deficit with $0 dollars in the bank and no infrastructure in place to sustain what would be a long and hard fought campaign against the Clinton machine. For now Biden\’s camp is making inquiries into the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina on what it would take to set up shop in each state.
The first candidate to drop out in the primary process may come sooner than expected. Former Governor Rick Perry of Texas is having a hard time getting any traction after being bumped out of the first debate and placed in the second tier debate on Fox News last week. To make matters worse, this week news leaked from the Perry camp that he has suspended paying his campaign staff. While some campaigns in the past have survived not paying their staff after brief money woes, the writing seems to be on the wall. With 17 candidates in the race, Perry has gone at lengths to try to distinguish himself from the rest of the pack and shake off his mistakes from his 2012 run but so far to no avail. Some Republican insiders are disappointed he has not gotten more attention since he\’s a good retail politician and has one of the better governing records of any candidate in the field. Even with all these woes, his Super PAC may be able to sustain him for a bit longer than would normally be the case.
Lastly how could we write about the Presidential primaries without mentioning the current leader of the Republican field, Donald Trump. With Trump leading the national polls and in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire its worth taking a look at what it means to be leading this early in the race. According to fivethirtyeight.com, just leading the polls doesn\’t mean much for predicting the nominee but rather how large is the leader\’s share of the vote. In fact no summer front runner has gone to win the Iowa caucus without at least 33 percent of the vote in polls. Trump currently sits at 19 percent there. Taking a look at New Hampshire Trump is at 24.5 percent with no one ever winning New Hampshire if they polled less than 30 percent. Another way to look at it is about 80 percent of the vote right now is not for Trump which isn\’t a great sign if you\’re the supposed front runner.
HUPAC Supported Events this Week and Next Week
- There were no fundraising events for this or next week, with Congress on August Recess.
Weekly Reading
- Donald Trump, the secretly moderate Republican?