Trump In Danger In Deeply Red Utah?

Donald Trump is facing potential trouble in a state that has gone for a Democrat only twice since the end of World War II.

donald-trump-microphone

A new poll suggests that Donald Trump is at risk of losing Utah thanks to Mormon voters who clearly don’t like him and the presence on the ballot of two third-party candidates who are clearly drawing votes away from him:

Republican Donald Trump appears to have, in his earlier words, “a tremendous problem in Utah” as a new poll shows him slipping into a dead heat with Democrat Hillary Clinton since crude comments he made about women surfaced last weekend.

And along with the billionaire businessman’s sudden fall, independent candidate and BYU graduate Evan McMullin surged into a statistical tie with the two major party presidential nominees, according to survey conducted Monday and Tuesday by Salt Lake City-based Y2 Analytics.

“A third-party candidate could win Utah as Utahns settle on one,” said Quin Monson, Y2 Analytics founding partner.

McMullin may well have caught lightning in a bottle.

The poll shows Clinton and Trump tied at 26 percent, McMullin with 22 percent and Libertarian Gary Johnson getting 14 percent if the election were held today. Y2 Analytics surveyed 500 likely Utah voters over landlines and cellphones Oct. 10-11 The poll has a plus or minus 4.4 percent margin of error.

Also, a majority of voters statewide and specifically Mormons, as well as a near majority of Republicans, say Trump should drop out of the race, according to the poll.

The poll shows that 94 percent of Utahns have watched or heard about the video in which Trump had an extremely lewd conversation about women caught on a hot microphone in 2005. Y2 Analytics managing partner Scott Riding called that high percentage “astounding” for political news.

Those who viewed the video felt more strongly that Trump should step aside than those who only heard about it, according to the poll. Republicans, however, are split over whether Trump should go.

A cascade of rank-and-file Republicans and GOP leaders in Utah abandoned their support for Trump soon after the video became public. A BYU political science professor described the reaction in Utah as a “full-scale revolt” against Trump.

Gov. Gary Herbert and Utah Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Chris Stewart were among those announcing they would no longer vote for their party’s nominee. The Deseret News called for Trump to resign his candidacy.

“It’s quite the cacophony of voices coming from this state,” Monson said, adding that doesn’t appear to be happening to the same degree nationally or in other states. “Utah continues to be quite different in its rejection of Donald Trump.”

Clinton, too, though hasn’t captured Utahns’ hearts. Both she and Trump have unfavorability ratings of about 70 percent, according to the poll.

“These are very deeply disliked candidates,” Riding said.

McMullin’s ballot strength is striking considering that only 52 percent of voters are aware enough of his candidacy to offer an opinion, according to Y2 Analytics. However, among those that recognize his name, four out of five see him favorably.

Boyd Matheson, president of the conservative Sutherland Institute, said there’s a distinction in Utah that’s becoming more apparent nationally that voters aren’t going to settle for political rhetoric on either side of the aisle.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s Trump or Clinton, Utahns are saying, ‘No, that’s not what leadership looks like to us,'” Matheson said.

To put this in historical perspective, Utah has not gone for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson’s landslide in 1964 and has only gone for a Democrat one other time since World War II, in the 1948 contest between Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey.

If this poll is accurate, it really is bad news for Trump’s Electoral College chances regardless of whether it means that the state’s six Electoral Votes go into Clinton’s column or end up going to either of the two third-party candidates that seem to be benefiting from Trump’s troubles among the state’s Mormon voters. Taking those six votes out of Trump’s column makes it that much harder for him to get to the 270 votes that he would need to win the election. Indeed, any loss in any state that Mitt Romney won in 2012 would be nearly fatal to his campaign since it would increase the number of Obama states he would need to win this time around. In that regard, polling has already been showing Clinton leading in North Carolina, which would take another fifteen Electoral Votes off the table for Trump. If Utah were to leave his camp as well, it would mean Trump starts 21 Electoral Votes behind where Romney was four years ago.

This isn’t the first poll to show Trump with a surprising lead in the Beehive State. Steven Taylor made note of similar polling back in June but it is worth noting that more recent polling has shown Trump with the same comfortable lead in the state that you’d expect any other Republican to have. The present RealClearPolitics poll average, for example, which doesn’t include independent Evan McMullen, gives Trump a thirteen point lead, which is less than the margin Mitt Romney won the state by four years ago and also below where Republicans have generally polled in past elections dating back to  1968. That average, though, includes only a handful of polls taken in August and September, well before the latest troubles that Trump’s campaign has experienced. This suggests that it would be helpful to have additional polling out of this state given that it could cost Trump the election. We’ve seen before, however, that Utah voters are not impressed with Trump at all. In addition to tepid support in the polls at best, Trump came in a distant third behind Ted Cruz and John Kasich in the state’s Presidential caucus and has generally been seen in a bad light by the state’s Mormon population, which isn’t surprising given what he has said about Mitt Romney in the past and his, shall we say, colorful lifestyle..

FILED UNDER: 2016 Election, Public Opinion Polls, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. C. Clavin says:

    This makes sense because Mormons, as opposed to Southern Evangelicals, actually believe in their faith; for them it’s not just a cudgel to be used on women and their reproductive rights.
    Any person who claims to be religious and a Trump supporter is lying thru their teeth about their religious beliefs.

  2. Mark Ivey says:

    Trump ain’t kickin it in Salt Lake City anymore?

    Damm . . . . . . . . .

  3. michael reynolds says:

    @C. Clavin:

    Virtually all religious people – anyone with an IQ above room temperature – lies about religious faith. If people actually believed God was real, and actually believed in judgment and afterlife, the world would be a very, very different place.

    I doubt Mormons believe the superstitious nonsense any more than any other faith, but they have a strong and coherent social structure built out from the church, and a deep awareness of history, and because of that I think that regardless of actual faith they sometimes behave better than the usual Baptist. Mormons have stepped up before. After Katrina Mormon Utah not only accepted refugees from Louisiana, it bent over backward for them. And that was lily-white Utah with all black refugees.

    I’m leery of getting triumphalist about this. I doubt we’ll add new states. I think we’ll take NC and maybe even AZ, but that’s about it. Barring some last-minute madness from the American people, we’ll win a nice, healthy victory. Maybe even take the Senate though that’s looking sketchy.

    If we win let’s just be relieved and happy that we have saved the Republic from the catastrophic failures of the Republican Party.

  4. Hal_10000 says:

    It gets worse actually. The SLC Tribune just endorsed Clinton. And I believe the Deseret News called on Trump to step down. The Mormon leadership is very unhappy with Trump and if they officially bolt, lots of Mormon votes go with them. Third party candidates generally underperform their polls because people know they won’t win. But if there is a perception that McMullin *could* win, then he definitely *can* win.

    Trump has lost the Mormons, at least for the moment. I never thought I’d see a Republican lose the Mormons but here we are. This doesn’t surprise me. I’ve worked with a lot of Mormons and they are very religious, very conservative and very consistent. They see Trump’s behavior and temperament are a real problem. God bless ’em.

  5. Hal_10000 says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Mormons are also big on immigration, are accepting Syrian refugees and believe on building ties to the Islamic community. They’ve been sour on Trump for a long time.

  6. michael reynolds says:

    You know what Hillary maybe ought to do? Find a way to throw some support to McMullin. A McMullin win is a Trump loss is a Hillary gain.

  7. PJ says:

    The margin of error here is 4.4% and there is generally a 95% probability that the true result is within that margin of error. So it could very well be one of the polls where the true result isn’t.

    I would want to see more polls showing this kind of result before I’m going to believe it.

    The one thing that would make this poll more believable is that both Clinton and Trump have very low support, voters aren’t abandoning Trump for Clinton, they instead voting third party or not voting for President at all.

    I’m also seeing more and more evangelical Christians arguing that you can’t vote Trump because of his repugnant morals, but that you can’t vote for Clinton either.

  8. Slugger says:

    I don’t get the Trump plan. At the start there were people who would vote for him no matter what, and there were committed HCR devotees. There were also some people of various degrees of neutrality who were gettable. Marital fidelity and sexual continence is important to a segment of the gettables. No one knows Trump’s personal history better than Trump. He should have made a few choice comments about Bill Clinton but let his surrogates do most of the talking. After all, Bill Clinton’s transgressions in this sphere are widely known. Instead, he has made this his central argument. Don, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. And now that this has backfired, he is looking for bigger stones to throw.
    Trump has always bragged about his skirt chasing. How could he fail to recognize his vulnerability on this issue? What kind of strategic thinking ability does this display? Certainly it does not show the cool quiet of the poker champion/chess master we need.
    Also, people do not respond well to be yelled at; they think it is scolding. Successful ad campaigns are persuasive by being low-key. Some self-deprecating humor works better than running around with a Mussolini scowl.

  9. Grumpy Realist says:

    @PJ: if Utah goes third party, I can’t but think that that would even more of a metaphorical kick in the balls for Trump than a win by Hillary.

    If Hillary wins, Trump and his minions can always self-justify their defeat by blaming everything on the eeevil media and eeeevil Demoncrats. But if Utah goes for a total unknown, that shows a real detestation for The Donald.

  10. michael reynolds says:

    @PJ:

    Few things would be better for this country than southern evangelical voters staying home. It’s a sad commentary, but if people are ineducable maybe they just need to get back to handling snakes, celebrating the deaths of black men and turning gay kids into suicides.

  11. C. Clavin says:

    @michael reynolds:

    A McMullin win is a Trump loss is a Hillary gain.

    Well, yeah. Because if Trump loses even one Romney state he is likely toast. Hillary doesn’t need to necessarily pick that state up.

    I doubt we’ll add new states. I think we’ll take NC and maybe even AZ, but that’s about it.

    I’m also holding out hope for GA. Probably a bridge too far this go-round.

    Mrs. Clinton’s campaign has concluded that at least two traditionally Republican states, Georgia and Arizona, are realistic targets for her campaign to win over. And Republican polling has found that Mr. Trump is at dire risk of losing Georgia, according to people briefed on the polls, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/us/politics/donald-trump-gop.html?_r=0

  12. Argon says:

    @Slugger:

    I don’t get the Trump plan.

    Plan? The ‘id’ doesn’t plan.

  13. dmichael says:

    @michael reynolds: This is the first instance when I disagree with your political strategy for HRC. Check out this new HRC ad in Utah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MWX6X0A85I
    I think it might work.

  14. CSK says:

    @Slugger:

    The interesting thing about Trump acknowledging that his treatment of women is a liability is that he actually did tell Chris Matthews back in 1999 that he thought any presidential ambitions he’d harbor would be impeded by it.

    “Can you imagine how controversial I’d be? You think about [Clinton] and the women. How about me with the women? Can you imagine?”

    http://www.nypost.com/1999/07/12/trump-toys-with-prez-run/

  15. PJ says:

    @Hal_10000:

    It gets worse actually. The SLC Tribune just endorsed Clinton. And I believe the Deseret News called on Trump to step down.

    The SLC Tribune endorsed Obama in 2008.
    And then the SLC Tribune endorsed Obama in 2012 when he ran against a Mormon.
    So, it shouldn’t be a shock that it endorsed Clinton this year.

    What the Deseret News has been doing this year though, that’s bad for Trump.

  16. MarkedMan says:

    @michael reynolds: I can’t believe I have to say this, but for Chris’ sake, all Southern Evangelicals are not ignorant rednecks. They’re not even all conservative. I have good friends that are definitely southern evangelicals and they are well educated well traveled people and quite liberal on a number of issues.

    I think you need to get out more…

  17. grumpy realist says:

    Found a good comment:

    “It’s been Lord of the Flies over at the GOP for months now.”

  18. anjin-san says:

    I got a remarkable email from the Trump campaign this morning. Apparently there is a massive Trump surge talking place nationwide, and Hillary is on the ropes.

    right now all the momentum is on our side.

    But the mainstream media are doing everything they can to prop up Crooked Hillary and downplay the incredible Donald Trump surge happening across the nation.

    We’re not just winning national polls like L.A. Times/USC and Rasmussen, we’re beating back the increasingly desperate Dems in the battleground states, too.

    That’s right — Donald Trump is ahead in 8 of RealClearPolitics’ battleground states including OH, NV, CO and IA — and gaining in seven more!

    The email includes an animated map that shows a curtain of red rolling across the country, with Hillary hanging on to a few Pacific Coast & New England states.

    I remember the McCain campaigns wild claims of a last minute surge (well, it did fool bithead), but this level of dishonesty with a candidates base is something new. Their email fundraising had become remarkably aggressive, I guess the name of the game is fleecing the steep while the opportunity is there.

  19. PJ says:

    @anjin-san:

    The email includes an animated map that shows a curtain of red rolling across the country, with Hillary hanging on to a few Pacific Coast & New England states.

    That map looks a lot like 538’s map of what it would look like if only men could vote.

  20. CSK says:

    @anjin-san:

    They’re asking for donations, I assume, to help build this incredible “momentum.”

    “Fleecing” is the right word.

  21. grumpy realist says:

    Another great comment from over at Balloon Juice on David Brooks latest “oh how much pity I feel for the Donald” mess in the NYT: (No, I’m not going to link. Pearl clutching all the way)

    Brooks has carved out a career being the poster child for the banality of snivel.

  22. Jen says:

    @PJ: Yes–on Twitter, 538 noted that the campaign has done exactly that.

  23. PJ says:

    @Jen:
    Not exactly, Maine has its EVs split on the 583 map 🙂

  24. PJ says:

    Trump wins OH, NV, NH, FL, NC, and AZ.
    McMullins wins UT.

    Clinton 269.
    Trump 263.
    McMullin 6.

    A result that could end with the House picking McMullin…

    So, Utah, do what you must!

  25. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @PJ:

    I’m also seeing more and more evangelical Christians arguing that you can’t vote Trump because of his repugnant morals, but that you can’t vote for Clinton either.

    This is a good thing. It splits the republican vote.

  26. anjin-san says:

    @PJ:

    That was really something. All I have to say is thank God for the ladies…

  27. Mr. Bluster says:

    “We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”
    ― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

  28. Pch101 says:

    @Hal_10000:

    The Salt Lake City Tribune is owned by the Huntsmans (or if the family is to be believed, by Paul Huntsman, son of the industrialist and brother of the former governor.) Establishment Republicans of the sort who are the most likely to want Trump and his ilk gone from the GOP.

  29. C. Clavin says:

    @anjin-san:
    @PJ:
    @Jen:
    Yeah…so the Trump campaign lies to it’s supporters about this make-believe surge. Then they go out and say the only way we can lose this race is if it’s stolen from us. Then his minions go around threatening a bloody revolution if he loses.
    Meantime, back in the in the real world, Nate Silver, who actually made the “men only’ map has Trump with about a 1-in-7 chance of winning this election. Sam Wang has it at 97% chance Clinton.
    This is turning into a very dangerous situation.
    Here’s the link where you can see if only WOMEN voted.
    http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-women-are-defeating-donald-trump/

  30. C. Clavin says:

    @PJ:

    Trump wins OH, NV, NH, FL, NC, and AZ.

    Only both Nate Silver and Sam Wang have OH, NC, NH, NV, and FL currently in Clinton’s column.
    But I see what you did there….

  31. John D'Geek says:

    Not even remotely surprised.

    I was Mormon for 25 years; lived in Utah for 4. Even the politicians recognize that they can’t treat Utah the same way they do the other states: if a political add is Fearmongering(TM) in Maine, it will be Thought Provoking(TM) in Utah*.

    Because that’s how Utah rolls.

    My Utah friends of Facebook abandoned “the Donald” a long time ago; being that the vast majority of Utahans are “principle based” instead of “reflexive” (both Democrats and Republicans), Trump’s focus on Persuasion (aka relying on emotion) rather than Principle will kill him there.

    While I would personally love Evan McMullin to win the presidency, I realize how slight the chances are for that. Still, Utah voting McMullin rather than Trump will send a warning shot across the bow of the Republican party:

    “We do not vote for you because you’ve ‘captured’ us; we vote for you because you have the same principles we do. Abandon them, and we abandon you.”

    Welcome to Utah.

    Regarding the Mormon Church: they flat out refuse to tell their members who to vote for. They do, however, emphasize that even a protest vote will bring blessings from God (generic, not specific, blessings), whether or not their preferred candidate wins. All they have to do is vote their conscience.

    So expect the protest vote to be massive, no matter who wins.

    * Personal Experience. I’m thinking of a real controversy, and I saw both adds.

  32. CSK says:

    Look, Trump has to say that the only way he could lose the election is through theft. There is no possibility he could admit to himself–nor could his followers admit to themselves–that he lost because he’s…beyond incompetent into dangerous.

    I’m sure you’ve all seen the stories about “scary clowns” popping up all over the country. Well, the scariest clown is the one at the head of the Republican ticket.

  33. Pch101 says:

    @PJ:

    The Tribune changed ownership this year, and the longtime editor was replaced.

  34. grumpy realist says:

    @Pch101: I wonder if we’re just going to see more and more sane Republicans drift over to the Democratic side.

    I don’t think the establishment Republicans have enough strength to chuck out the Bircher/alt-right types.

    And the conservative infotainment industry will continue to churn out a diet of conspiracy theories and wild accusations against “them” for the delectation of the Trumpenproletariat. Who will continue to happily send off their shekels to anyone who provides a pity party for them and tells them how wonderful they are.

    To the Trumpenproletariats: Look, I know that we have problems with the economics of the white working class. Problems which have been ignored by both parties. But while we figure out how to fix things, could you guys please at least not make yourselves such marks for any two-bit con man whistling down the street?!

  35. Pch101 says:

    @grumpy realist:

    For some, it may be a matter of burning the village in order to save it. But that sentiment seems to be coming most strongly from the establishment that the base denounces for being “RINOs” (which is ironic, since the establishment Republicans were there long before the upstarts were part of the base.) So I’m not sure how deeply that sentiment runs, but I doubt that you’ll see very many permanent defections.

    Perhaps the Huntsmans themselves represent the establishment divide. Jon Jr., the former governor, endorsed Trump and sees him as a sort of unifying force within the party, yet the family paper has gone against him. The Huntsman clan has been divided before on political matters, and its newspaper seems to reflect that.

  36. C. Clavin says:

    @C. Clavin:
    Josh Marshall had a great term for this…he said the voter fraud issue has become weaponized.

  37. anjin-san says:

    I don’t know a lot about Utah, but I do know that they seem to have a very intelligent and compassionate approach to dealing with homelessness, a problem that seems intractable in most of the country.

  38. al-Alameda says:

    The problem the Republican Party has now is that Trump did not need the Republican Party to get the nomination, nor to get this far. He can flip GOP leadership off and berate them.

    Short of Ryan and McConnell contracting with Halliburton or ISIS to have a special-op team abduct and rendition Trump to a cell near Chernobyl, there is nothing they can do except pour what money they have into GOP districts where the outcome is in doubt.

  39. Jen says:

    @al-Alameda:

    He can flip GOP leadership off and berate them.

    He has implied in a speech that Ryan is part of some sinister plan. This is frightening.

  40. JKB says:

    Will Hillary lose with deeply Catholic Hispanics?

    Her closest aides seem to have nothing but contempt for Catholicism or really an deeply religious Christian.

  41. Moosebreath says:

    @JKB:

    “Will Hillary lose with deeply Catholic Hispanics?”

    Recent surveys say not merely no, but that Hillary will win a record large percentage of the Hispanic vote.

    “Based on the most recent round of our tracking poll, conducted over the past three weeks with the National Association of Latino Elected Officials Education Fund and Telemundo Noticias, we predict that just 15% of Latino voters will vote for Republican Donald Trump on Election Day. We are highly confident that—barring any major unforeseen change—Trump’s Latino vote will fall between 9.5% and 20.5%. Furthermore, support for third party candidates seems to be lagging behind the electorate at large this election season, making it extremely likely that we will see Clinton’s share of the Latino vote surpass the 71% Obama earned in 2012 and the 72% Bill Clinton earned in 1996. Today, our model estimates 82% vote for Clinton and we are highly confident that it will be somewhere between 76.5% and 87.5%.”

    Next…

  42. grumpy realist says:

    @JKB: Proof of your assertion, pray?

    (And I don’t want something that you pulled from a pile of crap that’s gone through the nimble little fingers of Putin’s eager little beavers. Something with a solid chain of custody, dammit.)

  43. C. Clavin says:

    @JKB:

    or really an deeply religious Christian.

    You mean like Trump?

  44. James Pearce says:

    @JKB:

    Will Hillary lose with deeply Catholic Hispanics?

    Probably not. They’re probably not reading the websites making a big deal out of Podesta’s leaked emails.

  45. michael reynolds says:

    @JKB:

    You realize you might as well be a Putin employee at this point, right? You’re busy disseminating the questionable results of an illegal Russian Intelligence attempt to influence American election, and you’re acting as the inevitable Useful Idiot.

    I’d ask whether you had no pride, but the answer to that has been clear for a long time. JKB: KGB stooge.

  46. dxq says:

    It’s extremely disorienting and disillusioning and I haven’t made any secret of that. To realize, first of all, that you’re part of a movement that was not the movement you thought it was, that you’re aligned with people that you didn’t really understand you’re aligned with, and to realize that everything that you thought about the conservative intellectual infrastructure was really piecrust thin.

    You thought you had this big principled movement and then suddenly along comes Donald Trump and you realize that it was just the pastry on top. So I think disorienting is a great term. Disillusioning is not too strong either.

    -Charlie Sykes, who is quitting being a conservative radio host after 25 years

  47. Paul Hooson says:

    I’m a Jew, but my respect for Latter Day Saints has been really enhanced at this church’s willingness to denounce this terrible man who is miles below a legendary Republican figure like Abraham Lincoln, who is nearly a Biblical figure on a par as the American Job and Moses rolled into one.

  48. DrDaveT says:

    @Pch101:

    establishment Republicans were there long before the upstarts were part of the base

    Not necessarily. The Republican Party was a progressive/populist party before it was the party of (Northeastern) business. Not all of the yahoos in the current base are the fruit of the Dixiecrat defection; some of them have been there all along.

  49. Pch101 says:

    @DrDaveT:

    The Republicans came out of the failed Whig party, and was pro-industrial from the start. At the time, that included trade tariffs to protect domestic industrial production. Those were opposed by the Southern Democrats who wanted a low-tariff regime in order to aid their exports of agricultural goods.

    The one segment that has supported the GOP throughout its history is industry. But the policies themselves have varied; now that the US is import-dependent, the GOP position on tariffs (Trump notwithstanding) is exactly the opposite of what it once was.

  50. al-Alameda says:

    @JKB:

    Will Hillary lose with deeply Catholic Hispanics?

    Will he lose those deeply Catholic Hispanics that he evidently believes to be thieves, thugs, and rapists? I think not, but thanks for asking.

  51. grumpy realist says:

    @Pch101: This is why I say if the Republicans returned to what they were in the 1940s, I’d probably be a Republican rather than a Democrat.

    As it is, they’ve shot over the tinfoil event horizon and are accelerating.

  52. Senyordave says:

    Here is the big Wikileak supposed Catholic slur:

    In an email exchange, Jennifer Palmieri, now the Clinton campaign’s communications director, said that politically conservative Catholics think Roman Catholicism is the most socially acceptable religion, adding their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became Evangelicals.

    Unless I’m missing something I don’t see any slur. Strange remark, most people who are religious probably think that there religion is the most socially acceptable religion.

  53. dxq says:

    Republican candidate for New York’s state senate is taking heat after he promised to give out free fried chicken and watermelon to people who attended one of his campaign events in Harlem.

    NBC 4 New York reports that Jon Girodes, the Republican candidate for New York’s 30th District, told the news station that he planned to hand out “Kool-Aid, KFC and watermelons” to people who attended a Harlem campaign rally in the coming weeks.

    i really shouldn’t complain about this–after all, when we liberals complain about GOP racism, GOP voters tune us out, and then nominate racists, and it’s all our fault!

  54. JKB says:

    @Senyordave:

    Halpin:It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.

    “The email thread involves Hillary’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, her director of communications, Jennifer Palmieri, and John Halpin of the Center for American Progress, which was also Podesta’s and Palmieri’s home as of the date of the emails, April 11, 2011. …

    “It reveals, I think, how most liberals think–the narrow-mindedness, the ignorance, the condescension, the arrogance. There are still some Catholic Democrats, but frankly, I am not sure why.”

  55. C. Clavin says:

    @JKB:
    Do you really think they are wrong?
    Hobby Lobby…and the freedom to impose your religion on others?
    Obamacare…and the urge to deny healthcare to the less fortunate.
    Republican budgets…and the urge to slash aid to the poor and the sick.
    The idea that Murdoch is a Christian because of where he had his kid baptized, while he simultaneously runs a racist network that flames hatred and fear and employs at least two serial sexual harassers…is f’ing ridiculous.
    The very idea that Republicans are Christians is f’ing laughable.

  56. dxq says:

    https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/786315348601663488

    Josh BarroVerified account
    ‏@jbarro
    It is so incredibly fortunate that these people are so incredibly incompetent.

  57. Mr. Bluster says:
  58. wr says:

    @JKB: “It reveals, I think, how most liberals think–the narrow-mindedness, the ignorance, the condescension, the arrogance. There are still some Catholic Democrats, but frankly, I am not sure why”

    Because Democratic policies actually happen to follow many of the teachings of that guy Jesus. To people who are actually Christian — that is, who believe his word is something to follow, instead of simply a club to hit other people with — that means something.

    I can see why you wouldn’t understand this.

  59. dxq says:

    Considering that Trump hits 6 of the 7 “Deadly Sins”, it’s pretty easy to understand christians voting democratic.

  60. dxq says:

    let’s see, one party helps millions of poor people, believes in education, talking, negotiating, including everyone, taking care of the one planet we have, etc….

    …the other party celebrates greed, ignorance, racism, sexism and violence…

    If this jesus fella was a good guy, that ain’t exactly a hard choice for him.

  61. DrDaveT says:

    @Senyordave:

    Strange remark, most people who are religious probably think that their religion is the most socially acceptable religion.

    Not at all. In fact, it’s a point of honor among some evangelical sects to be considered social pariahs — this world is evil, and if it likes you then you must not be taking a firm enough stand against evil. The opinion of ‘society’ — especially wealthy society — is a contrarian indicator of sanctity. This isn’t anything new; it’s how the early Methodists felt in England, and how the Lutherans felt in Germany before they became the establishment, and how the Puritans felt pretty much everywhere until they were able to get off by themselves and persecute each other instead of being persecuted.

    People who are religious think their religion is correct, but that’s not the same thing at all.

  62. JKB says:

    @Mr. Bluster:

    This is hilarious, the first synonym

    61 Moby Thesaurus words for “pussyfooting”:
    Washingtonese
    , all fours, bickering, boggling, bunkum, captious,
    captiousness, caviling, chicane, chicanery, choplogic, crawl,

  63. Grewgills says:

    @JKB:
    Notice where powerline chooses to start and end what they show of the exchange (not the beginning and not the end of the exchange). They are rather clearly talking about the American catholic conservative movement, not catholicism writ large. The cropping out of the rest of the conversation is intended to obscure this, but it is obvious to anyone who isn’t either willfully ignorant or an idiot.

  64. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @dxq:

    Girodes has been trying to get himself elected for years. He couldn’t have picked a worse district to run in (again …)

    Just FYI – he ran for the 30th in 2014 as well. He received 4.5% of the vote. The guy just isn’t that bright.

  65. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @JKB:

    There are still some Catholic Democrats, but frankly, I am not sure why.

    Which begs the question of why, over the last 4 presidential elections, the Dems have averaged not only 50.25% of the overall Catholic vote, but also 43.75% of the WHITE Catholic vote.

    Try again. Your blogger source is evidently just as deluded as you are.

  66. Steve Verdon says:

    PredictWise has a 16% probability that Clinton will win Utah. 17% for McMullin and 72% for Trump winning the state.

    Predict It has the bids for Clinton and Trump at $0.565 and $0.27 respectively….

  67. grumpy realist says:

    Uh oh……I think the dam is gonna break….

  68. grumpy realist says:

    Oh great…..

    Trump supporters now clamouring for getting rid of votes for women.

    I hope someone asks The Donald what he thinks of the idea.

  69. steve says:

    ““But enough of the pussyfooting around…””

    I think you can safely grab someone by the pussyfoot. Not sure.

    Steve

  70. CSK says:

    @HarvardLaw92:

    In New England, anyway, urban blue collar white ethnic Roman Catholics vote for tribal rather than ideological reasons. The reason is this: Historically, the Democratic Party was the only one that admitted them. The WASPs who ran the Republican Party in Massachusetts, in particular, made it clear up through the 1960s that they didn’t want their precincts sullied by any Irish, Italians, Poles, or French. So the Irish, Italians, Poles, and French went where they were welcome: the Democratic Party. A lot of them may be racist, xenophobic, misogynist, etc., but they vote for Democrats because their grandfathers and great-grandfathers did.

  71. Kylopod says:

    @JKB:

    Will Hillary lose with deeply Catholic Hispanics?

    Yeah, I’m sure they’re rushing to support literally the first nominee in modern history to publicly attack the Pope.

  72. Barry says:

    @dxq: “Considering that Trump hits 6 of the 7 “Deadly Sins”, it’s pretty easy to understand christians voting democratic.”

    Which one does he miss?

  73. dxq says:

    i haven’t seen Sloth.

  74. An Interested Party says:
  75. Moosebreath says:

    @dxq:

    “i haven’t seen Sloth. ”

    Unwilling to prepare for debates. Wants to sleep each night in one of his complexes, reducing the number of rallies he can handle.

    No, he’s got sloth as well.

  76. JKB says:

    @Kylopod:

    They don’t have to shift, they could just not show up at the polls.

  77. Jen says:

    @grumpy realist: I was curious so I scrolled, there have been tweets with that hashtag going back to early April. Really incredible (in a bad, jaw-dropping way).

  78. dxq says:

    okay 7 out of 7. 😀

  79. grumpy realist says:

    More and more women are coming forth with stories about how Trump groped and harassed them.

    And the (blackly humorous) aspect of all this is: every time each one of these women is called a liar by the Trumpenproletariat, it’s just another demonstration as to why they haven’t made public accusations up to now. (A lot of them did speak to other members of their families or boyfriends when it did happen, so there’s evidence that their accusations aren’t just made up.)

    Does anyone remember what it was like back in the 1970s and 1980s for working women?

  80. dxq says:

    Grumpy, as of today, I see 8 women have accused him of sexual assault.

  81. grumpy realist says:

    @An Interested Party: Actually, that’s pretty funny.

    There’s another piece of Hillary fiction floating around (I picked it up in one of the Mammoth collections of SF stories available for Kindle) which takes as its starting point a really interesting what-if: what if Hillary Clinton had been allowed to take that science program her father forbade her to, and had met (and married) Richard Feynman? (I’m still somewhat dubious about the dates matching up, even if the story did describe it as a May-Dec relationship.) Interesting “what-if?”.

  82. dxq says:

    Paul Ryan has to give up the speakership. If he works with President Clinton for a few years and doesn’t shut down the government, he’s a Collaborator, and he’ll never have a good run for president himself.

  83. Pch101 says:

    @grumpy realist:

    The world would have been better a better place if Hitler had been accepted to art school and George W. Bush had achieved his earlier dream of becoming baseball commissioner.

  84. dxq says:

    Now, new accusers are coming forward with accounts of Trump’s sexual misconduct, some saying they are infuriated by his denials. A Miss Teen USA 2001 contestant told the Guardian today that Trump “deliberately walked in” on her and another contestant in their dressing rooms “while they were naked and getting dressed for a rehearsal”; this report followed a Buzzfeed story alleging that Trump, during the 1997 pageant, intentionally walked into a communal dressing room being used by girls as young as 15. In yet another report from today, CBS News produced a 1992 video from Entertainment Tonight shot at Trump Tower: “In the clip, Trump asks one of the 10-year-old girls if she’s ‘going up the escalator.’ When the girl replies, ‘yeah,’ Trump turns to the camera and says: ‘I am going to be dating her in 10 years. Can you believe it?’”

  85. grumpy realist says:

    Trump is now threatening to sue the NYTimes for libel.

    I can just see the lawyers at the NYTimes salivating over discovery and thinking to themselves, “oh yeah, B’rer Fox, please, please, PLEASE throw me in that briar patch!”

    I am starting to really detest Trump. I don’t want to just see him defeated; I want to see him made the laughingstock of the entire world, humiliated, all his pompous lies about his riches and his abilities torn apart and shown as total falsities, his “brand” absolutely smashed, and his very presence becoming an occasion for hissing and booing in the streets. And laughter. Lots and lots of laughter.

  86. MarkedMan says:

    You gotta wonder how this is affecting his business. I would refuse a room in a Trump hotel and decline a conference in any building that had the Trump name attached to it. And what network will offer him another reality show?

  87. CSK says:

    @grumpy realist:

    I don’t think you’ll have a very long wait.

  88. Mikey says:

    @Grewgills:

    anyone who isn’t either willfully ignorant or an idiot

    When it comes to Trump’s supporters, this is not an either/or.

  89. Zachriel says:

    @Pch101: The world would have been better a better place if Hitler had been accepted to art school

    A man and his wife are visiting Berlin on a sight-seeing tour. They approach a painter with a funny-looking mustache painting the Reichstag. The man pulls on his goatee, and gives his wife the look of a man thinking of buying a souvenir. She says, “Aber Honig, es wird nicht die tapete passen. (But Honey, it will not match the wallpaper.) ” So they saunter away, not realizing they have condemned millions to death.

  90. KM says:

    @grumpy realist :

    Trump is now threatening to sue the NYTimes for libel.

    Either nobody explained to him what libel means legally or the lawyers are trying to get one last check in before it all goes to hell. One gets the feeling he threatens to sue the same way little kids threaten to hold their breath….

    “It is absurd to think that one of the most recognizable business leaders on the planet with a strong record of empowering women in his companies would do the things alleged in this story, and for this to only become public decades later in the final month of a campaign for president should say it all,” his statement continued.

    He’s on camera bragging he does this frequently. While I do not know the particulars of this accusation(s), the fact that he says he’s done it before means he’s, you know, done it before. Potentially to these women. Truth is an absolute defense against libel and one can argue that Trump gave consent when he went on TV over the last few decades talking about his rather problematic understanding about everything sex-related. This is not going to end well for him if he decides to press this.

  91. Blue Galangal says:

    @grumpy realist: The cognitive dissonance has been difficult to understand for years now, but they are literally now turning within the same sentence from condemning Hillary for victim-shaming to attacking women accusing Trump of sexual harassment.

  92. JKB says:

    “Look where we are now. We have political actors trying to orchestrate a coup to destroy Catholic values, and they even analogize their takeover to a coup in the Middle East, which amplifies their bigotry and hatred of the Church. I had hoped I would never see this day — a day like so many dark days in Eastern Europe that led to the death of my [Protestant minister] great-grandfather at the hands of communists who also hated and wanted to destroy religion.”

    In the meantime, a friend describes the choice facing voters in November this way: a vulgar, boorish lout and disrespecter of women, with a serious impulse-control problem; or a scheming, robotic liar with a lifelong appetite for power and an entourage riddled with anti-Catholic bigots.

    Archbishop Charles Chaput is the archbishop of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

  93. Mr. Bluster says:

    “Archbishop Charles Chaput is the archbishop of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”

    I sure am glad I don’t have to listen to him or his friends.

  94. Moosebreath says:

    @JKB:

    Given that Chaput said in 2004 that it would be sinful to vote for John Kerry, if Chaput condemns both candidates equally, that says how horrificly he views Trump.

    Next…

  95. wr says:

    @JKB: The current Pope is doing his best to get rid of the reactionary monsters favored by his predecessors, but it’s a long process. Hopefully this creep will be out of power soon.