2016 Election

[vector7]

Graham is telegraphing the establishment Republicans are seriously prepared to splinter the party and put in their own establishment delegate even if it hands the election over to the Dems before they let an outsider (Cruz or Trump) win the republican nomination.

[Ryan Ruck]

From January but I hadn't seen this before!

The Salacious Ammo Even Donald Trump Won't Use in a Fight Against Hillary Clinton

January 29, 2016

"If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible record of women abuse, while playing the women's card on me, she's wrong!" Donald Trump tweeted at the end of December. He was referring, of course, to his potential Democratic rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, and her husband, Bill.

While other GOP candidates indicated they wouldn't make Bill Clinton's sexual improprieties an issue in the campaign — Hillary's Democratic rival Bernie Sanders has said the same — Trump was making it plain he would.

"That's what makes Donald Trump more dangerous than any person out there," MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said on his show a week after Trump's tweet. "He will bring up stuff that nobody else will bring up."

And Scarborough had a specific figure from Bill Clinton's past in mind.

"People in the know always talk about Jeffrey Epstein."

Palm Beach billionaire Jeffrey Epstein is a financier and political donor. He is also a convicted sex offender who is the subject of ongoing litigation from at least a dozen of his then-underage victims.

Flight logs show Bill Clinton traveled at least 10 times on Epstein's private jet, dubbed the "Lolita Express" by tabloids, and he is widely reported to have visited Little St. James, Epstein's private island in the US Virgin Islands. That's where, according to attorneys for Epstein's victims, many of the worst crimes against minors were committed by Epstein and friends who traveled there with him.

In a 2011 interview with her attorneys, Virginia Roberts, one of the teenagers preyed upon by Epstein, said he had told her he had "compromising" information on Bill Clinton and that the former president "owes me a favor."

Yet despite Bill Clinton's ties to Epstein and Trump's stated willingness to make Clinton's sexual past an issue in the campaign, Trump will almost certainly avoid bringing up Epstein's name. Because in addition to haunting Bill Clinton's past, Epstein also haunts Trump's.

* * *

Trump's attorney Alan Garten told VICE News last week that the presidential candidate had "no relationship" with Epstein, and only knew him because Epstein was a member of Mar-A-Lago, Trump's private club and residence in Palm Beach.

"A lot of people hung out there, including Jeffrey Epstein," Garten said. "That is the only connection."

But according to someone with intimate knowledge of the situation, Trump and Epstein appeared to have a somewhat stronger connection.

"I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,'' Trump told New York magazine in a 2002 profile of Epstein written three years before Epstein began to be investigated. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life."

When asked about a subpoena served to Trump in 2009, Garten said it "never happened." The subpoena called for Trump to give a deposition in a case against Epstein; Garten's denial baffled Brad Edwards, one of Virginia Roberts' attorneys.

"There is no debate over what happened," Edwards told VICE news. "I served Mr. Trump with a subpoena for deposition in 2009. He talked to me voluntarily, and consequently we withdrew the subpoena in light of his voluntarily providing information…. I can't imagine there being any dispute of any of this."

Edwards also said that it is "obvious" Trump himself was not involved in any of Epstein's illicit activity.

Three days after denying the subpoena, Garten emailed VICE News.

"Brad [Edwards] called me to let me know that you had reached out to him," Garten said. "I looked back at my records and saw that Mr. Trump was subpoenaed."

In 2000, both Trump and Epstein reportedly attended a small party hosted by media magnate Conrad Black, who in 2007 was convicted and served time in prison for fraud and obstruction of justice (the fraud charges were overturned on appeal). Black is currently an enthusiastic supporter of Trump's presidential bid.

Mark Epstein, Jeffrey's brother, testified in 2009 that Trump flew on Jeffrey's private jet at least once. Meanwhile, message pads [see below] from Epstein's Palm Beach mansion that were seized by investigators and obtained by VICE News indicate that Trump called Epstein twice in November of 2004.

[img]https://news-images.vice.com/images/2016/01/29/trump-epstein-body-image-1454091531.jpg?resize=1220:*&output-quality=75[/img]

[img]https://news-images.vice.com/images/2016/01/29/trump-epstein-body-image-1454091548.jpg?resize=1220:*&output-quality=75[/img]

Garten said Trump had never been to Epstein's home. But a 2002 story in Vanity Fair listed Trump as one of a small group of mega-rich businessmen, including newspaper publisher Mort Zuckerman and Revlon chairman Ronald Perelman, who periodically dined with Epstein at his Palm Beach estate. And a 2003 story in New York reported that Trump had dined at Epstein's Upper East Side home, a nine-story building that is reportedly the largest private residence in Manhattan.

That dinner, for 30 people, was also attended by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, businessman and philanthropist Les Wexner, former British Cabinet minister Peter Mandelson, and Bill Clinton aide Doug Band.

"The dialogues are so engaging," Epstein told the magazine at the time, "that serving even the most extraordinary food sometimes seems inappropriate."

* * *

Roberts and a number of Epstein's other victims are seeking to overturn a 2007 US Justice Department non-prosecution agreement with Epstein that capped financial damages against him. Epstein allegedly unsuccessfully sought to block his victims from going to court, but the case, Jane Does vs. United States of America, is currently being heard in a Palm Beach courthouse.

In the late 1990s, Roberts was recruited to perform a massage for Epstein while working as a $9-per-hour locker room attendant at Mar-A-Lago. Roberts' father also worked at Mar-A-Lago, which is located about 3 miles away from Epstein's estate, as a maintenance manager.

Roberts, who is now 32 and runs an anti sex trafficking organization in Colorado, has alleged in sworn depositions and remarks to the press that Epstein turned her into a "sex slave" and pimped her out to various friends, including England's Prince Andrew. Over the years, the passengers on Epstein's jet, she said, included "a whole bunch of other girls, sometimes famous people, sometimes some politicians."

Roberts' account is corroborated by a number of Epstein's other victims, by lawyers in the case interviewed by VICE News, and by court documents, including the deposition of Juan Alessi, Epstein's former gardener and then majordomo, who was one of the prosecution's key witnesses.

In his deposition, Alessi — he did not respond to VICE News' request for comment — said that Epstein made clear to him that he was never to ask any of the girls who came to the estate for proof of their age, so that everyone would have plausible deniability if any problems with law enforcement later emerged.

Roberts was originally recruited for Epstein by Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's then live-in girlfriend and the daughter of disgraced British newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell. She is accused by a number of Epstein's victims — their accounts are supported in court records and by other witnesses — of being among Epstein's procurers of underage girls.

After three years of abuse, Roberts fled in 2002, at age 19. Last year, she filed a lawsuit against Maxwell, alleging that she was behind a smear campaign seeking to tarnish Roberts' reputation. The lawsuit is ongoing. Roberts did not respond to requests for comment.

During this same period, Epstein and Maxwell were repeat guests at Mar-A-Lago. In 2000, they hung out there with Prince Andrew, who arrived for vacation on Trump's private plane. That same year, the Palm Beach Post reported that Trump, Epstein, Prince Andrew, and Maxwell were all at a tennis tournament/celebrity event at Mar-A-Lago.

Garten told VICE News that Trump had no relationship with Maxwell aside from the fact that she periodically turned up at Mar-A-Lago. The 1997 photograph below, of Trump and Maxwell "out on the town," was taken in New York City.

In 2010, Epstein pled the Fifth when asked by a lawyer representing one of Epstein's victims about his relationship with Trump:

Q: Have you ever had a personal relationship with Donald Trump?
A. What do you mean by "personal relationship," sir?
Q. Have you socialized with him?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Yes?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18?
A: Though I'd like to answer that question, at least today I'm going to have to assert my Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights, sir.

Epstein did not respond to a request for comment.

* * *

During its investigation, the FBI obtained a copy of Epstein's private 194-page phone book. Lawyers for one of Epstein's victims told VICE News it was stolen by a household employee sometime around 2004.

A copy we obtained includes investigators' margin notes pointing to key witnesses against Epstein as well as handwritten notes identifying dozens of then-underage girls, as well as their phone numbers.

Among people listed in the phone book were well-known political figures such as Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, Tony Blair, former Utah governor and Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, Senator Edward Kennedy, and Henry Kissinger. Also listed were major political contributors like David Koch and Pepe Fanjul.

All those names were listed alphabetically at the front of Epstein's telephone book, along with the names of Trump's former wife, Ivana, his daughter Ivanka, and his brother, Robert.

Epstein created a number of other odd categories, including one called "Jeffrey." There were dozens of names in the Jeffrey category, including Ehud Barak, Alan Dershowitz, then–Senator John Kerry, former senator and lobbyist George Mitchell, powerhouse DC lobbyist Thomas Quinn, and David Rockefeller.

Trump was also listed in this section. Under his name were 14 phone numbers, including emergency numbers, car numbers, and numbers to Trump's security guard and houseman.

* * *

The state of Florida began investigating Epstein in 2005; the FBI began its own probe the following year. Investigators amassed a mountain of evidence against Epstein, but in the end the Department of Justice agreed to a bizarre deal not to prosecute him.

On September 27, 2007 — a few weeks before the New York Post reported that Epstein was banned from Mar-A-Lago — Epstein acknowledged guilt in "knowingly and willfully conspiring with others known and unknown to… persuade, induce, or entice minor females to engage in prostitution."

The terms of the agreement, which was secret at the time and was drafted by Epstein's own lawyers, have never been fully disclosed, but an attorney with direct knowledge of the case told VICE News that it capped damages against Epstein — reportedly worth about $2 billion — to between $50,000 and $150,000, depending on what year he had abused the girl. The agreement also barred victims from seeking any future financial redress.

Roy Black, Epstein's lawyer, did not respond to a request for comment.

When asked why he believed Epstein received such a light sentence, Sky William Roberts, Virginia's father, told VICE News. "Because he's a billionaire. You're not a billionaire and neither am I; if we did what he did we'd be in prison."

In 2008, Epstein was sentenced to 18 months for his crimes by the state of Florida. He "could have been charged with multiple federal counts of sexual exploitation of minors, resulting in much harsher penalties," the Palm Beach Daily News reported in 2010 when Epstein was finishing up his prison stay. He served in a segregated, vacant wing of the county stockade. Epstein, the newspaper said, "was let out on work release six days a week for up to 16 hours a day."

Maxwell fled the United States on the eve of her deposition and never testified in Epstein's case. In fact, several of the Jane Doe lawyers, who spoke off the record because the case is ongoing, said that every key person investigators wanted to interview — especially those with potential knowledge of what took place on St. James Island — eluded subpoenas on technical grounds.

There was one exception: Donald Trump.

* * *

Edwards, the lawyer for Roberts and about 10 other Jane Does, said that after he served Trump with the subpoena in 2009, Trump immediately contacted him.

"During the conversation, Mr. Trump was open and forthright," Edwards said. "I cannot discuss the substance of the conversation. But I will say that it was obvious to me that he was in no way involved in any untoward activity."

It appears that Trump cut ties to Epstein a few weeks after the non-prosecution agreement was reached. On October 15, 2007, the New York Post reported that Mar-A-Lago had barred Epstein because he hit on a masseuse at the club. Epstein denied to the the Post that he had been banned. One of the Jane Doe attorneys told VICE News a slightly different account, saying that he had been told Trump broke ties with Epstein after Epstein tried to pick up the underage daughter of a Mar-A-Lago club member.

Garten said he was not aware of the Post story or the incident.

Virginia Roberts and at least a dozen of Epstein's other victims refused to accept the terms agreed to by the US government, and hired attorneys to seek additional damages. One of the more intriguing allegations made by Roberts in an affidavit last year is that Epstein "trafficked me for sexual purposes to many other powerful men, including politicians and powerful business executives."

She says that Epstein made her tell him about the sexual encounters she had with these men. The reason, in her estimation, was "so that he could potentially blackmail them."

[Ryan Ruck]

Some interesting information I've stolen from an ARFCOM poster.

No candidate in the history of the USA has come this far without winning a single simple majority in a single state. FACT

Ted Cruz has won states with a simple majority twice at this point. FACT

Donald Trump has won zero states with a simple majority at this point. FACT

Now we forget Cruz and assume Trump is the nominee.

How is Trump going to be competitive in a general election when it seems that red states not only hate him, but 10-25% of the republican electorate refuse to vote for him in the general even when its between him and Hillary?

Is there something to this thought?

Or is it just coincidence that he has under performed every Republican presidential candidate in history on this metric?

In 2012, by this date, Mitt Romney had won 50% or more in four states. There were three other people in the field. It wasn't that hard for him, and he was the quintessential "last choice" candidate.

[Ryan Ruck]

Yeah, it's from MS-DNC but it is funny.

[Ryan Ruck]

Well, I'm sure you've all heard by now about the whole cloth fabrication the National Enquirer has made about Cruz having affairs.

But, there's a lot I'm sure you aren't hearing about this in the news.

1) According to Mark Levin, reporting on his show, this story was shopped around to a number of news outlets to include BuzzFeed, Politico, the NYT, and a couple others and all rejected it as being too unreliable.

2) Donald Trump has very close ties to the owner of the National Enquirer. See below from 2015:

Donald Trump’s Alliance With the National Enquirer

October 30, 2016

Throughout his scorched-earth presidential campaign, Donald Trump has mastered the art of the political attack against all of his rivals save one: Ben Carson. How he should handle the soft-spoken former neurosurgeon has been a question that’s vexed Trump from the moment Carson began eating into Trump’s lead. First, Trump tried attacking Carson head-on, questioning his medical reputation by calling him an “okay doctor” (Carson is known to have separated the first conjoined infant twins). When that didn’t work, he tried embracing him onstage at the second primary debate.

Now, as Carson overtakes Trump as the GOP front-runner, it appears Trump is getting help from a media outlet known for ending presidential candidacies: the National Enquirer. Earlier this month, the Enquirer published a cover story on Carson headlined “Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson Left Sponge in Patient’s Brain!” The article called Carson a “White House wannabe” and claimed he “brandished a scalpel like a meat cleaver!” It went on to quote angry former patients saying he botched surgeries that left them disfigured and in pain; one patient who sued Carson said he forgot to remove a surgical sponge from her brain after a procedure. “His presidential campaign should be dead on arrival!” Enquirer reporter Sharon Churcher wrote.

Trump and Enquirer CEO David Pecker have been friends for years. “They’re very close,” said a source close to the Enquirer. In July 2013, Trump even tweeted that Pecker should become CEO of Time magazine, which at the time was being spun off from its corporate parent, Time Warner. “He’d make it exciting and win awards!”

This person also said that Trump’s campaign was a source for the article: “His campaign provided information that was used,” he explained. A Trump friend said that in the days leading up to the article’s publication Trump was telling people that Carson “had a lot of medical malpractice suits” and “almost killed a guy.”

Trump’s spokesperson, Hope Hicks, told me “there’s absolutely no truth” to the claim Trump was behind the article. When I asked the Enquirer for comment, Pecker said it was “utterly false” that the Trump campaign was their source. “We did what the National Enquirer has always done, our investigative reporters went back and poured through numerous legal documents to discover the details that led to our exclusive coverage of malpractice claims against Ben Carson,” he said in a statement.

Whether or not Trump has been a source for the Enquirer, his friendship with Pecker has paid dividends. At key moments during the GOP primary the Enquirer has helped boost Trump’s campaign by attacking his rivals and fawning over him. Two weeks after Trump launched his campaign in mid-June, the Enquirer reported that Jeb Bush was “involved in the drug trade in Florida” in the '80s and that, as governor, he was plagued by “sleazy cheating scandals … [with a] Playboy Bunny turned lawyer.” In September, the Enquirer published an unflattering photograph of Bush’s adult daughter apparently taking cigarette breaks at her office. The article hit just days after Jeb told Americans they needed to work longer hours.

Carly Fiorina has also been slimed. After the former Hewlett-Packard CEO bested Trump at the second GOP debate last month, the Enquirer ran an article headlined “Homewrecker Carly Fiorina Lied About Druggie Daughter.” The article attacked one of Fiorina’s best moments at the debate: her emotional account of her daughter’s struggle with drug addiction. “The National Enquirer has exclusively learned that Lori Ann Fiorina, who died in October 2009, was in fact Carly’s stepdaughter,” the tabloid reported. “She was brought up not by Carly but by her biological mom, Patricia Fiorina, whose marriage allegedly was wrecked by the 61-year-old White House hopeful who is determined to knock Donald Trump from his superior front-runner status!”

The tabloid has also gone after Hillary Clinton, of course. A series of cover stories has alleged that Clinton is on her deathbed and is “engaging in a massive cover-up about her health.” The Enquirer claims she is suffering from strokes, brain cancer, depression, alcoholism, multiple sclerosis, endometriosis, and paranoia, among other dire conditions.

Meanwhile, Trump has been exclusively celebrated in the Enquirer’s pages. As talk of a Trump candidacy heated up last winter, the tabloid published an article headlined “Trump’s the One!” that reported him leading in the polls. In September, the Enquirer published a three-part series by Trump himself under the headline “The Man Behind the Legend!”

Trump’s scandal-filled personal life would be yuge! for the supermarket tabloid, but to the Enquirer, it seems, friendship is forever.

So, make no mistake, that when Cruz says this is the doing of Trump and his thugs, he's 100% spot on. You can take it to the bank too that "former" Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone has a hand in this as well. He's no longer officially a part of Trump's campaign so Trump can maintain plausible deniability while Stone pulls shit like this.

Does anyone really think it is a coincidence this story comes out as Trump takes a break from the campaign trail over Ivanka's birth?

[Malsua]

“The Cuban Mistress Crisis”

LOL.

He's also being called Count Copulate since he bears a resemblance to Grandpa Munster.

We'll see if it's a whole cloth fabrication. It may be, but we have yet to hear Ted comment on it. The longer he waits, the more likely it's true.

[Malsua]

Actually, I see that Ted has denied it.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...n-are-garbage/

I want to be crystal clear: these attacks are garbage. For Donald J. Trump to enlist his friends at the National Enquirer and his political henchmen to do his bidding shows you that there is no low Donald won’t go.
These smears are completely false, they’re offensive to Heidi and me, they’re offensive to our daughters, and they’re offensive to everyone Donald continues to personally attack.
Donald Trump’s consistently disgraceful behavior is beneath the office we are seeking and we are not going to follow.

Now he just needs to demand a retraction and sue the National Enquirer.

[Ryan Ruck]

Not just Ted has denied it but I believe so have most of the women named/not-named/insinuated, one of which is Trump's 9/11 Truther spokesperson, Katrina Pierson.

As for suing NE, would be tough for Cruz to do because 1) libel laws aren't as protective of public figures as others and 2) this explanation from a lawyer that posts on ARFCOM.

[Brian Baldwin]

These days people are so inured when it comes to this type of "scandal" that even if Cruz can't sue, it likely won't harm him badly in the elections. I imagine it's Trump's people all the way as does most of the country. This has been one of the ugliest election cycles I've seen in my time. The whole "Win no matter the cost" attitude that seems to saturate our nation these days is a sad statement on how far we've gone down hill. While politicians have always resorted to dirty tricks and such to try and undermine opponents, the people themselves always seemed to at least try and vote for someone that appeared capable of fixing at least one issue that was foremost in our minds for the time. Now it's like a South American Soccer match with us against them attitudes and only the win matters. Because of this it's no real surprise that Sanders and Trump can be relevant in today's political arena. So did Cruz have 5 mistresses? Nobody cares. Can he win? It's all that matters these days. Is part of the machine? No so lets all shoot ourselves in the foot.

Considering Hillary is basically guilty of capital crimes and treason and no one seems to give a rat's ass about that.... Or that Sanders seriously thinks he can pay for everything with fairy dust and everyone seems to agree on his side... Or that Trump believes that his ego is a political platform and now has a cult following... Or that Cruz believes the system is broken but in the end will work for him... It's all mind boggling. Because with all the screaming and ranting going on from every side, no one actually gives a shit. Those few people left out there that worry about what country we're going to leave for the next generations are too few and way too quiet.

For my part I'll vote for whomever gets the republican nomination because it's all that's left to me. Because I know we need a conservative put in SCOTUS, and we can't endure even one more term close to what Obama has wrought. Other than that, I'm going to pray that my children and their children do a better job in the end than we did as a whole.

[Ryan Ruck]

Ted Cruz SEVERELY CUTS Trump’s National Lead From 18% To 3% In ONE MONTH!

March 26, 2016

National polling from Fox News has the toupee’d totalitarian still topping the GOP field, but only by three points:

Poll shows @realDonaldTrump in the lead for the GOP nomination with 41%. pic.twitter.com/I4Ykq9KU29

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 26, 2016

However… compare it to where the field was a month ago:

New @FoxNews Poll: @realDonaldTrump Continues to Dominate National Race for GOP Nomination pic.twitter.com/RMBg46fLU1

— FoxNewsInsider (@FoxNewsInsider) February 18, 2016

That’s a YUGE gain for the TedNado, but you won’t see it in the press. And of course all the Trump-humpers will claim that Fox News is biased against Trump, even though they have people like Eric Bolling, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly regularly gobbling his knob on-air.

And that’s why YOU need to spread the news, to combat the media blackout of how well Ted Cruz is actually doing…

[Malsua]

So the play is for the GOPe to jigger the convention, install Kasich as the candidate and lose to Hillary. WEEEE.

[Ryan Ruck]

Poll: 70% Of American Women Don’t Like Donald Trump

March 25, 2016

A Donald Trump nomination could be the best possible scenario for Hillary Clinton; the latest polling numbers of female voters spell almost certain defeat for the GOP if Trump faces Clinton in November.

A March NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed almost half (47 percent) of Republican female primary voters said they would not vote for Trump, and a whopping 70 percent of women voters overall have a negative view of him. A Fox News poll this week also had almost identical results.

In the hypothetical (but very real possibility) of a Trump versus Clinton matchup, more Republican women would be willing to defect to Clinton, and the Democrat would beat Trump among women 58-to-31 percent.

Republican women were relatively more willing to support either of the other two GOP candidates: 32 percent said they would not support Ted Cruz, and just 27 percent said they would not support John Kasich.

To make matters worse for Trump, these poll numbers were taken before his latest bout of sexist mud-slinging on Twitter, when he threatened to “spill the beans” on GOP rival Ted Cruz’s wife, and retweeted a supporter attacking Heidi Cruz’s appearance with a side-by-side photo comparison of the two candidate’s wives.

This is obviously not the first time this election cycle that Trump has publicly critiqued a woman’s physical appearance, and time and time again, comments like these have turned conservative women away from him.

When 70 percent of American women overall view a presidential candidate negatively, it’s hard to imagine that he could be viable in a general election.

[Ryan Ruck]

Examining Trump's Problem With Female Voters

March 24, 2016

Donald Trump is fond of saying he "respects" and "cherishes" women," but he faces a significant problem with female voters - even those within his own party.

Trump's move Wednesday night to once again circulate value judgments about female attractiveness -- this time comparing his wife with Heidi Cruz -- comes against the backdrop of a female Republican electorate that finds the GOP frontrunner more unacceptable than their male counterparts do.

Let's look at our latest NBC/WSJ poll to see how big this issue is:

This month, about half (47 percent) of Republican female primary voters said they could not imagine themselves voting for Trump. (About 40 percent of male GOP primary voters said the same.)

Compare that to their relative willingness to accept Trump's rivals.

Only about three in ten female Republican voters say they can't imagine backing Ted Cruz (32 percent) and John Kasich (27 percent). The poll, which was taken before Marco Rubio exited the presidential race, also showed that only 30 percent of GOP women couldn't imagine backing the Florida senator.



It's worth noting that there's a significant chunk of GOP voters overall who can't imagine backing Trump, but you can get a sense of the wider size of the gender gap Trump faces when you compare the data for women with the data for men.



When it comes to the general electorate, Trump has an even more pronounced problem with female voters.

Trump's favorability with women overall is a dismal 21 percent positive/ 70 (!) percent negative.

With men, it's 28 percent positive/ 59 percent negative.

And while women traditionally vote for Democratic candidates in larger numbers than men, data shows that a Trump nomination would exacerbate the issue for Republicans.

Asked if they would prefer to see a Democratic president or a Republican president regardless of who the nominees are, 52 percent of female voters chose the Democratic option while 36 percent chose the Republican option. That's a net advantage of 16 percentage points for the Democratic candidate.

But plug in the names "Hillary Clinton" and "Donald Trump" and the gap gets even wider.

In that hypothetical matchup, just 31 percent of women said they would chose Trump, while 58 percent said they would chose Clinton. That's a net advantage of 27 points for Clinton.

In 2012, Barack Obama bested Mitt Romney by far less -- 55 percent to 44 percent -- among female voters.

[Ryan Ruck]

Donald Trump Hits All-Time Low In The Polls That Really Matter

March 25, 2016

Donald Trump's poll numbers have plunged to new lows after a month of escalating violence at his rallies.

After heavy media coverage of fights at his events and his repeated moves to egg on his backers as they get rough with protestors, Trump is now trailing Hillary Clinton by a gap that would be the largest in decades come election day.

Clinton is clobbering Trump by double digits in five of the six national polls released this week, up from narrow leads she held for most of the campaign. Trump's slide is being driven by women as the percentage of Americans with an unfavorable opinion of him continues to rise. And pollsters believe the violence at his rallies — not to mention his ongoing misogynistic rhetoric — may be scaring off Republican and independent female voters.

"There’s a possibility that the violence at the rallies has cut into his overall popularity," said Quinnipiac University Assistant Polling Director Tim Malloy.

Malloy's recent survey found that 64% of voters believe Trump is very or somewhat responsible for the ongoing violence at his rallies. Just 26% of women had a favorable view of him in that survey, with 67% viewing him unfavorably.

And Quinnipiac's numbers look better for Trump than any other recent national survey's — he trails Clinton by just 6 points in their poll. Bloomberg's survey found him down by 18 points as his personal brand continues to erode, with Trump's unfavorable numbers at 68%, up from 61% the last time they polled in November, a staggering figure.

“Trump’s numbers are bad and getting worse,” Bloomberg pollster J. Ann Selzer said when the poll was released. “A majority of Americans now describe their feelings toward him as very unfavorable. That’s a 13-point spike from November 2015.”

Pattern: In @CNN poll @HillaryClinton unfav w/men -7 pts vs @realDonaldTrump. His unfav w/wmn -23. W/whites she's -8; w/ non-whites he's -46

— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) March 24, 2016

Republicans are particularly on edge about where Trump's numbers are heading with women after spats of violence in Chicago, Kansas City and Arizona, as well as his regularly derogatory rhetoric towards women, and what they could do to the party.

"Some of the Chicago stuff and the violence is coming into play in accelerating people who were unsure about him to turn against him, especially married women," said Ed Goeas, a top Republican pollster who is advising the anti-Trump group Our Principles PAC.

"Republican women, particularly Republican married women, have been turning increasingly negative towards Trump," he continued. "And it’s not based on his ideology, it’s based on his character and his style. They’re really taking a look at the measure of the man, and he’s falling short."

Goeas said increased focus on Trump's attitude towards women — like that displayed in his recent attacks on Ted Cruz's wife's appearance — is also hurting him.

A recent ad cut by his group featuring women reading insults Trump has said about them reached 1 million views in less than a day, and currently has been watched more than 3 million times.

Some other GOP pollsters say they aren't as panicked about Trump and what his impact could be on the rest of the party, arguing his strengths with downscale white men could help make up for weaknesses with a variety of other groups. But even they admit that he needs to do better with women, who make up more than half the electorate. And that starts with married women, a key part of the Republican coalition.

"With respect to married women, I believe it’s the fault line of the electorate," argued GOP pollster Brock McCleary, who advises House Republicans' campaign organization. "Certainly Democrats will take every opportunity to use Trump’s statements against him and the objective for Trump would be to try to bring women into the electorate that might not otherwise turn out and vote.'

Since Trump took a lead in national polling in late summer, he had never fallen more than 6 points behind Clinton in national polling averages. Just three weeks ago, he was down by 3 percentage points.

But March has been rough for the GOP front-runner after a series of rough rallies where his supporters attacked protestors.


Trump trails Clinton by 11.2 percentage points in Real Clear Politics' polling average, a combination of public surveys. That's a hard, fast slide from where he stood for most of the campaign.



If that double-digit gap holds, it would be a historically large wipeout for the GOP. President Obama's "landslide" win in 2008 was a 7-point victory. The last time anyone scored a double-digit White House win was three decades ago with Ronald Reagan's 1984 blowout, when he won 49 of 50 states with an 18-point margin.

At the beginning of the campaign, Trump and Clinton were two of the least popular front-runners in history, with roughly 55% of Americans viewing both unfavorably last summer in most polling. She's now faring slightly better, with that number nearing 50% in some surveys— while his has continued to climb.

Quinnipiac University's latest poll has Trump's unfavorable number at 61%. A whopping 54% of voters said they could never support him under any circumstances.

"That’s a stunningly bad number," Quinnipiac's Malloy said.

When respondents were asked what one word they'd use to describe a Trump presidency, the most popular choice was "scared," followed by "disaster," "frightened," "terrified" and "horrified." The first positive word about Trump, "good," came in seventh on the list.

"They don’t like his schtick, they don’t like his bullying, they don’t like his crassness. He has dug himself a very deep hole and it’s going to be really, really hard to dig out of it," said Goeas.

[Ryan Ruck]

Donald Trump Poll Numbers That Could Be Trouble for the GOP in November

March 14, 2016

In Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling this month, “circus” was one of the words most frequently used by voters to describe the 2016 presidential election. Many attribute the circus-like atmosphere to the campaign of businessman Donald Trump.

If this electoral cycle is like a circus, here are its three rings: Republican primary voters who are Trump supporters, Republican primary voters who do not support Mr. Trump, and the rest of the U.S. electorate. Mr. Trump’s supporters make up the smallest ring. It is in the larger two rings that the general election will be decided, and Mr. Trump’s poor standing among those voters suggests the GOP will have a challenging road to November if he is the party’s nominee.

Among Republicans who are voting for Donald Trump in the primaries, 90% have positive feelings toward Mr. Trump personally while just 4% are negative, according to the March WSJ/NBC polling. A near-unanimous 98% of those voters say they could see themselves supporting him for president.



Should Mr. Trump win the Republican nomination, however, he will need all GOP primary voters to coalesce around his campaign to be competitive in November. And in this second ring, he does not fare nearly as well. Republican primary voters who have cast ballots or caucused for other candidates make up a greater share of the Republican electorate than Mr. Trump’s supporters. Among non-Trump Republican primary voters, just 23% have positive feelings toward Mr. Trump and 59% have negative feelings, the WSJ/NBC poll found. And 59% of non-Trump Republican primary voters said they could not see themselves supporting Mr. Trump for president.

Now, look beyond the Republican primary electorate: The share of the electorate that is not participating in GOP primaries counts for two out of three voters. This 67% of the U.S. electorate–by far the largest of the three rings–represents the biggest challenge for Mr. Trump and a sobering set of numbers for down-ticket Republicans, should they share a ballot with Mr. Trump at the top. Among these voters, Mr. Trump has personal ratings of 16% positive and 75% negative. Seventy-nine percent of these voters say they could not see themselves supporting Mr. Trump for president.

These numbers suggest a very hard road ahead for the Republican Party if Donald Trump becomes the GOP nominee. A number of analysts have compared the potential electoral wipeout in November to that of Barry Goldwater in 1964. Yet, in contrast to Mr. Goldwater, who stood for a major wing of the Republican Party and proudly espoused conservative principles, just 8% of all voters and 7% of Republican primary voters believe that Mr. Trump represents the values and positions of the Republican Party, the WSJ/NBC polling found.

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus recently announced that it would retire its elephants in May. If Mr. Trump becomes the GOP nominee, what might the Republican Party be retiring in November?

[Ryan Ruck]

Trump and his massive negatives are causing sentiment and fracturing in the party like this...

No, I Will Not Vote For Donald J. Trump in a General Election

March 26, 2016

I hammered John McCain and Mitt Romney so brutally during the GOP primaries that I was blackballed from the 2008 and 2012 Republican conventions in retaliation, but when the time came in the general election, I did vote Republican. I will never be a fan of John McCain or Mitt Romney, but I could at least embrace Reagan’s my “80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy” mantra and support them.

I cannot say the same about Donald J. Trump.

He’s not a good man, a Christian or a conservative and he doesn’t care about the Constitution, the country or as far I can tell, anything other than making money and hearing his name repeated as often as possible. If Matthew 7:16 is right and, “By their fruit you will recognize them,” what fruits has Donald J. Trump borne into the conservative movement? He’s managed to turn longtime allies against each other, good people are approving of despicable behavior they would have unhesitatingly condemned a year ago and the way he behaves is so childish and disgusting that 35% of Republicans and Republican leaning independents want a third party if he’s the nominee. Many Donald J. Trump fans assume these people who detest him so much are “establishment” Republicans. While it’s true that many members of the GOP establishment dislike Donald J. Trump (And others, like Chris Christie, Rick Scott and Scott Brown have endorsed him), the majority of people who oppose him are grassroots conservatives. Donald J. Trump may have more backers than anyone else in a divided field, but so far roughly two-thirdsof Republicans have picked someone other than him as their candidate.

I don’t insult people for supporting or endorsing Donald J. Trump, I haven’t called for any blacklists, I’m not calling for the nomination to be taken from him at the convention and I’m not encouraging anyone to start a third party. In fact, I know there are many good conservatives who support Donald J. Trump. Unfortunately, when a third of the Republican Party rallies behind an unelectable, unstable, misogynistic, authoritarian conman who says any stupid thing that comes into his head, there is no escape for the rest of us from the ramifications of that decision. Maybe there could have been, if another third of the party didn’t just as stubbornly refuse to unite around Ted Cruz, the only candidate who could have gotten more delegates than Donald J. Trump, but it is what it is.

Barring a miracle – and I doubt if God is helping out a phony Christian who says he’s never asked for forgiveness – Donald J. Trump is going to lose the general election. I could give you a detailed explanation of why that’s going to happen, but if you’ve taken the time to look at any election data at all, you already know Donald J. Trump is highly likely to be defeated. If you believe he’s going to win despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it’s certainly not logic or poll numbers that are convincing you of it.

The reality is likely to be even worse than the current numbers because there will be some Republicans actively campaigning against him and a conservative third party campaign is a genuine possibility. Do you think Donald J. Trump wins if a Republican like Tom Coburn runs third party? Do you think he wins even though, Mitt Romney, our last presidential nominee has publicly written that, "Through the calculated statements of its leader, Trumpism has become associated with racism, misogyny, bigotry, xenophobia, vulgarity and, most recently, threats and violence. I am repulsed by each and every one of these." You can like Mitt or not (and I don’t), but if you’re telling yourself that it won’t be incredibly damaging in a general election that he has said that publicly about Donald J. Trump, you’re kidding yourself.

Just to give you a little taste of how hopeless it would be if Trump is our nominee, the last time Utah went for a Democratic president was in 1964. McCain won the state by 28, Romney won by 48 and Cruz is winning in a head-to-head matchup with Hillary by 28 while Donald J. Trump ….is losing 36/38. Yes, it’s one poll and yes, Donald J. Trump could still win Utah, but when he’s struggling in a state that should be one of the easiest gimmies in the general election, it suggests a level of potential weakness approached by candidates like McGovern, Dukakis and Mondale. So, you can say that the millions of Republicans who won’t vote for Donald J. Trump in a general election are helping to elect Hillary, but the real truth is that the people who are insisting on nominating Donald J. Trump are the ones who are practically guaranteeing that Hillary Clinton will be our next president.

It’s also fine to say, “We the people” want Donald J. Trump, but so far, more of “We the people” don’t want him. Millions more of “We the People” won’t be able to vote for him in a general election because we don’t blindly love him to such an extent that we can overlook the fact that he’s obviously unfit to be in the Oval Office. I can certainly understand liking some of the things Trump has done and said, but I don’t get the Reaganesque hero worship of a loud mouthed, cowardly braggart who has yet to do anything to help the Republican Party, the conservative movement or the country. At least Reagan earned his adulation by proving himself as a principled conservative leader who turned out to be a strong governor and one of the best American presidents in history.


On the other hand, Donald J. Trump is like a grown up version of King Joffrey from “Game of Thrones.” He is like a mean-spirited parody of a Republican on “Saturday Night Live” come to life. Donald J. Trump is a walking, talking Internet meme who seems to be spouting off shallow slogans half the time and lying the other half. He's also a creepy, thin skinned authoritarian who has made it clear he cares nothing about free speech for anyone but himself and has publicly encouraged political violence at his rallies. Moreover, aside from some tough talk about immigration, trade and unworkable, over-the-top attacks on Muslims, his entire campaign has been centered on mean tweets, third grade insults and campaign promises that sometimes change from day-to-day or even from hour-to-hour. It’s difficult to know what Trump would really do if he were in power. His real views could range anywhere from liberal to conservative to South American dictator on just about any issue. So, if you’re a conservative who believes in God, country and the Constitution, how do you fall in line behind someone like that?

When I see the way Donald J. Trump’s campaign treated Michelle Fields, when I see him falsely claiming that Cruz was behind an attack on his wife, even as he threatens Cruz’s wife and attacks her looks, when I hear him promising to force our soldiers to commit war crimes, mocking the handicapped, smearing POWs and saying he may pay the bail of thugs who assault people at his rallies while he bizarrely obsesses over Megyn Kelly and his hand size, I can only conclude that he’s not a good man, he’s not mentally stable and he’s not someone who should ever be trusted with our military, the DOJ, the FBI, the DHS, and the IRS or nuclear weapons.

At the end of the day, if the goal is to say “screw you” not just to the establishment, but to millions of grassroots conservatives and committed Christians, then it’s almost “mission accomplished” time. However, if the goal is to beat Hillary Clinton, Donald J. Trump is not someone who can make that happen. To do that, the Republican Party would need to unify and that’s not possible with human poison like Donald J. Trump as the nominee. If, as expected, Donald J. Trump becomes the GOP’s candidate, the Republican Party will splinter, the GOP will be decimated down ticket, and millions will leave the Republican Party, at least until its infatuation with Hugo Chavez Jr has run its course. If Donald J. Trump is the cure, the Republican Party would be better off with the disease.

[Ryan Ruck]

Good news for Cruz on the delegate front!

He's running a ground game like a pro in the background while Trump runs his mouth in public and fabricates scandals.

Cruz Gains Delegates In Key Convention Posts

March 25, 2016

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz may turn out to be the real winner of the Louisiana Republican primary. Despite losing the primary in early March by fewer than four percentage points and winning an equal number of pledged delegates, Cruz supporters scooped up five of Louisiana’s six positions on key committees intended to write the Republican National Convention’s rules and platform, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Only one Trump supporter managed to receive an appointment to a senior level delegate post. Eric Skrmetta, the Trump campaign’s state co-chairman was named vice chairman of GOP convention delegation, a mainly ceremonial position without decision-making responsibilities.

It appears the Cruz camp’s strategy of winning over state delegates who will be major players at the convention is bearing fruit. Cruz may end up with up to 10 more delegates in Louisiana favorable towards him in his goal to reach 1,237 delegates before Trump does at a possible contested convention.

Trump's campaign didn't know they'd been shut out of Louisiana RNC committee posts by Cruz forces until told by WSJ https://t.co/vvnAqkdWYg

— Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) March 24, 2016

RNC lawyer Ben Ginsburg stressed the importance of delegates and the changing of convention rules when asked by MSNBC during a recent interview.

“Each convention has to pass that rule and a number of other procedural rules for itself. There’s no precedent that’s set. In 2000 and 2004, it was five states. We moved it to eight states in 2012 for the reasons of that convention. It does not carry over. The delegates in Cleveland will decides how many states it takes to put a name in nomination,” Ginsburg said.

“The delegates who will serve on the convention in the rules committee haven’t even been selected except in a small number of states, so I think its way premature to say what delegates will want to do or even what the individual candidates in Cleveland will ask the delegates to do,” he added.

GOP leaders across the country at the precinct, county, district and state level are meeting at various times in the near future to choose who will represent their state party as delegates at the convention as well as who will fill specific committee posts for their state.

In the state of Georgia, where Trump won decisively and was awarded 42 of the Peach State’s 76 delegates, has had a similar turn of events. One particular county, Coweta, heavily went Trump’s way by 12 percentage points, but Georgia Cruz campaign organizer Brant Frost told the WSJ that the senator’s supporters will compose 90 percent of Coweta’s delegates at state and district meetings. This group of delegates will be part of the larger pool of Georgia delegates that are chosen to go to Cleveland.

“A lot of Trump supporters are new,” Phoebe Hobbs, a Trump supporter at a GOP Convention in Cobb County, Ga. told the WSJ, noting they were unaware they needed be at Georgia precinct meetings one month ago.

“There’s a reason they are upset [with the political system],” said Hobbs. “They don’t know how the party is run.” ()

Louisiana Trump supporter Kay Kellogg Katz, a former state legislator who went to every Republican Convention since 1984, said the Cruz campaign played a better delegate strategy in the state. She lost her delegate position in a 22-5 vote to Kim Fralick, a Cruz supporter with no experience in a major political campaign.

[Ryan Ruck]

Fox Poll: Millennials choose Cruz over Clinton, Trump

March 25, 2016

Fox News’ latest poll shows Senator Ted Cruz jumping to a massive 14 percent lead over Secretary Hillary Clinton among voters under the age of 35.

The same poll shows Trump losing the same younger demographic to Clinton by more than 20 percent — despite Clinton having a 67 percent unfavorable rating among these voters.



Cruz’s lead among young voters is fueling his general election chances in November. In this poll, Cruz defeats Clinton 47 percent to 44 percent in the general election; Trump loses 49 percent to 38 percent.

In 2008 and 2012, President Obama won younger voters by huge margins; he defeated Governor Mitt Romney 67 percent to 30 percent among voters 18-to-29 years old. If Cruz can neutralize or reverse this trend, it would be a huge feat for the Republican Party’s future.

In the primary race, Cruz is also winning a strong plurality of younger Republicans. While the poll doesn’t measure Republicans under age 35, it does measure Republicans under age 45. Cruz is winning 47 percent of voters under age 45, compared to 30 percent for Trump and 20 percent for Governor John Kasich.

[Ryan Ruck]

And then there's this fallout from Trump, in the same vein as putting Utah into play for the Dems, down ticket candidates in an election when a lot of the House is up for vote.

Why Trump's Arizona Win Terrifies State GOP

March 25, 2016

Donald Trump's convincing victory in Tuesday's Arizona winner-take-all presidential primary advanced the celebrity billionaire's march to the Republican Party's nomination.

As the thought of Trump as the GOP's national standard-bearer is starting to sink in, some Republicans in the state are increasingly worried he could put the party's candidates for down-ticket races in jeopardy in November.

Although Trump garnered an impressive win in the state's presidential preference election, polls suggest he could be a weak general-election contender, even in a traditional red state such as Arizona.

Trump favors policies and has made numerous remarks that have offended Latinos, women, Muslims and other Americans.

In Arizona, that could hurt other Republicans running for office as they're forced to defend their party's nominee and because it could depress GOP turnout while motivating Trump critics to the polls.

Nationally, political analysts say, Trump as the GOP nominee could flip control of the U.S. Senate from the Republicans to the Democrats.

Trump's nomination is not a done deal, and many establishment Republicans are desperate for an opportunity to stop it. A contested or brokered Republican National Convention is a possibility, but thanks to victories like he had in Arizona on Tuesday, Trump appears to have the only plausible shot of reaching the minimum 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the party's nod.

The effect on Arizona races feared

In Arizona, the GOP name on the Nov. 8 ballot directly under Trump's could be veteran U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., provided he clears his party's Aug. 30 primary.

Republican efforts to hold or win the state's three competitive congressional districts also could be complicated by Trump if, as some political experts warn, it drives independents, women and minority voters away from the GOP and even keeps many Republicans home on Election Day.

Freshman U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., potentially could have a tough fight in southeastern Arizona's 2nd Congressional District. Republicans also are angling to replace U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., who is running for McCain's Senate seat, in the state's sprawling rural 1st Congressional District.

"The establishment is so frightened about the effect down the ticket," said David Berman, an Arizona State University professor emeritus of political science and senior research fellow at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy. "I think they'll start backing away from Trump."

A statewide poll conducted March 7-11 by veteran Arizona political scientist and pollster Bruce Merrill gives Republicans some reasons for concern.

The telephone survey of 701 likely Arizona voters found Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, who handily defeated her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in Tuesday's primary, tied with Trump 38% to 38% in a hypothetical Arizona general-election matchup. An additional 9% liked neither, while 15% were undecided.

Sanders, who continues to trail in the Democratic delegate count far behind Clinton, the former secretary of State, also would be competitive with Trump in November, according to Merrill's poll. Sanders leads Trump 39% to 36% with 7% preferring neither and 18% undecided.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Trump's main competition still in the GOP race, does a little better against Clinton, polling ahead of her 41% to 35% with 10% wanting neither and 14% undecided.

Merrill's poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

"My gut tells me that it's not good for the Republicans down ticket," said Jaime Molera, a Phoenix Republican consultant. "Why would the national Republicans, almost to a person, say, 'We'll galvanize around Ted Cruz before we'd go with Donald Trump'? I think a lot of it is the fear that there could be some down-ticket repercussions."

Cruz, the conservative Senate outsider, has picked up support from some of his past 2016 opponents, including GOP establishment favorites such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Democrats in Arizona and across the country are ready to use Trump against rank-and-file Republican candidates.

When Trump was in the state Saturday for rallies in Fountain Hills and Tucson, the Arizona Democratic Party denounced his campaigning as a "Make America Hate Again" tour — playing off his campaign slogan "Make America Great Again."

The party slammed his presidential candidacy as "hate-mongering."

“Donald Trump’s values don’t represent Arizona at all,” state Democratic Party spokesman Enrique Gutierrez said in a written statement.

'Everybody in Arizona knows John McCain'

Trump has already become an issue in McCain's re-election race.

Despite their high-profile feud last summer, McCain has been under pressure to say he would not support Trump at the top of the GOP ticket.

On Wednesday, McCain, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, reiterated on CNN that he would work with Trump as president on the war against the terrorist Islamic State and on other national-security challenges.

"I would do the best that I can to help any president as we are facing the greatest crises since the end of World War II," McCain said. "... I have to work with any president to try to prevent further attacks on the United States of America, which I will tell you right now is probably going to happen — most likely going to happen — because of a failure of this president's (Barack Obama's) leadership in allowing all of this to happen, beginning with withdrawing everybody from Iraq."

Former senator Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said 2016 so far has been unpredictable and it's unclear which voters would or would not turn out to back Trump in the general election and how they would vote down-ballot. In any event, Kyl predicted McCain is such a well-established name in Arizona politics — he was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee and is seeking a sixth, six-year Senate term — that it would be more difficult for the Democrats to tether him to Trump.

"Everybody in Arizona knows John McCain, and they're either going to vote for him or against him based upon his long history here," said Kyl.

Nathan Sproul is a local Republican consultant who was an Arizona campaign co-chair for Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida who exited the GOP presidential race March 15.

Sproul said Trump probably would create problems for Republicans running statewide in "purple" swing states and for GOP candidates running in contested congressional districts.

"There's no way to get around the 'Do you agree with Donald Trump about ...' question," Sproul said.

"There are a lot of things that a Democrat can hang around a Republican's neck," he said.

However, Sproul added he doesn't believe Arizona falls into the "purple" category yet.

"I don't think Senator McCain's re-election is in jeopardy because of Donald Trump, but it's certainly a headache," Sproul said. "At the appropriate time, Sen. McCain will say what he believes about Donald Trump. I think Arizona is probably the wrong state to prove that theory in, but there are going to be some other states where it's going to be a problem."

[Ryan Ruck]

I'm sure it's just a coincidence this AG was investigating Trump University...

Trump Camp Says $25,000 Charity Contribution To Florida AG Was A Mistake

March 22, 2016

Aides to Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said this week that his charitable foundation made a mistake when it donated $25,000 to a political committee backing Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a potential violation of federal rules prohibiting charities from aiding political candidates.

The Donald J. Trump Foundation compounded the error by not listing its 2013 gift to the pro-Bondi group, And Justice for All, in its filings with the IRS that year, the aides said. The charity listed a $25,000 donation to an unrelated group with a similar name, Justice for All. But that group, a Wichita-based nonprofit, said it never received any money from the foundation.

Such an admission of error from the campaign is itself relatively unusual, because Trump has built his presidential bid on a distaste for apologies.

Trump’s campaign spokeswoman and the treasurer of his foundation said they were unaware of the charity’s mistakes until Monday, when they were notified that a left-leaning watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, had filed a complaint with the IRS.

Both said there was no intent to deceive the IRS, and they blamed the problems on a series of clerical errors.

“All these years, we had no idea anything happened,” said Allen Weisselberg, chief financial officer of the Trump Organization and the longtime treasurer of Trump’s foundation.

Weisselberg said Trump’s accountants would contact the IRS on Tuesday to “straighten it out.”

The donation to Bondi’s group by Trump’s foundation, a charity that the billionaire businessman created in the 1980s, was controversial because it came as Bondi was reviewing whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University, a real-estate-seminar business affiliated with the front-runner.

Bondi, a Republican who was preparing for her 2014 reelection campaign, never took action against Trump University.

When questions arose at the time, the group and Trump defended the donation.

The treasurer of the pro-Bondi And Justice for All, Nancy Watkins, told the Tampa Bay Times at the time that the group was “comfortable with the propriety of the contribution from the Trump Foundation.” Trump told the paper then that Bondi “is a fabulous representative of the people — Florida is lucky to have her.”

The foundation’s gift to Bondi gained renewed attention in recent days when Bondi endorsed Trump before this year’s Florida GOP primary, on March 15. Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign, said it had been unaware that Trump’s foundation made the erroneous political gift.

“The campaign wasn’t in existence” when the 2013 donation was made, Hicks said. “The campaign had no knowledge of this.”

IRS rules say that nonprofit foundations, like Trump’s, are “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign.” If an organization is found to have violated that rule, it could lose its nonprofit status. The penalty for sending false information to the IRS can be more severe

CREW, the watchdog group, was the first to note publicly that Trump’s foundation had reported a donation to the Kansas-based Justice for All — and not to the pro-Bondi group with a similar name.

A spokeswoman for the Kansas group, which trains antiabortion activists, confirmed to The Washington Post that it had not received the money.

Jordan Libowitz, a CREW spokeswoman, said that the IRS “needs to investigate and determine where the truth lies.”

“It appears they gave an illegal political donation, told the IRS they didn’t give a political donation, claimed it was made to a similarly named permissible group instead — and now they’re saying it’s an error?” Libowitz said.

An IRS spokesman declined to comment, citing federal privacy laws that prohibit the disclosure of information about any individual taxpayer.

The explanation from Trump aides Monday underscored the extent to which Trump’s foundation is managed largely by the same people who help run his business empire and make decisions about his personal funds.

Weisselberg, the foundation’s treasurer, said the mistakes began with an accounts-payable clerk at the Trump Organization.

The clerk received a request for payment, Weisselberg said, in the name of Bondi’s group, And Justice for All. Then, the clerk had to decide whether the check would come from Trump’s charity or his personal funds.

The clerk had a standing order to consult a reference book, Weisselberg said.

“In that book, it lists all the bona fide charities, so we went to that book and in that book, sure enough, is And Justice for All,” Weisselberg said.

That was a mistake, he said, but the clerk didn’t know it.

The listing she found for And Justice for All was actually for a nonprofit with the same name, located in Utah. So the clerk, Weisselberg said, wrote a check for that name, drawn from the charitable foundation’s funds.

If the clerk had known that the check was meant for a political group, Weisselberg said, “we would have taken it out of [Trump’s] own personal account.”

“We had 99.9999 percent of them perfect, and this is the one,” he added.

The clerk wrote the check, but it didn’t go to the Utah group. The And Justice for All organization in Utah, which helps poor people and those with disabilities navigate the legal system, told The Washington Post that the group received no funds from Trump.

Weisselberg could not explain how the money got to Bondi’s group.

“The check got cut, and after that, I don’t know exactly where it ended up,” he said.

“It must have gone, I guess, to Pam Bondi,” Weisselberg said. “We spoke to our accountants, our tax attorneys in Washington, and they say these things happen all the time.”

The next mistake, Weisselberg said, was made by Trump’s accounting firm.

When compiling the foundation’s donations for 2013, it did not list a donation to either of the groups called And Justice for All.

Instead, it listed a $25,000 donation to Justice for All, in Kansas.

“From what I’m told, they had a typographical mistake on the return. . . . Somehow, someone who typed up the return for that year put Justice for All,” Weisselberg said.

A message left for Trump’s paid tax preparer was not returned.