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Reader Poll Tag

The FBI letter to Congress stating that it is reopening the investigation into her handling of classified information set off the expected reaction, documented in our prior post, Mother of all October Surprises – FBI reopening Hillary email case. Ed Morrissey suggested on Twitter that this might be another case Lucy (James Comey) pulling the football away from Charlie Brown (Hillary opponents) once again at the last minute. Hillary and Team Hillary are on the attack, demanding that Comey release everything he has on Hillary:

We've been watching this story grow legs -- the speculation that a Democratic Party cabal met behind closed doors to discuss replacing Hillary on the presidential ticket after her unfortunately public health episode Sunday. I imagine this was nothing more than a whisper campaign that morphed into an actual story. And you know, it couldn't have happened to a nicer gal. But now that replacing Hillary is actually being discussed seriously, we're only doing what's proper -- voting on who we think would (not should) replace Hillary, if it were to come to that.

It's election year which means progressive celebrities are making promises they have zero intention of keeping. Namely promises to leave the country if the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, wins the November election. We've compiled a list of celebrities and public officials who've declared plans to peace out of the U.S. of A. if Trump beats Hillary.

What a long, strange trip this year's presidential election has become. The media (mainstream, liberal and conservative #NeverTrump) have swarmed all over Trump in the past two weeks. Some Republicans who did not previously oppose Trump also are breaking ranks and coming out against him. The media, by and large, has moved on from scrutiny of Hillary. For Trump supporters, it's confirmation of bias against him and the need to tear down the establishment in its broadest sense. For Trump opponents, it's confirmation of the reasons for their opposition. Certainly, "anything can happen." But as of now, the polls mostly look beyond horrible for Trump and have taken a nose dive. In a normal election year, it would not be worth the pixels to run a general election poll, because close to 100% of the readers would be voting for the Republican. But this is not a normal year. So, this will be our first 2016 General Election Reader Poll.

So much speculation lately. From Loretta Lynch's impromptu, it-just-happened, guess-who-I-bumped-into private sit down with Bill Clinton, her saying she's staying out of it but maybe not, to Hillary's interview with the FBI, to supposed leaks by "sources" in both directions. The QUESTION IS NOT whether you want the FBI to recommend Hillary be prosecuted. The QUESTION IS whether you think the FBI will recommend Hillary be prosecuted.

Get it? The Reader Poll question is not what you want to happen, but what you think will happen.

It's Yes or No. A time for choosing. No "undecided" allowed. Make a choice, the FBI has to.

The dispute between Donald Trump and Fox News has escalated rapidly today. It went from Trump was thinking about refusing to appear, to Trump likely not appearing, to the campaign saying Trump "definitely" would not appear. Megyn Kelly, the focus of Trump's ire, just announced on her show that Trump is out based on conversations Carl Cameron had with the Trump campaign. The Trump campaign apparently has released a statement to that effect. Trump Statement Fox News Debate (added) Fox News issued the following statement:

Here are my 10 favorites. It wasn't easy to slim down the list even to these ten. You choose which was the best. (Poll at bottom, open until Midnight Pacific Time, Monday night, January 4) (in chronological order)

Front Lines

Cartoonist Killed

Last week,  Quinnipiac reported poll results for Iowa that showed Ted Cruz surging to 23%, only 2 points behind Donald Trump. The Wall Street Journal reported:
A new Quinnipiac University poll of likely Republican caucus goers showed Mr. Cruz with 23%, behind only New York real estate developer Donald Trump, with 25%. That is more than double Mr. Cruz’s showing of 10% in the university’s October poll. Mr. Trump gained five points from October.
Today, Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, tweeted the following: https://twitter.com/RichLowry/status/673236631231533056 More Twitter responses:

I think we saw this movie before. It's called Scott Walker. A near total collapse in polling support in a short period of time with no obvious explanation. This time it's happening to Carly Fiorina. She gained a lot of attention after the Fox News undercard debate, making it into the CNN primetime debate. Fiorina was the near unanimous choice for winner of the debate, and she had a surge in the polls into the teens. Her confrontation with Trump was a winner for her. That support is gone now: Carly Fiorina's time near the top of the Republican polls may have come to an end, as another national CNN/ORC poll out Tuesday suggests. Just 4 percent of Republican or Republican-leaning voters said they would cast their votes for her in a primary election, down from 15 percent in September. The CNN poll is similar to other polling, as this Real Clear Politics table of all recent polls shows:

When we kicked off this election cycle, many pundits (including myself) asserted that it would be the "foreign policy election" we've all been waiting for. Our prediction has played out, but with a twist: Americans want to know what the candidates think about ISIS, asylum, and the military, but we're increasingly interested in what the political "outsiders" have to say about them. In fact, we're interested in what they have to say about everything. Whether it's because we crave a fresh perspective, the novelty of the moment, or merely to watch them eventually stumble, the polls show that when Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina---the top 3 outsiders currently charming their way into the inner circle---speak, Americans like what they're hearing. It's not exactly shocking; disenchantment with Beltway politics and political insidership has spread beyond the conservative base and into the broader demographic of primary voters. It's not a matter of those candidates who have more political experience being bad---although you're free to disagree with me about one particular candidate or another---it's just that a candidate who comes from somewhere other than the Beltway seems so much more appealing. Even tea party favorites like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio (although Rubio's poll numbers have increased dramatically since the last debate) haven't quite cracked through the wall separating those with an official connection to Washington politics from those who offer a different perspective.

Last week's CNN debate stirred the pot in what has been a roller coaster of an early primary season. A post-debate CNN poll showed Carly Fiorina surging into second place behind Donald Trump (a 12% jump since early September,) followed closely by Ben Carson. Right now, it's an outsider's race---but how long can it last? The tendency to wax and wane has been a hallmark of the GOP's "outsider" candidates. Their bumps and slides have had less to do with their budding policy plans, and more to do with how they've handled themselves under the extreme pressure of the national spotlight. Trump (for all his faults and foibles,) Fiorina, and Carson have all found their niche in the conversation, and if that was all it takes to become president, we could vote tomorrow and eliminate the primary state middlemen. Alas. As time wears on, primary voters (who are on the whole completely different animals compared to general election voters) will increasingly demand more and more substance from these candidates, and some pundits cite this as the reason the "outsiders" will become supplanted by more politically experienced candidates.