Month: February 2016

Trump Only Won a Plurality of the GOP Latino Vote in Nevada

Jon Ponder

0.1%

In his victory speech after winning the Nevada caucuses, Donald Trump said, “And you know what I’m really happy about? No. 1 with Hispanics. I’m really happy about that.” It is true he got more votes than his rivals, but he won with a plurality. Bill Moyers writes, “In one of a number of fine interventions at MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out that something on the order of 1,800 Latinos voted in the Nevada GOP caucuses, of whom perhaps 800 voted for Trump, i.e. 44 percent of this tiny group. Trump lost the vote of even this small group of hard right Latinos, since 56 percent of them voted for someone else. There are 800,000 Latinos in the state of Nevada (pop. 2.8 million). In 2012, 70 percent of Latinos voted for Barack Obama, while Mitt Romney got 25 percent. My guess is that Trump can’t do as well among them as Romney did.” Eight hundred out of 800,000 is just 0.1%.

Trump’s a Better Than Average Con Man

Buck Banks

A thousand ridiculous accidents needed to happen in the unlikeliest of sequences for it to be possible, but absent a dramatic turn of events – an early primary catastrophe, Mike Bloomberg ego-crashing the race, etc. – this boorish, monosyllabic TV tyrant with the attention span of an Xbox-playing 11-year-old really is set to lay waste to the most impenetrable oligarchy the Western world ever devised. … It turns out we let our electoral process devolve into something so fake and dysfunctional that any half-bright con man with the stones to try it could walk right through the front door and tear it to shreds on the first go. … And Trump is no half-bright con man, either. He’s way better than average.

— Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone

Hispanics Hate Trump

Buck Banks

8 in 10

Hispanic voters have an unfavorable view of Donald Trump, according to a new Washington Post-Univision poll. That includes more than 7 in 10 who have a “very unfavorable” impression of him, which is more than double the percentage of any other major candidate. “Should Trump become the Republican nominee, his current low standing among Hispanic voters could jeopardize the party’s hopes of winning the general election in November. In current matchups with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, Trump scores worse among Hispanics than any of the three other leading Republican candidates — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.”

Romney Suspicious of Trump’s Finances

Buck Banks

We have good reason to believe that there’s a bombshell in Donald Trump’s taxes. Either he’s not anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is, or he hasn’t been paying taxes we would expect him to pay or perhaps he hasn’t been giving money to vets or to the disabled like he’s been telling us he’s been doing.

— Mitt Romney, hitting Donald Trump over not releasing tax information, CNN reports.