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Donald Trump is turning the schoolyard taunt into a political art form. … These aren’t gaffes or off-script asides. They are part of a strategy, people close to Mr. Trump say, of knocking his Republican presidential rivals off their game. That, at least for now, is getting him the attention and poll ratings he wants among voters looking for an antidote to the artifice of U.S. politics. … But the intensely personal nature of Mr. Trump’s insults, sometimes mocking his rivals by mimicking them, is startling even to those who have grown accustomed to the sometimes low levels of civility in politics today.
The 2016 campaign is merely the latest manifestation of decades of discord between Trump and the Bush family. Since the gilded 1980s, when Trump and George H.W. Bush rose as forces in their respective spheres, the relationship between Trump and the Bushes has been a melodrama — veering between displays of public affection and acerbic insults. … At the core, there are clashes of style, manner and class between the Bushes — a patrician clan of presidents, governors and financiers who have pulled the levers of power for generations — and Trump, a hustling New York City deal-maker who turned his father’s outer borough real-estate portfolio into a gold-plated empire.
28%
Donald Trump’s expanding lead over the Republican presidential pack, followed by Ben Carson at 12%, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio all at 7%, according to a new Quinnipiac poll. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads with 45%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 22% and Joe Biden at 18%.
-51%
Donald Trump’s disapproval rating among Hispanic voters, according to Gallup. His closest rivals for Hispanic disapproval are Rick Perry and Ted Cruz, at -7 percent, contrasted with Jeb Bush’s +11 percent approval rating.
Trump has certainly crafted an appeal to voters who like impractical ideas. But his true threat lies in the fact that Trump himself is crazy — not just ideologically, though he is certainly that as well, but in the sense that he lacks any rational connection between his actions and his goals, to the extent that his goals are discernible at all. That is also his downfall.
Our committee believes that Mr. Christie has already performed the service of stopping his campaign in spirit.
— Tom Bjorklund, treasurer of the Stop Chris Christie PAC, which is shutting down because it says Christie is doing a better job at stopping his own campaign.
I’ll beat his brains out.
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by CNN, saying Donald Trump would be “a complete idiot” to run in South Carolina’s GOP presidential primary. But a new poll shows Trump leading Graham in his home state, 30% to 4%.
35%
Donald Trump’s lead over the Republican presidential field, followed by John Kasich at 11%, Carly Fiorina at 10%, Jeb Bush at 7%, Scott Walker at 7%, Ben Carson at 6%, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie and Ted Cruz all at 4%, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey in New Hampshire.
I praise the fact that he’s come out on the immigration issue. I’m beginning to get the idea that he’s a good salesman. That he’s an entrepreneur and he has a good sense of what people want to hear what they want to buy.
— Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, praising Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, calling him “the best of the lot” who has said “some really great things recently,” TPM reports.
54%
Hillary Clinton’s dominating lead over the Democratic field, followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders at 20%, Vice President Joe Biden at 11% and Martin O’Malley at 4%, according to a new Suffolk University poll in Iowa.
