People cheer as Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks during his caucus-night event at the at the Holiday Inn, Feb. 1, 2016 in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Joshua Lott/Getty Images)
Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders has handily defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire Democratic nomination. With only 12% of precincts reporting, Sanders led Clinton by 14% and carried almost all demographics.
Worth noting, Clinton won only those who make $250,000 or more and the 65-plus age demographic. Sen. Sanders carried the remaining demographic groups.
“Thank you New Hampshire,” Sanders told a roaring crowd. “Let me take this opportunity to thank the many, many thousands of volunteers who worked so tirelessly in the Granite State. And we won because of your energy.”
The number one attribute for Democratic primary voters was honesty and trustworthiness, with more than three in 10 voters in preliminary exit poll results. Sanders stomped Clinton with these voters 93% to 5%. The second attribute was a tie between “someone who cares about people like me” and experience, at just more than a quarter each. Unlike the Republicans, only about two in 10 Democrats decided late.
“Together we have sent a message that will echo from Wall Street to Washington, from Maine to Washington,” Sanders said. “And that is the country belongs to all the people and not just the super PACs.”
However, as the Clinton campaign was quick to point out, with the contest moving toward the South where minority voters make up a much larger share of the electorate, it’ll be a heavy lift for the socialist. Clinton leads nationwide and among Latinos and black voters, which Sanders hopes to change starting with a meeting with the Rev. Al Sharpton Wednesday morning.
Sanders touted the “record turnout” and slammed the Republican Party. However, as a fact-check, Republican turnout once again appears to have handily beaten Democratic turnout by at least 30,000 votes. Independents voted disproportionately with Republicans and the party voted at a higher rate. According to PPD’s Party Affiliation, Ideology by U.S. State Map, which was just released this week, the Republican Party has an ID edge of 8.8%.
Vermont Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, left, and billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump, right. (Photos: AP/Getty)
New Hampshire primary exit polls show a big turnout on Tuesday among independent voters, but confirm the GOP are out-voting Democrats in the Granite State. Independents, or undeclared voters, account for about four in 10 primary voters in both the Republican and Democratic contests, according to preliminary exit poll results.
(Please Note: We will be updating this article as more data flows in the desk.)
A larger or typical turnout among independents are widely believed to benefit billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump and socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders. As it turns out, both candidates have reason to be optimistic based upon the results of these New Hampshire exit polls.
On the Republican side, nearly half of votes who cast a Republican ballot said they’re looking for a candidate from “outside the political establishment,” a mood that boosted voter preference for Trump.
The economy and jobs, government spending and terrorism came is as the top issues, with immigration running behind. Of the top six candidates, Trump enjoyed a significant advantage on who would best handle the economy and an international crisis, with Ohio Gov. John Kasich behind on the economy.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Kasich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (in that order) are trailing Trump on who is best to handle an international crisis. Significantly, half of New Hampshire Republican primary voters said they’d be satisfied with Trump as the eventual nominee, with only four in 10 saying the same about Rubio and Cruz.
More GOP voters say a candidate’s positions on the issues are more important to their vote than personal qualities. Further, New Hampshire Republican primary exit polls show voters support Trump’s controversial proposals. A whopping two-thirds of New Hampshire Republican primary voters favor temporarily banning Muslims who are not U.S. citizens from entering the country and four in 10 say undocumented immigrants should be deported.
The electorate seems to be far more friendly for the frontrunner, as well, though that was to be expected and could help the moderate governors. After all, these are just exit polls. Still, evangelicals represent just a quarter of New Hampshire Republican voters in juxtaposed to 64% in Iowa. That important bloc in the GOP coalition helped propel Cruz to number one, though they backed the national frontrunner in substantial numbers, as well.
“Strong” conservatives accounted for three in 10 Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, down from 40% in Iowa. Yet, roughly three-quarters identify as conservatives overall in these preliminary exit polls, up significantly from the 53% in the 2012 primary. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the eventual nominee, won the Granite State primary with by roughly 16%.
More than four in 10 Republican voters in New Hampshire say they’re angry with the way the federal government is working. It was a similar 42 percent in Iowa. Of the 43% are angry, 37% chose Trump while 17% chose Cruz. Four in 10 Republican voters chose their candidates in the final days and Trump and Kasich each pulled 21%, with Bush and Rubio behind at 13%. Trump carried 29% of the independent vote, which is double-digits above his closest rival (Kasich: 17%).
The Donald is dominating across the board on the most important issues, including two-thirds of those who said “telling it like it is” was pivotal to their vote.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Sanders appears to be headed for a big win. The number one attribute for Democratic primary voters was honesty and trustworthiness, with more than three in 10 voters in preliminary exit poll results. Sanders stomped Clinton with these voters 93% to 5%. The second attribute was a tie between “someone who cares about people like me” and experience, at just more than a quarter each. Unlike the Republicans, only about two in 10 Democrats decided late.
According to the latest data from the New Hampshire Secretary of State, Republicans against cast more ballots (282,000) than Democrats (268,000), an ominous sign for the president’s party in November. That will change, of course. But the independent vote is also disproportionately favoring the GOP. PPD recently published the most recent data reflecting voter party affiliation and ideology by U.S. state, which showed Republicans holding an 8.8-point advantage over Democrats in the Granite State.
As far as ideology, conservative holds a 12-point advantage over liberalism, while 37.5% identify as moderate.
New Hampshire Exit Polls: Republicans versus Democrats
According to the New Hampshire exit polls, there are record levels of political polarization on both sides of the aisle, with more Republican voters than ever saying they’re conservative and more Democratic voters saying they’re liberal. Nearly seven in 10 New Hampshire Democratic primary voters described themselves as liberals, including 25% who say they’re “very” liberal, both of which are higher than 2008 when 56% identified as liberal and 20% said they were very liberal. Those numbers will break new highs in exit polls going back to 1980, if they hold.
Unsurprisingly, based on the high number of liberals, two-thirds of Democratic voters said they support throwing out ObamaCare for a “single taxpayer-funded plan for all Americans,” a policy Sanders has championed and Clinton has argued against. The American people, as a whole, are adamantly against single-payer and still continue to oppose the president’s signature health care law.
Six in 10 Republican voters said they were “very” worried about a major terrorist attack, compared to just a quarter Democrats voters. While 9 in 10 Republican voters are either dissatisfied or angry about the way the government is working, including 4 in 10 who are angry about it–juxtaposed to barely over one in 10 Democratic voters.
Worth noting, as we at PPD have beat like a drum over-and-over, half of Republicans say they feel “betrayed” by their own party, but only one in seven Democrats agree. Electibility was not much of a factor on either side of the aisle, as only 1 in 10 voters from both parties said that was their major consideration.
Bottom Line: This is looking like a hastag #TrumpThump and a #SandersStomp.
[brid video=”27379″ player=”2077″ title=”#RobotRubio Gets Manhandled By Team Marco”]
A video surfaced Tuesday showing Marco Rubio supporters roughing up a #RobotRubio protester dressed as a robot outside a polling station in Manchester, N.H. The pundits and politicians love to say that politics is a contact sport. At least come days, that can actually be true.
As the protester approached a crowd of Rubio supporters outside the polling place at the Webster School a few hours before polls closed, a man appears to use a giant Rubio sign to block his path. Another Rubio supporter pulled the protester away.
“Why do you have your hands on me?” #RobotRubio said. “Look at all these cameras.”
Of course, the #RobotRubio hashtag is a reference to the Florida senator’s repeated response during Saturday night’s Republican debate. Rubio repeated the same line about Barack Obama purposefully destroying the country no less than four times, drawing criticism from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and from protesters dressed as robots in the days after.
After another man appears to tell the Rubio supporters to leave the protester alone, the protester is joined by another man dressed as a robot, whose costume reads “Rubio Talking Point 3000.” That man said on Twitter that he was later pushed to the ground.
President Barack Obama stands with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. in Emancipation Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, during an event to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 13th amendment that abolished slavery. (Photo: AP)
President Barack Obama proposed a record $4.1 trillion federal budget on Tuesday, including $19 billion to modernize and protect computer systems vulnerable to cyber attacks. The plan also calls for $2.6 trillion in tax increases over ten years, $1 billion in new spending to fight cancer, and a $10 per barrel tax increase on oil.
The president announced late last year he was putting Vice President Joe Biden in charge of a task force to cure cancer, which proposed more government spending. The leadership in the Republican-controlled Congress essentially signaled the president’s budget will be dead on arrival.
“President Obama will leave office having never proposed a budget that balances—ever,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in a statement. “This isn’t even a budget so much as it is a progressive manual for growing the federal government at the expense of hardworking Americans.”
Obama proposed the record-setting spending plan only a week after the U.S. national debt surpassed $19 trillion for the first time ever, which was a milestone that came only a month after new dire budget projections were released. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last month released their revised budget projections that show the federal deficit ballooning as a result of the compromise between President Obama and the newly elected speaker.
The U.S. National Debt Clock as of Feb. 2, 1016, surpassed $19 trillion.
However, Speaker Ryan appears unwilling to abdicate to the president on the new proposal, which he says will hurt the economy and further put the U.S. on a path toward fiscal insolvency.
“The president’s oil tax alone would raise the average cost of gasoline by 24 cents per gallon, while hurting jobs and a major sector of our economy,” Speaker Ryan added. “Americans deserve better. We need to tackle our fiscal problems before they tackle us. House Republicans are working on a balanced budget that grows our economy in order to secure a Confident America.”
Even without the new spending proposed by the president, the CBO issued a grave warning to lawmakers and the White House. The CBO report said the deficit will hit $544 billion in fiscal year 2016, which represents a staggering 24% increase over the prior year. It’s also represents a far cry from what the analysts had projected and promised in August, when they told Congress deficits would continue to fall on the margins.
“If current laws generally remained unchanged, the deficit would grow over the next 10 years, and by 2026 it would be considerably larger than its average over the past 50 years,” the CBO projected. “Debt held by the public would also grow significantly from its already high level.”
Ohio Gov. John Kasich responded to new attack ads from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ahead of the New Hampshire Republican primary. While appearing on “The Kelly File” Monday night, Kasich said “Jeb has taken the low road to the highest office.”
“I’m disappointed in Jeb.”
The ads attack the Ohio governor’s support for the Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare, which is true, as well as his vote for gun control while serving as a U.S. congressman in the House of Representatives. For someone who says “you can’t insult your way to the presidency,” Bush and allied super PACs have spent more than $50 million attacking Marco Rubio and millions more attacking Donald Trump and John Kasich.
U.S. Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Governor John Kasich holds a campaign town hall meeting in Peterborough, New Hampshire, August 11, 2015. (Photo: Reuters/Brian Snyder)
Ohio Gov. John Kasich slightly beat out Donald Trump 4 to 3 in the vote in Dixville Notch, the first of the first to vote in the New Hampshire primary. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders took all 4 votes in the town, shutting out Hillary Clinton.
So, what does this mean for the New Hampshire primary?
Not much. The town, as special as it is, has a rather poor track record of predicting the results of the New Hampshire primary. For Democrats, in 2008, now-President Barack Obama won the town ahead of the full Democratic primary vote by a 7-2 margin, though Clinton carried the state.
In 2000, President George W. Bush beat Arizona Sen. John McCain, though he lost the state to the eventual 2008 nominee. In 2012, Gov. Jon Huntsman tied Mitt Romney with 2 votes each, though the former Massachusetts governor won the state and the party’s eventual nominee.
That said, Gov. Kasich is the only candidate to visit the small town and his ground game made repeated return calls and visits to court the first voters in the first-in-the-nation primary. Trump didn’t visit nor make the calls, yet still only received one less vote.
Nevertheless, according to the PPD Election Projection Model, Trump is “Highly Likely” to win the New Hampshire Republican primary and currently enjoys a 72% chance of victory. That’s two points down from Monday, but still a significant advantage. On the other side of the aisle, Bernie Sanders has an astounding 97% chance of winning the New Hampshire Democratic primary.
Feb. 9, 2016: Rescue personnel stand in front of two trains that collided head-on near Bad Aibling, southern Germany. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
DEVELOPING: Two commuter trains collided head-on in southern Germany on Tuesday leaving at least eight people dead and 150 others injured. The trains crashed on a single track shortly before 7 a.m. (1 a.m. EST) outside of Bad Aibling, a spa town located approximately 35 miles southeast of Munich.
Rescue efforts have been complicated because the area is a densely wooded and hilly region near the river Mangfall. Police spokesman Stefan Sonntag said that 50 of the injured were severely hurt, while federal police spokesman Stefan Brandl said the numbers of dead and injured would change, calling the latest casualty figures as “a snapshot.”
“This is the biggest accident we have had in years in this region and we have many emergency doctors, ambulances and helicopters on the scene,” said Sonntag, who added that some people were still stuck inside the wreckage of the train and rescue personnel were trying to free them.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, center, delivers talking points on his new tax plan as Carly Fiorina, left, and Chris Christie, right, listen and participate in the Oct. 28, 2015, GOP debate hosted by CNBC in Boulder, Colo. (Photo: Robyn Beck, AFP/Getty Images)
It amuses me that certain people are convinced that Christians are angry scolds but totally miss the humorlessness and angst of certain Christophobic secularists.
When I wrote the book “Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity,” secularists panned the notion that Christians, being in the majority, could be the subjects of systematic discrimination. I found that an odd argument, especially from people who routinely argued that women are victims of gender discrimination.
Their argument may have a superficial attraction, but it does not square with the evidence. I marshaled 400 pages of proof to substantiate my case. Since the time the book was published in 2005 this pattern of discrimination and mistreatment of Christians has continued unabated. I could write an update with twice as many pages.
Our universities are teeming with atheist professors, many of whom express their antipathy toward Christianity as anti-science, superstitious, bigoted,and Neanderthal. The same message permeates our culture, from Hollywood to popular music to the mainstream liberal media.
President Barack Obama himself, while touting his authentic Christianity, doesn’t miss an opportunity to ridicule Christians as Bible-toting bitter-clingers whose Scripture contains many horrific divine commands and whose ancestors during the Crusades were every bit as evil as modern Islamic jihadists. He has also gone out of his way to promote the very secular cause of abortion-on-demand and to trample the conscience rights of faith-based institutions.
Yet with all this “progress,” the appetite of militant secularists cannot be satiated. The most recent example is an editorial by Susan Jacoby in The New York Times, “Sick and Tired of ‘God Bless America.'” Contrary to the liberal criticism of my book, Jacoby argues “the population of nonreligious Americans — including atheists, agnostics and those who call themselves ‘nothing in particular’ — stands at an all-time high this election year.” She cites a Pew poll showing that the numbers of nonreligious Americans have exploded since 2008. It’s hard to deny that the secular culture’s bombardment of Christianity is having an effect.
Jacoby is particularly annoyed that despite the supposed cultural shift away from Christianity, presidential candidates still campaign “as if all potential voters were among the faithful.” Even Democrats, she says, “are only a trifle more secular in their appeals.” Well, if you say so.
Jacoby doesn’t criticize nonreligious Americans who vote for these candidates, because no candidate “who full-throatedly endorses nonreligious humanism” is on the ballot. But she’s not happy that the “candidates themselves ignore the growing group of secular voters.”
She admits — shockingly — that “America is still predominantly a Christian nation,” but that’s not, in her view, why Christians are more powerful. Christians, she argues, are no more homogenous or monolithic in their views than secularists. Indeed, only evangelicals, as a group, are larger than those Americans “who don’t belong to any church.” The “unchurched,” she says, at 22.8 percent, “make up a larger group than Catholics, any single Protestant denomination and small minorities of Jews, Muslims, and Hindus.”
Instead, she thinks secularists are politically weak partly because they are not “joiners” and they reject labels. Many of the religiously unaffiliated would rather not identify with any group than label themselves as atheists or agnostics. Without joiners, she says, you can’t create a lobby.
This is all rather bizarre, though, when you consider the inroads secularists have made in our society. In the first place, let’s not forget that the Democratic Party booed God at its last convention. And though its presidential candidates may be unwilling to overtly appeal to secularists, they clearly pay homage to goddess Gaia in their quasi-pious adherence to the catechism of climate change. They bow to abortion rights as if abortion were a sacred ritual mandated by a pagan god of child sacrifice.
More important, secular values are in the ascendancy in this nation, not just in our university and culture, but also in the outworking of our laws. Almost overnight, militant secularists have imposed same-sex marriage on society through the super-legislature formally known as the United States Supreme Court. Tyrannical liberal policy makers and judges have forced the federal funding of abortifacients. Formerly free private bakers can’t refuse to sell their product for a ceremony that violates their religious beliefs. Secularists own the curriculum in our public schools and universities. They expel prayer and symbols of Christianity from the public square, our schools and our military institutions. Don’t dare be caught voluntarily praying to the God of the Bible in your private time in school, but the school will teach you how to practice the Five Pillars of Islam. Secularists are infringing, selectively, on the freedom of association of Christian groups on campuses. And much more.
Don’t misunderstand. I do not seek to portray Christians as victims, but for all her concern, Jacoby has nothing to fear from Christians, who would not suppress secularists’ liberties. On the other hand, it is undeniable that militant secularists command that society extend tolerance toward everyone except Christians. As hard-nosed secularists have been caught admitting, they simply refuse to tolerate ideas they find intolerable. They have no interest in applying their adage “live and let live” to those odious Christians.
Jacoby is sick of hearing “God bless America” at the end of every major political speech, and longs to hear Thomas Paine’s observation that “the most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason.”
With all respect to Thomas Paine, I’m not as worried about errors as encroachments on our liberties. And I’d far rather trust one’s commitment to the Constitution and rule of law than abstract reason. Christians embrace reason as much as secularists, but as jealous adherents to constitutional liberties, we are much better guardians of liberty for all.
Actress Jennifer Garner, left, and actor Ashton Kutcher, right, in a scene from the independent film Valentine’s Day (2010).
Valentine’s Day is upon us. And to think we are still recuperating from Groundhog Day. That’s February for you, a gray month of no big flashy celebrations, at least not until President’s Day.
The busier many of us get, the less our demand for outside stimuli. But for those needing to set chronological coordinates, Valentine’s Day delivers.
Valentine’s Day, the event, evokes responses ranging from love to hate. It is often held in contempt by the ultra-sophisticated and the partner-less, which are two groups that can overlap. They dismiss the day as a merchandising hook for purveyors of chocolate, flowers or heart-shaped anything — and a shot-in-the-arm for restaurateurs on a (preferably) non-weekend night. (Is that so bad?)
One reason to like Valentine’s Day is that it’s an occasion for which people get dressed up. One reason to dislike Valentine’s Day is that only the women get dressed up. This is a generalization, I know, but go to a nice restaurant and observe the ladies in sparkles and manicures and their male partners in un-pressed jeans, their shirts hanging out.
The men’s refusal to “make an effort” could be a power thing. But slob dressing may also reflect immaturity — or its mirror image, senility. A resident at an assisted living facility complained to me that she and the other women turn up for dinner carefully dressed and groomed, while many of the old men shuffle in looking like bums. (The home has a rule forbidding pajamas in the dining room.)
Some women may choose to forego the Valentine’s Day indignities this Sunday and instead escape into the mannerly sanctuary of “Downton Abbey.” It’s not that all those men behave well. Some are monsters in white ties, one having abandoned a bride at the altar. But they dress according to high standards. If they didn’t, they’d never have gotten far enough with a lady to play the cad.
And do note that the upper-class requirements for formal dress and exquisite tailoring aren’t all about putting on the dog. They are also about showing respect for those around them.
In 2016, let us salute men of all generations who still have the class to wear at least a jacket to a romantic dinner.
Those worried about not seeming hip, meanwhile, should be mindful of this: Dressing like a slob has become conformist, and he who resists may be in the vanguard of something beyond cool: “normcore.”
According to Urban Dictionary, normcore is “a post-ironic anti-fashion, ‘purposely uncool’ trend by hipsters in an attempt to pull away from the subculture (fashions) that were becoming commercialized and popular.” In sum, “normcore is quickly becoming a legitimate fashion trend.”
That brings up an intriguing aspect of the modern Valentine’s Day — that is, how many gay and lesbian couples faithfully observe the celebration and with great style. This may be an effort to feel part of a mainstream in which heterosexuality remains the norm. In any case, the gay community freshens up the tradition.
Speaking of which, Hallmark, the Kansas City-based arbiter of greeting card sentiments, has come up with a very diverse Valentine’s Day video. It tells the love stories of, among others, a lesbian couple and an interracial one, holding back none of the mush. A Hallmark spokeswoman said the company received a few gripes about the spot but most viewers reacted positively to it.
What one can love about Valentine’s Day is it can be as high- or low-impact as participants choose. It can be a night spent on the town or by candlelight at home, or it can be totally ignored. And by Feb. 15, it’s over.
Hillary Clinton speaks on the evening of the Iowa Democratic caucus, Feb. 1, 2016. (Photo: AP)
During this election year, we are destined to hear many words that are toxic in the way they misrepresent reality and substitute fantasies that can win votes.
One of these words is “entitlement.” To hear some politicians tell it, we are all entitled to all sorts of things, ranging from “affordable housing” to “a living wage.”
But the reality is that the human race is not entitled to anything, not even the food we need to stay alive. If we don’t produce food, we are just going to starve. If we don’t build housing, then we are not going to have housing, “affordable” or otherwise.
Particular individuals or groups can be given many things, to which politicians say they are “entitled,” only if other people are forced by the government to provide those things to people who don’t need to lift a finger to earn them. All the fancy talk about “entitlement” means simply forcing some people to work to produce things for other people, who have no obligation to work.
It gets worse. If we are all “entitled” to things, irrespective of whether we produce anything ourselves, then the question becomes: Why are some people getting so much more than others?
People who are producing nothing can feel a sense of grievance against those who are producing much, and being rewarded for it, if our basis for receiving economic benefits is supposed to be what we are all “entitled” to, rather than what we have worked to earn.
One of the most misleading uses of the notion of entitlement is to say that people who paid into Social Security for years are now entitled to the pensions they receive.
Really? It so happens that I have put money into the same bank account for more than 20 years. But if I were to write a check for a million dollars today, it would bounce! The question is not how long you have been putting money in, but how much money you put in.
If what you have been putting into Social Security over the years is enough to pay you a $1,500 a month pension, but you were promised a $3,000 a month pension, how much are you entitled to? On what basis?
Social Security was created back in the 1930s, during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of the shrewdest politicians who ever sat in the White House.
President Roosevelt understood that, if you could convince people that they were entitled to a pension under Social Security, it could become politically impossible to ever put an end to that system.
The pensions promised exceeded what could actually be paid from the money that was put in by the recipients. But the first generation to enter Social Security would have their pensions paid by money received from the second generation, as well as its own money. The second generation would be paid with money that included what was paid in by the third generation, and so on.
This is the principle behind a “pyramid” scheme, in which the first investors can get a big return on their money by simply paying them money received from subsequent investors. But it is only a matter of time before reality catches up with us, since the pyramid scheme is not actually investing any money or saving any money.
That is why a private insurance company that sold annuities based on a pyramid scheme would be prosecuted for fraud, and its officials put in prison. But you can’t put Congress in prison, even when that is what it deserves.
With the money running out in the so-called trust fund for Social Security, reality is beginning to break through the fantasies, and is closing in on us.
No one wants to pull the rug out from under people already retired and dependent on Social Security, or on people nearing retirement age, and expecting a pension that is just not going to be there.
We can be both realistic enough, and decent enough, to rescue older people who have been victimized by political fantasies. We can pay higher taxes temporarily to rescue them. But, there is no reason to bankrupt the country by keeping the fraud going forever.
Younger people can be allowed to opt out and arrange their own pension plans in the private sector, where the kind of irresponsible pyramid schemes that politicians set up are illegal.
But we don’t need to ruin the whole economy, in order to preserve the illusions created by toxic words like “entitlement.”
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