Clinton’s loss in the Democratic primary election in West Virginia on Tuesday also signalled possible trouble for her in industrial states in November, underscoring how she still needs to court working-class voters in the Rust Belt.
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The state’s governor, Trump ally Chris Christie, said it was “ironic” that Clinton was talking about the issue given her use of a private email address and server while serving as secretary of state. “You’ve got to ask yourself why doesn’t he want to release it”, she said. “Yeah, well, we’re going to find out”, Clinton told supporters.
Senate Republicans returned to Washington Monday sharply divided over having Donald Trump as their party’s presidential nominee. The numbers represent a near reversal from Gallup’s survey in early March.
The two men represent vastly different visions for the Republican Party, and whether they can come together may foretell whether the GOP will heal itself after a bruising primary season or face irrevocable rupture. “As I told everybody a few months ago when I was still in the race, I said if Donald Trump is our nominee, it’s going to divide the party and fracture the conservative movement, and that’s what’s happening”.
“To pretend we’re unified without actually unifying, then we go into the fall at half strength”, he explained at a Capitol news conference. The private meetings represent his first tangible steps toward repairing his strained relationships with the nation’s most powerful elected Republicans.
They’d like to secure Ryan’s support, but believe that signs of continued opposition from congressional Republicans would simply reinforce his outsider appeal.
Entitlements: Ryan has sought to cut them to make them more solvent for the future (hello, Ryan budget plan!); Trump doesn’t want to touch them. “The goal here is to unify the various wings of the party around common principles, so that we can go forward to unify it”, he said. “I do think he’s also showing an ability to bring people in who have not traditionally voted for someone in our party”.
Ryan is already dismissing the notion that Thursday’s highly anticipated meetings will yield any actual endorsement of Trump. “It is paramount that we coalesce around the Republican nominee, Mr. Donald J. Trump”, the GOP lawmakers wrote. Like I said I’ve been focusing my political work on making sure that we hold the Senate and focus the rest of the time on my son.
Ryan’s probably even less eager to fall in line behind Trump, a move that could threaten his self-styled brand as a principled fiscal policy-driven conservative.
Clinton and Trump both poll well with voters of their respective parties, but independent voters continue to express uncertainty about who they will support, with 38 percent in the Reuters/Ipsos poll saying they are unsure or would vote for someone else.
Trump has recently backed away from the plan, describing it as a starting point for negotiations, and said he would try to do more to help the middle class. And he has said recently that he would support a higher rate for the wealthy than the rate he originally proposed.
“He can get us enthusiastic if he comes to talk to us”, continued Labrador, who is part of the House’s conservative “Freedom Caucus”. And many House Republicans – including Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, a co-chairman of a group of House centrists – say they they’re not ready to back Trump yet, either.
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“He wants to unify the Republican Party, and it all sort of begins tomorrow”, Fleming said of Ryan.
