POLITICO Playbook: Good poll news for Trump

A COUPLE OF THINGS THAT DON’T REALLY MATTER, BUT COULD BE KIND OF FUN … TODAY is 02/02/2020 -- a palindrome . … Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow -- however who cares, because a rodent does not determine the change in seasons.

TRUMP HAS STRENGTHENED … NEW NBC/WSJ POLL, by WSJ’s Aaron Zitner: “The ballot … discovered some indicators that the president’s political standing has strengthened in current months, due largely to a more energized Republican Get together base.

“Mr. Trump’s job approval within the January ballot stood at 46%, with 51% disapproving, consistent with outcomes throughout the Trump presidency. However the share who ‘strongly approve’ of his job performance hit its highest mark, at 36%. Approval amongst independents rose to its highest degree because the summer time. A separate measure discovered that while half the country holds a adverse general view of Mr. Trump, 43% of voters view him favorably -- the most important share since his first month in office.” WSJ

TABLE SETTER … NYT, A1 … JONATHAN MARTIN and ALEX BURNS: “Democratic Candidates Give attention to All-Consuming Starvation to Unseat Trump”: “After an extended campaign of ideological clashes, policy debates and speak of a grand depending on the path of the Democratic Get together, the presidential primaries beginning on Monday might be shaped by a much less lofty but more and more urgent matter: figuring out the most effective candidate to defeat an incumbent who has already proved to be a political survivor.

“With Republicans ready to acquit President Trump of two impeachment expenses next week, the nation’s political desk has been set for 2020: Congress won't take away him from workplace, despite the needs of many liberals, leaving the destiny of Mr. Trump to the November basic election and the candidate nominated by Democrats within the coming months.

“From the liberal left to the average center, the most important presidential contenders at the moment are honing or recalibrating their last appeals earlier than Iowa’s caucuses to make the case that they symbolize the celebration’s greatest probability to beat Mr. Trump’s well-funded re-election operation and win again the White House this fall. …

“John Norris, who has caucused here every four years since 1976 and is a leading supporter of Ms. Warren, stated his fellow Iowa Democrats feel a burden heavier than any he can recall. ‘It’s Trump,’ stated Mr. Norris. ‘We saw it slightly bit in ’04 — it was we received to stop George W., Iraq struggle — but that is that on steroids.’” NYT

WAPO’S JENNA JOHNSON in Des Moines: “Sanders’s caucus target: Latino voters usually overlooked in mostly white Iowa”: “Though Latinos make up simply 6 % of Iowa’s inhabitants — the overwhelming majority of the state’s residents are white — they've greater than doubled in number over the past 20 years. There are more than 50,000 registered Latino voters in the state, plus hundreds extra who are eligible, making them a possible pressure in caucuses that campaigns anticipate to attract up to 240,000 voters.

“Sanders’s operation has accomplished excess of his rivals in in search of the help of these voters, having belatedly realized in his 2016 campaign the growing heft of Iowa’s Latino voters -- and their attraction to him.”

-- FRONT PAGE of the Charlotte Observer: “Latinos might form 2020 NC races -- if they vote” … The story

BIG NEWS … “Des Moines Register poll scrapped after apparent mishap,” by Steven Shepard and Elena Schneider in Des Moines: “The extensively anticipated Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll of possible Iowa Democratic caucus-goers was scrapped shortly earlier than it was set to be released Saturday night time after complaints from Pete Buttigieg's marketing campaign about how it was carried out.

“The beautiful announcement by the media sponsors and West Des Moines-based pollster Selzer & Co. means the results of the historically correct survey won't be launched before Monday caucuses. The choice left the campaign and political media universe, which has descended on Des Moines, dumbfounded.

“Buttigieg's campaign raised critical considerations concerning the ballot with CNN and the Register, a supply conversant in the state of affairs stated. Lis Smith, a senior adviser to Buttigieg's marketing campaign, confirmed on Twitter that the previous South Bend (Ind.) mayor's campaign had been in contact with the media retailers concerning the issues and hailed their determination to withhold the outcomes.

“‘Our marketing campaign acquired a report from a recipient of the Iowa Poll call, raising considerations that not every candidate was named by the interviewer when requested who they help,’ Smith tweeted. ‘We shared this with the organizations behind the ballot, who carried out an inner investigation and determined to not release it. We applaud CNN and the Des Moines Register for his or her integrity.’”

CAUCUS FRONTS … Sioux City Journal: “Hoops or Caucus” bug … “Recreation changer: Caucus prompts faculties to rethink plans” … The Courier (Ankeny, Iowa): “Caucus crunch time” … Star Tribune: “‘WE BETTER NOT SCREW THIS UP: Senator’s closing spring comes with warning for social gathering” … The Gazette (Cedar Rapids): “Choosing a favorite nonetheless elusive for some Democrats” …

… Quad-City Times: Photographs of Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar … “Dems make last pitch” … Des Moines Register: “10 QUESTIONS THE IOWA CAUCUSES WILL ANSWER AS THE CYCLE ENDS”

-- THE REGISTER’S 10 QUESTIONS: “Who will win? … What is going to ‘profitable’ appear to be? … The place will candidates win? … How many ‘tickets’ will there be out of Iowa? … Is the ground recreation nonetheless king? … Is ‘Klomentum’ actual? … What does ‘electability’ appear to be? … Will the satellite caucuses be successful? … Will the brand new rules streamline caucus night time or create new hiccups? … Will Iowa maintain its caucuses and keep first?”

ONTO MANCHESTER … CHRIS WALLACE spoke to SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-Minn.) on “FOX NEWS SUNDAY”: “I feel we now have to do nicely right here, there’s been quite a bit going having been gone the previous few weeks that I didn’t anticipate to have occur. But I’m going to New Hampshire it doesn't matter what. There’s a debate, I’m on the talk stage. I’ve received the endorsements of every major paper in New Hampshire, together with The Union Chief. … So of course I’m going there, we have now a robust operation there -- and then going beyond.”

TRUTH TALK from PETE BUTTIGIEG to CHUCK TODD: TODD: “Do you reconsider your candidacy for those who don’t end in the prime three?” BUTTIGIEG: “I’ll let others set the goalposts. But, look, let’s face it. I have to have an excellent end here in Iowa. We all know it, and we’re working very onerous to try this.”

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS to ANDREW YANG on ABC’S “THIS WEEK”: STEPHANOPOULOS: “But, you recognize, the Iowa caucuses, as you understand, have a reasonably distinctive means of voting. You’re truly going to see 4 totally different outcomes popping out of tomorrow night time. The primary round, the second round after realignment, and any candidate who does not get 15 % in a sure precinct, your supporters have a chance then to go and again another person on the second poll. Where do you anticipate most of your supporters to go in these precincts the place you aren't getting 15 %? And are you going to encourage them in the direction of a specific candidate?

YANG: “Nicely, first, we plan to exceed 15 % in a vast majority of places. And as to what our supporters may do if we don’t reach that threshold in a specific place, we've got a very, very numerous group of supporters. I can not converse for the place they might head. I do have a sense that lots of them have supported Bernie prior to now, however lots of them supported President Trump, and they could simply depart. So, there are an entire vary of prospects and I can not converse to the minds of actually hundreds of Iowans.”

… AND BEYOND: FRONT PAGE OF THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS: “Biden widens his lead in Texas,” by Robert T. Garrett: “Former vice chairman Joe Biden has stretched his lead in Texas within the Democratic presidential struggle, buoyed by positive aspects among Hispanics, a brand new Dallas Morning Information-College of Texas at Tyler poll has found.

“Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has probably the most enthusiastic backing of any of the key Democratic presidential contenders, in line with the ballot. Nevertheless, amongst Texas Democrats and independents who lean Democratic, Sanders is operating further behind Biden than he did in two statewide polls by UT-Tyler final fall.

“Biden now leads Sanders, 35% to 18%. In the East Texas college’s September and November polls, the front-running Biden bested Sanders by only 9 proportion points.” DMN … Front Page

Good Sunday morning.

SUPER BOWL STUFF: SEAN HANNITY will interview the president earlier than the large recreation. The game -- between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs -- begins at 6:30 p.m. in Miami.

EARLY CLIP … TRUMP complained to Hannity that MIKE BLOOMBERG is short and needs to face on a field on the Democratic debate. The clip, via CNN’s Brian Stelter

-- FRONT PAGE of the Miami Herald is an homage to Don Shula and the “NFL’s biggest workforce of all time”

IF YOU ARE INTO THIS KIND OF STUFF … The Chiefs are one-point favorites. Las Vegas says the Tremendous Bowl MVP will thank his teammates first (+140). A bettor can get +1200 if the participant thanks his coaches or house owners first -- that may be wager $100 to win $1,200. Guess the coin toss.

SNEAK PEEK ... THE PRESIDENT'S WEEK AHEAD ... Monday: THE PRESIDENT could have lunch with VP Mike Pence. Tuesday: THE PRESIDENT will ship the State of the Union on the Capitol. Wednesday: THE PRESIDENT may have lunch with Defense Secretary MARK ESPER. Thursday: TRUMP will converse at the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast, and will take part in a swearing in of latest ambassadors. He is scheduled to have lunch with Secretary of State MIKE POMPEO and then he'll meet with the president of Kenya. Friday: THE PRESIDENT will travel to Charlotte to talk on the North Carolina Alternative Now summit.

TICK TOCK … WAPO’S SEUNG MIN KIM and RACHAEL BADE: “Inside the Senate trial: McConnell stops rebel push in GOP for witnesses”

NYT Q-HED … PETER BAKER on A1: “Whereas Stained in Historical past, Trump Will Emerge From Trial Triumphant and Unshackled”: “With the top of the impeachment trial now in sight and acquittal assured, a triumphant Mr. Trump emerges from the most important check of his presidency emboldened, prepared to say exoneration and take his case of grievance, persecution and resentment to the campaign path.

“The president’s Democratic adversaries rolled out the largest constitutional weapon that they had and did not defeat him, and even to drive a full trial with witnesses testifying to the allegations towards him. Now Mr. Trump, who has stated that the Constitution ‘allows me to do no matter I would like’ and pushed so many boundaries that curtailed previous presidents, has little purpose to worry the legislative department nor any inclination to succeed in out in conciliation.” NYT

ERNST: TRUMP WILL CHANGE NOW … On “STATE OF THE UNION” with CNN’S JAKE TAPPER: TAPPER: Assuming President Trump is acquitted on Wednesday, and assuming you are going to go to acquit him…” ERNST: “Proper.” TAPPER: “Sure. Are you assured that he will not do this once more, that he won't try to get another overseas nation to look into a political opponent, whether or not it is Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg or someone else?

ERNST: “I feel that he is aware of now that, if he is making an attempt to do certain issues, whether or not it's ferreting out corruption there, in Afghanistan, whatever it is, he must undergo the right channels.” TAPPER: “Mm-hmm.” ERNST: “So, once more, using the DOJ and different worldwide organizations to get to that corruption.”

MAUREEN DOWD: “I really feel like I have spent my career watching the same miserable dynamic that unspooled Friday night time: Democrats making an attempt, typically ineptly, to play truthful and Republicans ruthlessly making an attempt to win.

“I watched it with the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings. I watched it within the 2000 recount with Bush versus Gore. I watched it with the push by W., Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to go to conflict in Iraq. I watched it with the pantomime of Merrick Garland.

“Democrats are warning Republicans that they will be judged harshly by historical past. However in the meantime, the triumphant Republicans get to make history. And plenty of the history that Republicans have made is scary: the countless, futile wars, the obliviousness to climate change, the stamp on the judiciary.”

CHUCK TODD obtained SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER (R-Tenn.) on NBC’S “MEET THE PRESS”: TODD: “You're snug acquitting him earlier than he says something of remorse? Would that not, would that not help make your acquittal vote extra snug?”

ALEXANDER: “I wasn't requested to determine -- assess his degree of regret. I was requested, ‘Did he, did he make a telephone name? And did he, at the least partially, maintain up help with a purpose to affect an investigation of Joe Biden?’ I concluded sure. So I need not assess his degree of regret. What I hope he would do is when he makes his State of the Union handle, that he puts this utterly behind him, never mentions it, and talks about what he thinks he's executed for the country and the place we're headed. He's received a reasonably good story to tell if he'll give attention to it.”

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ in Columbia, S.C.: “Black voters love Ayanna Pressley. But convincing them to back Elizabeth Warren isn’t easy.”: “Simply 6 % of African People within the state help her, based on a January Fox News poll. Warren’s policy-heavy candidacy has but to resonate with black People who're broadly wary of presidency and the racial biases that exist within it. …

“Pressley has taken the image of Warren as a wonkish Harvard Regulation professor and tried to show it on its head. Typically surrogates put their candidate on a pedestal: Joe Biden as the one candidate outfitted to be president ‘on Day One,’ or Sanders as the leader of a political revolution.”

L.A. TIMES: “2 California bases picked as possible coronavirus quarantine sites,” by Alex Wigglesworth: “The Protection Division stated Saturday it has agreed to deal with up to 1,000 individuals who might must be quarantined upon arrival from abroad travel due to the coronavirus and that two of the four amenities selected are in California.

“Travis Air Pressure Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego County are the 2 California sites that have been chosen, Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell, a Pentagon spokesman, stated in a press release. The others are Lackland Air Drive Base in Texas and the 168th Regiment Regional Training Institute in Colorado.

ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION entrance web page: “Wild race for Senate is just the beginning: Georgia voters might need to buckle their seat belts for this journey”

THE PRESIDENT’S SUNDAY -- AT 6:05 P.M., the president will depart Mar-a-Lago for Trump International Golf Membership in West Palm Seashore for a Tremendous Bowl get together. He is scheduled to observe the FAU marching band carry out. At eight:35 p.m., he's scheduled to go away the membership for the airport to fly back to D.C. He’s expected at Andrews at 10:55 p.m. and at the White House at 11:15 p.m.

THE FIRST EXCERPT from Lachlan Markey and Asawain Suebsaeng’s new ebook, by way of The Day by day Beast.

CORRECTION … DANIEL’S Weekend Reads on Saturday included a three-month-old Cause article about Jonathan Kaiman that was included in error. Columbia Journalism Review and other outlets have written about this piece, and Felicia Sonmez wrote Purpose requesting a correction. Read that letter

BONUS GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman (@dlippman):

-- “The Lady Shaking up the Diamond Business,” by Ed Caesar in The New Yorker: “Eira Thomas’s company has used radical new strategies to seek out a few of the largest uncut gems in history.” New Yorker

-- “‘Angels’ in Hell: The Culture of Misogyny Inside Victoria’s Secret,” by NYT’s Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Katherine Rosman, Sapna Maheshwari and James Stewart: “A Occasions investigation found widespread bullying and harassment of staff and fashions. The corporate expresses ‘regret.’” NYT

-- “The Profitable, Largely Unregulated, and Extensively Misunderstood World of Vaping,” by Amanda Chicago Lewis in The California Sunday Journal: “As medical researchers scramble to seek out the supply of a fatal lung disease and officials seek to ban the sale of vape pens, our correspondent set out to separate reality from hysteria.” California Sunday Magazine

-- “The Voyage to the Finish of Ice,” by Shannon Hall in Quanta Magazine: “Each time it happens, the transformation will affect all the planet. An increasingly darkish Arctic Ocean will amplify warming within the Arctic. An ice-free Arctic will possible scramble weather patterns across the globe. Relying on the physics of ice, many of those effects might happen as soon as this decade.” Quanta (h/t TheBrowser.com)

-- “Her Uighur Mother and father Have been Model Chinese Residents. It Didn’t Matter,” by Sarah Topol within the NYT Journal: “When Zulhumar Isaac’s mother and father disappeared amid a wave of detentions of ethnic minorities, she needed to play a dangerous recreation with the state to get them back.” NYT Magazine

-- “Ari Emanuel, WME, and the Great Hollywood IPO That Wasn’t,” by Richard Rushfield in Vainness Truthful’s Hollywood difficulty: “The entertainment business’s reigning super-agent planned to put his agency—and the very power structure of Hollywood—on the line with an audacious, now scuttled public offering. With that future on maintain and the likes of Netflix and Disney commanding more ground by the day, what’s an formidable trendy macher to do?” Vanity Fair

-- “Mark Cuban Once Crashed the NBA’s Get together. Now He Hosts It,” by Katie Baker in The Ringer: “It’s been 20 years because the tech billionaire bought the Dallas Mavericks, a timeline that has seen the 61-year-old evolve from a disrupting drive into one of many league’s most formidable constants.” Ringer (h/t Longform.org)

-- “The pod delusion,” by Matt Labash in The Spectator: “Why I hate all podcasts — even the ones I like.” Spectator

-- “They Shut Down the Metropolis,” by Xiaoyu Lu and Allen Younger in China Channel: “On January 23, the day before Chinese New Yr’s Eve, Wuhan locked down. No one was allowed out. My household cancelled plans to go to our ancestors within the cemetery. [Now] my neighbourhood is almost deserted. I sleep unusually properly. I learn previous books and make long-term plans. Neighbours remind us to top off on food, and inform us of those with high fevers who are being despatched to the hospital. They’re afraid they may be taken too.” China Channel (h/t TheBrowser.com)

-- “This Sculpture Holds a Many years-Previous C.I.A. Thriller. And Now, Another Clue,” by NYT’s John Schwartz and Jonathan Corum: “Kryptos, a sculpture in a courtyard on the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Company in Langley, Va., holds an encrypted message that has not absolutely yielded to makes an attempt to crack it. ... Three of the four passages of the sculpture have been decrypted ... However after almost three many years, one temporary passage remains uncracked. And that has been a source of pleasure and consternation to hundreds of people around the globe.” NYT

Send tricks to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at politicoplaybook@politico.com.

TRANSITIONS -- Michael Beckerman shall be VP of U.S. public coverage at TikTok. He beforehand was the founding president of the Internet Affiliation. Axios … Sandeep Mathrani shall be CEO of WeWork. He previously was CEO of Brookfield Property Companions’ retail group.

Src: POLITICO Playbook: Good poll news for Trump
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