Dear Readers,
It has been an incredibly eventful week. For all past newsletters (and more), make sure to go to the blog at http://www.electreport.blogspot.com
Also be sure to check out my article here: Can Polls Be Trusted?
Looking At Our President’s Twitter
To start, let’s head over to @realDonaldTrump. Oh, how nice, he wished everyone a happy Easter. Then, just 40 minutes later (still 6 in the morning), he went on yet another conspiratorial tirade:
“I did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again?”
“Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over!”
I’m not gonna write much about this, but just a reminder that whenever anyone claims he’s “pivoting” towards sanity, they’re wrong, and he’ll always be this way.
Another Bomb
As if targeting Assad wasn’t enough, Donald Trump decided to drop a 21,000 pound bomb on ISIS this week. However, rather than attacking an ISIS central location, he dropped it on a group in Afghanistan. While this Afghan base has done a lot of damage to civilians, it’s still a different kind of a message to drop a very, very large bomb on a far-off base, that tells us little about Trump’s policy regarding ISIS other than that he is willing to spend a lot of resources and money to fight them.
Democrats Come Close in Deep Red Kansas Seat; Prepare for Georgia Race
This week, a special election for CIA Director Mike Pompeo’s House seat in Southern Kansas was held. Pompeo won his seat by over 30 points, and Trump won the district by a similar margin. However, the Democratic candidate came within seven points, and was leading for a good chunk of the night. This swing was massive and incredibly meaningful, showing Democrats can mobilize voters against Trump. This is incredibly relevant as Jon Ossoff tries to win a special election in suburban Atlanta. He’s polling around 45% in a huge field, and needs 50% to stop a runoff from happening, though it's likely he’d win a potential runoff.
Erdogan Scores Major Victory
A referendum on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s proposed constitutional reforms has come out with a slight vote in favor. “Yes” earned 51.4%, although the campaign against have called for a recount already. These reforms give Erdogan a lot more power, at the expense of the other branches of government. We know Erdogan is power-hungry, and polls were showing a much larger potential victory for “Yes”, but it’s still an important and worrying development.
Melenchon Gains; Race Tightens in France
Meanwhile in France, the two leaders of the race, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, face a threat from 65-year-old Eurosceptic leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon. The polls have tightened considerably recently, with Melenchon within 2% of the other two candidates in some examples. Melenchon has likely passed Francois Fillon to move into third place, and we’ll see if he can make the jump into the top two (which would place him in the runoff) by next Sunday. In a potential runoff, Macron would beat Le Pen, as would Melenchon, and a race between Macron and Melenchon could go either way.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to reply or comment.
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