October 17, 2019: Donald Trump and Beto O’Rourke hold rallies in Texas Thursday. Tom Steyer spent more than $26 million on TV ads since entering the race.
“Historically, endorsements have been a good predictor of presidential primary outcomes, often rivaling early polls for how well they anticipate how the vote will eventually turn out. The theory behind the importance of endorsements, as perhaps best articulated in the book ‘The Party Decides,’ has come under attack in recent years, mostly because Donald Trump’s nomination in 2016 despite a lack of support from Republican endorsers was a poor data point for the theory (to put it kindly). In addition, some Democrats who received a number of endorsements earlier this year, such as Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker, have not yet gained much traction in the polls. Nonetheless, the theory has a fairly good long-term track record. Incidentally, the theory is not necessarily that the endorsements directly influence voters — for instance, that a voter says to herself ‘Senator
Such-and-Such is endorsing Governor So-and-So; guess I’m going to vote for So-and-So!.’ (Although, an endorser with as high a profile as Ocasio-Cortez could be an exception.) Rather, it’s that endorsements are a proxy for support from ‘party elites,’ and that party elites’ preferences tend to be a leading indicator of voter preferences.”
– Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight
Democrats
Michael Bennetcriticized the cost of the Medicare for All plans proposed by Sanders and Warren. “Democrats need to win back the nine million Obama-Trump voters to take the White House and Senate and keep the House. Nominating a candidate who supports Medicare for All is not a recipe to do that,” Bennet tweeted.
Joe Biden discussed the Turkish conflict in Syria and criticized Trump’s foreign policy during a speech in Iowa Wednesday.
Cory Bookerintroduced the Break the Cycle of Violence Act Wednesday, which would spend $90 million over 10 years in urban areas on focused deterrence and other intervention programs.
Booker will endorse Marie Newman over incumbent Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinksi Thursday in Chicago.
The Steve Bullock campaign organized a telephone news conference with Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, former Story County Democrats Chairwoman Jan Bauer, and former Rep. Dave Nagle Tuesday on Bullock’s campaign in Iowa.
Pete Buttigiegraised more than $1 million in the 24 hours after the debate and passed 600,000 individual donors.
Joe Sestak is on his fifth day of walking across New Hampshire, traveling from Mont Vernon to Manchester.
Tom Steyer has spent more than $26 million on television ads since beginning his campaign in July, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. That is more than six times as many ads as the rest of the Democratic field combined aired. Twenty thousand of Steyer’s 53,000 ads aired in Iowa.
Marianne Williamsonwrote an op-ed in The Washington Post criticizing the content of the October debate and stating she would not drop out of the race. Williamson also discussed her campaign in an interview on Fox News Channel.
Jeb Bush released a digital ad questioning Donald Trump’s ability to be commander-in-chief.
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