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Welcome to the Wednesday, November 13, Brew. Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:
- Trump has appointed the fourth-most federal judges at this point in his presidency in the last 100 years
- Ten candidates have qualified for the next Democratic presidential primary debate
- Boudin wins San Francisco District Attorney election
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Trump has appointed the fourth-most federal judges at this point in his presidency in the last 100 years
Donald Trump appointed—and the Senate confirmed—157 Article III federal judges through November 1, 2019, his third year in office. This is the fourth-most federal judicial appointments through this point in a presidency of all presidents dating back to Theodore Roosevelt. Jimmy Carter (177), George W. Bush (167), and Bill Clinton (166) made more appointments.
The average number of federal judges appointed by a president through November 1 of their third year in office is 91.
Article III federal judges are appointed for life terms by the president of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate per Article III of the United States Constitution. Article III judges are those on the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. courts of appeal, U.S. district courts, and the Court of International Trade.
The median number of Supreme Court justices appointed by each of the last 20 presidents at this point in a presidency is two—the number appointed by Trump. William Taft's (R) five Supreme Court appointments were the most among this group of presidents. Franklin Roosevelt (D), Carter (D), and George W. Bush (R) did not appoint any SCOTUS justices through November 1 of their third year in office.
The median number of U.S. Court of Appeals justices appointed by this point in a presidency is 18. Trump and Carter appointed the most among the last 20 presidents with 43 each. Trump's 43 U.S. Court of Appeals appointments represent 24% of the 179 federal appeals court judgeships. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt (R) and Woodrow Wilson (D) appointed the fewest, five each.
The median number of U.S. District Court appointees is 66. George W. Bush appointed the most with 137 and Theodore Roosevelt appointed the fewest with 10. Trump has appointed 110 federal district court judges so far—16% of the 677 judgeships in the district courts.
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Ten candidates have qualified for the next Democratic presidential primary debate
Today—Nov. 13—is the deadline for presidential candidates to qualify for the fifth Democratic primary debate, which takes place at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta on Nov. 20. The debate will be hosted by MSNBC and The Washington Post.
Ten candidates have qualified: Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren, and Andrew Yang. All ten participated in the previous debate Oct. 15 in Westerville, Ohio.
Julián Castro—who also appeared in the last debate—has failed to meet the polling threshold to qualify. The other candidate who participated in the Oct. 15 debate—Beto O'Rourke—dropped out of the race on Nov. 1.
A candidate has two ways to meet the polling threshold to qualify for the Nov. 20 debate:
- Receive 3 percent support or more in at least four national or early state polls—Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and/or Nevada. The four polls must be sponsored by different organizations or be of different geographical areas if they have the same poll sponsor, or
- Receive 5 percent support or more in at least two single state polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and/or Nevada. The two polls may be from the same geographical area and poll sponsor.
Candidates also need to meet a fundraising threshold of 165,000 unique donors with a minimum of 600 donors per state in at least 20 states.
So far, six candidates have already met increased polling and fundraising thresholds for the sixth Democratic debate in Los Angeles Dec. 19: Biden, Buttigieg, Harris, Klobuchar, Sanders, and Warren. Candidates have until Dec. 12 to qualify.
And there’s still time to register for today’s quarterly briefing to catch you up on all the happenings in the 2020 presidential race. That webinar—which I’ll host with Emily Aubert, the primary author of our daily and weekly Presidential News Briefing newsletters—takes place at 11 a.m. Central time. Click here to snag a spot.
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Boudin wins San Francisco District Attorney election
Chesa Boudin has been declared the winner of the Nov. 5 nonpartisan election for San Francisco District Attorney. He was endorsed by Bernie Sanders and the city’s Green party affiliate. Boudin defeated Suzy Loftus, Leif Dautch, and Nancy Tung in the first open-seat election for that office since 1909.
Under San Francisco's system of ranked-choice voting, voters rank their preference for up to 10 candidates for each office. Votes are initially allocated to each voter's first-place candidate. If no candidate wins a majority of the first-place vote, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and their votes are reassigned to their next preferred candidate.
As of Monday—Nov. 11—Boudin had received 35.7% of the first-place votes to Loftus' 31.1%. Loftus conceded the race Saturday after mail-in ballots tallied over the past week indicated Boudin would win.
A projection released by the city department of elections indicated that Dautch would be eliminated in the first round, followed by Tung in the second. The report projected a Boudin victory over Loftus in the third round by a margin of 1.66 percentage points, or 2,825 votes.
Incumbent George Gascón announced earlier this year that he would not seek re-election. After Gascón resigned Oct. 4, San Francisco Mayor London Breed appointed Loftus to the office on an interim basis. Loftus was endorsed by Breed, the city branch of the Democratic Party, Sens. Kamala Harris (D) and Dianne Feinstein (D), and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).
Ballotpedia readers were able to learn more about these candidates before the election through our Candidate Conversations project—developed in conjunction with EnCiv—to help voters get to know candidates as people. Candidate Conversations is an online video portal where candidates can answer questions, and voters can watch those answers, anytime, for free, to learn more about them.
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The Lucy Burns Institute, publisher of Ballotpedia, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All donations are tax deductible to the extent of the law. Donations to the Lucy Burns Institute or Ballotpedia do not support any candidates or campaigns.
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