With a little less than a week until Election Day, a disturbing narrative is taking root in mainstream media suggesting African Americans aren’t turning out the vote like they need to this election season. Despite attempts at voter suppression in battle ground states, police intimidation in places like Indiana, where Donald Trump’s running mate hales as governor, and roll backs in early voting locations in must-win states for Secretary Clinton, Black voter turnout thus far is commensurate with turnout in the pre-Bush, pre-Obama years when African Americans comprised a significant portion of the electorate that helped secure President Bill Clinton’s tenure as our 42nd Commander in Chief.
Now, with five days left until the likely and historic election of our nation’s first woman President, some in the media are positioning lower turnout than in the Obama years as some sort of failure of the Black vote.
Despite early punditry and pontification, it would be a mistake to underestimate or overlook the critical nature the Black vote – especially among women – will play in this year’s election. Historically, Black women have been the most active and engaged voting bloc for the Democratic Party, and with so much on the line, that trend shows no sign of slowing anytime soon.
For months, grassroots and online networks like Women of Color for Hillary have assembled thousands on the ground, rallied millions more online with the clarion call #ShesGotMyBack, and have contributed significantly to the donor base of Secretary Clinton’s campaign. Likewise, organizations like the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation’s Black Women’s Roundtable and the National Organization of Black Elected Legislative Women have been touring the country and rallying leadership to declare the #PowerOfTheSisterVote. In all instances, whether credited or not, Black women have been educating our communities and mobilizing the masses to get out the vote.
Recent coverage about the impact of the Black vote on this election seem like veiled attempts to undermine just how much Black votes and Black Lives Matter. African Americans have always been a critical part of the Democratic Party’s “Big Tent” constituency. What the narrative of ‘Black people aren’t turning out’ does is undermine the value of Black voters, and thereby Black issues, in this and future elections.
To be sure, representing 13 percent of the population with $1.2 trillion in economic buying power with 10,000 elected officials holding local, state, and federal office nationwide does not make for an insignificant voting bloc. On the contrary, 50 years after passage of the Voting Rights Act, and facing attempts to eliminate its protections, coupled with blatant and more visible acts of racism and divisiveness orchestrated by Republican leadership determined to undermine President Obama’s legacy and those emboldened by Trump’s hateful rhetoric, Black voters are poised to make a tremendous impact in this election.
While raw numbers may presume lower voter engagement thus far as compared to the prior two presidential election cycles, it’s still too soon to discount the power and prominence of the Black vote in 2016, especially with Black women working as hard as we are behind the scenes to ensure that we have an informed and engaged electorate ready to turn out in this home stretch leading up to Election Day. Over the next 120 hours, we can likely expect to see increased turnout and voter participation that at least rivals historic Black voter turnout numbers. And on November 9th, when all is said and done, Black people, Black women in particular, will be counted among the crucial voters key to President-Elect Hillary Clinton’s success!
Senator Catherine PughServes as the Majority Leader (MD) President NBCSL. Recognized for leadership and commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Polls: Clinton, Trump neck-and-neck in Florida; new results in NC, PA and Ohio
Washington (CNN) ♦ A new slate of state-based polls released Wednesday shows Hillary Clinton up 3 points in North Carolina, while Donald Trump has a 5-point edge in the state of Ohio. Clinton has a tight lead on Trump in Pennsylvania and the two presidential candidates are tied in Florida.
Clinton has 47% support from likely voters in North Carolina to Trump’s 44%, while Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson has 3% support, according to the Quinnipiac University swing-state polls.
CNN’s Poll of Polls for North Carolina, which averages the results for the five most recent publicly released North Carolina polls that meet CNN’s standards, has Clinton leading Trump 46%-42%.
In Quinnipiac’s Ohio survey, Trump leads Clinton 46%-41%, with 5% for Johnson and 2% for Green Party nominee Jill Stein.
Quinnipiac surveyed 602 likely North Carolina voters between October 27-November 1 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. In Ohio, Quinnipiac surveyed 589 likely voters between October 27-November 1 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Florida
In the Florida, Clinton has 46% compared to Trump’s 45%, while 2% support Johnson and 2% are for Stein, according to the Quinnipiac polls. A CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday had similar results, with Clinton leading Trump 49%-47% among likely voters.
CNN’s Poll of Polls for Florida has Clinton and Trump tied at 45%.
Quinnipiac surveyed 626 likely Florida voters between October 27-November 1 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
Pennsylvania
Clinton leads Trump 48% to 43% among likely voters in the state, while 3% support Johnson and 3% support Stein.
In the CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday, Clinton holds a 4-point edge among likely voters against Trump, 48% to 44% respectively.
Quinnipiac surveyed 612 likely Pennsylvania voters between October 27-November 1 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
CNN’s Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report
The George W. Bush White House deleted 22 Million Emails
Bush.. His White House used a private email server—its was owned by the Republican National Committee. And the Bush administration failed to store its emails, as required by law, and then refused to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking some of those emails.
For 18 months, Republican strategists, political pundits, reporters and Americans who follow them have been pursuing Hillary Clinton’s personal email habits, and no evidence of a crime has been found. But now they at least have the skills and interest to focus on a much larger and deeper email conspiracy, one involving war, lies, a private server run by the Republican Party and contempt of Congress citations—all of it still unsolved and unpunished.
Clinton’s email habits look positively transparent when compared with the subpoena-dodging, email-hiding, private-server-using George W. Bush administration. Between 2003 and 2009, the Bush White House “lost” 22 million emails. This correspondence included millions of emails written during the darkest period in America’s recent history, when the Bush administration was ginning up support for what turned out to be a disastrous war in Iraq with false claims that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and, later, when it was firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons.
Like Clinton, the Bush White House used a private email server—its was owned by the Republican National Committee. And the Bush administration failed to store its emails, as required by law, and then refused to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking some of those emails. “It’s about as amazing a double standard as you can get,” says Eric Boehlert, who works with the pro-Clinton group Media Matters. “If you look at the Bush emails, he was a sitting president, and 95 percent of his chief advisers’ emails were on a private email system set up by the RNC. Imagine if for the last year and a half we had been talking about Hillary Clinton’s emails set up on a private DNC server?”
Most troubling, researchers found a suspicious pattern in the White House email system blackouts, including periods when there were no emails available from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. “That the vice president’s office, widely characterized as the most powerful vice president in history, should have no archived emails in its accounts for scores of days—especially days when there was discussion of whether to invade Iraq—beggared the imagination,” says Thomas Blanton, director of the Washington-based National Security Archive. The NSA (not to be confused with the National Security Agency, the federal surveillance organization) is a nonprofit devoted to obtaining and declassifying national security documents and is one of the key players in the effort to recover the supposedly lost Bush White House emails.
Bush White House used a private email server—its was owned by the Republican National Committee. And the Bush administration failed to store its emails, as required by law, and then refused to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking some of those emails.
The media paid some attention to the Bush email chicanery but spent considerably less ink and airtime than has been devoted to Clinton’s digital communications in the past 18 months. According to the Boston social media analytics firm Crimson Hexagon, which ran a study for Newsweek, there have been 560,397 articles mentioning Clinton’s emails between March 2015 and September 1, 2016.
In 1978, Congress passed the Presidential Records Act (PRA), which mandated that all presidential and vice presidential records created after January 20, 1981, be preserved and that the public, not the president, owned the records. The following year, the Reagan administration installed the White House’s rudimentary first email system.
Despite the PRA, neither the Reagan nor the George H.W. Bush administration maintained email records, even as the number of White House emails began growing exponentially. (The Bush administration would produce around 200 million.) In 1989, a federal lawsuit to force the White House to comply with the PRA was filed by several groups, including the National Security Archive, which at the time was mostly interested in unearthing the secret history of the Cold War. The suit sparked a last-minute court order, issued in the waning hours of the first Bush presidency, that prevented 6,000 White House email backup tapes from being erased.
When Bill Clinton moved into the White House, his lawyers supported the elder Bush in his effort to uphold a side deal he’d cut with the National Archives and Records Administration to allow him to treat his White House emails as personal. At the time, George Stephanopoulos—then the White House communications director—defended the resistance, saying his boss, like Bush, didn’t want subsequent, and potentially unfriendly, administrations rooting around in old emails.
The Clinton White House eventually settled the suit, and White House aide John Podesta—now Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman—even invited members of the National Security Archive into the White House to demonstrate how the new system worked. If anyone tried to delete an email, a message would pop up on screen indicating that to do so would be in violation of the PRA.
Eight years later, in 2003, a whistleblower told the National Security Archive that the George W. Bush White House was no longer saving its emails. The Archive and another watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (which had represented outed CIA agent Valerie Plame in her case against the Bush administration), refiled their original lawsuit.
The plaintiffs soon discovered that Bush aides had simply shut down the Clinton automatic email archive, and they identified the start date of the lost emails as January 1, 2003. The White House claimed it had switched to a new server and in the process was unable to maintain an archive—a claim that many found dubious.
Bush administration emails could have aided a special prosecutor’s investigation into a White House effort to discredit a diplomat who disagreed with the administration’s fabricated Iraq WMD evidence by outing his CIA agent wife, Plame. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who was brought in to investigate that case, said in 2006 that he believed some potentially relevant emails sent by aides in Cheney’s office were in the administration’s system but he couldn’t get them.
Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney listens as former President George W. Bush makes remarks about the U.S. defense budget after meeting with military leaders at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., November 29, 2007. Larry Downing/Reuters
The supposedly lost emails also prevented Congress from fully investigating, in 2007, the politically motivated firing of nine U.S. attorneys. When the Democrat-led Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed related emails, Bush’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzalez, said many were inaccessible or lost on a nongovernmental private server run by the RNC and called gwb43.com. The White House, meanwhile, officially refused to comply with the congressional subpoena.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) called the president’s actions “Nixonian stonewalling” and at one point took to the floor in exasperation and shouted, “They say they have not been preserved. I don’t believe that!” His House counterpart, Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), said Bush’s assertion of executive privilege was unprecedented and displayed “an appalling disregard for the right of the people to know what is going on in their government.”
In court in May 2008, administration lawyers contended that the White House had lost three months’ worth of email backups from the initial days of the Iraq War. Bush aides thus evaded a court-ordered deadline to describe the contents of digital backup believed to contain emails deleted in 2003 between March—when the U.S. invaded Iraq—and September. They also refused to give the NSA nonprofit any emails relating to the Iraq War, despite the PRA, blaming a system upgrade that had deleted up to 5 million emails. The plaintiffs eventually contended that the Bush administration knew about the problem in 2005 but did nothing to fix it.
Eventually, the Bush White House admitted it had lost 22 million emails, not 5 million. Then, in December 2009—well into Barack Obama’s administration—the White House said it found 22 million emails, dated between 2003 and 2005, that it claimed had been mislabeled. That cache was given to the National Archives, and it and other plaintiffs agreed, on December 14, 2009, to settle their lawsuit. But the emails have not yet been made available to the public.
The Senate Judiciary Committee was operating on a different track but having no more luck. In a bipartisan vote in 2008, the committee found White House aides Karl Rove and Joshua Bolten in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with subpoenas in the investigation of the fired U.S. attorneys. The penalties for contempt are fines and possible jail time, but no punishment was ever handed down because a D.C. federal appeals court stayed the Senate’s ruling in October 2008, while the White House appealed. Rove’s lawyer claimed Rove did not “intentionally delete” any emails but was only conducting “the type of routine deletions people make to keep their inboxes orderly,” according to the Associated Press.
By then, Obama was weeks away from winning the election, so the Bush administration basically ran out the clock. And neither the Obama administration nor the Senate committee pursued the matter.
The committee’s final report on the matter was blunt: “[T]his subversion of the justice system has included lying, misleading, stonewalling and ignoring the Congress in our attempts to find out precisely what happened. The reasons given for these firings were contrived as part of a cover-up, and the stonewalling by the White House is part and parcel of that same effort.”
At the time, some journalists and editorialists complained about a lack of transparency on the White House’s part, but The Washington Post, in an editorial, accepted the White House explanation that the emails could have been lost due to flawed IT systems.
The mystery of what was in the missing Bush emails and why they went missing is still years away from being solved—if ever. The National Archives now has 220 million emails from the Bush White House, and there is a long backlog of Freedom of Information Act requests already. But not all of the emails will be available to the public until 2021, when the presidential security restrictions elapse. Even then, with currently available archiving and sorting methods, researchers still have years of work to figure out whether Cheney deleted days’ worth of emails around the time of the WMD propaganda campaign that led to war, Blanton says.
“To your question of what’s in there—we don’t know,” he says. “There was not a commitment at the top for saving it all. Now was that resistance motivated by political reasons? Or was it ‘We gotta save money’?”
Former U.S. President George W. Bush winks to a member of the audience before he delivers the final State of the Union address of his presidency at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., January 28, 2008. Tim Sloan/Reuters
Like Leahy, Blanton has doubts that the emails were ever truly “lost,” given that every email exists in two places, with the sender and with the recipient. But unlike watchdog group Judicial Watch, which has been relentless about forcing the State Department to publicly release Hillary Clinton’s emails, Blanton and his fellow researchers have decided not to press their fight for the release of the Bush emails.
Blanton says he has no idea whether the Bush email record will be found intact after 2021, when his group will be allowed to do a systematic search and recovery process in the National Archives. “Did they find all of them? We don’t know,” he says. “Our hope is that by that time, the government and the National Archives will have much better technology and tools with which to sift and sort that kind of volume.”
Blanton says he’s not expecting that kind of upgrade, though. “Their entire budget is less than the cost of a single Marine One helicopter,” he says. “It’s an underfunded orphan.”
Meanwhile, the episode has been nearly forgotten by almost everyone but the litigants. A source involved with the stymied congressional investigation recalled the period as “an intense time,” but the Obama administration didn’t encourage any follow-up, devoting its political capital to dealing with the crashing economy rather than investigating the murky doings that took place under his predecessor. Since then, no major media outlet has devoted significant—or, really, any—resources to obtaining the emails, or to finding out what was in them, or what, exactly, the Bush administration was hiding (or losing).
Lawsuit Charges Donald Trump with Raping a 13-Year-Old Girl
A civil suit against Donald Trump alleging he raped a 13-year-old girl was dismissed in California in May 2016 and refiled in New York in June 2016.
In late April 2016, rumors began to circulate online holding that Republican presidential Donald Trump had either been sued over, or arrested for, raping a teenaged girl. One of the earliest versions of the rumor was published on 2 May 2016 by the Winning Democrats web site, which reported that woman using the name Katie Johnson had named Trump and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in a $100 million lawsuit, accusing them of having solicited sex acts from her at sex parties held at the Manhattan homes of Epstein and Trump back in 1994 (when Johnson was just 13 years old):
The first major scandal to hit the Trump campaign besides the typical “what a racist, such a sexist, yada yada yada,” came from a lawsuit stemming from the infamous sex parties held by billionaire and known pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The woman named in the suit is Katie Johnson, who says Trump took her virginity in 1994 when she was only 13 and being held by Epstein as a slave.
Johnson says in the complaint that Trump and Epstein threatened her and her family with bodily harm if she didn’t comply with all of their disgusting demands. The Trump campaign has been on this immediately, calling it absolute nonsense and not even remotely true or possible.
Many aggregated reports cited a 28 April 2016 article that described the circumstances under which the lawsuit had been filed:
Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is fighting what could be the biggest election season bombshell yet — explosive court claims that he raped a woman when she was a teen.
The woman — identified as Katie Johnson — filed documents in a California court on April 26, accusing Trump and billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein of “sexual abuse under threat of harm” and “conspiracy to deprive civil rights,” RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned.
She filed the lawsuit herself — without legal representation — and is suing for $100 million.
A copy of the California lawsuit (filed on 26 April 2016) shared via the Scribd web site outlined the allegations, which included the accusation that Trump and Epstein had (over 20 years earlier) “sexually and physically” abused the then 13-year-old plaintiff and forced her “to engage in various perverted and depraved sex acts” — including being “forced to manually stimulate Defendant Trump with the use of her hand upon Defendant Trump’s erect penis until he reached sexual orgasm,” and being “forced to engage in an unnatural lesbian sex act with her fellow minor and sex slave, Maria Doe, age 12, for the sexual enjoyment of Defendant Trump” — after luring her to a “series of underage sex parties” by promising her “money and a modeling career”:
According to RadarOnline’s initial reporting, the lawsuit filed in California on 26 April 2016 was dismissed over technical filing errors (the address listed in court documents was a foreclosed home that has been vacant since its owner died), with the plaintiff failing in her attempt to avoid incurring the cost of the litigation:
A judge recommended on April 29 that “Katie Johnson” should have to pay her own attorneys’ fees and court costs related to the $100 million lawsuit she brought against Trump and billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein over alleged sexual assault charges. Then on May 2, a U.S. District judge ordered the entire lawsuit thrown out.
“Johnson” had previously filed forms asking to be let off the hook for the costs of the lawsuit, claiming she had only $300 to her name … such an allowance — known as in forma paupers — is only given in civil rights cases in California, and the judge ruled that she “failed to state a claim for relief” on a civil rights basis, even though she “utilized the form provided by the Central District of California for civil actions.”
“Even construing the … pleading liberally, Plaintiff has not alleged any race-based or class-based animus against her, and consequently, her … allegations fail to state a claim upon which relief may be granted,” the judge wrote … the address listed on the paperwork leads to an abandoned property, and the phone number goes straight to voicemail.
For his part, Trump asserted that the charges were “not only categorically false, but disgusting at the highest level and clearly framed to solicit media attention or, perhaps, are simply politically motivated,” adding that “There is absolutely no merit to these allegations. Period.”
On 20 June 2016, New York City-based blog Gothamist reported that the plaintiff had refiled a similar complaint in a New York State federal court:
A federal lawsuit filed in New York accuses Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump of repeatedly raping a 13-year-old girl more than 20 years ago, at several Upper East Side parties hosted by convicted sex offender and notorious billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein.
The suit, first reported by the Real Deal, accuses Trump and Epstein of luring the anonymous plaintiff and other young women to four parties at Epstein’s so-called Wexner Mansion at 9 East 71st Street. Epstein allegedly lured the plaintiff, identified in the suit only as Jane Doe, with promises of a modeling career and cash.
Another anonymous woman, identified in additional testimony as Tiffany Doe, corroborates Jane’s allegations, testifying that she met Epstein at Port Authority, where he hired her to recruit other young girls for his parties. Trump had known Epstein for seven years in 1994 when he attended the parties at Wexner, according to the suit. He also allegedly knew that the plaintiff was 13 years old.
Jane Doe filed a similar suit in California in April, under the name Katie Johnson, also accusing Trump and Epstein of rape. That suit was dismissed on the grounds of improper paperwork — the address affiliated with her name was found to be abandoned. Today’s suit confirms that the plaintiffs are one and the same.
The online outlet that first reported the second filing in New York explained that the lawsuit might be allowed to proceed even though the statute of limitations for bringing suit has expired, because (according to plaintiff’s lawyer) the plaintiff lacked the “freedom of will to institute suit earlier in time” due to her having been threatened by Trump:
It should be noted that anyone can file a civil complaint in federal court. The statute of limitations in New York for civil rape cases is five years, but [the] complaint argues that the time limit should be waived, noting that the plaintiff was too frightened to report the abuse because Trump had threatened that if she did “her family would be physically harmed if not killed.”
“Both defendants let plaintiff know that each was a very wealthy, powerful man and indicated that they had the power, ability and means to carry out their threats,” the complaint claims.
A copy of the New York-based suit was also uploaded to Scribd, and in the second filing (which asked for no specific amount of monetary damages) the plaintiff was represented by Thomas Francis Meagher, a New Jersey patent lawyer who learned of her allegations via an article published on the GossipExtra web site advertising that she was “shopping for an attorney.” In a statement attached to her filing, the plaintiff (aka “Jane Doe”) asserted:
I traveled by bus to New York City in June 1994 in the hope of starting a modeling career. I went to several modeling agencies but was told that I needed to put together a modeling portfolio before I would be considered. I then went to the Port Authority in New York City to start to make my way back home. There I met a woman who introduced herself to me as Tiffany. She told me about the parties and said that, if I would join her at the parties, I would be introduced to people who could get me into the modeling profession. Tiffany also told me I would be paid for attending.
The parties were held at a New York City residence that was being used by Defendant Jeffrey Epstein. Each of the parties had other minor females and a number of guests of Mr. Epstein, including Defendant Donald Trump at four of the parties I attended. I understood that both Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein knew I was 13 years old.
Defendant Trump had sexual contact with me at four different parties in the summer of 1994. On the fourth and fnial sexual encounter with Defendant Trump, Defendant Trump tied me to a bed, exposed himself to me, and then proceeded to forcibly rape me. During the course of this savage sexual attack, I loudly pleaded with Defendant Trump to stop but he did not. Defendant Trump responded to my pleas by violently striking me in the face with his open hand and screaming that he would do whatever he wanted,
Immediately following this rape, Defendant Trump threatened me that, were I ever to reveal any of the details of Defendant Trump’s sexual and physical abuse of me, my family and I wold be physically harmed if not killed.
The filing also included a statement from “Tiffany Doe” (i.e., the woman referenced in plaintiff’s statement above who brought her to the parties) attesting that:
I personally witnessed four sexual encounters that the Plaintiff was forced to have with Mr. Trump during this period, including the fourth of these encounters where Mr. Trump forcibly raped her despite her pleas to stop.
I personally witnessed the one occasion where Mr. Trump forced the Plaintiff and a 12-year-old female named Maria [to] perform oral sex on Mr. Trump and witnessed his physical abuse of both minors when they finished the act.
It was my job to personally witness and supervise encounters between the underage girls that Mr. Epstein hired and his guests.
A video reportedly featuring “Katie Johnson” (her identity hidden through the use of facial pixillation, a long blonde wig, and an electronic voice distorter) appeared online, in which she graphically described giving Donald Trump a hand job and being raped by him:
There is little doubt that Donald Trump knows Jeffrey Epstein, as Trump acknowledged in a 2002 New York magazine profile of Epstein:
Epstein likes to tell people that he’s a loner, a man who’s never touched alcohol or drugs, and one whose nightlife is far from energetic. And yet if you talk to Donald Trump, a different Epstein emerges. “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump booms from a speakerphone. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Epstein has been named in multiple similar lawsuits over the last several years, served 13 months in jail, and is registered as a sex offender for life:
Billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has paid another accuser.
The 56-year-old money manager has quietly settled with Jane Doe 102, an unnamed woman who alleged in federal court in Florida that Epstein had induced her to “serve his every sexual whim” from the time she was 15 until she was 19. The woman also claimed Epstein had flown her around the world, paying her “to be sexually exploited by [his friends] … including royalty, politicians, academicians [and] businessmen.”
Epstein flatly denied those charges. But a source close to the financier confirms “the matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties.” The woman’s lawyer, Robert Josefsberg, wouldn’t say how much she’s getting. Epstein had in the past offered accusers a minimum of $150,000.
Epstein has settled at least two other civil suits but still faces more than a dozen from women who claim he sexually abused them as minors at his Palm Beach mansion.
As of now, all of the information about this lawsuit comes solely from the complaint filed by “Katie Johnson,” and no one has as yet located, identified, or interviewed her.
A status conference for the lawsuit is scheduled to be held on 16 December 2016.
Hillary Clinton Leads Donald Trump in ABC News’ Electoral Ratings Before Tough Battleground Contests
File photo: NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 13: People cheer as Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at her official kickoff rally at the Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan on June 13, 2015 in New York City. The long awaited speech at a historical location associated with the values Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined in his 1941 State of the Union address, is the Democratic the candidate’s attempt to define the issues of her campaign to become the first female president of the United States. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is maintaining a decided advantage in the Electoral College this November, strengthening her grip around states tipping her way while forcing Republican nominee Donald Trump to defend a handful of typical GOP strongholds.
But a narrow path still exists for Trump. Toss-ups in North Carolina and Florida — as well as optimism that states like Pennsylvania and Michigan might tip back into play — leave supporters hopeful.
So ABC News dug through states’ voting history, demographic shifts and head-to-head polling to develop these electoral ratings. ABC News’ puts Clinton at 278 electoral votes and Trump at 198, when including both solid and leaning states, which would give Clinton enough states right now in the solid and lean blue columns to hand her the White House. Sixty-two electoral votes are in toss-up states.
Still, this election cycle has shown that this race can be unpredictable, and Trump has vowed to shake up the traditional map and put several blue states in play. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the White House.
Solid Democratic
Despite Trump’s hopes of putting New York’s 29 electoral votes in play this election, the Empire State would be expected to pull for Clinton, along with other reliably liberal-leaning swaths of the mid-Atlantic. Most of the rest of the historically liberal Northeast would likely remain solidly Democratic in November. In the Midwest, Minnesota and Illinois would likely deliver Clinton a combined 30 electoral votes.
California, which boasts the largest share of electoral votes, at 55, has not voted Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988. Recent polling there shows Clinton leading Trump by double digits, keeping the Golden State safely in the Democratic column, along with Oregon and Washington. New Mexico is predicted to vote Democratic for the third consecutive presidential election.
Leaning Democratic
More states across the Mountain West and Rust Belt would give Clinton another 75 electoral votes, but Trump is hopeful that he could pick off at least of one them. Colorado voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and growing Hispanic populations in both states may keep these states in the blue column for good.
New Hampshire polling has shown the state leaning Hillary Clinton’s way, creating a firewall that blocks any attempt by Trump to cobble together a series of smaller states.
Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are usually reliably Democratic states, but Trump’s popularity among working-class whites may put these states in play. A win would be an upset for Trump: Democrats have won every presidential race in Michigan and Pennsylvania since 1992 and Wisconsin since 1988.
Virginia, home to Democratic vice-presidential pick Tim Kaine, is also expected to tip toward Clinton, having voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. New Hampshire polling also shows a Hillary Clinton advantage there. And polling in Maine, another classic Democratic state, has shown the state’s at-large electoral votes could be up for grabs.
Toss-ups
Four toss-up states, worth 62 electoral votes, could tip the election toward a Clinton blowout, as Trump would likely need to win nearly all those states in order to reach the White House. Toss-up states this year include large electoral vote prizes like North Carolina and Florida, which were decided by just a few percentage points in the 2012 election. Utah and Arizona also have joined the ranks of toss-up states – though Arizona hasn’t gone blue since 1996 and Utah hasn’t gone blue in decades.
Leaning Republican
Ohio will be one of the key states to watch: The Buckeye State has voted for the winner of the White House every year since 1960.
Georgia has voted for the Republican nominee in seven of the last eight presidential elections, but white voters are quickly making up a smaller proportion of active registered voters in the state. White voters made up 68 percent of registered voters in 2004, but they now make up only 58 percent of registered voters, according to data from the Pew Research Center.
Polling in Iowa also shows Trump with a slight advantage there, mostly thanks to an overwhelmingly white electorate. Nebraska’s Second Congressional district, which Obama won in 2008, is also showing signs it could tip Hillary Clinton’s way in 2016.
Solid Republican
The bulk of Trump’s electoral votes would likely come from historically Republican portions of the Great Plains, West and Midwest, as well as the Bible Belt, which stretches from South Carolina to Texas and boasts large numbers of evangelical Christian and social conservative voters.
West Virginia, which has seen unemployment levels rise under Obama, is expected to vote Republican for the fifth presidential election in a row, as is Alaska, which has not voted for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
Ratings Changes
Nov. 1:
Ohio from Tossup to Leans Republican. Clinton has not held a statistically significant lead in the state in any polling there in nearly two months. Recent polling has shown a tight race. But early voting statistics have shown positive signs for Trump. Ohio does not show early vote by party. But voting is down by almost 80,000 votes in Cuyahoga County compared to 2012 – an Obama stronghold – and turnout is up in Warren County – a key Romney stronghold. Clinton has shifted her efforts and resources to other firewall states like Pennsylvania and Florida, only holding six events there herself during the last two months.
Alaska from Solid Republican to Leans Republican. Alaska has supported the Republican candidate in every presidential election since 1964. Alaska has a historical willingness to vote for third party or unconventional candidates, like its independent governor and Joe Miller over incumbent senator Lisa Murkowski in the 2010 Republican senate primary, then wrote-in Murkowski to victory in the general election. Alaska’s small population also allows for more realistic swings in its preferences.
Maine At-Large from Leans Democratic to Solid Democratic. A recent poll from the Press Herald/UNH showed Hillary Clinton with an 11-point lead there. The state’s second Congressional district remains a toss-up, but we don’t expect a potential Trump victory there to be wide enough to tip the entire state his way.
Oct. 28: Florida from Leans Democratic to Tossup. A new Bloomberg Politics poll out this week shows Trump earning 45 percent support vs. 43 percent for Clinton. Meanwhile, early voting shows the two parties running virtually even in early votes.
Oct. 21: Florida from Tossup to Leans Democratic. Florida has been seen as a must-win for Trump, so this shift makes the Republican nominee’s shrinking path even narrower. The latest Quinnipiac poll out this week shows Clinton leading Trump by 4 points in the Sunshine State, which went for Obama in 2012 and 2008.
Nevada from Tossup to Leans Democratic. The state has voted with the overall winner of the presidential election since 1980 and campaign officials there feel that the state is tipping toward the Democrats.
Utah from Leans Republican to Tossup. Independent candidate Evan McMullin’s rapidly growing popularity in the state, especially among Mormon voters who are defecting from Donald Trump, threatens to siphon votes from the GOP nominee – increasing the odds that Hillary Clinton edges ahead or McMullin wins the state outright.
Arizona from Leans Republican to Tossup. Clinton has put once-reliably red Arizona in play, a state that hasn’t voted for a Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1996. Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders campaigned there this week in hopes of galvanizing Democratic support, particularly among the state’s growing number of Latino and young voters.
Oct. 14:
There is only one change to the ABC presidential race ratings this week. Utah, which changed in August from “Solid Republican” to “Leans Republican” before returning to “Solid Republican,” is once again being downgraded to “Leans Republican.” Utah’s large religious population expressed dismay over last week’s release of a video clip showing Trump making derogatory comments about women and third party candidates such as Gary Johnson and Evan McMullin could siphon votes away from Trump.
Oct. 7:
ABC News is now rating Maine’s first congressional district for the first time: “Solid Democratic.” While Clinton holds a solid lead in CD-1, the race in the second congressional district is still a “Tossup.” The state’s two electoral at-large votes continue to be rated “Leans Democratic.”
Sept. 2:
ABC News changed New Hampshire from “Tossup” to “Leans Democratic” and Nevada from “Leans Democratic” to “Tossup.” New polling from WMUR/UNH shows Hillary Clinton with a nine-point lead in the Granite State, which hasn’t voted Republican since 2000. And Hillary Clinton’s campaign continues to dump big television advertising dollars into Nevada – second only to Ohio in the most dollars per electoral vote – showing that state very much up for grabs.
Aug. 30:
ABC News changed Maine’s rating from “Solid Democratic” to “Leans Democratic,” the state’s second congressional district from “Leans Democratic” to “Tossup,” and Missouri from “Leans Republican” to “Solid Republican.”
Maine Recent polling in Maine has shown a competitive race. Maine could split its electoral votes for the first time – with two votes going to the state’s overall winner and one to the winner of each of the two Congressional districts. A new poll from Press Herald/UNH shows Clinton and Trump within the margin of error, with Trump leading by 14 percentage points in the state’s more rural second Congressional district. Still, the state hasn’t gone red in 1988.
Missouri While the race for the U.S. Senate remains competitive in Missouri, the presidential race there has tipped back toward Republican nominee Donald Trump. The state has gone blue only twice in the last four decades – both times for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. Still, Mitt Romney won the state by a wide 10 percentage points in 2012 and Clinton’s campaign and super PAC have not invested time or resources there.
Aug. 22:
ABC News changed Iowa from “Tossup” to “Leans Republican” and Utah from “Leans Republican” to “Solid Republican.” It also rated the second Congressional District in Maine as “Leans Democratic” and the second Congressional district in Nebraska as “Leans Republican.”
Aug. 12:
ABC News changed Utah from “Solid Republican” to “Lean Republican” and Virginia from “Tossup” to “Lean Democratic.”
Virginia Recent polling and other changes in the race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton show that Virginia, once a tossup state, is leaning Democratic. Virginia, historically a battleground state, last awarded its votes in the Electoral College to a Republican in 2004. For the past four election cycles, Virginia has cast its votes in the Electoral College for the eventual winner of the presidential race. In new NBC/WSJ/Marist poll out today, Clinton’s lead over Trump widened since last month, with 46 percent of voters going for Clinton and only 33 percent saying that they would vote for Trump. Clinton’s recent selection of Tim Kaine as her running mate strengthens her position in Virginia. Kaine, a former governor of Virginia and the state’s current senator, is a popular figure in the Old Dominion. All signs show a state leaning towards voting for a Democrat in the White House once again.
Utah Trump is still favored to win Utah, but it won’t be as easy a lift as previous GOP nominees. Clinton has signaled she wants to play in the state, penning an opinion piece in the Deseret News this week. “Every day, Trump continues to prove he lacks the morals to be our commander-in-chief,” she wrote, appealing to deeply-religious Mormons who make up a crucial voting bloc in Utah. With prominent players like Mitt Romney still sitting on the sidelines, the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and new conservative candidacy of former CIA operative Evan McMullin threaten to strip some support from Trump. Still, Utah has voted for a Republican in every presidential election in the last 50 years, including delivering a sweeping 73-25 percent victory for Mitt Romney in 2012.
June 17:
ABC News changed Missouri from “Solid Republican” to “Lean Republican” and Arizona from “Solid Republican” to “Lean Republican.”
♦ Culled from the ABC News’ ( by JOHN KRUZEL and RYAN STRUYK, Noah Fitzgerel, Adam Kelsey and Ben Siegel).
Watch Video: Donald Trump Warns Nigerians, “If I win, you leave”
American Billionaire and Republican Presidential Front-runner, Donald Trump, has shot a subtle warning to the Nigerian Community in the United States, after he said all Nigerians would be made to leave the country “when he becomes President”.
He made the “threat” during a rally at Wichita, Kansas. According to Donald Trump, Nigerians ad Mexicans have taken all the jobs meant for honest hard working Americans.
“To Make America great again, we need to get rid of the Muslims, Mexicans and the Africans, especially the Nigerians. They take all our jobs, jobs meant for honest hard working Americans, and when we don’t give them the jobs, the Muslims blow us up”, Trump said.
“We need to get the Africans out. Not the blacks, the Africans. Especially the Nigerians. They’re everywhere. I went for a rally in Alaska and met just one African in the entire state. Where was he from? Nigeria! He’s in Alaska taking our jobs. They’re in Houston taking our jobs. Why can’t they stay in their own country? Why? I’ll tell you why. Because they are corrupt. Their Governments are so corrupt, they rob the people blind and bring it all here to spend. And their people run away and come down here and take our jobs! We can’t have that! If I become president, we’ll send them all home. We’ll build a wall at the Atlantic Shore. Then maybe we’ll re-colonize them because obviously they did not learn a damn thing from the British!”
His speech was met with raucous applause by the 10,000 strong predominantly Caucasian audience. What this portends for Nigeria in the event of the Trump victory is still unclear, but the Nigerian Ambassador to the US has so far allayed fears of all Nigerians living in the USA, although we gather he has secretly packed his bags and is set to move to Mexico or Canada if Trump becomes President.
Latest electoral map shows more states are moving away from Trump
Now that the presidential debates have finished, we’ve updated our electoral map once again. Like our last update, this one shifted more states away from Donald Trump.
The biggest shift: Florida, the nation’s largest swing state, is now light blue, as we’ve moved it from the battleground category to a Democratic lean.
In all, our map shows Clinton ahead in states with 308 electoral votes — 38 more than the 270 needed to win the presidency. Trump has 174. Five states, with 56 electoral votes, are toss-ups.
We had kept Florida as a toss-up in our previous update of the map because of its history as the scene of some of the country’s closest electoral battles.
As Democratic strategist Steve Schale likes to note about his state, in the past four elections, about 30.5 million presidential votes have been cast in Florida, and the difference between Republicans and Democrats comes to 71,000 votes — just 0.24% of the total. No other state has been closer.
But this year, Clinton seems to be on track to break that pattern. She has led in nine of the last 10 public polls, and her lead appears to be growing. On average, she’s now ahead by about four points in polling averages of the state.
The other two shifts come in the West. As we’ve previously noted, Mormon antipathy to Trump has contributed to making Arizona a battleground state. It’s also why we’re now adding Utah to that list.
Clinton isn’t likely to win Utah — no Democrat has in a presidential race since 1964. But polls indicate that Evan McMullin, a former congressional staff member and CIA operative who is a graduate of Brigham Young University, could win there. If so, he’d be the first third-party candidate to win a state since George Wallace in 1968.
Finally, Trump’s weakness among Republicans has also caused polls to tighten in Texas. We still think the Republican will win there, but we’ve moved the state from solid red to pink, reflecting the reality that even that state is not definite for Trump.
Donald Trump’s national political director ‘steps back’ from campaign
With only 19 days left until the election, Donald Trump’s national political director said he has decided to “take a step back from the campaign.”
In a statement to Politico, Jim Murphy said he has not resigned, but for “personal reasons” is taking a lesser role. Murphy is a longtime Republican Party operative who joined the Trump campaign in June, and he has been establishing field programs in battleground states and serving as a point man between Trump and the Republican National Committee. Trump is behind in several key states, and some Republicans worry that in swing states, he doesn’t have the same exposure as Hillary Clinton.
Numerous Trump aides told Politico that in recent days, Murphy, a friend of Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, hasn’t been around. Manafort resigned in August, two months after he replaced Trump’s first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.
Another bombshell from Donald Trump: ‘I will totally accept’ election results ‘if I win’
Delaware, Ohio (CNN)Donald Trump said Thursday he will accept the results of next month’s election if he wins, a caveat that threatens to cast unprecedented doubt on the legitimacy of the electoral process.
Trump offered a stunning declaration during the final presidential debate that he might not accept the results of next month’s election. In his first speech since the debate, Trump seemed to simultaneously double down on the stance he articulated Wednesday night while also trying to clean it up.
Trump argued forcefully during a rally here that he was being asked to “waive” his right to contest the election after critics slammed him for refusing to pledge to accept the results of the election the previous night during the final presidential debate.
“I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election, if I win,” Trump told supporters here in his first comments since the final debate.
After raising concerns about voter fraud — instances of which are extremely rare — Trump also pledged to accept “a clear election result.”
“Of course, I would accept a clear election result, but I would also reserve my right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result,” Trump said. “And always, I will follow and abide by all of the rules and traditions of all of the many candidates who have come before me. Always.”
His running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, echoed Trump’s comments while speaking in Reno, Nevada, telling supporters: “Of course, we will accept a clear election result, but we also reserve the right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of questionable results.”
‘I will keep you in suspense’
Trump’s remarks Thursday appeared aimed at quelling the outrage he sparked the previous night as Republicans and Democrats alike balked at Trump’s response that “I will look at it at the time,” when asked if he would concede the election should he lose on November 8. But by refusing again Thursday to promise outright that he will abide by the results of the election, Trump kept alive a worrying conspiracy theory that his underdog candidacy could be defeated by below-board behavior.
The remarks came after Trump took intense fire from Republicans and Democrats alike for saying “I will look at it at the time,” when asked if he would concede the election should he lose on November 8.
“I will keep you in suspense,” he added during the debate.
Trump also said Thursday that he was only refusing to make a blanket statement concerning the results of the election because he wants “fairness during the election.”
“This is having nothing to do with me but having to do with the future of our country. We have to have fairness,” he said.
Trump, who has spent weeks calling the election “rigged” and suggesting to his supporters the presidency could be stolen from them, sought to compare his situation to the 2000 election, when Al Gore sought a recount in several counties after the results of the election in Florida were very tight.
“If Al Gore or George Bush had agreed three weeks before the election to concede results and waived their right to a legal challenge or a recount then there would be no Supreme Court case,” Trump said of the ensuing legal process following the contested result of the 2000 election.
But neither Bush nor Gore raised concerns about the legitimacy of the electoral process, neither before nor after Election Day. And a day after the Supreme Court ruled, Gore called Bush to concede.
Trump’s pledge to accept the results of the election “if I win” could have gone differently on Thursday, based on prepared remarks the Trump campaign released after his speech concluded.
The prepared remarks of that “major announcement” offered a similar, and seemingly more lighthearted, pledge labeled “ALTERNATE.”
“I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters, and to all of the people of the United States, that when the results come in on election night, I will accept — without delay or hesitation — the concession speech of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” read the alternate text of Trump’s pledge to accept the presidential election results if he wins.
The question about accepting the election’s results was posed to Trump on Wednesday night after the Republican nominee spent weeks arguing that there was a mass “establishment” conspiracy seeking to undermine his candidacy.
Trump’s talk of a “rigged” election came after nearly a dozen women came forward last week alleging that Trump had groped or kissed them without their consent — prompting a deluge of defections from Republicans who had been supporting his campaign and unfavorable media coverage.
But in previous months, Trump had already begun suggesting to his supporters that the election could be stolen, urging them to be vigilant on Election Day and watch for cases of voter fraud, which are extremely rare in the US.
Donald Trump said during the second presidential debate that his bragging about kissing and touching women without their consent — caught on a hot mic in an explosive 2005 video — was “locker-room talk” and that he never actually groped anyone.
“No, I have not,” Trump told Anderson Cooper, the debate’s co-moderator.
Since then, seven women have come forward alleging they were inappropriately touched by the Republican nominee in separate incidents dating back to the early 1970s. Three other women have had their past claims resurfaced in light of Trump’s alleged transgressions.
Here are the names of each of the women and a summary of their allegations. Trump has denied all of them, claiming their stories are part of a media conspiracy spearheaded by the Hillary Clinton campaign. The real estate mogul has also suggested that some of the women aren’t attractive enough for him.
Jessica Leeds
Leeds told the New York Times that in the early 1980s she was seated next to Trump on a flight to New York City.
About 45 minutes after takeoff, Leeds said, Trump lifted the armrest and began to touch her, grabbing her breasts and attempting to put his hand up her skirt.
“He was like an octopus,” Leeds said. “His hands were everywhere.”
Leeds fled to the back of the plane.
“It was an assault,” she said.
Trump’s response
Two of the Republican nominee’s top campaign surrogates — spokeswoman Katrina Pierson and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — suggested Leeds could not be telling the truth because first class seats at that time had fixed armrests.
Crooks told the Times that in 2005 Trump kissed her on the mouth at Trump Tower in New York City without her consent.
Crooks, then a 22-year-old receptionist at a real estate investment and development company located inside Trump’s Manhattan high-rise, said she encountered Trump outside an elevator and introduced herself:
They shook hands, but Mr. Trump would not let go, she said. Instead, he began kissing her cheeks. Then, she said, he “kissed me directly on the mouth.”
It didn’t feel like an accident, she said. It felt like a violation.
“It was so inappropriate,” Ms. Crooks recalled in an interview. “I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that.”
Shaken, Ms. Crooks returned to her desk and immediately called her sister, Brianne Webb, in the small town in Ohio where they grew up, and told her what had happened.
“She was very worked up about it,” said Ms. Webb, who recalled pressing her sister for details. “Being from a town of 1,600 people, being naïve, I was like, ‘Are you sure he didn’t just miss trying to kiss you on the cheek?’ She said, ‘No, he kissed me on the mouth.’ I was like, ‘That is not normal.’”
The Times said it would not back down in the face of Trump’s legal threat.
“We stand by the story, which falls clearly into the realm of public service journalism,” a spokeswoman for the newspaper told Yahoo News.
Natasha Stoynoff
Stoynoff, a People magazine writer, says that Trump forced himself on her in 2005 at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, where she was conducting a joint interview with the real estate mogul and his wife, Melania.
“In December 2005, around the time Trump had his now infamous conversation with Billy Bush, I traveled to Mar-a-Lago to interview the couple for a first-wedding-anniversary feature story,” Stoynoff recalled in an essay for People on Oct. 12. “Our photo team shot the Trumps on the lush grounds of their Florida estate, and I interviewed them about how happy their first year of marriage had been. When we took a break for the then-very-pregnant Melania to go upstairs and change wardrobe for more photos, Donald wanted to show me around the mansion. There was one ‘tremendous’ room in particular, he said, that I just had to see.”
We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat.
Now, I’m a tall, strapping girl who grew up wrestling two giant brothers. I even once sparred with Mike Tyson. It takes a lot to push me. But Trump is much bigger — a looming figure — and he was fast, taking me by surprise and throwing me off balance. I was stunned. And I was grateful when Trump’s longtime butler burst into the room a minute later, as I tried to unpin myself.
The butler informed us that Melania would be down momentarily, and it was time to resume the interview.
I was still in shock and remained speechless as we both followed him to an outdoor patio overlooking the grounds. … The butler left us, and I fumbled with my tape recorder. Trump smiled and leaned forward.
“You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?” he declared, in the same confident tone he uses when he says he’s going to make America great again. “Have you ever been to Peter Luger’s for steaks? I’ll take you. We’re going to have an affair, I’m telling you.”
Melinda McGillivray told the Associated Press that Donald Trump’s denial in last Sunday’s presidential debate that he had ever groped women prompted her to come forward after years of brushing off an incident from 2003. (Oct. 14)
McGillivray, who was 23 at the time, said she never reported it to authorities. But she told photographer Ken Davidoff, who was taking photos at a Ray Charles concert hosted by the club, that “Donald just grabbed my ass!”
“Ray already performed. He’s ready to leave. He’s saying his goodbyes to everyone,” McGillivray recalled. “All of a sudden I felt a grab, a little nudge. I think it’s Ken’s camera bag, that was my first instinct. I turn around and there’s Donald. He sort of looked away quickly. I quickly turned back, facing Ray Charles, and I’m stunned.”
Trump’s response
“There is no truth to this whatsoever,” Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Yahoo News.
Temple Taggart McDowell
McDowell, a former Miss Utah, told NBC News that Trump “embraced me and gave me a kiss on the lips” in 1997, when she was a 21-year-old Miss USA pageant contestant.
McDowell said Trump, who owned the Miss Universe pageant at the time, later offered to help her get contracts with elite modeling agencies:
And during a visit to Trump Tower in Manhattan at Trump’s invitation, he again embraced and kissed her on the lips, this time in front of two pageant chaperones and a receptionist.
The New York encounter made one of the chaperones so “uncomfortable” that she advised McDowell not to go into any rooms with Trump alone, McDowell said. The other chaperone accompanied her into Trump’s office, she said.
McDowell, who had previously spoken out about the incident, offered more details in light of lewd comments Trump made in the 2005 video.
Trump’s response
“I don’t even know who she is,” Trump told NBC News. “She claims this took place in a public area. I never kissed her. I emphatically deny this ridiculous claim.”
Former ‘Apprentice’ contestant accuses Donald Trump of sexual harassment
At a press conference on Friday with attorney Gloria Allred, Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” came forward and accused Donald Trump of sexual harassment and inappropriately touching her at Trump Tower and the Beverly Hills Hotel
Summer Zervos
Zervos, a former “Apprentice” contestant, said that during what she expected to be a 2007 business meeting with Trump, he forcibly kissed her, groped her breasts and thrust his genitals toward her in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
“He came to me and started kissing me open-mouthed as he was pulling me towards him,” Zervos said Friday in a televised press conference with star lawyer Gloria Allred. “He then asked me to sit next to him. I complied. He then grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me again, very aggressively, and placed his hand on my breast.”
Later, attempting to repel his alleged advances, Zervos said, “I pushed his chest, put space between us and said, ‘Come on man, get real.’ He repeated my words back to me, ‘Get real,’ as he began thrusting his genitals.”
Zervos appeared on the fifth season of Trump’s popular reality show, and was the first contestant that season to be “fired.”
Trump’s response
In a statement, Trump said he “vaguely” remembered Zervos, but he denied that the incident she described had happened and called the accusations “unfounded.”
“I never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a decade ago,” the statement said. “That is not who I am as a person, and it is not how I’ve conducted my life.”
In an effort to further refute Zervos’ claims, the Trump campaign also put forward the statement of John Barry, a man it identified as her first cousin, who said he was “bewildered” by her story and that she had previously had “nothing but glowing things to say” about him.
“I think Summer wishes she could still be on reality TV,” Barry said. “And in an effort to get that back, she’s saying all of these negative things about Mr. Trump.”
Kristin Anderson
Anderson, a former model, told the Washington Post that Trump put his hand up her skirt and touched her vagina through her underwear one night in a Manhattan nightclub in the early 1990s. The story was published Oct. 14.
Like several of the women who have come forward with claims of sexual misconduct by Trump, both Zervos and Anderson said they were compelled to share their stories after hearing Trump brag about sexually assaulting women on the now-infamous 2005 hot mic recording in which he said he could “do anything” to women because of his celebrity status.
“The reason that I’m saying this now and not before — where I didn’t think it was consequential to talk about before — was basically the bus tape that is so disgusting, really,” Anderson said in a video interview with the Post. “I watched this woman who could’ve been me, it could’ve been anyone, walk in and shake his hand. And that was just nauseating because she has no idea what she’s walking into and what could possibly happen to her.”
Anderson said she felt the need to speak up after reading about Leeds’ story.
“I was in a fortuitous position. I could just get up and move, but what if I hadn’t been?” Anderson said. “After that, I was like, ‘OK, you know what? Let me just back these girls up! You know, that’s not OK.”
Trump’s response
“Mr. Trump strongly denies this phony allegation by someone looking to get some free publicity,” Trump spokeswoman Hicks said in a statement. “It is totally ridiculous.”
“He probably doesn’t want me telling the story about that time he continually grabbed my ass and invited me to his hotel room,” Searles wrote in a thread in which she asked if her fellow contestants remember how Trump purportedly treated them like “property.”
“Do y’all remember that one time we had to do our onstage introductions, but this one guy treated us like cattle and made us do it again because we didn’t look him in the eyes?” she wrote. “Do you also remember when he then proceeded to have us lined up so he could get a closer look at his property?” She added, “Oh I forgot to mention that guy will be in the running to become the next President of the United States.”
Other contestants sounded off on their experiences with the real estate mogul. Paromita Mitra, Miss Mississippi USA 2013, admitted, “I literally have nightmares about that process,” while Shannon McAnally called Searles’ account “so extremely true and scary.” Anna Horne noted, “Scares me so much.”
Trump’s response
Neither Trump nor his campaign has responded to Searles’ allegations specifically.
Cathy Heller
Heller claims that when she met Trump during a Mother’s Day brunch at Mar-a-Lago in 1997, Trump grabbed her and tried to kiss her in the club’s lobby.
She said she leaned backward and tried to pull away, nearly losing her balance.
“And he said, ‘Oh, come on.’ He was strong. And he grabbed me and went for my mouth and went for my lips,” Heller continued. She turned her head and and Trump kissed her on the side of her mouth.
“He kept me there for a little too long,” Heller said. “And then he just walked away.”
“I was angry and shaken,” she added. “He was pissed. He couldn’t believe a woman would pass up the opportunity.”
Trump’s response
“There is no way that something like this would have happened in a public place on Mother’s Day at Mr. Trump’s resort,” Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said in a statement. “It would have been the talk of Palm Beach for the past two decades.”
“The reality is this: For the media to wheel out a politically motivated Democratic activist with a legal dispute against this same resort owned by Mr. Trump does a disservice to the public, and anyone covering this story should be embarrassed for elevating this bogus claim.”
Heller, a Clinton supporter, donated the individual maximum of $2,700 to the Democratic nominee’s 2016 campaign, but denies her story is part of a conspiracy to tip the election in the former secretary of state’s favor.
Jill Harth Outraged Over Trump’s Denial Of Groping: He Slipped His Hand There
Jill Harth, who says Donald Trump groped her multiple times in the 90s, is speaking out about his lewd comments. Speaking to Inside Edition, she said she was floored by the recording, claiming he would “grab” women and “just start kissing them… I don’t even wait.” Harth said that shock turned to outrage during the presidential debate when Trump insisted he had never groped anyone. “He groped me,” she continued. “He absolutely groped me. He just slipped his hand there, touching my private parts.”
Jill Harth
Harth, a former beauty pageant producer, filed a 12-page complaint in 1997 alleging that Trump engaged in hostile and offensive sexual behavior toward her from 1992 to 1997, including “groping” her under her dress on several occasions and attempting to have sex with her in his daughter Ivanka’s bedroom.
In the court filing, Harth also claimed that on Jan. 9, 1993, Trump “forcefully removed [Harth] from public areas of Mar-a-Lago in Florida and forced [her] into a bedroom belonging to defendant’s daughter Ivanka, wherein [Trump] forcibly kissed, fondled, and restrained [her] from leaving, against [her] will and despite her protests.” In the court document, she said that Trump bragged that he “would be the best lover you ever have.”
Trump’s response
According to LawNews.com, Trump vigorously denied the charges, saying the suit “was a desperate attempt to get me to settle a case they can’t win.” The case was quickly dismissed:
The timing is interesting because at around the same time the case was withdrawn, Trump reportedly agreed to settle [a separate lawsuit] with Harth’s husband’s company, the American Dream Enterprise, according to an obscure 1997 gossip article in the New York Daily News that appears to be the only mainstream media coverage of either suit.
Donald Trump calls New York Times report ‘lies,’ ‘preposterous,’ part of ‘coordinated, vicious attack’
The day after the New York Times and other outlets reported on several women accusing Donald Trump of unwanted sexual advances, Trump attacked the newspaper as being part of “a coordinated, vicious attack” with the Clinton campaign. He called the stories “lies” and “preposterous.”
A campaign on the brink
In the videotape released earlier this month by the Washington Post, Trump was heard boasting to then “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush that he could do anything he wanted to with women because of his celebrity status — including groping them.
“I just kiss. I don’t even wait,” Trump said. “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p****. You can do anything.”
The vulgar tape was fiercely denounced by a cascade of Republican leaders, some of whom withdrew their endorsements or called for him to exit the race. With about 20 days to go before Election Day, Trump has been fighting back against those GOP critics while escalating his attacks against Clinton.
– With Yahoo News’ Michael Walsh and Lauren Tuck contributing reporting
