Voting rights rulings favor Democrats
A flurry of remarkable court rulings over the past two weeks said North Carolina, Wisconsin, Kansas and Texas violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act and intentionally discriminated against African Americans and other classes of voters. The rulings reversed laws that could have given the Republicans significant advantages in close races this November, reports Andrew Gumbel. Voting rights activists have been campaigning against such laws for more than a decade.
A federal judge blocked North Dakota’s new voter ID law, deeming the legislation unfair to Native Americans. The ruling is the latest in a series of recent victories against state-imposed voting restrictions ahead of the November election. (Robert Barnes)
For the first time in half a century, the United States will elect a president without the full safeguards of the Voting Rights Act in place. The Supreme Court invited Congress to enact new legislation to address the impact of Shelby County. It is well past time for Congress to take up the invitation to restore the Voting Rights Act to its full strength.
In the meantime, we at the Justice Department will continue to use every tool at our disposal to protect eligible voters wherever and whenever we can. And as recent court decisions demonstrate, we continue to see results. Beyond North Carolina and Texas, in the past week alone, courts have pushed back on voting rules in Louisiana and, pressed by private plaintiffs, inKansas and Wisconsin , as well.
Voting transcends partisanship. It makes no difference to the Justice Department which candidate a voter elects or which party he or she supports. We work to protect the integrity of the electoral process so that every eligible voter can cast a ballot.
-- Clinton emerged from the Philadelphia convention with a seven-point bounce over Trump, per a new CNN/ORC poll.The Democratic presidential nominee now leads Trump 52 to 43 percent, and 45 to 37 percent in a four-way contest with Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.
- More Americans say Clinton’s policies will “move the country in the right direction” – up from 43 to 48 percent – while Trump’s numbers stayed stagnant after Cleveland.
- Meanwhile, just 35 percent of voters said they saw the Republican Party more favorably after the GOP convention in Cleveland. 52 percent said they viewed it less favorably.
- --The former secretary of state now holds an eight-point lead over Trump (50 percent to 42 percent), according to an NBC/SurveyMonkey poll. She formerly led by just one point last week.
- “I think people appreciate and even enjoy when he kicks the high and mighty in the butt, but I think they recoil when he is unkind to people who are vulnerable or when he is nasty to people who are thoroughly honorable,” said David Axelrod.
Khan confrontation keys in on human decency — and that could haunt Trump, from the Washington Post's Phillip Rucker
"Trump’s belittling of the Muslim American parents of a dead U.S. soldier may be different, according to political strategists in both parties, who say the ongoing episode could challenge the notion of Trump as a Teflon candidate. So far, they say, Trump’s repeated offenses haven’t doomed his candidacy because many voters see each Trump insult as a dagger at political correctness, every blemish a welcome reminder that the celebrity-mogul candidate is willing to take on the established order."
- "Priorities USA, the leading pro-Clinton super PAC, has conducted extensive research to determine the most effective ways to attack Trump and found that video footage of Trump making wild arm and hand gestures to impersonate Kovaleski registers in focus groups as among the most damning. The footage has been featured in numerous anti-Trump ads."