Trump's Campaign Is 'Pulling Out of Virginia'

[grossproffit]

Donald Trump's campaign is "pulling out of Virginia," a move that stunned staff in the battleground state, three sources with knowledge of the decision told NBC News.

The decision came from Trump's headquarters in New York and was announced on a conference call late Wednesday that left some Republican Party operatives in the state blindsided. Two staffers directly involved in the GOP's efforts in Virginia confirmed the decision.

The move to pull out of Virginia shows Trump is "running essentially a four state campaign," with the focus now shifting to battlegrounds critical to his chances in November: Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, a source with knowledge of the decision told NBC News.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-s-campaign-pulling-out-virginia-n665541

[youtube]

[/youtube]

[riversedge]

1. .. I'm just disgusted." Too bad!!! Interesting that the article inserted a Related story about w

being groped into the article. tsk tsk.




........... Related: Four Women Accuse Trump of Inappropriately Touching Them

Trump's former Virginia state chairman, Corey Stewart, who was recently fired by the Trump campaign for organizing a protest outside Republican National Committee headquarters, called the move "totally premature."

Stewart was not on the conference call, but said he was informed by a staffer who was.

"I think it's totally premature for the campaign to be pulling out of Virginia after so much work and all the hundreds ... of hours of volunteer time and thousands and thousands of volunteers," Stewart said. "The only thing the campaign had to do was spend money on an ad campaign and it would have been competitive ... I'm just disgusted."

Another Trump campaign staffer, who declined to be named, pushed back on the characterization, insisting that the decision hadn't been finalized. "There have been conversations about shifting resources," the source said, "but I haven't gotten any definitive answer on anything.".....................

[forgotmylogin]

51. Virginia must be quite relieved he didn't continue to completion.

Virginia deserves some counseling.

[saltpoint]

2. A blue Virginia would be just fine. We'll take it. eom

[Botany]

3. Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio

[Funtatlaguy]

4. I would do a Trump pulling out joke,

but this stuff has gone beyond funny and beyond disgusting into incredibly creepy territory.
I just hope the polling numbers will show it.
You know the media will try the false equivalency strategy on the email leaks again.

[grossproffit]

18. I read "Virginia" as Vagina when I first saw the article.

[BobbyDrake]

25. Bwuhahaha!!!

[Ilsa]

26. Well, he flat out said he never withdraws....

The double-entendres write themselves, don't they? How do we keep our minds from going there after reading about all of the other GrOPer/rape-y things he's done?

[bullwinkle428]

59. Too bad Papa Fred didn't do that 70 years ago!

OH YES!!!!!

[CountAllVotes]

5. Good riddance

Loser!

[book_worm]

6. Most of the PA polls have been as bad as VA for Trump

but he can never acknowledge pulling out of PA.

[workinclasszero]

7. Bye Felicia

You can run, but you can't hide Trump!

[no_hypocrisy]

8. No prob. Jerry Falwell Jr. will deliver Virginia to Trump . . . . . .

[Duppers]

14. Wanna bet. "Liberty U. students protest association with Trump"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/10/12/liberty-is-not-trump-u-students-protest-donald-trump/?utm_campaign=pubexchange&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=huffingtonpost.com



It will be close tho, I'll give you that.

[underpants]

29. And Franklin Graham was just here YESTERDAY

Last edited Thu Oct 13, 2016, 08:43 AM - Edit history (1)

At Va. Capitol, evangelist Franklin Graham urges thousands of voters to think about the Supreme Court

http://m.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/article_9a8c765c-4522-5619-b631-621428af6ab1.html?mode=jqm

Evangelist Franklin Graham did not endorse Donald Trump on Wednesday when he addressed an estimated 5,000 Christians at a sun-splashed noontime prayer rally on the grounds of the state Capitol.


But he urged evangelicals to head to the polls on Nov. 8, citing the importance of appointments to the Supreme Court and preserving the role of faith in public life.

The upcoming presidential election is “not about lost emails,” Graham said, referring to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state.

“It’s not about crude or vulgar language,” he said, alluding to the recently disclosed 2005 tape in which Trump, now the GOP presidential nominee, made lewd comments about women.

[Maeve]

34. Graham, you ass, it's about competence and understanding

It's about real leadership--the kind that cares for ALL the people and compromises when necessary, not just the kind that can head up a mob or rule by fiat. And for God's sake (and I mean that!), there is a difference between 'crude or vulgar language' and SEXUAL ASSAULT!

Your brand of spew is one of the reasons I no longer associate with churches.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. The "billionaire" is running out of money. . . . . nt

[msanthrope]

10. Godamn, I misread that headline. nt

[Retired George]

13. I hurt myself NOT posting a joke!

Probably for the best.

[Renew Deal]

12. It's nice that he's running a 4 state campaign, but if Hillary wins CO in addition to VA it's over.

If Hillary wins the regular blue states and VA, she only needs one more state. She has always polled ahead in CO.

[workinclasszero]

15. Deplorables are terrible at math it seems

[saltpoint]

27. Agree. They suck at math and

they ain't that hot in civics either.

[OldRedneck]

16. I can't speak for all Virginians, but for myself . . .

[Duppers]

17. His damn tv ads were still running last p.m.

And early this a.m. in the Hampton Roads area.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. "Trump is 'running essentially a four state campaign,'"

Ugh.

Well his ass is NOT going to get PA. Count on it.

PA allows straight-ticket voting and that is what canvassers here in Philly need to emphasize to make it simple.

[Mc Mike]

23. Vote straight ticket, one office at a time.

There have been electronic machine errors, where hitting the straight ticket button caused the top of the ticket to disappear, & record no vote. So there were inexplicable cases where underfunded downballot ticket candidates recorded higher vote totals than extremely well funded and publicized top ticket candidates from the same party. The glitch benefitted top ticket repugs, oddly.

There's a review screen on the ESS Ivotronics we use in Pgh, after all ballot pages have been reviewed, that shows if any office race hasn't recorded a selection. But even if the ballot is 4 or 5 pages long, it isn't too tough to go through the whole ballot and individually press the D candidates, the voter is pushing maybe 8-15 D candidate buttons, instead of just one.

The only way that isn't a better option is if repug election hijinks have made your poll lines too long, then backing the line up with that extra 90 sec of button pushing might hurt the Dem cause, by discouraged people at the back of the line dropping out and not voting, after multi hour waits in line.

If Dem officials were smart, they'd print some hard copies of the sample ballots off, and have Dem activists walk down long lines letting the voters see what the ballot pages will look like, on the e voting machines they're waiting to vote on.

[BumRushDaShow]

32. Philadelphia does not use the same machine as Pittsburgh

We have no "screen". It's simply a touch membrane with LEDs next to each name. When the LED is flashing, it is selectable. Once selected, the light will go "steady". None of it gets "registered" until the big green "VOTE" button is pushed before you exit. We are laughed at for our machines "not being connected to the internet" but that is obviously a "bonus" nowadays. This model was apparently the closest to the old lever machines as you could get while allowing the machine to be handicapped-accessible because it is height-adjustable.





Philadelphia has 1686 polling places within the city limits. "Long lines" don't occur very often, although when Obama ran in 2008, it was pretty amazing.

[Mc Mike]

38. I don't see the labeling on that machine, but thanks for the pics.

You won't have a missing upballot selection problem, no doubt, BR. I don't know what your surrounding counties in the metro area are voting on, though.

The west underarm of the T has several systems in place, varies according to who got the contract from county govs for the machines. In the 2012 election, I published the county by county list of machine types, and nobody from the other counties told me theirs had changed. It was: Allegheny, Butler, Beaver, Greene, Lawrence, and Westmoreland counties all use ES&S Ivotronics. Armstrong and Washington use Diebold/Premier TSx. Fayette uses Hart Intercivic e-Slate.

I watched the Manheim statement from orange drumpfenfuhrer on your end of the state, I don't know what he said up in Beaver (Aliquippa) in his last rally on my end. But if you have targeted sites in Delaware, Montgomery, Chester using different machines to vote, they may need to worry about both the Manheimers and missing up ballot votes if they push one straight ticket button.

[BumRushDaShow]

39. On our machines, the parties go down a column

The Committee of 70 here generally offered sample ballots so voters can get an idea but now the City Commissioners Office in Philadelphia has a whole website that allows voters to "generate" a ballot based on their address!!!

http://www.philadelphiavotes.com/en/component/voterapp/?tmpl=component#ballots

So for example, here is one (and the machine would have this printed on the membrane to exactly match this layout for someone in this particular ward/division) -

http://www.philadelphiavotes.com/ballot_paper/429727c4-8fad-1ad6-bb17-57fe9ad2d6ea.pdf

The single digit numbers are the "straight ticket", so in Philly's case, the "#1" is straight Democratic ticket and if you push that, it lights up everything down the column. Then you would need to separately vote on ballot questions and/or in this case, a special election.

Philadelphia has > 600,000 registered Democrats. I really don't think the blue areas on this side of the state are going to tolerate crap. I posted here that Philadelphia (the city/county) has the same population as 9 of the 10 SW PA counties combined. If you add Montgomery County to Philly, that equals those 10 SW PA counties.

[Mc Mike]

40. There are about 7 million voters in the state, overall.

We have over 500,000 Dems, 230 k Repugs, 115 k Indies registered in Allegheny County, over 10% of the state voting population. The most apt comparison is Pgh's Allegheny county and Philly's city, in terms of population. Tactically, it wouldn't be prudent to write off my end of the state, and hope for final election victory from blue Philly and reasonable moderate R suburban voters in your metro area.

If you discuss Philly metro area, the question is if Montgomery also uses your machine type. The Mellon family hasn't erased the registered Dem advantage in most of our underarm of the PA T, but Butler is chock full of out of state repugs the Mellon's industries have moved into the area, to work as business execs. Wesmoreland was always a Mellon family playground, though majority Dem in registration. I'd say Beaver, Lawrence, and Washington are our best bets for a back to blue flip.

The point is that repugs are telegraphing their desire to flip Philly and Pgh suburbs, where moderate R registered voters have gone against Rs in '04, '08, '12. Targeting which could cause trouble for your surrounding metro area counties, if they don't use the same machines that you do, in terms of the 'straight ticket button' glitch. The loss of almost all of the 9 Dem counties in the west part of the state, under the T, has been offset by moderate suburban R voters going D in those past 3 elections. Machine problems and voting lines could cause problems in those suburban polls, and so could targeting by Manheimers. In my strongly blue city polls, we face both machine issues and the manheim militia mobilization, whether it's people from the Mighty TX strike force, True the Vote, Roger Stone's tRump election monitors, some rightie redneck dingaling from Greene Fayette Armstrong, etc.

If your suburban, next-county-to-Philly moderate R polls aren't using the same machines as Philly, they may have machine issues. If manheimers don't target your blue inner city or moderate R suburban polls, I could not be happier. Worth watching out for, though. Our suburban moderates using the ESS machines might have e voting machine issues, I don't know if they'll have trump's election monitors to deal with. Our inner city polls have to watch for manheimers and electronic glitches.

[BumRushDaShow]

42. Philly still has 300,000 more population than Allegheny County

And I'm not writing off the west. I just think that since 2004, there have continued to be melt-downs on DU at every election about "Diebold" and other machine issues and although there will definitely be some "machine issues", I don't think that will be enough to register much as an irregularity, let alone to flip this state. The moderate Rs on this side of the state are disgusted and will most likely only vote down-ballot.

I have a sister in Montgomery County and I think her township uses the same (or similar) machine as Philly. I can't speak for the rest of that county, but I think as long as you have plenty of County Election folks (and my BIL has always been a Judge of Elections at their polling place), and plenty of validation, I think we should be okay.

Another sister is in Delaware County and I'm not sure what brand machines they use but there's a video on youtube of the Delco machines and it looks like it is the same principle, although a slightly different layout of the one in Philly -

Drumpf's campaign is in its death throes, so they are throwing all sorts of things out there to try to manufacture outrage and sow discord. But the more they do that, the more Democrats tend to go out and vote, so all the FUD does is hurt themselves.

[Mc Mike]

44. 300 k more voting pop?

Of course, I don't regard it to be a meltdown, to be aware of and remind people of past issues with Diebold, Triad, ESS, Sequoia, Accenture, etc., equipment. Especially when there's a nice simple fix, like "vote straight ticket, one candidate at a time", if you're using a computer screen to vote.

I recall the one Youngstown Ivotronic cart that recorded a -25 million votes for Kerry, when its subtotal was added into the tabulating machine. If it was 25 k, it might not have been caught. I recall repug Sec of State Blackwell outsourcing the Ohio tally efforts to SmarTECH /Govtech in TN, and that he was also the State bush/Cheney campaign chair. And that he said "the last time I checked, Katherine Harris isn't in jail, she's in Congress", when people worried about his '04 Ohio election improprieties, many of them performed via electronic balloting.

When they're manufacturing outrage and sowing discord, that blur of activity can be used to camoflage election fraud felonies. I agree 100% that their attempts to disenfranchise voters can be used as a campaign tool for the Dem side, if they're being discussed, or if the Dem side informs the rank and file to watch out for those attempts.

[BumRushDaShow]

45. From the state website

http://www.dos.pa.gov/VotingElections/OtherServicesEvents/VotingElectionStatistics/Pages/default.aspx

The stats - http://www.dos.pa.gov/_layouts/download.aspx?SourceUrl=http://www.dos.pa.gov/VotingElections/OtherServicesEvents/VotingElectionStatistics/Documents/currentvotestats.xls

(The above link to the current registration goes to an Excel spreadsheet so I copied and pasted from that in the below (but obviously had to reformat it to fit and abbreviate the column headers)

County...............ID#.... Dem..........Rep......No Affil....All Other.....All Voters
ALLEGHENY ........2291....533,539.....255,220....70,608.....50,064........909,431
PHILADELPHIA.....2340....834,941.....122,829.....83,524.....34,680.......1,075,974

When you look at the data, all of the surrounding Philly counties except Chester, are slight majority Democratic. And I heard a report on the local news radio here this -

Deadline day, Tuesday, recorded the highest number of users ever: more than 87,000.

Monday saw the second-highest total: 77,000-plus.

Those numbers are not entirely comprised of new registrations; about 40-percent of those figures represent people making changes to existing registrations.

All paper applications have yet to be processed, but as of Tuesday, registered Democratic voters in Pennsylvania continued to far outpace GOP voters, 48-and-a-half percent compared to less than 38-percent registered as Republican.

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/10/12/heavy-use-of-pa-online-registration-in-days-before-deadline/

And as a note - PA does not equal OH of 2004 or FL of 2000. Our governor (and the entire Department of State/electoral infrastructure) is currently Democratic, a benefit of people getting off the asses in 2014 and voting for Wolf.

[Mc Mike]

49. Ah, 300 k more registered Ds.

The state has over 7 mil registered, about 5.4 mil voted last midterm, about 5.7 mil in '12. Your county has a 100k overall higher registered voter number than mine does. Our number is over 10% of state totals, though yours is higher. We both aren't 100% in turnout, though. The last PA Manual I have is '06, it had the reg #s as 560k to 260k in Allegheny, 800k to 175k in Phila., so your registered numbers added 525k to Dems advantage, ours only added 300k. There was a gov and Senate race then, where the numbers went 298 to 160 k Alleg, 360 to 70k Phil, out of 4.1 mil cast. Your city provided around 300k dem actual voting advantage then, my county provided 140k.

Yours added more than twice as much than my county. And the trend line from the info in your last post shows that currently, 53 to 26, 83 to 12, your registered Dem advantage offers an advantage for D's of 710k, compared to our 270k.

Nice kicking the numbers and concepts around with you, BR. Of course, I'm well aware that the Dems won the last governor's election. I've been a PADem since '84, though I lived and voted in MA & CA during part of the '80's and '90's. Though I don't need to be reminded that we have a Dem gov, that doesn't change red county election officials, inherent vulnerabilities in e-voting, or the manheim resolution.

[BumRushDaShow]

50. During Presidentials

we generally try to get about 60% turnout (mid-years are sadly ~40%). And yes, during past few Presidential elections when the media was hand-wringing, they inevitably were shown that "extra 300 - 400k" Democratic vote from Philly that would help throw PA over the top. I heard a radio report about the machines and the safeguards (and I have actually seen what the tally printout looks like from them - a long strip of paper).

The situation in PA has people scratching their head about the Congressional delegations with a state that is majority Democrat and why we currently have 13 Rs and only 5 Ds. And that is the gerrymandering in play. I am hoping that we can finally get some electoral reform here as pushed by the group FAIR DISTRICTS PA. But the one thing to note is that most of those "red counties" have tiny populations (and obviously less voting populations with that), but agree that everyone needs to keep an eye out. A good map of the county pops (at least as of 2012) - http://www.us-places.com/Pennsylvania/population-by-County.htm

I have been voting here since 1980 (and when in college in MA from '79 - '83, I voted absentee).

Hoping for the best for you guys over yonder and we will try to do our part!!!

[Mc Mike]

58. That last election went 2.74 mil D to 2.67 mil R, when we got 5, & they got 13.

You've put some good linked info throughout your posts, BR, thanks.

I worked a bunch of elections in the polls, there's a final tally printout on the Ivotronic, which is also a long strip of paper. The electronic count is all on the master peb cart(ridge). Of course, that cart is entered into a different machine to add all the different precincts tallies together.

Two days ago, I was pointing out in one of these threads that the broad swaths of red space in states like Ohio and PA, and also the huge swath of red states in the middle of the country, are huge areas of hundreds and thousands of square miles with almost no population in them. They look like they own a ton of the country, but it's wide empty spaces with 5 residents and a bunch of tumbleweeds.

I started college in Worcester, MA in '83, that was my first year voting Dem in PA, but '84 was the first big election I voted in. Hang tough in the East, we'll do what we can in the West. Nice talking to you.

[Thor_MN]

20. That means he needs all four. Losing any one of those is game over.

I don't why he would leave out Arizona and Iowa. Together those could replace Ohio or Pennsylvania and could more than replace North Carolina. And he is closer in Arizona and Iowa than any of the other "battlegrounds". His chance of losing Georgia is on par with his winning Ohio.

This go for broke, all or nothing plan tells me that he really is not all that interested in winning. That said, Virginia is a lost cause for him, 538 has his odds of winning there at a mere 7.4%. Single digit odds is not a battleground.

Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia seems to be a microcosm of the US, WV giving Clinton 1.4% chance, MD giving Trump <0.1% chance and VA tipping the balance. Amazing the division in such a small geographical area.

[Major Nikon]

47. It's still over even if he win's all 4

If you check out Nate Silver's snake, the only state of his 4 that's under the 270 mark is PA, but Trump isn't campaigning in AZ, NV, and IA all of which he's also behind. So even if Trump wins all 4 and loses those three states he still doesn't make it to 270.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/#now

[Thor_MN]

54. You are using the Now-Cast, I was using Polls Plus.

Polls Plus has Trump ahead in Arizona by 17.7%. Trump takes AZ and FL, PA, OH, and NC, it's 273 for Trump.

Pulling out in VA made sense for Trump, he's in single digits there. Ignoring AZ and IA is stupid if he wants to win.

[Vinca]

21. Virginia who?

Sorry . . . couldn't resist.

[NightWatcher]

22. Forget Virginy, he needs to fight to hold Georgia

[Ilsa]

30. Next double-entendre inserted here:

"Trump withdraws from Georgia."

[Mc Mike]

24. Congrats, VA. More of a pain for PA now, though. rec, NT

[democrattotheend]

41. That makes things easier for me to help

PA is a lot closer than VA.

[Mc Mike]

43. Any help would be appreciated.

The more the merrier. I hope you're in touch with our state ACLU people, or Common Cause or PFAW, etc.

[democrattotheend]

60. I volunteered directly through the Hillary campaign last time I was in Philly

And I am signed up to travel back there as part of the Victory Counsel to do voter protection on election day. Still waiting for geographic assignment.

[Mc Mike]

61. E.P. is slower in mobilizing in my west end of the state, this year, than '12.

We'd been trained by 10/6 last time, it was real-time training. This time, we're getting on-line webinar trained, 2 weeks later.

That mobilization isn't under the purview of the official campaign, though.

Thanks for helping the east end of our state, dt.

[Mc Mike]

62. Non partisan EP still hasn't contacted me, for volunteer training.

No doubt that's a sign that there's absolutely nothing to worry about, re the Stone Roman dRumpf axis, on my end of the state.

[Mc Mike]

63. Will you read this in the PA section, give any correction you think necessary, dtte?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10748364

[democrattotheend]

64. Sorry, I'm not admitted to practice law in PA

I am going to do voter protection there with training from the campaign but I am not comfortable giving legal advice on an internet forum, especially for a state I am not admitted in.

[underpants]

28. Just heard in radio. WOW. State chair was fired two days ago

His path just became a deer truck.

[apnu]

31. The Trump campaign's ground game is so small they can fit everything in the back seat.

He has no ground game anywhere, this should be a short pack for them.

[BumRushDaShow]

35. Remember his BFF Ghouliani ran a 1-state ground game himself

- Florida - and lost.

[apnu]

36. Ah yes. Good times. Good times indeed. (NT)

[Portland_Anni]

33. Another great indication this wanker is history

[Good news indeed.

[Major Nikon]

46. Trump's strategy virtually insures he will lose

Going by current polling, Trump is at least 3 points behind in all 4 of those states. So if by some miracle he manages to win all four of those he still loses the election because he still doesn't make it to 270.

Here's what this latest announcement tells me. Trump is out of money with almost a month to go and I'm sure even more reductions are coming. Furthermore his campaign isn't out of money because it didn't raise enough money, but rather because all that cash Trump said he put into his campaign never existed. He's been making money by overbilling his own campaign for goods and services that he's providing with his failing businesses. His entire objective was never anything more than a scam to make him money and to promote his "brand". So just like all those duped by "Trump University", along with anyone who's ever invested in him or stiffed by him, Trump has managed to scam a significant portion of the entire US population.

If nothing else, Trump will be famous for being the most accomplished scam artist in history.

[BlueStreak]

52. Probably true that this has been a scam like his foundation

And note that Pence had to cancel 2 fundraiser appearances this week because there weren't even enough potential donors to cover the cost of Pence's charter flights.

And there are rumors that earlier donors are asking for their money back. As usual I suspect the MSM has those reports wrong. What is far more likely is that there are donors that had PROMISED a certain amount of money who are now refusing to pay what they pledged. Either way, it is as you say. The campaign is running out of money and Trump isn't going to make up the difference.

Trump is a fraud. His whole career has been a matter of using other people's money (often his father's) and bouncing from one bankruptcy to the next. His actual net worth is nothing like what he claims and may actually be negative. That all depends on the value of the various real estate properties. If he had to liquidate everything in the next 6 months, it is almost certain he would be personally bankrupt. He doesn't, so maybe he will be able to sell some of those properties at a nice profit. Either way, he does not have "billions of dollars" he can put into this failing campaign, and he simply won't do that.

[Lord Magus]

48. I love how Pennsylvania where Hillary leads by 9 is a "battleground"

I really hope Republicans continue to delude themselves into believing PA's a swing state.

[Joe941]

53. This is why she picked Kaine.

[bluestateguy]

55. I wish Fred Trump had pulled out 71 years ago.

nt

[Maru Kitteh]

56. Well, you know what he told Howard Stern; "Virginia is expensive"

Congratulations to the great state of Virginia.

[TexasBushwhacker]

57. He's toast and he knows it.

I bet he's going to cut cost and take all the campaign money for his own personal use.