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Morning Must Reads for Thursday, October 13, 2016

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Good Thursday morning from Salt Lake City. Today is the 287th day of the year. There are 79 days left in 2016.

Mike Lee and Misty Snow debate. Multiple women come forward to accuse Donald Trump of unwanted sexual advances. Trump’s polling numbers are in a tailspin.

The clock:

  • Four days to the 1st Congressional District debate at Weber State University (10/17/2016)
  • Six days to the 3rd Congressional District debate at Utah Valley University (10/19/2016)
  • Six days to the third presidential debate at UNLV (10/19/2016)
  • 19 days to register to vote online in Utah (11/1/2016)
  • 26 days until the 2016 presidential election – (11/8/2016)
  • 102 days until the first day of the 2017 Utah Legislature – (1/23/2017)
  • 147 days until the final day of the 2017 Utah Legislature – (3/9/2017)

Ten talking points for Thursday:

  1. Mike Lee and Misty Snow hold a mostly friendly debate for U.S. Senate [Utah Policy, Deseret News, Tribune].
  2. Doug Owens shifts his campaign advertising spending to better target voters who plan to use mail-in ballots [Utah Policy].
  3. Multiple women come forward and accuse Donald Trump of inappropriately touching them. Two women detail stories about Trump groping them on an airplane or forcing himself on them at Trump Tower [New York Times]. A woman who worked at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort alleges Trump groped her at a concert 13 years ago [Palm Beach Post]. A group of Miss Teen USA participants says Trump walked into a dressing room unannounced while they were changing [Buzzfeed]. A reporter for People magazine claims Trump forced himself on her during an interview at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida [Politico].
  4. The lurid tape of Donald Trump bragging about groping women has sent his poll numbers into a tailspin [Politico]. Most of Trump’s polling troubles are driven by women and independent voters who are abandoning the GOP candidate en masse [The Hill].
  5. Curioser and curioser. A leaked email shows then DNC vice-chair Donna Brazile may have had the exact wording of a question prior to a CNN town hall featuring Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders [Politico].
  6. Google searches for “write-in” jumped more than 2,800% over the last week. But, most of the searches are not coming from battleground states, but solidly Republican and Democratic strongholds [CNN].
  7. Sen. Mike Lee is canceling a number of Utah campaign events to instead hit the road to support vulnerable GOP Senators in other states [Tribune].
  8. Donna Weinholtz, the wife of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Weinholtz, will face misdemeanor drug charges from a local prosecutor after federal investigators declined to press charges against her for using medical marijuana [Deseret News, Tribune].
  9. The LDS Church wants President Barack Obama to reject a report on religious liberties [Tribune].
  10. Enrollment is rising at most of Utah’s public colleges. Utah Valley University is still the largest university in Utah in terms of enrollment [Deseret News, Tribune].

On this day in history:

  • 1775 – The Continental Congress ordered the construction of a naval fleet.
  • 1792 – The cornerstone to the White House in Washington was laid. (It would be November 1800 before the first presidential family — that of John Adams — moved in.)
  • 1960 – Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy participated in the third televised debate of the presidential campaign, with Nixon in Hollywood, Calif., and Kennedy in New York.