Good Friday morning from Salt Lake City. Today is the 85th day of the year. There are 281 days left in 2016.
Hillary Clinton would deliver an epic beatdown of Donald Trump in November. Utah Republicans circle the wagons around Mia Love. Utah gubernatorial candidates hold a quasi-debate.
The clock:
- Five days to the last day the governor may sign or veto bills (3/30/2016)
- 29 days to the Utah Republican and Democratic State Conventions (4/23/2016)
- 45 days to the last day a veto override session may begin (5/9/2016)
- 95 days to the 2016 Utah primary election – (6/28/2016)
- 115 days to the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland (7/18/2016)
- 122 days to the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia (7/25/2016)
- 228 days until the 2016 presidential election – (11/8/2016)
- 304 days until the first day of the 2017 Utah Legislature – (1/23/2017)
- 349 days until the final day of the 2017 Utah Legislature – (3/9/2017)
Ten talking points for Friday:
- Oh, man! Polling guru Nate Silver says Hillary Clinton would subject Donald Trump to a hellacious whipping in November, no matter what Trump claims [Five Thirty Eight]. Polling tends to back that up [Washington Post].
- The Utah GOP is launching a plan to insulate Rep. Mia Love from voter backlash if Trump turns out to be the Republican nominee [Politico].
- Real mature guys. After Trump and Ted Cruz get into a Twitter spat, Cruz warns Trump to leave his wife “the hell alone” [New York Times, USA Today].
- The four top candidates for Utah governor share a stage for the first time in the 2016 campaign season [Utah Policy, Tribune, Deseret News].
- Gov. Gary Herbert says the U.S. should come up with a better way to pick presidential candidates instead of the mishmash of primaries and caucuses [Tribune]. Herbert also says he would prefer that Utah return to a presidential primary instead of this week’s caucuses [Deseret News].
- None of Utah’s Congressional delegation explicitly say they would not support Trump if he were to be the GOP nominee [Tribune].
- Dome Utah Donald Trump supporters refuse to accept the fact that he got thumped in the state’s Republican caucuses on Tuesday [2 News].
- Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Mia Love say the balance between the three branches of government is out of whack, and they want to fix it [Deseret News, Tribune].
- A new poll shows Utahns have faith their drinking water supply is safe, while most would not oppose greater federal testing of Utah’s potable water [Utah Policy].
- Look at the mess left behind by those armed protesters who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon [Guardian].
On this day in history:
- 1807 – English Parliament abolished the slave trade.
- 1911 – A fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City killed 146 people. The tragedy led to the eventual enactment of many state and national workplace safety laws.
- 1965 – Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25.000 marchers to the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks.
- 1994 – U.S. forces completed a withdrawal from Mogadishu, Somalia, except for a small number of soldiers left behind to provide support for U.N. peacekeepers.
- 1996 – An 81-day standoff by the antigovernment Freemen began at a ranch near Jordan, Montana.
