Subject: Q&A May 11, 2016
From: "Banfill, Ryan" <[email-masked]>
To: "Paustenbach, Mark" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 07:42:23 -0700

Q&A

Are you concerned that exit<https://twitter.com/Mosheh/status/730144564149948417#_blank> polls today showed that 44% of West Virginia Sanders voters said that they would vote for Trump in November?

*         It's not our job to analyze our primary candidates and their campaigns. They can speak for themselves, and both have done a great job to date in reaching out to voters.

*         But we also have to make sure the voters in West Virginia understand what Donald Trump is promising, and it's to drag us back to where we were in 2008 with an economic policy that only focuses on tax cuts for those at the very top. Well as the last Republican left office our economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month, and countless Americans were losing their homes and savings. We have to make sure voters hear that.

*         We think we'll be able to do that heading into November.

Follow up: Does that mean you think you can win West Virginia even while seeing so much opposition to the positions Democrats have staked out?

*         West Virginia has voted Republican in the last four elections, but they still need to hear what's at stake.

*         This week we're seeing Donald Trump argue about which one of them can more quickly destroy our economy with variations on the same failed George W. Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy. We have to remind voters how our economy was doing in 2009 when that was the case, and it was 800,000 jobs lost, countless Americans losing their homes and savings.

Exit polls also showed two-thirds of West Virginia voters say they're very worried about the direction of the nation's economy in the next few years. Do you think it will be harder for Democrats if that is the case?

*         They should be worried about the economy, because if Trump gets into the White House, the GOP is going to drag us right back to where we were in 2008, when the last Republican Administration prioritized tax cuts for those at the very top, we can't go back to those days when we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. The economy is certainly what's at stake in this election, and it's clear Republicans would wipe out the progress we've made with the hard work of the American people under Democratic leadership.

*         Just last week we found out we're now at 74 straight months of private sector job growth, more than 14 million new jobs - including nearly a million in manufacturing --- and that could all be wiped out if we elect a Republican who drags us right back to where we were 7 years ago.

This wasn't a good day for the Democratic Party. Only a quarter of Democratic primary voters in West Virginia want the next president to continue Obama's policies, a strong group for Clinton to date; that's down from 54 percent on average in previous contests this year. Do you attribute that to overregulation on coal and Clinton's comments about putting coal miners out of work?

*         What we have to do is remind the American people of how far we've come.

*        We have to make sure the voters in West Virginia and across the country understand what Donald Trump is promising, and it's to drag us back to where we were in 2008. Remember that Republicans had done then what they want to do now, focus economic policy on tax cuts for those at the very top. Well as the last Republican left office our economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month, and countless Americans were losing their homes and savings.

*         Just last week we found out we're now at 74 straight months of private sector job growth, more than 14 million new jobs - including nearly a million in manufacturing --- and that could all be wiped out if we elect a Republican.

And are you concerned that a third of Democratic voters in preliminary exit poll results say that, given a Clinton-Trump or Sanders-Trump race, they'd vote for Trump? That's a third of your voters choosing Donald Trump.

*         West Virginia has voted Republican for the last four presidential elections, so we understand the electoral dynamics there. But we're looking at the national trends, and what we've seen over the past several weeks is that exit poll after exit poll has shown in state after state that majorities of Democratic voters would support either of our candidates and as much as three fourths are excited about our primary.

*         We're seeing a lot of chaos in the Republican Party right now, with their party's senior leaders and vulnerable candidates trying to avoid their convention. That's unprecedented chaos, and it's a reminder that we as Democrats are in a much stronger position. But we're not going to take anything for granted, we're going to hold Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot every single day from now till November.