Hasta La Gadget!

Arizona and Florida are voting in congressional and state races. National polls show Clinton’s lead over Trump shrinking a bit. And Hispanic voters aren’t necessarily a unified bloc. This is HuffPollster for Tuesday, August 30, 2016.

IT’S PRIMARY DAY IN ARIZONA – AP: “Sen. John McCain is seeking a sixth term, and his main challenger in the Republican primary is former state Sen. Kelli Ward. McCain is hoping to pull out a large primary victory so he can focus on a general election challenge from Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick….McCain has been running a strong campaign, drawing support from business and community leaders and retired military officers. A recent CNN poll showed McCain with a wide lead over Ward among likely Republican primary voters….All nine U.S. House races are on the ballot, but the top challenges are happening in the 1st, 2nd and 5th districts. The GOP currently holds five seats.” [Yahoo]

And in Florida – More from AP: “Marco Rubio’s last minute decision to run for re-election almost, but not quite, cleared the field in what was a crowded Republican primary to replace him. Rubio said while running for president that he wouldn’t seek a second Senate term…. Then he changed his mind, causing Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez Cantera, U.S. Reps. Ron DeSantis and David Jolly and businessman Todd Wilcox to drop out of the race. But homebuilder Carlos Beruff stayed in and has spent about $8 million dollars of his own money on his first run for office….U.S. Reps. Patrick Murphy and Alan Grayson are the two leading candidates to take on Rubio and have led strikingly different campaigns….Murphy has excelled at fundraising and is backed by President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Grayson has a reputation for being a fiery, outspoken liberal who isn’t afraid to break beyond political norms.” [AP]

Polls give Rubio and Murphy solid leads – HuffPost Pollster’s average gives Rubio a nearly 45-point lead over Beruff, 63 percent to 18 percent. All of the six surveys of the race including Rubio, show the senator polling well above 50 percent. The Pollster average gives Murphy a less overwhelming, but still substantial, 26-point margin over Grayson in the Democratic primary, 42 percent to 16 percent.  [GOP primary chart, Democratic primary chart]

NATIONAL POLLS FIND NARROWING CLINTON LEAD, RECORD DISLIKE FOR NOMINEES – Monmouth University: “Hillary Clinton holds a 7 point lead over Donald Trump among voters likely to cast ballots in November, which is down from a double digit lead earlier this month.  The latest Monmouth University Poll  also found that the number of voters who do not have a positive opinion of either major party nominee is considerably higher than any other election in recent memory….[O]nly 2% have a favorable opinion of both candidates, while 35% do not have a favorable opinion of either nominee. Putting this in historical context, the number of voters in elections going back to 1984 who had a favorable opinion of both candidates was never lower than 5% – in fact registering as high as 19% in 2000.  Conversely, the number of voters who did not have a favorable opinion of either nominee never rose higher than 9%, which is a fraction of what is being seen in the current election.” [Monmouth]

Independent voters may have shifted – Hannah Hartig, John Lapinski and Stephanie Psyllos: “Hillary Clinton’s national lead over Donald Trump has narrowed slightly to 6 points, according to the latest NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll Clinton now enjoys 48 percent support, while Trump holds steady with 42 percent. Last week, Clinton led Trump by 8 points….Given the highly partisan nature of voting, it’s clear there are not that many voters who are persuadable. Since both parties’ conventions last month, a roughly equal number of Republicans and Republican-leaners support Trump and an equal number of self-identified Democrats and Democratic-leaners support Clinton….The one group that is open to changing their minds are registered Independents who do not lean toward either party. Trump has made inroads with this group. Two weeks ago, Clinton led Trump by 12 points among this key group of persuadable voters — 40 percent to 32 percent. This week, that lead is down to just 4 points — 37 percent to 33 percent.” [NBC]

Clinton retains an average 7-point lead – HuffPost Pollster’s model gives Clinton 47 percent to Trump’s 40 percent, marking a slight downtick from her 8-point edge after the conventions.

REPUBLICANS HAVE BUYERS’ REMORSE – HuffPollster: “Seventeen candidates ran for the Republican presidential nomination this year. A majority of GOP voters now say that they wish they’d picked one of the 16 who weren’t Donald Trump, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov survey…Republican and Republican-leaning voters say by a 19-point margin, 54 percent to 35 percent, that Donald Trump wasn’t the best option in this year’s pool of candidates. In a June HuffPost/YouGov poll, those voters were evenly split, with 44 percent saying Trump was the best choice and another 44 percent that the party could have done better. Meanwhile, a majority of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters are still satisfied with their nominee. Fifty-three percent say Clinton was their party’s best option, with 37 percent saying she was not. In June, the split was 56 percent to 32 percent.” [HuffPost]

THERE’S A BIG DIVIDE AMONG HISPANIC VOTERS – Aaron Blake: “A Gallup poll shows…a significant split in the Hispanic community between Hispanic immigrants and U.S.-born Hispanics. If you focus just on Hispanics born outside the United States, 87 percent have a favorable view of Clinton, while just 13 percent have a favorable view of Trump. If you focus just on Hispanics born in the United States, though, it is much, much closer. Clinton’s favorable rating drops to 43 percent, while Trump’s jumps to 29 percent….The Pew Research Center last month broke this down in a slightly different — but equally telling — way. It compared Clinton’s lead on Trump among Hispanics who are English-dominant with those who aren’t. While bilingual and Spanish speakers preferred Clinton in a head-to-head matchup by a massive 80 percent to 11 percent margin, English-dominant Hispanics were actually relatively evenly split, with 48 percent picking Clinton and 41 percent picking Trump….It should be noted here that polling the Hispanic population is still a work in progress — in large part because of language and other barriers that often exist. And a February Washington Post-Univision poll showed U.S.-born and English-first Hispanics at the time were much friendlier to Clinton than the new Gallup and Pew data indicate.”  [WashPost]

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TUESDAY’S ‘OUTLIERS’ – Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:

-Stuart Rothenberg explains that Donald Trump can’t make blue states competitive. [WashPost]

-Sasha Issenberg thinks Trump’s lack of a campaign operation is a big problem. [Slate]

-A survey experiment shows that changing views on immigration might not help Trump. [WashPost]

-Steven Shepard discusses the importance of undecided voters. [Politico]  

-Harry Enten notes that Gary Johnson and Jill Stein voters are up for grabs in downballot races. [538]

-Gallup tracks the decrease in uninsured Americans since 2008. [Gallup]

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The bedrock of a Democracy is free speech and a open, independent, free press. The media’s fundamental role in a free society is to (a) report, analyze and investigate the news in a timely, factual and objective manner; (b) hold government leaders accountable to its citizens; (c) educate and inform relating to key issues and news; and (d) connect citizens with each other. In doing so, it is supposed to have unfettered access to those people and situations on which it reports.

But Donald Trump, his campaign officials and surrogates appear to have a different definition of the media’s role not just in a Democracy like America, but within his very campaign. To Team Trump, the media is an extension of the campaign itself, much in the same way that publicists and surrogates function.

To understand Trump’s relationship with the media is to start with his basic disdain for journalists. He sees them as the enemy. He neither understands their role in American society or appreciates the critical fact that without them we’d live in a fascist dictatorship (though the latter appears increasingly more attractive to him). With his incredibly thin-skin, Trump views challenges from the media as “vicious” criticism. An attack. A “ganging up” on him for which he responds, as a self-described “counter-puncher,” with often ruthless, incendiary return-fire, public insults and/or, as in the case of the Washington Post, a ban from campaign events and rallies.

As a self-consumed, self-aggrandizing narcissist, Trump believes everyone else in the world exists to serve him. Even as he runs for president of the Unites States, Trump fails to understand and accept journalists’ role, especially on the campaign trail. The press is viewed as an extension of his promotion, marketing and PR team. Rather than respect the media’s watchdog role, Trump genuinely expects them to reinforce and help spread his message, and gets deeply shocked and offended when they don’t. And when they don’t they’re mocked, ridiculed, called “disgusting” and accused of “rigging” the system.

When Trump makes ignorant, inflammatory, sexist, racist and ill-advised comments, he gets mad at the press for covering it as news. And when his unconscionable behavior impacts his campaign–miring it in controversy and sagging polls, for example–he then blames the media for his misfortunes. He’s living the old Tina Fey parody of Sarah Palin: “I hope the lamestream media won’t twist my words by repeatin’ ’em verbatim!”

It’s an incredibly dangerous state of being when a candidate for the highest office in the freest nation on the planet loathes and impedes its free press because of personal animus. This Constitutionally-bankrupt behavior on Trump’s part should be an automatic disqualifier in the race. But bankruptcy seems to be a calling-card in this unprecedentedly bizarre election.

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For 44 years, Sonia Manzano lived where the sun always shines and the air is sweet. The Emmy award-winning writer and actress, known to children everywhere as Maria from “Sesame Street,” retired from the show in 2015. Here, she tells “Oprah: Where Are They Now?” how she helped give Latinos a voice on the beloved children’s show.

When Manzano was growing up in the South Bronx in the mid-’50s, she says she didn’t see anyone on TV who looked like her or lived in an urban Puerto Rican neighborhood like hers.

“The first time I saw ‘Sesame Street,’ it must have been about 1969, and there on the screen was a very young, very bald James Earl Jones reciting the alphabet in a very deliberate manner,” Manzano recalls. “Then, when they cut to the street, this beautiful inner-city street with this beautiful African-American couple in Susan and Gordon, talking to me from a neighborhood that looked very much like the idealized urban neighborhoods that I had grown up in, I was flabbergasted. I was thrilled.”

The show’s first target audience, Manzano says, was African-American children. It wasn’t long before the show expanded. “Everybody had a platform in the ’60s, and all of these Latino activists on the West Coast got together and said to ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘We think you should have role models for the underserved Latino child,’” Manzano says. “And, therefore, I got cast as Maria and Emilio Delgado got cast as Luis, my husband.”

Later, Manzano took on a much larger role in the production. “So, I was on the show for eight years, and I wanted to contribute more, and I had opinions about the Latino content,” she says. “And I would say, ‘I think you should do this. Why are we only doing this?’”

The show’s producer told Manzano that she should take a stab at writing. “You know, ‘Put your money where your mouth is, Sonia. You don’t like it, do something about it,’” she says.

And that’s exactly what she did. Mazano went on to write many scripts for “Sesame Street,” including the story line for Maria’s marriage and the birth of her baby, played by Manzano’s real-life daughter Gabriela.

“Oprah: Where Are They Now?” airs Saturdays at 10 p.m. ET on OWN.

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You know this recipe is going to be good—it has the word “picnic” in its name, conveying something breezy and fun, transportable and finger-licking good. A look at the ingredient list confirms this: There are six cloves of garlic (never a bad thing) and a knob of fresh ginger (intriguing!). It calls for a mix of thighs and drumsticks, so you can be sure the meat will taste moist and flavorful. But the thing that’ll really hook you on this easy-as-1-2-3 dinner? It calls for a handful of chilies—either red jalapeños (which are green jalapeños that have been left on the vine longer to ripen) or the similar-tasting Fresnos—which have a fruity, smoky flavor that makes this meal a summer classic. If you can’t find these, you can use the ubiquitous green jalapeños instead.

As for the process itself, this dinner is really just three simple steps. You puree the peppers, garlic, lemon juice, vinegar, ginger, salt and olive oil in a blender until they emulsify into a smooth and spicy sauce. With a sharp knife, you cut a few slashes through the skin of the chicken pieces and rub half the sauce over it. Let the meat marinate in the fridge anywhere from two hours to a day. Lastly, you roast the chicken on a wire rack set over a baking sheet for 45 minutes. The drumsticks and thighs turn golden and the fat drips onto the pan, so the meat is nice and crisp. As for the rest of the sauce? You can brush it over the finished meat, or serve it on the side to add more kick.

The tangy, spicy chicken is a winner whether you serve it hot or at room temperature, and you can gobble it up cold for lunch the next day. We love a hot dog or hamburger as much as anyone could, but for a no-grill, take-it-anywhere, goes-with-anything chicken, this dish has our vote.

Get the recipe: Spiced Picnic Chicken

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Tony Robbins is a positive person ― indisputably so. As a life coach, the “I Am Not Your Guru” star has spent decades empowering people to live the lives they want, and he always seems to do it with a smile. Robbins’ seemingly boundless positivity has prompted many to ask him a pointed question: How does he stay so “up” all the time?

As Robbins tells Oprah during an interview on “SuperSoul Sunday,” the key to maintaining his positivity begins with a 10-minute ritual that he does each morning. Once Robbins “changes” his body with a radical breathing pattern, he feels ready for the ritual and starts with a focus on gratitude.

“[I do] three and a half minutes of pure gratitude about three things,” Robbins says. “I pick one of those three to be simple… the wind on my face, my children’s faces, anything.”

The reason he starts with gratitude, Robbins explains, is because of its ability to overpower the dangerous emotions that can sidetrack us.

“The two emotions that mess us up the most are fear and anger, and you can’t be grateful and fearful simultaneously. They don’t go together,” Robbins says. “And you can’t be angry and grateful simultaneously.”

After spending a few minutes on gratitude, Robbins then shifts his focus to envisioning three larger successes he’d like to see six to 12 months down the line. 

“I do three minutes of my ‘Three to Thrive’ ― what are three outcomes or results I’m really committed to?” he poses. “I see them as done and fulfilled … When I feel it’s fulfilled and done, I give thanks for it.”

With that, Robbins says he is primed to have a positive day.

“At the end of those 10 minutes ― and usually it’s 15 or 18 for me ― I am so wired,” he says. “I’ve done that for years.”

“SuperSoul Sunday” airs Sundays at 11 a.m. ET on OWN. You can also watch full episodes online for a limited time through SuperSoul.tv.

Another Tony Robbins tactic:

A simple exercise that can help you make peace with something that’s upsetting you 

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