Newsletter: Essential Politics: When a Trump hotel is fodder for the campaign trail

It was another day on the campaign trail — and at a luxury hotel.

I’m Christina Bellantoni. Welcome to Essential Politics.

As Donald Trump’s new hotel in Washington, D.C., celebrated its grand opening, the Republican nominee took a bit of a pause from traditional politicking.

Trump was criticized by some for taking time off the campaign trail, and he responded by blasting rival Hillary Clinton for attending an Adele concert the previous night.

Seema Mehta reports that Trump also highlighted his many happy Latino employees when asked why Latinos should feel safe voting for him.

We examined the art of the brand as Trump mixed business and politics.

While Trump was touting his new hotel, Clinton was looking for ways to rain on his parade. On her flight from Florida to New York on Wednesday evening, she told reporters she was struck that Trump “is actually paying more attention to his business than to the campaign,” Chris Megerian reports.

Earlier in the day she pointed to a report the hotel project was completed with the help of undocumented workers. And she invited José Andrés, the Spanish American celebrity chef who decided against opening a restaurant in Trump’s hotel, to introduce her at an event in Tampa.

Meanwhile, Trump’s running mate warned that a vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for Clinton. Mike Pence made the remarks while campaigning in Utah, which is traditionally a Republican stronghold but is in play this year thanks in part to independent candidate Evan McMullin.

And Sen. Tim Kaine, Clinton’s running mate, tried to court Utah’s Mormon voters by writing about his time as a missionary.

CLINTON SAYS TRUMP IS ANTI-DEMOCRACY

In a blistering attack unleashed over the course of two days in Florida, Clinton said Trump was nothing less than a threat to American democracy itself. She repeatedly mentioned Trump’s refusal to unreservedly accept the results of the election, and said his rhetoric risked harming a political system that has been envied around the world.

THE LATEST FROM WIKILEAKS

A close aide to Bill Clinton said he arranged for $50 million in payments for the former president, part of a complicated mingling of lucrative business deals and charity work of the Clinton Foundation mapped out in a memo released by WikiLeaks on Wednesday.

The report was written by Doug Band, who has transitioned from his job as a Clinton aide to a partner in Teneo Consulting, a firm whose client roster now includes some of the biggest companies in the world. Along the way, Band wrote, he also pushed his clients and contacts to donate millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation, and to help win business deals for Bill Clinton.

Band wrote the memo in November 2011 to John Podesta, now chairman of the Hillary Clinton campaign, and sent copies to other key Clinton aides, apparently to explain and justify his work in the face of criticism from others in the Clinton orbit — notably Chelsea Clinton.

ANOTHER GLASS CEILING?

Clinton has sometimes talked about breaking the ultimate glass ceiling by becoming the first female president. On election night, she’ll be hosting a party at the Javits Center in Manhattan, underneath a literal glass ceiling.

Get the latest from the campaign trail on Trail Guide and follow @latimespolitics. Check our daily USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times tracking poll at the top of the politics page.

IT’S THE GOVERNOR VS. PROSECUTORS IN PROP. 57

Of the 17 propositions on California’s Nov. 8 ballot, few could have a greater effect than Proposition 57, a sweeping overhaul of prison parole rules championed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

It’s a battle over the fairness of prison sentences for those convicted of all but the state’s most violent crimes, one pitting Brown against many of California’s elected district attorneys. As John Myers reports, both sides are painting the choice for voters in stark terms — one of safety versus second chances.

Don’t miss The Times’ ballot box guide to California’s 17 propositions and track the latest on the propositions and California politics on our Essential Politics news feed.

HARRIS WITH A STRONG LEAD

Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris’ lead in California’s U.S. Senate race took a sizable jump, according to a new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California. Phil Willon reports that the survey showed 42% of likely voters supported Harris, compared to 20% who favored Rep. Loretta Sanchez. A PPIC poll just a month ago showed Harris led by only seven percentage points.

And voters favor Proposition 64 to legalize recreational marijuana.

CHARLES MUNGER JR.’S BIG BET

Republican mega-donor Charles Munger. Jr. has poured $1.4 million into a single Assembly race between Democrat Al Muratsuchi and Assemblyman David Hadley (R-Manhattan Beach). Nearly all of that — $1.1 million in the last two weeks — has been spent on a negative mailer and TV ad campaign against Muratsuchi.

One TV ad titled “Crumbles” features a cockroach crawling on a stack of cookies, evoking images from the Miramonte teacher sex abuse scandal that rocked LAUSD. The ads accuse Muratsuchi of supporting a bill that detractors said didn’t go far enough in speeding up teacher dismissal cases. Munger’s spending has surpassed the $1.1 million he spent in 2014 to oppose Muratsuchi and help elect Hadley, and is more than he’s spending in all other races combined this cycle.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT ALLEGATIONS CLOUD ASSEMBLY RACE

With just two weeks to go before election day, one GOP Assembly candidate in the Santa Clarita Valley is facing allegations of sexual harassment that could touch two other races on the ballot there.

Christine Mai-Duc and Javier Panzar report that the controversy began Tuesday, when a local blog published a partially redacted private email sent by Jennifer Van Laar, a local Republican political consultant, to Vanessa Wilk, a legislative staff member and wife to Assemblyman Scott Wilk (R-Santa Clarita). In the email, Van Laar accused Republican candidate Dante Acosta of “propositioning” her at a meeting in Washington, D.C., and of continuing to send her “inappropriate” text messages after she rebuffed him. Both Scott Wilk, whose seat Acosta is seeking, and Rep. Steve Knight (R-Lancaster) were copied on the email.

Democratic candidates in all three races wasted no time seizing on the issue, with Democrat Christy Smith calling the accusations against her opponent “shocking, horrifying and utterly disqualifying.” A statement from Acosta’s campaign said his accuser had encouraged Acosta to run for office and “aggressively pursued him as a client,” and that the accusations were retaliation for his decision not to hire her.

REMEMBERING TOM HAYDEN

Tom Hayden was a public policy junkie who was passionate about fighting for liberal causes. As an activist, he protested Southern segregation. Later, in the California Legislature, he was an early voice in the fight against climate change. What set Hayden apart from other political minds was his willingness to jump in and be a part of the process rather than comment from the sidelines, George Skelton writes in a column about the former legislator, who died this week at 76.

WHAT’S IN YOUR MAILBOX?

Have you received a barrage of campaign mailers this election season? Are you bombarded with information about local races and propositions? We want to hear from you.

Send images of campaign mailers and door-hangers, mp3 recordings of robo calls or links to web ads to politics@latimes.com. Include your name, city, state and age, and tell us about the material you’re sharing. Your submissions may be featured on our site.

TODAY’S ESSENTIALS

— Alex De Leon, a 30-year-old immigrant from Guatemala, was among more than 400 people who became U.S. citizens at a ceremony in Sacramento on Wednesday. After the program concluded, he walked outside and filled out his voter registration papers. The voter registration deadline for most Californians was Monday. But an obscure state law allows people like De Leon who became citizens after the deadline to register late.

— California’s congressional delegation held a call with Department of Defense officials Wednesday about how the department plans to fix the National Guard bonus repayment program, and some were still skeptical of the plan afterward. They will decide on whether to file legislation to forgive at least some of the erroneously paid bonuses after meeting with the department again in mid-November when Congress returns to Washington.

— With an additional $3.5-million donation this week, billionaire Tom Steyer has become the largest contributor to passing Proposition 56, the $2-per-pack cigarette tax increase. Steyer’s $11.3 million in favor of Proposition 56 is more than the entire campaign to increase tobacco taxes raised four years ago in a losing effort.

— We’re tracking voting irregularities as things tick closer to the big day.

— If Clinton secures a historic victory in the presidential race, Marlon Marshall can be credited with implementing the plan that got her there. Mike Memoli profiles the 37-year-old Obama alumnus who oversees the largest division of her campaign and interacts with just about every other aspect of it, noting that a common refrain is to say he’s in charge of everything from the “grass roots to the grass tops.”

— Some of Trump’s supporters in Israel gathered on a restaurant rooftop overlooking the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday and heard a brief message from the Republican nominee. The event was organized by the Israel chapter of Republicans Overseas, which has spent the last two months touting its campaign to register American expatriates in Israel and in the Jewish settlements of the West Bank. Joshua Mitnick was there.

— A man dressed as a construction worker smashed Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star using a sledgehammer and pickax. It will cost $2,500 to fix.

— Clinton promised to fix problems with Obamacare that led to average rate hikes of 25% next year for mid-level health plans before subsidies. But a quick fix, or any fix, seems unlikely given that it would probably require congressional action, Noah Bierman reports.

— Clinton is not saying much on the AT&T-Time Warner deal.

— Clinton is on track to win the millennial vote.

— Who will win the November election? Give our Electoral College map a spin.

— Learn more about the propositions on the ballot at the SeePolitical BallotCon event at the end of the month. It’s free. Sign up here.

LOGISTICS

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