The Note: Skidding Toward Election Day

Having trouble viewing this email? Click here.

October 28, 2016

MORE POLITICS >

Skidding Toward Election Day

Pence 'Really Grateful' After Plane Scare

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said he is "really grateful" for quick action that kept all passengers and crew safe when his campaign plane skidded off the runway at New York's LaGuardia Airport last night, ABC's KATIE KINDELAN notes. "Thank God everybody was fine," Pence, Donald Trump's running mate on the Republican presidential ticket, said today on "Good Morning America." "I'm just really grateful, really grateful for some quick action," he said. "Not only by the pilots but also by first responders who were literally, it seemed like they were on the scene at LaGuardia before the plane even came to a halt." http://abcn.ws/2e3TPcz

Backstory:

According to the FAA, there were no injuries among the 37 people on board the Boeing 737. The charter aircraft's slide off the runway at around 7:40 p.m. prompted a temporary closure of the entire airport. "We just immediately felt heavy braking on the runway and the plane fishtailed a little bit," Pence said of the accident. "Just for a few seconds you could feel us bouncing off and with mud splattered up on the windows we figured we were off the runway." Pence, a father of two, said the accident reminded him of advice from his son, Michael. "My son is a Marine Corps aviator, and Michael always tells us, 'Every landing you walk away from is a good one,'" Pence said. http://abcn.ws/2e3TPcz

What Trump Said:

At a rally in Ohio last night, Trump told supporters, "I just spoke to our future vice president and he's OK. He was in a big accident with a plane. The plane skidded off the runway and was pretty close to grave, grave danger...He's fine, he got out, everybody's fine, everybody's fine." More from ABC's DAVID CAPLAN: http://abcn.ws/2dQNRIK

Analysis - ABC's Rick Klein

Is the Clinton campaign letting the conversation get away from itself – just a bit? Hillary Clinton hit an Adele concert and Tim Kaine went to the World Series this week. The election-night venue has been chosen – giant glass ceiling and all. Someone is floating, via Politico, the possibility that Joe Biden would serve as Clinton's secretary of state. Meanwhile, the ABC News tracking poll has Clinton's lead down to four; it was 12 over the weekend. That, plus narrowing state polls, may actually be the best kind of news for Clinton a week and a half out. Complacency is a campaign's enemy now, and signals from the top aren't necessarily helping.

This Week on 'This Week'

With less than two weeks left until Election Day, the Powerhouse Roundtable debates the week in politics, with Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, ABC News Chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl, ABC News contributor and Republican strategist Ana Navarro, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and American Conservative Union chair Matt Schlapp.