July 31, 2020

THE LINCOLN PROJECT campaign ad: "We Will Vote"

July 31, 2020

THE LINCOLN PROJECT "Statement on Racism"

July 31, 2020

BREAKING: Pennsylvania will pay for postage on absentee ballots

https://twitter.com/timelywriter/status/1289260161513619457

Governor Tom Wolf. AG Josh Shapiro. Why I ignore the "Pennsylvania will ignore the voters and award EVs to Trump" hand-wringing.

July 31, 2020

Lobbying Intensifies Among V.P. Candidates as Biden's Search Nears an End

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — Joseph R. Biden Jr. has entered the final stage of his deliberations about choosing a running mate as he prepares to talk one-on-one with the finalists next week, while Democratic leaders lobby him furiously to elevate their allies and sink their enemies.

Mr. Biden’s campaign has conducted extensive polling and focus groups with voters on a collection of candidates and weighed an array of factors, such as the impact of the pick in battleground states, and whether to choose a Black woman. Aides say the announcement will come the week before the Democratic convention in August.

Two candidates who received scant attention early in the process are now among the leading contenders: Representative Karen Bass of California and Susan E. Rice, the former national security adviser, according to Democratic officials briefed on the selection process. Ms. Bass in particular has moved rapidly toward the top of Mr. Biden’s list amid an intensive lobbying drive by her fellow House Democrats, including prominent members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Mr. Biden is said to be focused on finding a running mate he regards as capable of advancing his priorities in governing and who can be counted on not to stray from the urgent challenges facing the nation to pursue their own political priorities, according to people familiar with his thinking. His advisers would also prefer a running mate who would not present a rich political target for President Trump, given that the incumbent is lagging badly in the polls and has so far struggled to deliver credible negative attacks against Mr. Biden.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/us/politics/joseph-biden-vice-president.html

July 31, 2020

Hong Kong asks China's top legislative body to resolve legal problems with postponing elections

Source: South China Morning Post

Hong Kong’s embattled leader has invoked emergency powers to postpone the Legislative Council elections scheduled for September by one year, citing health risks from the resurgent Covid-19 crisis.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced the controversial move on Friday, revealing that China’s top legislative body would step in to rule on resolving any legal issues stemming from uncertainties over the fate of the current legislature and the year-long gap without a new election.

“Since January, we have been fighting the pandemic for seven months. This pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to our economy,” she said. “Some people have said that if I am not postponing the elections, they might take legal action … while others have said if you are postponing it, you must explain clearly.”

Lam said she was invoking the colonial-era Emergency Regulations Ordinance to push the elections back from September 6 this year to September 5 next year, and her decision was fully supported by the central government.

Read more: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3095461/hong-kong-legislative-council-elections-be-postponed

July 31, 2020

The US missed a chance to control outbreak. Now it's 'impossible to predict'

Source: CNN

Without a national effort to adhere to preventative measures, the nation's top infectious disease doctor said, it will be impossible to predict how much longer the Covid-19 pandemic will last in the United States.

The US is seeing a resurgence of coronavirus infections after states began reopening their economies, with the number of cases now at more than 4.4 million and the death toll at 152,070, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation increased its forecast to 219,864 total deaths by November, in part because the nation continues to debate measures like wearing masks and social distancing.

"The thing we need to do is we need to pull out all the stops to get it down to baseline and to keep it there by doing the things that we've been talking about -- that I've been talking about -- consistently," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday during CNN's coronavirus town hall.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/31/health/us-coronavirus-friday/index.html

July 31, 2020

Duckworth interviewed by Biden team for VP slot

Source: Washington Post

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) confirmed Thursday that she has been interviewed by Joe Biden’s team to be the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee.

“I have been interviewed, yes, I’m on Team Biden,” Duckworth said during a Washington Post Live interview with reporter Bob Costa. “But it really doesn’t matter what position I play as long as we get Joe Biden elected.”

The senator was referring to talks she’s had with the panel that Biden convened to vet his positional picks, said a person familiar with the selection process who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly about the process.

Duckworth said the interview process has been “positive.” She also made it clear she has been in frequent touch with Biden, saying she’s “always loved interacting with vice president Biden.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/30/duckworth-interviewed-by-biden-team-vp-slot/

July 31, 2020

Dems pour record cash into battleground state parties

Source: Politico

Once ignored, underfunded and often written off, Democratic state party organizations are harvesting record-setting cash heading into the 2020 election, reasserting their roles inside the Democratic infrastructure after suffering for years in competition with super PACs and campaigns.

Across 15 possible battleground states, nearly every Democratic state party group is hitting higher quarterly fundraising totals or holding more cash on hand in their federal accounts than they did at this point during the 2016 presidential campaign, and a majority of them did both, according to a POLITICO analysis of Federal Election Commission filings and in interviews with party officials. Many of these state parties — responsible for field operations and coordinating a ticket-wide campaign — are seeing three, four or five times the amount of cash they did before.

Those surges are happening in traditional swing states like Pennsylvania and Florida as well as emerging targets for Democrats like Texas and Arizona. The Arizona Democratic Party raised $4.6 million in the second quarter, a more than 300 percent increase over its haul at this point in 2016, while Texas is sitting on five times more cash than it had at this point in 2016. North Carolina banked more than doubled its 2016 totals, from $2.5 million to just under $6 million, and racked up its strong online fundraising numbers in June since late 2018. Wisconsin, a stand out among the states, brought in a record-breaking $10 million last quarter.

The influx of money is giving an organizing boost to Joe Biden, Senate Democrats and other candidates heading into November 2020. Presidential candidates typically spend the final months of an election anxiously shoveling money toward state parties to fund get-out-the-vote operations and other critical infrastructure, but Democrats are running ahead of schedule this year.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/30/dems-pour-record-cash-into-battleground-state-parties-389082

July 31, 2020

Republicans and White House at Odds Over Kansas Senate Race

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — As the Kansas Senate primary barrels to a close, tensions are rising between Senate Republicans and the White House over the potential nomination of Kris Kobach, who party officials fear would jeopardize the seat and further imperil their Senate majority.

Senator Mitch McConnell is worried that Mr. Kobach, the controversial former Kansas secretary of state who lost the 2018 governor’s race, may win the nomination in Tuesday’s primary, only to lose the seat in November — and he is frustrated that President Trump is not intervening in the race, according to multiple G.O.P. officials.

Mr. McConnell and other Senate Republican leaders have made urgent pleas to the president to block Mr. Kobach by endorsing one of his opponents, Representative Roger Marshall. But Mr. Trump has so far declined to do so, and his aides said they had no plans to change course. Compounding the frustration of Capitol Hill Republicans, White House aides have refused to tell Mr. Kobach, a longtime booster of Mr. Trump, to stop using the president’s imagery in his campaign materials.

With a number of incumbent Senate Republicans trailing in polls, and being out-raised by their Democratic rivals, they have little margin for error as they seek to protect their 53-47 majority. And because of Mr. Trump’s broad unpopularity, and a health crisis that has devastated the economy, even a deeply conservative state like Kansas, which has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since the 1930s, is no sure thing for Senate Republicans this year.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/us/politics/kansas-senate-kobach-trump.html

July 31, 2020

Cook Political: Trump's Grip on the GOP is Slipping

The once rock-solid grip that the president had on his party seems to be slipping. Talking with pollsters and strategists from both sides this week, it's clear that Trump is suffering not just with Democrats and independents but also with GOP voters. They tell us of polling that shows Trump underwater in districts he carried easily in 2016. One GOP strategist told me that even in heavily Republican districts, Trump's job approval rating among Republicans has dropped 10-20 points. The KFF poll released last week found Trump's overall job approval rating among Republicans dropped 12 points between May and July. On handling coronavirus, the drop in GOP support was an even more dramatic 26 points.

Perhaps understanding he's losing support from his base (or more likely, as the New York Times' Maggie Haberman, Annie Karni, and Sydney Ember wrote this week, as a result of his instinct "to play to his base when campaigning under pressure" ), Trump has taken on the role of culture warrior instead of crisis manager.

Whether it's warning suburban (white) Americans of the threats of "low-income housing" (read: Black) being built in their neighborhoods, running ads featuring an older, white woman frantically trying to call 911 as a shadowy figure breaks into her home, or warning of rioters and looters running free in "Biden's America," Trump is hoping that selling fear will help to bring GOPers home.

But as Washington Post columnist and Ethics and Public Policy Center senior fellow Henry Olsen noted, just bringing GOP voters back isn't enough for Trump to win. "Trump and the GOP are losing because independents who might have backed them have turned away in the aftermath of the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd. To win, or just to make it close, the president and his party have to win them back." Winning them back will require Trump to prove he's not only taking this pandemic and this moment in history seriously but is making appreciable progress in getting the economy and life back to normal. The idea that Trump will be able to stay disciplined and focused enough to deliver on this seems unlikely. He will need something outside of his control to happen. Even good news about a vaccine trial or the easing up of COVID outbreaks may not be enough. Strategists who've been conducting polling and focus groups tell us that the voters Trump needs to win have basically tuned out and turned off this president. And, warns a GOP strategist, Biden is a tougher opponent than Trump has ever had to face. "Biden," says this strategist, "is acceptable for anyone with any grievance with Trump."

https://cookpolitical.com/analysis/national/national-politics/trumps-grip-gop-slipping