Daily Beast:
Trump Whines He’s Not Getting Praised for a Recovery With 25 Million People Still Out of Work
But not everyone in Trump’s orbit is bullish on the current trajectory. Some of the president’s top advisers working on his reelection effort have grown increasingly concerned that modest economic gains between now and the election in November simply won’t be enough to drag their candidate across the finish line to a second term, four individuals familiar with the matter say. Two of these sources—one a Trump campaign official and the other a senior White House aide—recalled feeling nervous last month when they saw no polling bump from news of higher retail sales and the 2.5 million jobs added in May.
It’s pretty common for people to think that a semi-decent jobs number ‘changes everything’ except for not seeing it change. Of course, in this case, temporarily gaining back a third of the jobs we lost isn’t really all that great. And the public knows it.
Nate Cohn/NY Times:
Biden Supporters Are More Worried About the Health Risks of Voting
Could this tilt turnout in Trump’s direction and affect the election result?
At this early stage, neither approach would be likely to account for any eventual coronavirus effect on turnout. A vote history model most certainly would not, though absentee ballot requests and returns could ultimately be helpful closer to the election. It also seems unlikely that voters in June would think much about the coronavirus when evaluating their intention to vote in November, though here again it seems likelier that voters would do so as voting nears.
Either way, Mr. Biden would maintain a significant lead among likely voters in the current wave of Times/Siena battleground state surveys using these standard practices. His lead shrinks by about one-half of a percentage point whether one uses a vote-history-based model or a probabilistic likely-voter screen based on a voter’s stated intention to turn out (say, a 90 percent chance if they’re “almost certain” but just a 20 percent chance if they say they’re “not at all likely”). This does not take into account whether respondents said they would feel too uncomfortable to vote in person.
Big leads make for small worries, tbh.
Yahoo News:
After months of being silenced, CDC is easing back into public view
Widely touted as the finest public health agency in the world, the CDC had been dormant since March 9, when one of its top officials held a teleconference with journalists. On that day, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the agency’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, counseled the American public to “fight the urge to buy a mask” to protect against the coronavirus.
Then came a protracted and, for many, problematic silence. CDC officials hope that is coming to an end, but a pressing question remains: Can the agency reclaim its voice while avoiding political blowback from the White House? Can it find a way to communicate valuable scientific information after three muted months during which some substantive communications from the CDC came only in the form of leaks to the press?
They were silenced, and even now Anthony Fauci (who is not CDC) has also been silenced. We are suffering the consequences of treating coronavirus as a messaging issue and not the public health emergency it is.
Katherine J. Wu/NY times:
Coronavirus Cases Are Rising Sharply, but Deaths Are Still Down
This seemingly counterintuitive trend might not last, experts said. But the nation can still learn from the decline.
In general, experts see three broad reasons for the downward trend in the rate of coronavirus deaths: testing, treatment and a shift in whom the virus is infecting. The relative contribution of these factors is not yet clear. And because death reports can lag diagnoses by weeks, the current rise in coronavirus cases could still portend increases in mortality in the days to come.
The death rate is one of the major currently debated issues (the other that comes to mind is school openings in fall). But see also on deaths:
The Hill:
Inequities in COVID-19 are tragic but preventable
We’re told that pandemics are “great equalizers,” impacting rich and poor alike. Yet black, Hispanic, and lower income individuals are dying from COVID-19 at disproportionately high rates.
For those of us who study health inequities, this tragic news is unsurprising. It is rooted in policies and practices that reinforce racial, ethnic and class inequalities. These factors predate the pandemic, but also put people at greater risk of COVID-19.
Failing to act is counter to extensive research that demonstrates how policies can narrow health inequities. Paid sick leave policies have an equalizing effect and reduce disease spread. Economic policies like the Earned Income Tax Credit and minimum wage increases can improve public health and reduce risk of death from multiple causes. Uniform health screening and treatment protocols improve patient outcomes and minimize health inequalities. Even initiatives like mandatory seat belt laws and smoking bans can reduce inequities in health risks.
The MSN tracker (36/60) can be found here.
Here’s a thread on the other big issue:
NY Times:
Why June Was Such a Terrible Month for Trump
Last month represented the political nadir of President Trump’s three and a half years in office, thanks to self-inflicted wounds as he played to his base and missteps by a fractured campaign.
The disconnect between the surge in coronavirus cases and Mr. Trump’s dismissive stance toward the pandemic has been particularly pronounced, mystifying Democrats and Republicans alike; this week, as some states halted their reopening because of a record-setting number of new cases, the president predicted the virus would “just disappear.”
In addition to public surveys showing him losing decisively to Joseph R. Biden Jr. in a number of battleground states, private Republican polls in recent weeks show the president struggling even in conservative states, leading Mr. Biden by less than five points in Montana and trailing him in Georgia and even Kansas, according to G.O.P. officials who have seen the data.
And for those ‘don’t count your chickens’ people. Dan Pfeiffer/Crooked:
DONALD TRUMP HAS A SECRET PLAN TO WIN (SERIOUSLY)
When I’m trying to understand what a campaign is thinking, I always apply two maxims. First, follow the money. Tweets are free. Ads cost a lot of money. Campaigns only run ads that are backed by polling and data. Second, ads released with great fanfare are usually designed to shape media narratives, not to persuade voters. Therefore, the ads that campaigns want to fly under the radar tend to be the most suggestive of what they believe internally will have the greatest influence on the electorate.
In the past week, the Trump campaign quietly began airing two ads that speak volumes about its plan to win.