Greg Sargent/WaPo:
What if we’re not actually that divided over social distancing?
The good folks at NBC News sent me a breakdown of these findings. Here are the key numbers based on geography:
- Among rural voters, 49 percent worry more about lifting restrictions too quickly, vs. 39 percent who worry more about waiting too long.
- Among suburban voters, those numbers are 58 percent vs. 32 percent.
- Among urban voters, those numbers are 64 percent vs. 29 percent.
- Among whites without a college degree, 51 percent worry more about reopening too quickly, while 33 percent worry about waiting too long.
- Among whites with college degrees, those numbers are 62 percent vs. 31 percent.
So, yes, there are some differences along geographic and educational lines, but they’re not that pronounced.
Brian Arbour/Fox News:
Biden and the youth vote – follow this model to win in November
Our Fox News Voter Analysis of Super Tuesday voters found that Biden won only 15 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds that day, and 21 percent of 30- to 39-year-old Democrats. In the primaries held after Super Tuesday, Biden trailed Sanders among 18- to 29-year-olds and 30- to 39-year-olds in every state that we polled.
But like they say in ads for financial products: past performance does not necessarily predict future results.
A review of recent elections shows that just because a candidate has a weakness with a particular group of primary voters does not mean he will be weak with that same group in the general election.
WaPo:
Most rate Trump’s coronavirus response negatively and expect crowds to be unsafe until summer, Post-U. Md. poll finds
Most Americans — 54 percent — give the president negative marks for his handling of the outbreak in this country and offer mixed reviews for the federal government as a whole. By contrast, 72 percent of Americans give positive ratings to the governors of their states for the way they have dealt with the crisis, with workers also rating their employers positively.
Partisan allegiances shape perceptions of when it will be safe to have gatherings of 10 or more people and of the president’s performance during the pandemic. But governors win praise across the political spectrum for their leadership, which has sometimes put them sharply at odds with Trump and his administration.
Jeremy Konyndyk:
My confidence in Dr. Birx has been eroding in recent weeks. But with this, it is lost.
This statement is not credible as public health analysis, and is clearly not intended to be.
Birx had a choice when she came on board: would she be a honest broker like Fauci, or a political enabler like Pence?
Regrettably she has chosen the Pence model over and over. This is not what I'd expected and it is deeply saddening.
She has made numerous statements recently that are disingenuous as science but politically helpful to the President. Here she is saying that WHO misled the world about human-to-human transmissibility.
Morning Consult:
Endorsement Week Gives Biden a Boost With Younger Voters
Former VP’s popularity improves amid backing from Sanders, Obama and Warren
Former Vice President Joe Biden is on the upswing with younger voters following endorsements from three of the Democratic Party’s leading figures, a move meant to help unify the party ahead of a general-election campaign against President Donald Trump.
Sixty percent of Democratic primary voters ages 18-29 said they viewed the party’s presumptive nominee favorably in polling conducted April 13-19, up 5 percentage points from responses collected the week prior. The share of voters under 30 who have an unfavorable view of Biden decreased by 4 points, amounting to a 9-point increase in net favorability.
NY Times:
Is the Virus on My Clothes? My Shoes? My Hair? My Newspaper?
We asked the experts to answer questions about all the places coronavirus lurks (or doesn’t). You’ll feel better after reading this.
Yes, you will.
Jennifer Rubin/WaPo:
Cable news outlets fail us in a time of crisis
When it comes to the protests in various cities against the imposition of lifesaving social-distancing rules, what is missing is context: The size of these events is tiny — much smaller than the number of people who have died from the coronavirus. The protesters (organized in part by fanatical, right-wing gun advocates and sometimes featuring anti-Semitic images and symbols) reflect a point of view at odds with the views of a significant majority of Americans, who worry about lifting restrictions on business and public activity too soon. Some commentators have gone so far as to suggest the appearance of these characters spells trouble for a governor such as Michigan Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, whose coronavirus response has earned more than 70 percent approval in a recent poll, or for former vice president Joe Biden’s election prospects. (That is certainly what the Trump team would like us to believe, but is there any evidence whatsoever it is having this effect?)
Cable TV, with all the time in the world, chooses to report the same story (Trump rambles and look how his base loves him! Could this save him?), even though it is entirely at odds with political reality and unenlightening at a time the public deserves crucial information.
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