The dynamic of the race hasn’t changed just because Donald Trump is resuming his superspreader tour. Meanwhile this piece on Uncle Joe notes the closing argument, which works because Biden is no radical socialist.
WaPo:
In his final pitch to voters, Biden goes hard at moderates
In many ways, Biden’s plan is the culmination of a political blueprint for the Trump era that Democratic leaders started writing early in the president’s term. Do not run on divisive ideas and focus instead on “kitchen-table” topics that affect the daily lives of voters in both major parties. Capitalize on organic anger with Trump to deliver votes in purple areas. Run as a safe alternative, not an ideologue.
Tim Alberta/Politico:
3 More Funny Feelings About 2020
With 21 days until the election, it’s time to inch a little farther out on a limb.
WaPo:
Trump returns to campaign trail after bout with covid-19, amid criticism he is still not taking pandemic seriously
President Trump returned to the campaign trail Monday, holding his first rally since being hospitalized earlier this month, as part of an intense effort to demonstrate that his bout with covid-19 is behind him and that he is the more vigorous of the two septuagenarian candidates vying for the presidency.
Yet Trump’s rally in Sanford, Fla., came amid concerns that his plans to barnstorm the country could put him and others at risk.
Politico:
How Biden could end 2020 on election night — and why Trump’s path is unlikely
Biden leads in polls of several fast-counting states Trump won in 2016, but the states that put Trump over the top last time face delays.
President Donald Trump has demanded to know the results of the 2020 election on election night, even though some states warn that it will take days to count their votes. But if there is a winner declared on Nov. 3, it will almost certainly be bad news for the president.
While vote counting could be delayed in many states due to a glut of mail ballots, Biden is challenging Trump in several fast-counting, Republican-leaning swing states the president carried four years ago. Election administrators in those states, especially Florida and North Carolina, are confident they should have most of the vote counted on election night.
Donald B. Ayer and Alan Charles Raul/USA today:
Naked Republican hypocrisy is destroying trust in Supreme Court: Reagan, Bush lawyers
Republicans are using a deeply unfair process to confirm Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Build faith in democracy by letting the people decide.
Indeed, if Senate Republicans force Judge Barrett through in the waning weeks before a presidential election — after denying President Obama any opportunity for Senate consideration of his nomination of Judge Merrick Garland nearly a year before the 2016 election — the American people will unavoidably see the Supreme Court as just another forum for power politics and political players.
IOW, they will see it for what it is.
Some helpful websites:
Philip Bump with a to be sure piece/WaPo:
How to think about Trump’s chances of winning reelection
It is vitally important to President Trump that you think he’s all-but-certain to win this year’s presidential contest. If you don’t think that, if you accept either that he might lose or — as is currently more likely — that he’s probably going to lose, you are probably going to be more likely to accept that there will be millions of valid votes left to be counted after Election Day.
If you think that Trump is definitely going to win unless rampant fraud occurs, though, you’re going to be far more open to Trump’s seemingly inevitable and inevitably false assertions that the mail-in votes being counted are riddled with fraud. Those votes are going to skew heavily toward former vice president Joe Biden, it seems, so blocking them from being counted may be Trump’s only route to victory. For it to work, though, he needs his supporters to think that the inevitable outcome of the election is a Trump victory that Democratic ne’er-do-wells are trying to steal.
Scott Lemieux//NBC:
Republicans aren't being honest about why Amy Coney Barrett has their support. They can't be.
The rulings they hope — and fully expect — Trump's Supreme Court nominee to make are so unpopular they have to pretend they don't know she'll make them
So given the clear importance that McConnell and Trump have placed on confirming Barrett before the election over all other political priorities, one might then expect Republicans to shout to the rooftops the conservative constitutional positions Barrett is being put onto the court to advance. Instead, the GOP is largely denying that she holds or will advance Republican views on constitutional issues at all.
Nicholas Bagley/Atlantic
A Warning From Michigan
The state previews how far Republican judges will go to obstruct Democrats in office
That brazen ruling in Michigan previews where the U.S. Supreme Court might take the country, especially with the breathing room that a 6–3 conservative supermajority would create. Although the news media have mostly focused on what a Justice Amy Coney Barrett would mean for abortion and gun rights, her confirmation may pose a more fundamental threat to good governance. The United States Supreme Court, like the Michigan Supreme Court, may become an even more stridently partisan instrument than it already is, one that by design will frustrate Democratic efforts to govern.
Richard L Hasen/New York:
Trump’s New Supreme Court Is Coming for the Next Dozen Elections
When Judge Amy Coney Barrett sits for questions before the Senate Judiciary Committee in mid-October, no doubt Democrats will pepper her with questions about whether she would recuse herself in any Trump v. Biden election lawsuit to come before the Supreme Court. Although that’s an important question to ask, perhaps the bigger question is what it would mean in the long run for voting and election cases to have a sixth conservative justice on the Supreme Court.
In short, a Barrett confirmation would make it more likely we will see a significant undermining of the already weakened Voting Rights Act — the Court said on Friday it will hear a case involving the law. A 6-3 conservative Court might allow unlimited undisclosed money in political campaigns; give more latitude to states to suppress votes, especially those of minorities; protect partisan gerrymandering from reform efforts; and strengthen the representation of rural white areas, which would favor Republicans.
CJR:
How Are We Feeling?
A survey reveals the hardships of covering a life-or-death story—and what challenges will linger
When news workers were asked to rank what they had found most professionally difficult during the pandemic, mental health topped the list, above financial concerns:
- The psychological and emotional impacts of dealing with the covid-19 crisis (70%)
- Concerns about unemployment or other financial impacts (67%)
- The intense workload (64%)
- Social isolation (59%)
- The physical risk of contracting the virus or passing it on to others (54%)
- The technical challenges of reporting (51%)
This offensive tweet isn’t going to help Trump win the election:
Seniors vote.