The Economist:
Donald Trump faces a much bigger task than he did in 2016
The polls, political fundamentals and key voters have all turned against the president
Donald Trump’s path to re-election has never looked more difficult. In early June his deficit in the polls against Joe Biden was “just” six percentage points. That may seem large, but it is close enough for the president to conceivably gain the ground required to win an electoral-college victory, even with a minority of the popular vote. He needs to hold Mr Biden to a two- to three-point margin to do so. But nationwide protests, the growing reality of the country’s economic turmoil and a rapidly spreading rebound of covid-19 cases have pushed him even farther behind.
Today he faces a nine-point uphill climb nationally and is behind by between four and eight points in the bellwether states. The president even acknowledged his dire situation in an interview with Fox News last week, saying “Joe Biden is gonna be your president because some people don’t love me, maybe.” According to The Economist’s election-forecasting model, Mr Trump has a one-in-nine chance of winning a second term—down from a one-in-five shot last month.
WaPo:
One question still dogs Trump: Why not try harder to solve the coronavirus crisis?
People close to Trump, many speaking on the condition of anonymity to share candid discussions and impressions, say the president’s inability to wholly address the crisis is due to his almost pathological unwillingness to admit error; a positive feedback loop of overly rosy assessments and data from advisers and Fox News; and a penchant for magical thinking that prevented him from fully engaging with the pandemic.
That, there, is why the race may, in fact, not tighten. Trump is never going to institute that long awaited pivot.
Charlie Sykes/Bulwark:
Burn It All Down?
The Senate Republicans who protected and enabled Trump have to be held accountable.
But we need to have this debate: Is Trumpism a seasonal flu or a metastasizing cancer? Or to mix some metaphors: Does the Republican party need an attitude adjustment or a complete exorcism? Botox or an enema?
In political terms: Can you defeat Trumpism by defeating Trump but leaving his bootlickers in power?
As George Will has said, Trump has been a “Vesuvius of mendacity,” but the rot obviously runs much deeper than the president himself. Trump himself is a horror show, but the most horrific story of the last four years has been the complete surrender of the GOP to Trumpism, not just on policy but on everything. The party that once imagined itself to be about ideas became a cult of personality for one of the most deplorable personalities in political history.
This suggests that the dysfunction in the GOP was a pre-existing condition; and that bringing the party back to sanity won’t be easy. As a matter of political hygiene, getting rid of the Orange God-King is necessary but far from sufficient.
Paul Rosenzweig and Arthur Rizer/Atlantic:
There Is Nothing Conservative About What Trump Is Doing in Portland
Unconstitutional police activity is not conservative. It’s authoritarian.
How greatly have traditional conservative values of federalism and limited government been transformed. Today, a sitting Republican president invokes the power of the federal government to send militarized Department of Homeland Security agents (equipped with military-grade weapons, body armor, tear gas, and camouflage, like armed forces entering a war zone) to swarm American city streets under unwritten rules of engagement. If video evidence now circulating is to be credited, these agents are not merely protecting federal property; they have detained citizens who aren’t violating any law and used the power of their presence to chill civil protests and disobedience.
Margaret Sullivan/WaPo:
Media coverage of the 2016 campaign was disastrous. Now’s the last chance to get 2020 right.
How did the news media mess up in the 100 days leading up to the 2016 presidential election? Let me count the ways.
Journalists relied too much on what opinion polls were saying and often presented a skewed interpretation of their meaning. That fed the sense that Hillary Clinton would be the inevitable winner.
They vastly overplayed the Clinton email story, particularly the “reopened investigation” aspect in October. Given Donald Trump’s background and behavior, the emphasis was astonishingly out of whack with reality.
News organizations failed to understand the tear-it-all-down mood of large segments of the voting public, or the racism and sexism that often fueled it.
They let Trump, the great distractor, hijack news coverage and play assignment editor. He became the shiny new toy that they couldn’t take their eyes off.
Daily Beast:
Team Trump’s Mounting Fear: His Base Will Abandon Him
There’s anxiety within the upper echelons of Trumpworld that the president’s conservative base—which Trump has long touted as rock-solid—may be starting to rupture.
“I thought, ‘Damn, he jammed a lot in there in one broadside,’” one GOP strategist lamented of the tweet. “The base is the piece he can control the most. But there are times where he sees his base as a larger portion of the Republican voting bloc than it is. There are a lot of gettable Republicans outside of the cultural issues that he plays on.”
Trump’s tweet may have been born out of a frustration that the Reagan Foundation, Paul Ryan, and Fox News weren’t being sufficiently subservient and appreciative of his presidency. But it also was a reflection of a broader anxiety within the upper echelons of Trumpworld that the president’s conservative base—which Trump and the party have long touted as rock-solid and fiercely loyal—may be starting to rupture amid the coronavirus pandemic, a weakened U.S. economy, and protest movements in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd. It is a concern that some close associates of the president have raised to him directly.
“I told him that he should believe the [public] polling, and that it shows that the way things are going, some of his base may abandon him by the election,” said a Republican who spoke to Trump about the issue earlier this month. “That is what the numbers are saying.”
Remember what we said about deaths lagging? By the way, hospitalization tracking is unstable because of the forced CDC→ HHS change. I don’t yet trust the numbers.
Texas Tribune:
Texas' count of coronavirus deaths jumps 12% after officials change the way they tally COVID-19 fatalities
Hispanic Texans are overrepresented in the state's updated fatality count, making up 47% of deaths, but only 40% of the state's population.
After months of undercounting coronavirus deaths, Texas’ formal tally of COVID-19 fatalities grew by more than 600 on Monday after state health officials changed their method of reporting.
The revised count indicates that more than 12% of the state’s death tally was unreported by state health officials before Monday.
The Texas Department of State Health Services is now counting deaths marked on death certificates as caused by COVID-19. Previously, the state relied on local and regional public health departments to verify and report deaths.
Independents win elections. But so do little things:
Tim Alberta/Politico:
Trump’s Biggest Problem Isn’t Wealthy Suburbanites. It’s the White Working Class.
To win, the president needs to capture untapped support from the blue-collar base. In Scranton, he’s not getting the job done.
After winning college-educated whites by 3 points in 2016, Trump’s party lost this group by 8 points in the midterms; GOP officials fear that margin could approach 15 points this fall and carry Joe Biden into the White House.
It all adds up to a dire outlook for Trump. If he is losing badly among the two fastest-growing blocs of voters—minorities and college-educated whites—is there any hope for the president to win a second term?
Yes, there is. And his reason for hope comes from a familiar place: the white working class.
(Bear with me, Washington. Although I did pass a few million roadside diners in my 20 hours of driving to report this dispatch, and even had lovely meals at two of them, this is not one of those diner stories.)
And the interview that drives the day: