Hey, are you stressed out?
Me too! I go back and forth between being confident that we can pull this off to completely panicked about what will happen if we don’t.
Are you with me?
If so, that is normal. We are living through an incredibly stressful time with super high stakes.
The good news is WE CAN WIN!
Keep your eyes on the prize — meaning pay attention to the end goal and what we need to get there. Don’t be distracted by the noise. Just focus on what you can do to give us a win.
Check the list at the bottom of this article for all kinds of ideas.
Pick a new idea for how to help us save democracy and do it this week!
Remember, there were negative articles leading all the way up to November 2018 about how we weren’t going to win, and the right was all fired up, and they would cheat their way to a victory, etc, etc…. So when you see those articles this time don’t freak out because we won.
We won. And we can and will do it again. All we have to do is keep calm and work like heck.
Because…
Biden has the advantage of money, strategy, and message
Biden’s message is resonating. Trump’s message? Failing
After weeks of Trump rhetoric on crime, voters have a clear preference on the issue: Joe Biden
Fox News released polls centered on three swing states this week that also did not show a significant advantage for Trump. Asked who would do a better job on “policing and criminal justice,” likely voters in Arizona and Wisconsin both preferred Biden by five percentage points. In North Carolina, the two candidates were essentially tied.
One point worth highlighting here: Biden was preferred on the issue in Wisconsin even after Trump repeatedly focused on unrest in the city of Kenosha. Even in a state with active protests and sporadic violence, Biden was seen as the more capable candidate.
A national poll from Quinnipiac University asked people a broader question: how safe they felt with Trump as president or how safe they expected to feel should Biden win. By a 15-point margin, Americans said that they felt less safe in a Trump presidency; in total, that was the view of fully half the country. Predictions of how people would feel under Biden were evenly split.
Trump made an incredibly stupid promise. Biden is turning it into a liability.
For reasons no one has been able to completely explain, a few months ago President Trump got it in his head that a temporary cut to the payroll tax would be a spectacular boost to the economy, despite the fact that almost no one in either party believed it was a particularly good idea.
At every step since then, it’s been clear that it was a huge mistake that has displeased everyone. And now, it could turn into a genuine political liability if Joe Biden gets his way.
But far worse is something Trump said to calm fears about workers being stuck with a big tax bill in 2021. If he wins the election, Trump vowed, he will “terminate the payroll tax.” He added: “We’ll be paying into Social Security through the general fund.”
That would be a monumental change in how we pay for a program that costs over a trillion dollars a year, which is why White House aides rushed to say that Trump really didn’t mean what he said and instead meant only to say that he’d make permanent the cuts in his executive order.
Which is why the Biden campaign is particularly interested in seniors: Because they turn out in such high numbers and they might be favorably inclined toward an unabashedly old-timey guy such as Joe Biden, if he peeled away even a small percentage of them, it could spell doom for Trump, particularly in states such as Florida and Pennsylvania
Biden knows how to use Trump’s botched response to covid-19 to his advantage
The Biden-Harris team understood weeks ago that the focus of their campaign had to be on President Trump’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Since then, Biden has increasingly made the point that the economic collapse stems from Trump’s failure to address the pandemic early on.
The more Biden and Harris can link Trump’s dishonest and incompetent handling of the virus to the ensuing economic collapse, the better from their perspective. Voters already think that Trump has handled the pandemic poorly and that Trump is untrustworthy. Put those two together, and you go a long way to undercutting what (unbelievably) remains Trump’s strongest issue: the economy.
Trump has one last remaining lifeline. Biden is moving to sever it.
A new poll from NBC News and Marist College finds Joe Biden leading President Trump by nine points in the crucial state of Pennsylvania, 53 percent to 44 percent. But it also finds Trump leading by 10 points on who will best handle the economy, 51 percent to 41 percent.
Which points to a crucial 2020 dynamic: If anything is still keeping Trump within range of winning through a real comeback, a major polling error or outright cheating, it’s his lingering advantage on the economy.
Can the former vice president eliminate or neutralize that advantage?
Biden is set to roll out a new economic agenda designed to do just this. It should also prompt a reconsideration of another big question: how vulnerable Trump has made himself by thoroughly selling out on the “populist economic nationalism” he ran on in 2016.
Trump’s lead over Biden on the economy appears vulnerable, a potential turning point
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is intensifying his efforts to dislodge President Trump’s advantage on economic issues with voters, fueling an intensifying debate over which candidate could better handle the fragile recovery.
On Wednesday, Biden pushed tax proposals that he said would help bring jobs back to the United States, trying to hit Trump on an issue the Republican campaigned on four years ago. And on Friday, Biden assailed Trump’s handling of the economy, saying Trump’s agenda benefits the wealthy and few others, leveling a populist attack at the incumbent
Trump is having a hard time landing blows on Biden
So what exactly is the case against Joe Biden?
There was the whole Hunter Biden thing over which Trump got impeached. There was something else Ukraine. There’s “Sleepy Joe.” There’s Obamagate, the biggest scandal in the history of America, which lasted all of two days before Trump got bored with it and forgot all about it. There was “Biden controls the Left.” And then when that didn’t stick there was “The Left controls Biden.” There was that weird segue into attacking vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris as “phony,” then a cop who was anti cop, or something, and then they forgot about her again.
Trump’s inability to stay focused has left his noise machine unable to amplify a single line of attack. In fact, they spend more time defending him from his daily ridiculousness, than they do targeting Biden. And sure, it’s helped maintain Trump’s support among his deplorable base. But that’s not enough to get him reelected.
You see, if Trump and Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and that whole crowd had spent the past year railing against the Green New Deal, claiming it banned cows and airplanes and all that usual right-wing bullcrap, then maybe that would be a crowd-pleasing line. But Trump can’t focus, and so the line comes out of nowhere, and his audience doesn’t know how to react. He gets crickets.
And if he can’t even get his base revved up about China and the Green New Deal, how is he going to get those themes to penetrate the broader public? Instead, Olivia Nuzzi and the rest of the Beltway media laugh at Trump. And the broader public? They like Biden more and more every day.
Another Biden advantage? Our numbers look better:
Polls look good right now
The latest polls show Trump’s approval/disapproval mostly going back to negative mid-teens for Trump.
National Polls widening again
So are state polls
texas polls show race at close to a tie!
Democrats build big edge in early voting
Democrats are amassing an enormous lead in early voting, alarming Republicans who worry they’ll need to orchestrate a huge Election Day turnout during a deadly coronavirus outbreak to answer the surge.
The Democratic dominance spreads across an array of battleground states, according to absentee ballot request data compiled by state election authorities and analyzed by Democratic and Republican data experts. In North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Democrats have a roughly 3-to-1 advantage over Republicans in absentee ballot requests. In Florida — a must-win for President Donald Trump — the Democratic lead stands at more than 700,000 ballot requests, while the party also leads in New Hampshire, Ohio and Iowa.
Even more concerning for Republicans, Democrats who didn't vote in 2016 are requesting 2020 ballots at higher rates than their GOP counterparts. The most striking example is Pennsylvania, where nearly 175,000 Democrats who sat out the last race have requested ballots, more than double the number of Republicans, according to an analysis of voter rolls by the Democratic firm TargetSmart.
Though the figures are preliminary, they provide a window into Democratic enthusiasm ahead of the election and offer a warning for Republicans. While Democrats stockpile votes and bring in new supporters, Trump’s campaign is relying on a smooth Election Day turnout operation at a time when it’s confronting an out-of-control pandemic and a mounting cash crunch.
Older voters love Joe Biden
polls demonstrate that Biden is showing surprising strength among older voters throughout the country. Multiple national and state polls have found Biden running ahead of Trump with those 65 and older by double digits, including in a recent Quinnipiac University poll of Florida.
“I think it is noteworthy because it’s a segment of the electorate we haven’t done well with in more than a couple of years,” Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) told Vox in a recent interview.
“This is a group that was turning away from Trump even before the pandemic hit, but the pandemic has cemented them against Trump in a way,” Monmouth University polling director Patrick Murray told Vox. Murray added that while older voters of color have long been with Biden, “It’s older white voters where we’re seeing the swing.”
Speaking of cash crunch, Biden is also kicking trump’s butt financially:
Trump reports raising $210 million last month, lagging behind Biden’s record-breaking August haul
President Trump’s campaign, the Republican National Committee and two affiliated fundraising committees Wednesday announced raising $210 million in August — a big amount that still lags behind Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s record-breaking haul last month.
The RNC said $76 million of the money raised last month came in during the four days of the Republican National Convention, and noted that August was the best online fundraising month for the reelection effort.
Like most Trump properties, the president’s campaign is a financial mess
At the beginning of July, Brad Parscale, then the manager of President Trump’s reelection campaign, bragged that the campaign had raised $947 million and had $295 million in the bank. Despite the impressively large numbers, it meant that before the general election had begun in earnest, Trump had already spent $650 million — and left himself trailing Joe Biden in polls by around 9 points. For all the good it did him, he might as well have stuffed the cash into a rocket and blasted it into the sun.
Two months later, the Trump campaign’s situation is even worse. The New York Times reports that “some people inside the campaign are forecasting what was once unthinkable: a cash crunch with less than 60 days until the election, according to Republican officials briefed on the matter.”
Who but Trump could raise an unprecedented amount of money and then squander nearly all of it with no visible results except for perhaps a slight padding of his own bank account? What does he think this is, the Trump Soho? The Trump Tower Toronto? The Trump Plaza Casino?
and they are using their money poorly
Republican worries rise as Trump campaign pulls back from television advertising
Fearing a coming cash crunch, President Trump’s campaign has pulled back from television advertising over the last month, ceding to Democratic nominee Joe Biden a huge advantage in key states and sparking disagreements over strategy within the president’s senior team.
Republican officials have been inundated with calls from worried activists and donors who complain about constant Biden ads in their local media markets, with very few paid Trump responses, according to people familiar with the conversations. Some Republicans close to Trump have been baffled at the decision to sharply curb advertising and have told the president he should change course.
The complaints have upended the dynamics that dominated much of the race so far. With less than eight weeks before Election Day, the once-lean Biden campaign is flush with cash, while the massive Trump operation is facing tough budgetary decisions down the stretch that have increased tensions around the president
and the bad news for Trump is just going to keep on leaking out, little by little, right up until the election:
The Atlantic's editor-in-chief says his story about Trump calling vets 'losers' is just the beginning
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, said his magazine's story about Trump calling Americans who died in battle "losers" and "suckers," was just the tip of the iceberg.
"I would fully expect more reporting to come out about this and more confirmation and new pieces of information in the coming days and weeks," Goldberg told CNN's Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter on "Reliable Sources" Sunday. "We have a responsibility and we're going to do it regardless of what he says."
and bad news for this guy is good news for us:
Ohio Supreme Court rules against Kanye West bid to get on presidential ballot
Ohio’s Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously upheld the removal of rapper Kanye West's name from the state’s presidential ballot.
The 7-0 ruling affirmed a determination last month by Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) that the information on West’s nominating petition did not match the petitions signed by voters.
And this guy too:
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, faces toughest reelection challenge in S.C.
Graham, 65, has long been a shoo-in in South Carolina, winning Senate races by double digits in three successive races. But now, he is locked in a tight race with Jaime Harrison, 44, who has energized the Black community and suburbs amid significant changes in the state’s population. Graham is being far outspent by Harrison, who has raised a stunning $29 million and has about $10 million for the final stretch.
Harrison raised about $10.6 million in August, according to Federal Election Commission reports, more than Graham’s entire second quarter haul. Polls show Harrison within a few points, or tied, with Graham. A Quinnipiac University poll in August indicated that the candidates are tied at 44 percent — a startling statistic that Harrison used for big fundraising.
Other good news
Court blocks Trump order to exclude undocumented immigrants from census count
A federal court on Thursday blocked a memorandum signed by President Trump seeking to exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted in the census for apportionment, saying such action would violate the statute governing congressional apportionment.
Most Americans support athletes speaking out, say anthem protests are appropriate, Post poll finds
56 percent of Americans now say it is appropriate for athletes to kneel during the national anthem to protest racial inequality; 42 percent say it is not appropriate.
62 percent majority of Americans say professional athletes should use their platforms to express their views on national issues, including over 8 in 10 Black Americans and 7 in 10 adults under age 50.
Opinions are similar among football fans, with 59 percent saying kneeling during the national anthem is an appropriate way to protest racial inequality and 64 percent saying athletes should express views on national issues in general.
this is a big change
a 2018 NBC-Wall Street Journal poll found that 54 percent of registered voters felt professional football players kneeling in protest was inappropriate and 43 percent felt it was appropriate.
Twitter is tightening its rules against voting misinformation
The new rules would flag Trump’s tweets if he claims an early victory.
Twitter is expanding its policies against voter suppression ahead of the 2020 election, saying it will take down or label more types of misleading election claims, such as falsely claiming a premature victory while results are still being tallied.
On The Lighter Side
Be A Part of History
Donate!
Click here to donate to Biden.
Fair Fight builds a robust network of grassroots activists to strengthen democracy
And I still Vote works to empower our communities to act.
Black Votes Matter goal is to increase power in our communities.
Let America Vote ensures people don’t have to pick between safety and their vote
ACLU — Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, has filed 20 lawsuits and counting to ensure every eligible voter can vote by mail.
Non-financial ways to help:
- Volunteer with the Democratic party Explore their centralized hub for grassroots volunteer opportunities to take action on your own time.
- Volunteer with the Biden campaign You can get training to text for Joe, make phone calls for Joe, host an event, or attend an event.
- Get involved with Postcards to voters. Postcards to Voters are friendly, handwritten reminders from volunteers to targeted voters giving Democrats a winning edge in close, key races coast to coast.
- Volunteer with Beto to turn Texas Blue Over the recent months, thousands of Powered by People volunteers have stepped up to help us reach the Texas voters who will decide the most important elections of our lifetime. Join them!
- Register voters in key battleground states. Vote Forward has active campaigns going in 8 key states to encourage under-represented (potential) voters to register. In 6 of them, the packet you send to each potential voter will include the actual voter registration forms and instructions with pre-paid postage for that state. The folks at Vote Forward have collected data on this technique and determined that it does, indeed, appear to increase voter registration.
- Text voters in key Senate races Payback Project has a comprehensive, four-pronged approach to make sure Republicans Senators are held accountable for their actions, their votes, and their enabling of Donald Trump.
- Organize your community online The Democratic National Committee’s digital organizing team put together a list of ways you can keep organizing in your community online.
- Do whatever we can to promote Biden in tweets and posts and emails and wherever. The same goes for other D candidates. Help them get positive recognition!
- Find out how to be a poll worker on election day. Use this link
- sign up to be a voter protection volunteer with the Biden Harris campaign
- Swing Left offers virtual tools to help you maximize your impact on the closest races in Super States across the country. Swing Blue has a wonderful list of ways you can help from your home and links for each one of you are motivated
- register for protect the results which is building a coalition of voters to mobilize if Trump refuses to accept the election.
Pick a couple of things and get to it! ❤️
I am so proud and so luck to be in this with all of you! ❤️ ✊ ❤️
