Amidst the deluge of bad polling for Trump, the Tara Reade story remains in limbo. Meanwhile the economics news is disastrous, and today is jobs Friday. We are expecting a bad report, but remember that furloughed workers do not count.
So how’s your day so far?
Laura McGann/Vox with a thorough summary:
The agonizing story of Tara Reade
I started reporting on Tara Reade’s story a year ago. Here’s what I found, and where I’m stuck.
It really deserves to be read in toto.
Monmouth poll (.pdf), first with the horse race and then data on the Tara Reade sitch.
Biden currently has the support of 50% of registered voters and Trump has the support of 41%.Another 3% say they would vote for an independent candidate and 5% are undecided. This represents a slightly wider lead for the Democrat than in previous Monmouth polls – 48% to 44% in April and 48% to 45% in March.
When Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan is added to the mix as a Libertarian candidate, Biden gets47%, Trump gets 40% and Amash gets 5%. During the last presidential cycle, Gary Johnson started his presidential bid as a Libertarian with 11% support in a March 2016 Monmouth poll. His poll standing dropped to 5% by October and he ended up earning just 3% of the national vote. Fewer than 1 in 5 voters have an opinion of Amash (6% favorable and 13% unfavorable), which is similar to voter opinion of Johnson in the spring of 2016 (9% favorable and 15% unfavorable).
“Overall, there is not as much of an appetite for a third option as there was four years ago. It’s too early to tell whether Amash will have an impact but if this election ends up being as close as 2016, even a small showing can have a crucial impact,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
and
Most voters (86%) have heard about an allegation that Biden may have sexually assaulted a woman who worked in his U.S. Senate office in the 1990s. [Note: This question was added to the poll after Biden publicly addressed the issue on Friday morning.] The electorate is divided on the validity of this allegation – 37% say it is probably true, 32% say it is probably not true, and 31% have no opinion.Opinion on this question breaks sharply along partisan lines. More Republicans say the allegation is probably true (50%) than not true (17%) while more Democrats say is it is probably not true (55%) thantrue (20%). Independents are more likely to feel that the allegation is true (43%) rather than not true(22%), while 35% have no opinion either way. Overall, men (39% true and 29% not true) are slightly more likely than women (35% true and 34% not true) to believe the charge against Biden.
Among voters who say the sexual assault allegation is probably not true, the vast majority (79%)support Biden over Trump (14%) in the presidential contest. Among those who feel it is true, 59% backTrump but 32% still support Biden. Among those who have no opinion on the allegation’s validity, 45%support Trump and 43% support Biden.
Reade has a right to be heard, but I don’t buy her shifting story and I see why McGann has issues trying to piece it together (strongly recommend her piece). YMMV, of course, and maybe we’ll learn more. For now, it’s frozen and not an advancing story.
Daily News Editorial Board:
Task farce: Trump keeps the coronavirus panel open — even as he undermines it at every turn
To the extent that task force members like Drs. Tony Fauci and Deb Birx are popular and respected, it’s because they routinely deliver information, assurance and guidance to an unnerved nation. The president, on the other hand, uses daily briefings as a platform to broadcast brazen boasts about having saved hundreds of thousands or millions of lives, a steady stream of falsehoods and ample bad advice.
AP:
Face masks make a political statement in era of coronavirus
Inconclusive science and shifting federal guidance have muddied the political debate. Health officials initially said wearing masks was unnecessary, especially amid a shortage of protective materials. But last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending wearing cloth masks in crowded public situations to prevent transmitting the virus.
Whether Americans are embracing the change may depend on their political party. While most other protective measures like social distancing get broad bipartisan support, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say they’re wearing a mask when leaving home, 76% to 59%, according to a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The split is clear across several demographics that lean Democratic. People with college degrees are more likely than those without to wear masks when leaving home, 78% to 63%. African Americans are more likely than either white people or Hispanic Americans to say they’re wearing masks outside the home, 83% to 64% and 67%, respectively.
The notable exception is among older people, a group particularly vulnerable to serious illness from the virus. Some 79% of those age 60 and over were doing so compared with 63% of those younger.
Axios:
Trump and some top aides question accuracy of virus death toll
What's next: A senior administration official said he expects the president to begin publicly questioning the death toll as it closes in on his predictions for the final death count and damages him politically.
- The U.S. death toll has surpassed 71,000, with more than 1.2 million confirmed cases, according to the latest figures.
- Trump's engagement could amplify a partisan gulf we saw in this week's Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index over believing the death statistics.
Reality check: There is no evidence the death rate has been exaggerated, and experts believe coronavirus deaths in the U.S. are being undercounted — not overcounted.
Chrissy Stroop:
WHERE’S THE 2020 DEMOCRATIC FAITH OUTREACH DISCUSSION… OR HAS THE FOLLY OF COURTING WHITE EVANGELICALS FINALLY HIT HOME?
The proponents of Democratic faith outreach to white evangelicals have produced no compelling evidence that the reason President Barack Obama was able to win a higher (though still underwhelming) share of white evangelicals in 2008 and 2012 relative to Hillary Clinton in 2016 was due to faith outreach as opposed to other factors. Nor have they shown that the decline in the white evangelical vote share for the Democratic candidate for president—26% in 2008, 21% in 2012, 16% in 2016—has anything more to do with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign strategy than it does with the increasing polarization of American society.
So the discussion really should die. But has it? I asked veteran civic engagement activist, regular RD contributor, and United Church of Christ Pastor Daniel Schultz to weigh in on the question. He confirmed my sense of strangeness at the absence of the usual faith outreach hand wringing, though he suggested we may start to see similar discussions about conservative white Catholics. Regarding evangelicals, Schultz also noted, “We may hear more once we get closer to the fall, particularly if North Carolina remains as close as it seems to be now.
But perhaps more importantly, Schultz agrees with Rachel Bitecofer’s controversial position that, in essence, there are no longer any swing voters to speak of. That makes turning out the base the key driver of winning an election. Schultz told me, “attracting a sliver of white evangelicals is probably not going to make a hell of a lot of difference, outside of North Carolina. Maybe it’ll save [Alabama Democratic Senator] Doug Jones’ bacon.”
Erin Bromage on commonly asked coronavirus questions:
The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them
It seems many people are breathing some relief, and I’m not sure why. An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the peak is reached, the back slope is also predictable. Assuming we have just crested in deaths at 70k, that would mean that if we stay locked down, we lose another 70,000 people over the next 6 weeks as we come off that peak. That's what's going to happen with a lockdown.
As states reopen, and we give the virus more fuel, all bets are off. I understand the reasons for reopening the economy, but I've said before, if you don't solve the biology, the economy won't recover.
…
Symptomatic people are not the only way the virus is shed. We know that at least 44% of all infections--and the majority of community-acquired transmissions--occur from people without any symptoms (asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people). You can be shedding the virus into the environment for up to 5 days before symptoms begin.
Infectious people come in all ages, and they all shed different amounts of virus. The figure below shows that no matter your age (x-axis), you can have a little bit of virus or a lot of virus (y-axis).
Susan B Glasser/NewYorker:
Has Trump Reached the Lying-to-Himself-and-Believing-It Stage of the Coronavirus Pandemic?
The reality—in both public-health and crass political terms—doesn’t look good for the President.
When I went to college, we used to joke during exam period that you were really in trouble when you started to lie to yourself and believe it. The President and at least some of his most fervent supporters appear now to be in the lying-to-yourself-and-believing-it stage of the pandemic. Truth has become so inconvenient that it’s better left aside for some alternate, less inconvenient reality. This is, of course, not the first time in the Trump Presidency, or even the first time during this pandemic, that there has been such a gap, but it appears to be a moment when there is a widening and very likely unsustainable gulf between Trumpian truth and what is actually happening.