“If you told a Republican to vote twice, they’d get sick at even the thought of it.”
— President Trump, in May.
“If you get the unsolicited ballots… send it in early, and then go and vote.”
— Trump, to his supporters yesterday.
President Trump on Twitter:
“Fox News Polls are, as in the past, Fake News. They have been from the beginning, way off in 2016. Get a new pollster. I believe we are leading BIG!”
A new Monmouth poll in North Carolina finds Joe Biden just ahead of Donald Trump in the presidential race, 47% to 45%.
“Under a likely voter scenario with a somewhat higher level of turnout than 2016, Biden stands at 48% support and Trump is at 46%. The results are an identical 48% to 46% when using a likely voter model with lower turnout. Each of the last three presidential elections were decided by fewer than four percentage points in North Carolina.”
In the U.S. Senate race, Cal Cunningham (D) edges Sen. Thom Tillis (R), 46% to 45%.
Said pollster Patrick Murray: “North Carolina has been in play for each of the last three presidential elections and it is going to be that way again this year, especially with a pivotal Senate race sharing the ballot.”
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“Federal authorities have launched a criminal investigation into pension distributions made to two top executives of the International Association of Fire Fighters while they were still employed by the union,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
The union’s president, Harold Schaitberger, is a longtime confidant of presidential candidate Joe Biden who told union officials in June: “We will have a key to the back door of the White House if Biden wins.”
“Oh that it were, but it’s not.”
— Bernie Sanders, when asked on MSNBC about President Trump’s characterization that Joe Biden has adopted his “socialist agenda.”
“A Black man who had run naked through the streets of a western New York city died of asphyxiation after a group of police officers put a hood over his head, then pressed his face into the pavement for two minutes, according to video and records released by the man’s family,” the Associated Press reports.
It turns out that President Trump’s urging of his supporters in North Carolina to vote twice — once by absentee ballot and once in person — is actually a Class I felony in the state.
For any person with intent to commit a fraud to register or vote at more than one precinct or more than one time, or to induce another to do so, in the same primary or election, or to vote illegally at any primary or election.
Rick Hasen: “I don’t expect Trump to be prosecuted for this statement but it is a terrible thing to encourage voter fraud — especially by someone who consistently makes claims that it is rampant in the U.S. (it’s not).”
Aaron Blake: Trump’s awful advice on voting twice.
Just in time for the election: The Blue Wave T-Shirt in a variety of styles.
It’s also available as a sweatshirt and hoodie.
James Risen looks at the final Senate Intelligence Committee report that was dumped just before the conventions and hasn’t gotten enough media attention.
“When Donald Trump traveled to Moscow in November 1996, looking for real estate development opportunities, he didn’t get a hotel deal in Moscow, but he may have found a new woman, and the Russian government probably knew about it, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s remarkable new report on the committee’s three and a half year investigation into Trump and Russia.”
“Trump met the Russian woman through his business connections at a party at a luxury hotel in Moscow, and the two apparently had a brief affair, at a time when Trump was married to his second wife, Marla Maples. The Senate report has redacted the woman’s name and blacked out her face in photos taken of her with Trump at the time and provided to the committee. But the report explains in detail how Russian intelligence operatives keep track of the sexual activities of visiting foreign business executives, and notes that the Moscow-based U.S. businessman who introduced Trump to the woman probably told Russian government officials about it.”
“We’re probably about three months or so away from the entire Republican Party, the conservative movement, the business press and many commentators becoming obsessed with deficits, inflation and tightening monetary policy.”
— Chris Hayes, on Twitter.
A new Harper Polling (R) survey in Minnesota finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump in the presidential race, 48% to 45%.
British health secretary Matt Hancock gave an incredibly painful interview to Sky News while defending former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott amid concerns about his attitudes towards women and homosexuality, declaring: “Well, he’s also an expert in trade.”
“Donald Trump and his top aides are conducting near-daily public events without wearing masks, disregarding government guidelines as well as the president’s short-lived effort to encourage Americans to cover their faces out of patriotism,” Bloomberg reports.
Former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) writes in USA Today that he’s backing Joe Biden for President.
“Donald Trump is a bully who lacks a moral compass. Joe Biden would bring back civility.”
“Facebook will prohibit new political advertisements in the week before the U.S. presidential election in November and seek to flag premature claims of victory by candidates,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The steps are meant to head off last-minute misinformation campaigns and limit the potential for civil unrest.”
Politico: “A glut of new national and state polling out since the Republican National Convention ended last week shows either a small bump for Trump or no bounce at all. The net result: Biden still holds a high-single-digit lead nationally, along with a smaller-but-consistent advantage in the battleground states. Biden’s lead over Trump is large in some swing-state polls, while others show Trump still behind but within striking distance.”
New York Times: What all the new polls mean for Biden.
“With concerns about an Election Day debacle rising in this critical swing state, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf privately convened a group of Philadelphia Democrats recently to underscore the consequences of another vote-counting fiasco like the one that took place in the June primary,” Politico reports.
“The city took more than two weeks to count all of its votes due to a massive surge in mail voting amid the coronavirus pandemic — and a repeat performance might make it unclear who won the presidential election in the key battleground state long past Nov. 3.”
“Wolf’s intervention accentuated the fears that state Democrats have of the nation being forced to wait on Pennsylvania to call the election — and that President Trump might exploit the fact that it could take days or weeks to count mail ballots in states across the country. Trump has already stoked fears of mail-in voting, and Democrats worry that he could falsely claim that delays in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are proof of fraud, or perhaps even declare victory before all of the votes are tallied.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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