Washington Post: “As President Trump entered the final stretch of the election season, he began making more than 50 false or misleading claims a day. It’s only gotten worse — so much so that the Fact Checker team cannot keep up.”
“At his current pace, the president will surely exceed 25,000 claims before Election Day. In fact, he probably crossed that threshold this week.”
Prominent Republican pollster Frank Luntz blasted President Trump’s campaign the worst he’s ever seen and saying the president’s advisers should be “brought up on charges of political malpractice,” The Hill reports.
Said Luntz: “It is the worst campaign I’ve ever seen and I’ve been watching them since 1980. They’re on the wrong issues. They’re on the wrong message. They’ve got their heads up their assess… Your damn job is to get your candidate to talk about things that are relevant to the people you need to reach. And if you can’t do your damn job then get out.”
New York Times: “Interviews with 21 Republican and Democratic strategists, many of whom have worked for other presidential campaigns over the past 30 years, suggest that Mr. Trump will need some 11th-hour disruptions in the race. That might include a bad stumble by Mr. Biden in the debate on Thursday or on the trail; court rulings or Republican tactics that suppress the Democratic vote; and a G.O.P. ground game that turns out voters who may not have been counted by pollsters.”
“And Mr. Trump will need to bring discipline to the campaign trail that has so far eluded him, the strategists say. That will mean presenting a forceful and uncluttered appeal that he is better able than Mr. Biden to rebuild the economy, while trying yet again to draw a contrast between himself and an opponent he has sought to portray as ideologically too far to the left to run the nation.”
Associated Press: Trump’s best path to victory hinges on Florida and Pennsylvania.
New York Times: “The Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked a trial judge’s ruling that would have allowed, but not required, counties in Alabama to offer curbside voting. The vote was 5 to 3, with the court’s more conservative members in the majority. The court’s brief, unsigned order gave no reasons, which is typical when it rules on emergency applications, and it said the order would remain in effect while appeals moved forward.”
A bipartisan group of six former secretaries of Commerce has endorsed Joe Biden for president, CNBC reports.
The group includes Carlos Gutierrez, who served under President George W. Bush; Penny Pritzker and Gary Locke, who served under President Barack Obama; and Bill Daley, Norm Mineta and Mickey Kantor, all of whom served under President Bill Clinton.
“Robert O’Brien, President Trump’s national security adviser, said Wednesday that Trump would accept the results of the election if he loses on Nov. 3,” Politico reports.
Said O’Brien: “If he loses the election, I’m certain the president will transfer power over, but we’ve got to make sure there’s no fraud in the election and we need to make sure it’s a free and fair election, just like we demand of other countries overseas, we need to make the demand of ourselves.”
“Richard Grenell, a close Trump ally who has served numerous roles in the administration, quietly embarked on a pre-election mission last month that was at least partly intended to persuade President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela to give up power,” the New York Times reports.
“The trip, which was reported by Bloomberg News on Wednesday night, caught the State Department and even some White House officials off guard and created confusion about its purpose.”
John Harris: “As President Trump heads into his final sprint to Election Day, nearly every news report notes that he is running behind in the polls. Journalists aren’t shying away from describing his wilder rhetoric as ‘studded with lies and falsehoods.’ It’s not hard to find examples of anonymous ‘advisers’ lamenting that Trump is not following anyone’s advice but his own.”
“But there’s something easy to miss in the barrage of negative stories: By historical standards, Trump’s coverage is actually favorable, in one critical respect.”
“It is giving generous allowance for the possibility that things aren’t as bad as they seem for the incumbent, and that he may yet have another surprise in store for anyone who thinks that conventional dynamics of politics apply to him.”
“President Trump and his advisers have repeatedly discussed whether to fire FBI Director Christopher Wray after Election Day — a scenario that also could imperil the tenure of Attorney General William Barr as the president grows increasingly frustrated that federal law enforcement has not delivered his campaign the kind of last-minute boost that the FBI provided in 2016,” the Washington Post reports.
“The conversations among the president and senior aides stem in part from their disappointment that Wray in particular but Barr as well have not done what Trump had hoped — indicate that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, or other Biden associates are under investigation.”
“Former President Barack Obama delivered an often-incredulous and blistering account of his successor’s first four years in office on Wednesday in Philadelphia, making his most direct attacks on President Trump to date both on substance and on a personal level,” CNN reports.
Said Obama: “I never thought Donald Trump would embrace my vision or continue my polices, but I did hope for the sake of the country, that he might show some interest in taking the job seriously. But it hasn’t happened. He hasn’t showed any interest in doing the work or helping anybody but himself and his friends.”
“The U.S. government has concluded that Iran was behind a series of threatening emails arriving this week in the inboxes of Democratic voters,” the Washington Post reports.
“Department of Homeland Security officials told state and local election administrators on a call Wednesday that a foreign government was responsible for the online barrage… A DHS official also said authorities had detected holes in state and local election websites and instructed those participating to patch their online services.”
“The emails claimed to be from the Proud Boys, a far-right group supportive of President Trump, but appeared instead to be a deceptive campaign making use of a vulnerability in the organization’s online network.”
“In the days after the first debate Sept. 29 between President Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden, the president faced two problems,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“One was his debate performance. On the flight home from the debate, he described it as superb to family and staff, who said little to dissuade him. But by the next day, Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, was imploring friendly media personalities and other allies to level with his father-in-law about the angry and aggressive debate style he had displayed, according to people familiar with the calls. Polls would soon show the performance had cost the president support.”
“The other was the fallout from the Supreme Court nomination ceremony he had held the previous weekend at the White House, which Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, would soon describe as a “superspreader” of Covid-19. Within days, Mr. Trump would test positive for the disease.”
“Explicit photos and emails purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden were circulating in Ukraine last year at the same time that Rudy Giuliani was searching for dirt there on former Vice President Joe Biden,” Time reports.
“The emails’ alleged availability, which has not been previously reported, comes to light in the wake of Giuliani’s recent claims that he obtained private photos and emails of Hunter Biden from a broken laptop abandoned in Delaware.”
From Fox News:
From CNN:
From Emerson College:
From Quinnipiac University:
From New York Times/Siena:
From Latino Decisions:
“Senate Republicans reiterated on Wednesday their stiff opposition to the White House’s last-ditch effort to cut a major stimulus deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the latest indication that passing any new relief package almost certainly will have to wait until after Election Day,” CNN reports.
The Hill: “Biden and his team believe President Trump has done damage to his own campaign in recent weeks, a sentiment they see as being reflected in national and battleground state polls that show the Democrat with a lead.”
“Their plan in the final presidential debate is to do nothing more than to underline the contrast between Biden and Trump, and to avoid any mistakes.”
HuffPost: “The plan hasn’t been finalized yet, according to a Democratic aide, but Democrats are preparing to fill their empty seats with poster-sized photos of people who would be hurt by Barrett potentially casting a deciding vote against the Affordable Care Act. These would be the same pictures of people Democrats had on display during Barrett’s confirmation hearing last week.”
“Democrats also intend to hold two press conferences to push back on Barrett’s confirmation ― one on the Capitol steps and one on the Supreme Court steps. It’s not clear if one of those would be happening at the same time as Barrett’s committee vote.”
A new Pew Research poll finds just 4% of registered voters in states with a Senate contest say they will support Donald Trump or Joe Biden and a Senate candidate from the opposing party.
Likewise, just 4% of registered voters say they plan to vote for Biden and the Republican candidate for House in their district or Trump and the Democratic House candidate.
In a head to head match up, Biden leads Trump nationally, 52% to 42%.
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.
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