“Who let all these people into my basement?”
— Joe Biden, addressing a drive in campaign rally.
“Who let all these people into my basement?”
— Joe Biden, addressing a drive in campaign rally.
More than seven million mailed ballots had not been returned in the 13 most competitive states that require ballots to arrive on or before Election Day, the Wall Street Journal reports.
That’s about 28% of the more than 24 million ballots that had been tallied in those states.
Many of the states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Florida, were narrowly won in the 2016 presidential election, in some cases by only a few thousand votes, making the outstanding ballots potentially critical to figuring a winner this time around.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said he was replacing New York’s weekly quarantine list with testing rules for out-of-state visitors, requiring travelers to test negative for the novel coronavirus before and after arrival, WABC reports.
Under the new requirements, travelers to New York must test negative for COVID-19 within three days of arrival. They then must self-quarantine for at least three days before getting tested again. If they test negative on the fourth day, they will no longer have to self-quarantine.
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“British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday announced a new month-long lockdown for England after being warned that without tough action a resurgent coronavirus outbreak will overwhelm hospitals in weeks,” the AP reports.
Johnson said at a televised news conference that “no responsible prime minister” could ignore the grim figures.
He added: “Unless we act, we could see deaths in this country running at several thousand a day.”
The White House directed the distribution of 23 million ineffective and potentially dangerous hydroxychloroquine tablets to coronavirus patients in hard-hit areas around the country, setting aside the mandatory safety controls put in place by the Food and Drug Administration, the Washington Post reports.
“Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle wants every mail distribution center in the county to be searched for undelivered ballots, and for those ballots to be brought immediately to the Miami-Dade Elections Department ahead of the Nov. 3 election,” the Miami Herald reports.
Supporters of President Trump harassed a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris bus as it traveled through Central Texas, KXAN reports.
“Videos and photos posted on social media show a long line of vehicles flying Trump flags trailing the Biden-Harris bus as it traveled from San Antonio to Austin on I-35. In some images, the bus appears to be boxed in by the vehicles.”
“As a result of the incident, campaign events in Austin and Pflugerville were canceled.”
Daily Beast: Trump supporters harass Biden bus.
USA Today: “Just in time for Election Day, President Trump’s last South Florida rally and expectations the first lady will cast her vote locally, the Times Square billboards showing Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner seemingly delighting in the death and suffering caused by the coronavirus pandemic will be floating near Mar-a-Lago this weekend.”
“The billboards are the latest salvo fired by The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group of mostly Republicans, that has inundated the Internet with ads targeting Trump and other Republican candidates.”
Barack Obama laid into President Trump over his claim that doctors have tried to profit off of the coronavirus pandemic by intentionally inflating the number of COVID-19 cases, The Hill reports.
Said Obama: “He does not understand the notion that somebody would risk their lives to save others without making a buck.”
Fox News President Jay Wallace told the New York Times that cable channel would be reluctant to put President Trump to air if he phoned in during the night.
Said Wallace: “Honestly, we’d have to see what was going on.”
From Public Policy Polling:
From Public Policy Polling:
From Muhlenberg College:
From Atlas Intel:
“Democrats, Republicans and voting-rights groups are readying for postelection legal battles in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin—closely contested states where the late tallying of absentee ballots could result in litigation,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The Trump and Biden campaigns and the two major parties have poured legal resources into these three states, which President Trump crucially flipped from Democrats in his 2016 victory, and where he is closely trailing Joe Biden.”
Jim Obergefell and Richard Hodges, who sat on opposite sides of history in the Supreme Court case that decided marriage equality, write that they’re united in support of Joe Biden.
“One candidate is a rational, principled, empathetic and competent leader. The other is not. One respects the office of the presidency and has genuine concern for the people whom he serves. The other does not.”
“The United States, after battling the coronavirus for eight months, recorded over 99,000 new cases on Friday, a global record. Two dozen states reported their worst weeks for new cases; none showed any improvement,” the New York Times reports.
“Fourteen states reported single-day records for new cases on Friday: Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Montana, Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Oregon, Kansas, Ohio, Colorado and Maine. And three states hit record deaths: Tennessee, Montana and New Mexico.”
“If Joe Biden wins the White House, he and his choice for attorney general will quickly face thorny questions about how they plan to address alleged wrongdoing by President Trump and other members of his administration,” Politico reports.
“But the more immediate and urgent question facing newly appointed Justice Department officials will be what to do with a slew of prosecutions and lawsuits already underway that many current and former DOJ officials regard as ill-advised or unfair. For starters, there are nearly 300 federal criminal cases stemming from the ‘law and order’ policy Trump and Attorney General William Barr extolled to quell rioting and looting that emerged from some of the widespread protests over the killing of George Floyd in an encounter with Minneapolis police in May.”
“The National Guard Bureau has established a new unit made up mostly of military policemen that could be dispatched to help quell unrest in coming days, after a turbulent summer in which National Guard members were deployed to several cities,” the Washington Post reports.
“The unit, which also could be used to respond to natural disasters and other missions, was formed in September and initially described as a rapid-reaction force. But as one of the most divisive elections in American history closes in, National Guard officials have softened how they characterize the service members, instead referring to them as ‘regional response units.”
New York Times: “Batches of ballots that will be counted at different times, depending on the swing state. Twitter gadflies and foreign agents intent on sowing confusion. A president who has telegraphed for months that he may not accept results he deems unfavorable. Television executives overseeing this year’s election night broadcasts are facing big challenges. And the world will be watching.”
The Associated Press says it will explain how it calls races.
“From the deepest conservative states to more Democratic leaning terrain, Senate Republicans face a brutal political environment that has left the GOP needing to pull off a near-perfect run in a dozen highly competitive races to retain the majority,” the Washington Post reports.
“That environment, with a pandemic killing nearly 230,000 Americans and leaving millions unemployed, wounded President Trump’s standing even in his most reliable states, dragging Republican incumbents down with him and opening new avenues for Democrats to pursue the Senate majority.”
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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