Biden Leads Trump Nationally by 10 Points
A new Quinnipiac poll finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump in the presidential race nationally, 52% to 42%.
Key finding: By a 58% to 38% margin, likely voters say the country is worse off than it was four years ago.
Said pollster Tim Malloy: “With six in ten likely voters feeling the country has lost ground, the president stares down a big gap to make up in a short time.”
Biden Calls Closure of Schools a ‘National Emergency’
Joe Biden declared the closure of schools due to the pandemic to be a “national emergency,” ABC News reports.
Said Biden: “If President Trump and his administration had done their jobs early on with this crisis, American schools would be open, and they’d be open safely.”
Fauci Says ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Not a Strategy
Dr. Anthony Fauci told NBC News that mitigating infection from the coronavirus is “not only an individual responsibility, it’s a societal responsibility.”
He added that herd immunity is “not a fundamental strategy,” and “certainly not my approach. It’s certainly not Dr. Birx’s approach or any of the other people that I know of on that task force.”
Georgia Wrongly Purged 200K from Voter Rolls
A new report says the state of Georgia has likely removed nearly 200,000 citizens from the voter rolls for wrongfully concluding that those people had moved and not changed the address on their voter registration, when in fact they never moved, CNN reports.
Biden Campaign Tires of the Bed-Wetters
Washington Post: “Throughout the campaign, Biden aides have grown accustomed to — and wary of — Democrats who question every move and worry at every tightening poll, a group derisively referred to as bed-wetters by less anxious Democrats. Biden’s campaign aides referred to actions taken to satisfy them as Operation Rubber Sheets.”
GOP Lawmaker Says He’ll Shoot Armed Protesters
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) said in a Facebook post that he would be more than willing to shoot any armed demonstrators in Louisiana.
Wrote Higgins: “One way ticket fellas. Have your affairs in order. Me?… I wouldn’t even spill my beer. I’d drop any 10 of you where you stand.”
He added: “We don’t care what color you are. We don’t care if you’re left or right. If you show up like this, if We recognize threat… you won’t walk away.”
Facebook told the Acadiana Advocate that it took Higgins’ post down for violating the company’s “violence and incitement” policies.
Trump Extends Lead In Georgia
A new WSB-TV/Landmark Communications poll in Georgia finds Donald Trump leading Joe Biden, 48% to 41%.
Three Debates With a Solo Moderator
President Trump and Joe Biden will debate with a single moderator at each of their three matchups, the New York Times reports.
The first on September 29 will be moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News.
The second on October 15 will be moderated by Steve Scully of C-SPAN.
The third on October 22 will be moderated by Kristen Welker of NBC News.
Meanwhile, the only vice presidential debate on October 7 will be moderated by Susan Page of USA Today.
Biden’s Massive August Haul Breaks Record
Joe Biden and shared Democratic Party committees together raised $364.5 million in the month of August, Axios reports.
“The total is believed to be the most ever raised by a presidential candidate in a single month, likely driven in part by Biden’s announcement on Aug. 11 that he had tapped Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate.”
U.S. Debt Is Set to Exceed Size of the Economy
“U.S. government debt is on track to exceed the size of the economy for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, a milestone not hit since World War II that has been brought into reach by a giant fiscal response to the coronavirus pandemic,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Biden Holds Small Lead In Pennsylvania
A new Monmouth poll in Pennsylvania finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump in the presidential race, 49% to 45%.
The contest tightens when different likely voter models are applied. A model based on a somewhat higher level of turnout than 2016 puts the race at 49% for Biden and 46% for Trump, while one reflecting lower turnout has it at 48% for Biden and 47% for Trump.
Biden Will Head to Kenosha
Joe Biden and his wife Jill plan to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Thursday, where they will hold a “community meeting” to “bring together Americans to heal and address the challenges we face” before making a local stop in the city, Axios reports.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes it’s Biden’s first campaign visit to Wisconsin.
New York Just Saw a Likely Preview of the 2020 Election
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Many Won’t Accept Results If Their Candidate Loses
From the new USA Today/Suffolk poll: In all, 28% of Joe Biden’s supporters say they aren’t prepared to accept a Trump victory as fairly won; 19% of President Trump’s supporters say they aren’t prepared to accept a Biden victory as legitimate.
Quote of the Day
“We are in Donald Trump’s America. And there’s just so much chaos… Educators don’t know what to do, students don’t know what to do.”
— Jill Biden, discussing reopening schools safely on CNN.
Trump Still Stuck in the Low 40s
Aaron Blake: “The events of last week seemed as though they might be playing into President Trump’s hands. Trump and his allies have long sought to use unrest at racial-justice demonstrations to argue for his reelection, and on the eve of the Republican National Convention, another police shooting of a black man in Kenosha, Wis., reignited those scenes. For four nights afterward, the GOP pushed the issue hard, with some wagering that it would change the race.”
“It didn’t really do much, if anything, according to the earliest high-quality polls we have… New national polls released Wednesday morning from highly respected pollsters Ann Selzer and Suffolk University show the race remaining largely as it has been in recent weeks.”
First Read: “More important than the size of Biden’s leads are Trump’s 41 percent and 43 percent ballot numbers in both polls. They show an incumbent with a low ceiling after his convention and before the debates begin later this month.”
Russian Opposition Leader Poisoned with Nerve Agent
The German government has concluded that Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, the BBC reports.