A new Quinnipiac poll finds Joe Biden leading President Trump in a head-to-head match up nationally, 49% to 41%.
When asked who would do a better job handling a crisis, voters say by 51% to 42% that Biden would do a better job than Trump.
A new Quinnipiac poll finds Joe Biden leading President Trump in a head-to-head match up nationally, 49% to 41%.
When asked who would do a better job handling a crisis, voters say by 51% to 42% that Biden would do a better job than Trump.
Joe Biden reacted to Bernie Sanders suspending his presidential campaign by commending him in a statement for the coalition he has built.
Said Biden: “He hasn’t just run a political campaign; he’s created a movement. And make no mistake about it, I believe it’s a movement that is as powerful today as it was yesterday. That’s a good thing for our nation and our future.”
Biden added that he would be “reaching out” to Sanders shortly and promised to work closely with him to unify the Democratic party.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told staff that he is suspending his campaign for president.
The decision makes Joe Biden the presumptive Democratic nominee four months before the party’s convention.
CNN: “Sanders’ exit caps a stunning reversal of fortune following a strong performance in the first three states that voted in February. The nomination appeared his for the taking until, on the last day of February, Biden surged to a blowout victory in South Carolina that set off a consolidation of moderate voters around the former vice president.”
Washington Post: “Sanders’s departure presents Democrats with an immediate challenge: Can the party unify as it failed to do in 2016, when a feud between supporters of Sanders and Hillary Clinton damaged its efforts to win the presidency?”
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Daniel McGraw: “Trump’s insults to Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer go beyond his usual craziness. When Whitmer, a Democrat who won the 2018 governor’s race by more than 400,000 votes, began asking the feds for more masks, ventilators, test kits, and other aid, Trump insulted her at press conferences and on Twitter.”
“Trump’s behavior toward Michigan is strange enough that it makes you wonder whether he fully understands that he needs to win the state to secure a second term.”
Michigan is no longer a Toss Up on the consensus electoral map.
First Read: “After what happened in Wisconsin’s election yesterday, it’s become clear that how this country conducts its elections will be the biggest political fight outside of the general election. And in particular, it might come all come down to ballot access in the three battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and the aforementioned Wisconsin.”
“The good news for Democrats, as they’ve howled at the GOP efforts to proceed yesterday with Wisconsin’s election, is that all three states have expanded absentee and mail voting in recent years.”
“Indeed, these three states back in 2016 were mostly Election Day-voting states.”
“Now none of these three state is Colorado or Washington state, which conduct their elections almost entirely by mail, but they’re also not the Election Day-only states they used to be, either.”
Democrats are pouring resources into efforts to flip Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-IA) seat and expand their electoral map in November, believing that Iowa has the potential to help decide the fate of the Senate majority, The Hill reports.
“It was an election day for the history books, unprecedented and unimaginable,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
“After Gov. Tony Evers tried to delay it, and the state Supreme Court declared the vote must go on, Wisconsinites went to the polls in Tuesday’s spring election and cast ballots carefully, deliberately and defiantly in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.”
“And votes won’t be counted until Monday, another twist in the latest chapter in this only-in-Wisconsin political story.”
Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) is still short the signatures he needs to get on the Democratic primary ballot for re-election, the Boston Globe reports.
He has only about 7,000 of the 10,000 he needs, but the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically slowed efforts.
“Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Democratic opponent Amy McGrath outraised the longtime senator in the first quarter of 2020 as Kentucky’s Senate race emerges as one of the most expensive battles of the election cycle,” The Hill reports.
“McGrath, who has received a litany of endorsements from national Democratic figures, reported raising $12.8 million in the first three months of 2020 and ended the period with $14.7 million cash on hand. McConnell hauled in $7.5 million and finished the first quarter of the year with $14.9 million in the bank in his bid for a seventh Senate term.”
Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R), who was a driving force behind keeping in-person balloting for today’s primary, falsely claimed that people who didn’t receive ballots they requested can still request e-mailed ballots from their clerk.
Vos, who was wearing personal protective equipment, also said: “You are incredibly safe to go out.”
Joe Biden praised Sen. Bernie Sanders for having a “significant” influence on American politics and said he hopes his primary rival will play a role in his own campaign, The Hill reports.
Said Biden: “If I’m the nominee I can tell you one thing — I would very much want Bernie Sanders to be part of the journey. Not as a vice presidential nominee, but just in engaging in all the things that he’s worked so hard to do, many of which I agree with.”
“Trump’s opponent really is the coronavirus. If he’s seen to have handled this well and done a good job in the eyes of the public, he’d be almost impossible to beat. If he’s viewed as having fallen short, he’d be in trouble.”
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by The Atlantic.
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) called today’s primary a “shit show” in a tweet, putting the blame squarely on state Republicans.
Said Barnes: “Good morning and welcome to the Shit Show! Today’s episode has been produced by the Supreme Court and directed by the incomparable Speaker and Senate Majority leader duo. Buckle up, this one’s sure to disappoint!”
For members: Why Republicans Insist on Voting During a Pandemic
Harry Enten: “President Trump has dominated the airwaves during the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden, the frontrunner in the Democratic primary, has struggled to break through, which some see as a problem for his campaign. But I disagree. As Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale notes, they don’t want to let ‘Biden hide in the shadows.'”
“A look at the data suggests that Trump is losing to Biden right now because voters see this election as a referendum on an unpopular Trump. Trump likely stands a better chance if this election is a choice between Trump and Biden.”
“Civil rights icon John Lewis endorsed Joe Biden Tuesday, becoming the 38th member of the Congressional Black Caucus to officially back the former vice president’s campaign for the Democratic nomination,” Politico reports.
“In announcing his support, Lewis paired his endorsement with a public recommendation that Biden pick a woman of color as a running mate.”
Said Lewis: “I think Vice President Biden should look around. It would be good to have a woman of color.”
Steve Kornacki: “Four years ago, he was also too far behind in delegates to overtake Clinton and win the nomination. But he continued to run competitively through the end of the primary season, winning states into June. And each victory, or even near-miss, amounted to a show of strength, a reminder that a big chunk of the Democratic Party wasn’t sold on Clinton.”
“But what if, this time around, he sticks it out and there are no more primary wins or even near-misses? What if it’s just one landslide defeat after another?”
“If the late stage of the ’16 primary season enhanced his clout, would finishing up now with a string of lopsided losses diminish Sanders and his movement? When he says he’s ‘assessing’ his campaign, that may the kind of dilemma he is hinting it.”
Thomas Friedman: “In the last Democratic debate, Joe Biden declared that he would nominate a woman as his vice-presidential running mate. That felt right at the time. But times have changed. Biden needs to go much, much further: At the Democratic convention he needs to name not just his vice president, but his entire cabinet. And it needs to be a totally different kind of cabinet — a national unity cabinet — from Democrats on the Bernie Sanders left to Republicans on the Mitt Romney right.”
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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