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Post by the Scribe on Jun 30, 2020 20:10:52 GMT
New Ad Uses Sen. Graham's Praise For Joe Biden | Morning Joe | MSNBC
Lindsey Graham Chokes Up Talking About Joe Biden 622,808 views•Jul 2, 2015
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 6, 2020 12:14:52 GMT
'It's hard to defend the president': Warning signs flash for Trump in Wisconsinwww.yahoo.com/now/hard-defend-president-warning-signs-101028381.html NBC News Adam Edelman,NBC News•July 5, 2020
Dennis Boyer, a former lawyer who retired years ago to his farm in southwestern Wisconsin, says there's no question whom he and many people he's talking to are voting for in November: It's Joe Biden.
Boyer, a self-described independent voter who said he didn't vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in 2016, said the coronavirus pandemic — despite not being as virulent in the state as in many others — has "really exposed problems that pretty much connect to everything," to the point that "voters of all stripes here really have a reason to oppose Donald Trump."
"It's a convergence of all the big issues of our time: health care, race, inequality. Even basic decency and human dignity. I think it's really activating a lot of people here and certainly activating a lot of people who weren't terribly active here in 2016," said Boyer, who does remote part-time work with a nonpartisan nonprofit that promotes civic engagement through conversation.
"Almost any way you cut it, it's hard to defend the president," he said.
Although the general election is still months away, interviews with a number of Wisconsin voters, current and former lawmakers, party officials, political strategists, pollsters, politics watchers and union officials paint a picture of a critical battleground slipping from the president's grasp. Despite middle-of-the-pack COVID-19 infection and death rates and unemployment numbers, the sources said there are warning signs for Trump's re-election campaign in nearly all corners of the state, which he turned red for the first time since 1984.
And while enthusiasm for Biden isn't exactly robust, his campaign's increased investment in and attention to Wisconsin — as well as a litany of unforced errors by Trump and the subsequent lagging poll numbers his campaign is seeing — are enough to concern even the state's most prominent Republican.
"It's tough for him any time, and every time, really, he's not talking about issues related to the economy or to safety or to public health," former Gov. Scott Walker said in an interview when asked whether Trump's handling of the pandemic and recent remarks like his stated desire to "slow down" testing for the virus were jeopardizing his chances of winning again in Wisconsin.
"This is going to be a referendum on the president, and it's going to be a referendum based on the three things that people are worried about right now: their health, the health of the economy and how safe things are in the state," Walker said. "They've got to really continue addressing those three issues."
Smaller COVID-19 numbers don't mean smaller challenges Wisconsin hasn't been as affected by the outbreak as other states — its COVID-19 case total, death count, per capita infection rate and per capita death rate, as well as its percentage of the state's workforce who have filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits since March 14, are all better than those of at least half the states, although Wisconsin has recorded a modest rise in COVID-19 cases in the last two weeks.
But its residents are still very much feeling the pain of the pandemic, and recent polling appears to indicate that many feel Trump is to blame.
www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/joe-biden-leading-trump-by-10-points-nationally-86604357934
Biden led Trump among registered Wisconsin voters by 49 percent to 41 percent, according to a Marquette Law School Poll — the gold standard of polling in the state — released last week. (The latest RealClearPolitics average of recent polling also indicated an upward battle for Trump, showing that he would lose Wisconsin to Biden in a head-to-head matchup, 48.5 percent to 42 percent.)
The Marquette poll, however, also showed that Trump's overall job approval declined from the previous month's poll, to 45 percent (with 51 percent saying they disapprove), while approval of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic fell to 44 percent (with 52 percent saying they disapprove).
Critically, the poll also found that support for Trump fell among Republicans, while support for Biden rose among independent voters.
"Certainly, the consensus of public opinion in Wisconsin is that the president has done more to hurt himself than he has to help himself," said the poll's director, Charles Franklin, a political science professor at Marquette University.
Charlie Sykes, a former conservative talk radio host in Wisconsin who opposes Trump, said, "Wisconsin voters are paying attention to his lack of empathy and his failure to responsibly deal with the crisis.
"Independents are walking away from Trump. That's a big deal," added Sykes, an MSNBC contributor who founded the conservative news site The Bulwark.
A 'solid road map to victory' for Biden In many respects, repeating Trump's surprise, narrow 2016 victory in Wisconsin — he won by just under 23,000 votes — was always going to be an onerous task. And races that have occurred in the state since then suggest that even before the pandemic, Trump was facing a Democratic base far more motivated than it was in 2016.
In 2018, the nationwide "blue wave" of Democratic victories carried particular weight in Wisconsin, where Democrat Tony Evers defeated Walker (who had, since 2011, won two general elections and a recall election) and Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin comfortably won re-election over Leah Vukmir, whom Trump endorsed.
Even more troubling for Republicans were the results from the high-stakes state Supreme Court election in April. Liberal judge Jill Karofsky defeated conservative Justice Daniel Kelly, who was also backed by Trump, in an election that took place despite the pandemic, with voters donning masks and gloves and braving long lines to cast ballots.
"When you look at whether real, strong Democratic enthusiasm exists here, well, you saw that in the 2018 election and in the spring Supreme Court election," Sykes said. "That is what anti-Trump sentiment looks like.
"And obviously, it's compounded by the broad uncertainty created by his pandemic response. All of that is what's driving the dynamic in the state right now," he said.
www.msnbc.com/11th-hour/watch/biden-leading-trump-in-six-key-2020-swing-states-poll-shows-85421125538
However, it was Baldwin's 2018 win — she took home the highest percentage of any candidate for governor or senator in the state in 12 years — that could present the best blueprint for a Biden win, strategists and Democratic lawmakers said.
Baldwin, one of the most liberal members of Congress, carried 17 counties that Trump had carried two years earlier — including rural, working-class areas along the border with Minnesota, working-class counties around Green Bay and some suburban counties south of Milwaukee and around Madison. Notably, she won nearly 40 percent of the vote in Waukesha County, the Republican stronghold that comprises the western suburbs of Milwaukee, and 42 percent of the vote in Ozaukee County, north of Milwaukee — levels no Democratic presidential nominee has reached in more than 20 years.
So Democrats in the state took it as a promising sign last week when Biden announced a Wisconsin team led by two veterans of Baldwin's 2018 campaign.
"This is a huge improvement from four years ago as it pertains to the level of seriousness the party is showing in carrying Wisconsin," said Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, whose western Wisconsin district comprises several counties that Trump flipped red in 2016.
State Rep. Robyn Vining, a Democrat who flipped a conservative state Assembly district that includes part of Waukesha County in 2018, said: "The Baldwin hires were incredibly smart. They'll help Joe Biden follow a solid road map to victory in this state."
Asked about its other investments in Wisconsin, the Biden campaign pointed to three virtual events geared specifically to the state featuring Joe or Jill Biden since May 20, as well as eight more since May 8 that featured campaign surrogates. The campaign declined to say how many voters it had reached virtually since the campaign went fully digital on March 14, but it did say that at a recent "virtual weekend of action" hosted by the state Democratic Party, "thousands" of volunteers made "hundreds of thousands of phone calls."
Democrats in the state also said the Democratic National Convention, which will be held in Milwaukee next month as a mostly virtual, scaled-down event because of the pandemic, could be a valuable tool to help mobilize voters and volunteers.
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Trump Victory, the joint operation between the Trump re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee, said that during the time the campaign was digital-only, it made 4.2 million online voter contacts in Wisconsin and held 180 virtual training sessions with more than 600 volunteers. The campaign said it resumed in-person voter contacts June 8.
In addition, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence both visited the state last week — the president, as part of an official administration trip, toured a shipyard outside Green Bay, while the vice president, as part of a campaign visit, trekked through the Milwaukee suburbs. Republicans said the trips proved Trump will prioritize the state, while Democrats said the travel proved the campaign is feeling vulnerable.
"I think once people in Wisconsin figure out the real Joe Biden and once we refresh voters' memories here of all the things Trump has done and can do again for the economy that Wisconsinites will go for Trump," said Republican U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, who represents a solidly Republican district between Milwaukee and Madison that Trump easily carried in 2016. "He can turn it around."
Republicans and Democrats also said that whether Biden's virtual events are breaking through remains an open, and significant, question. But at the moment, it's a question that may not matter much, with public opinion in the state tilted firmly against Trump.
"People's minds here are more or less made up about Donald Trump," said Joe Zepecki, a Milwaukee-based Democratic strategist. "But people here want to know more about Joe Biden.
"Trump has been doing nothing but hurting himself, and that just makes Biden's job — running against an incumbent president, typically a very tall order — a little less difficult."
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 6, 2020 21:20:27 GMT
2020 Electoral Map Ratings: Biden Has An Edge Over Trump, With 5 Months To Gowww.npr.org/2020/06/17/877951588/2020-electoral-map-ratings-biden-has-an-edge-over-trump-with-5-months-to-go June 17, 20205:00 AM ET
DOMENICO MONTANARO
President Trump is in a political hole and has a lot of ground to make up over the next five months if he hopes to win another term, an NPR analysis of the Electoral College map finds.
Given his handling of the coronavirus and protests over racism and police brutality in the first six months of this year, Trump has slipped in many of the key swing states he won in 2016, such as Michigan, which now appears to lean toward former Vice President Joe Biden. The percentage of people disapproving of the job Trump is doing is at near-record highs for his presidency, and the intensity of the opposition is higher than for any past president.
Our analysis, including six scenarios for how the election could go, puts states in one of these categories: www.npr.org/2020/06/17/877951588/2020-electoral-map-ratings-biden-has-an-edge-over-trump-with-5-months-to-go#scenarios
Likely Republican or likely Democratic: states that appear firmly behind one candidate and are not expected to be heavily contested.
Lean Republican or lean Democratic: states that appear to favor one candidate but remain competitive. www.npr.org/2020/06/17/877951588/2020-electoral-map-ratings-biden-has-an-edge-over-trump-with-5-months-to-go#lean
Toss-up: the most competitive states that either Trump or Biden has a good chance to win. www.npr.org/2020/06/17/877951588/2020-electoral-map-ratings-biden-has-an-edge-over-trump-with-5-months-to-go#tossups
(Read more about our methodology here. www.npr.org/2020/06/17/877951588/2020-electoral-map-ratings-biden-has-an-edge-over-trump-with-5-months-to-go#methodology )
To win the presidency, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes, a majority of the 538 electoral votes available across the 50 states and Washington, D.C. Most states are not very competitive. Their demographics and partisan voting histories make them likely to go to the same party they've broken for in recent elections, such as heavily Democratic California and heavily Republican Oklahoma.
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In this presidential election, our analysis finds just 16 states are competitive, in addition to two electoral votes in states that award some by individual congressional districts — that they either only lean toward one candidate or are pure toss-ups. Just eight states and one of the congressional districts are considered pure toss-ups. www.npr.org/2020/06/17/877951588/2020-electoral-map-ratings-biden-has-an-edge-over-trump-with-5-months-to-go#tossups
Viewed another way: About 45% of the U.S. population lives in the lean and toss-up states that will determine the presidential election, and less than a quarter of Americans live in the most competitive toss-up states.
Biden starts with a 238 to 186 advantage over Trump, when including states that lean in either candidate's direction or that they're likely to win. But Biden is no shoo-in. The analysis finds he's still 32 electoral votes short of the 270 he would need, and the Democrat needs to peel off key states Trump won in 2016 to get over the line.
Methodology Before we get to the specifics of the current ratings and scenarios for how the election could go, let's explain how we made the assessment. We base our analysis on three important baseline factors: www.npr.org/2020/06/17/877951588/2020-electoral-map-ratings-biden-has-an-edge-over-trump-with-5-months-to-go#scenarios
Our reporting: what our team observes on the ground in key states, as well as in conversations with campaigns, strategists and activists on both sides. History and demography: past voting patterns in each state as well as demographic patterns and trends.
Polling: Sure, some will say, "... but the polls were wrong in 2016!" It's true that some state polls got it wrong, which is why they are not the only factor; we take that data with a heavy grain of salt. It's also important to remember — polls aren't meant to be predictive. They are snapshots of where things stand now, and a lot of things can happen between now and Election Day. Here, we're referencing the averages tracked by RealClearPolitics. www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
We'll update our analysis and electoral vote ratings regularly in the months and weeks leading up to Nov. 3.
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Post by goldie on Jul 9, 2020 6:35:40 GMT
An astrologer just predicted a Trump win in November as well.
Trump has 91% chance of winning second term, professor’s model predicts
www.yahoo.com/news/trump-91-chance-winning-second-213913320.html Louise Hall
The IndependentJuly 8, 2020, 2:39 PM
Getty Images
President Donald Trump has a 91 per cent chance of winning the November 2020 election, according to a political science professor who has correctly predicted five out of six elections since 1996.
“The Primary Model gives Trump a 91 percent chance of winning in November,” Stony Brook professor Helmut Norpoth told Mediaite on Tuesday.
Mr Norpoth told the outlet that his model, which he curated in 1996, would have correctly predicted the outcome for 25 of the 27 elections since 1912, when primaries were introduced.
The model calculates the winning candidate based on early presidential nominating contests and placing an emphasis on how much enthusiasm candidates are able to generate early in the nominating process, the professor said.
“The terrain of presidential contests is littered with nominees who saw a poll lead in the spring turn to dust in the fall,” Mr Norpoth said.
If the prediction is correct, former vice president Joe Biden is placed at a severe disadvantage due to losses in his party’s first two presidential nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The professor also said the model, which predicted Mr Trump’s election in 2016, worked partially by discounting opinion surveys.
“Polls and poll-based forecasts all handed Hillary Clinton a certain victory,” he said.
The prediction comes as a number other election models have suggested that Mr Trump will lose to Mr Biden as a result of a number of factors including the ongoing pandemic.
A national election model by Oxford Economics has predicted that Donald Trump will suffer a “historic defeat” in November’s election due to the coronavirus economic recession.
The Oxford model predicted the winner of the popular vote in 16 of the past 18 elections and presented a complete reversal of its prediction before the coronavirus outbreak hit the US.
Another forecast by The Washington Post preliminarily predicted Mr Trump will receive only 24 percent of the electoral college votea, but only on the condition that the economy and the president’s approval rating continues its downward trajectory.
However in Mr Norpoth’s model, not only will the president be re-elected, but he will expand his margin in the electoral college from 304 electoral votes in 2016 to 362 in 2020.
The one thing many predictions seem to agree on is that the election could rest crucially on Mr Trump’s leadership of the US through the coronavirus pandemic and mitigating the public health crisis’s impact on the economy in the upcoming months before November.
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Post by heatwavedave on Jul 9, 2020 6:41:01 GMT
Hmmm. Not sure how Trump would do that unless there was lots of funny business going on to take the election. Meanwhile Biden just locked up the Democratic primaries. Will he actually make it through the convention nomination process. The way things are going this year who knows? www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-election-2020-joe-biden-wins-democratic-nomination-trump-a9552361.htmlJoe Biden has formally won the Democratic Party nomination to challenge Donald Trump in November’s presidential election. The former vice president declared on Friday that he had won the 1,991 delegates needed to secure the nomination after primaries and caucuses in 42 states. A surge of mail ballots carried Mr Biden over the threshold, as voters in primaries held on Tuesday in seven states and the District of Columbia chose to shun the polling booth in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Post by vjay on Jul 9, 2020 7:02:46 GMT
I don't put much faith in astrologers. Too many predictions have gone wrong lately and so many have opposite predictions. Politics today is fluid with something new and earth shattering going on every day. Trump is very unpopular right now but if he were to have good news for the country right before November he could turn things around. Then there is the election tricks going on and a possible October Surprise.
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 12, 2020 6:44:21 GMT
The ONLY way we will have real change and close to honest elections is if Democrats start stealing elections the way RepubliCONS have since all the racist Jim Crow Dems from the south became Republicons after 1965.'Epic failure': U.S. election officials warn of November chaos due to budget crunchwww.yahoo.com/news/epic-failure-u-election-officials-101210545.html Jason Lange and Simon Lewis ReutersJuly 10, 2020, 3:12 AM
By Jason Lange and Simon Lewis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Michigan town wants machines to speed up counting of absentee ballots. In Ohio, officials want to equip polling places so voters and poll workers feel safe from the coronavirus. Georgia officials, rattled by a chaotic election last month, want to send voters forms so they can request absentee ballots more easily.
In all three cases, the money is not there to make it happen, say local officials responsible for running elections in the states - any one of which could determine who wins the Nov. 3 presidential election.
Presidential nominating contests held this year in states from Wisconsin to Georgia have exposed massive challenges in conducting elections during the worst public health crisis in a century. Closed or understaffed polling venues led to long lines, there were problems delivering absentee ballots, and the votes took days, even weeks, to count.
But instead of receiving more money for the all-important contest between Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, officials face budget cuts after tax revenues plunged in the virus-stricken economy, two dozen election officials across several battleground states told Reuters.
The consequences, they warn, go beyond practical headaches to the risk voters' faith in the process will be undermined.
"What kind of price tag are you going to put on the integrity of the election process and the safety of those who work it and those who vote?" said Tina Barton, the city clerk and chief elections official in Rochester Hills, Michigan, a state where Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by fewer than 11,000 votes. "Those are the things at risk."
This year's nominating contests have shown that voting in the pandemic age costs more: Officials have to buy masks, face shields and other equipment to virus-proof polling places. They also must spend more to mail and count ballots.
Many officials say they don't have the funding to do either job properly. Election experts say Americans are likely to vote in record numbers in November, when control of Congress will also be up for grabs along with state governorships and legislatures.
A funding shortfall could lead to "widespread disenfranchisement," said Myrna Perez, director of the elections program at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan public policy institute. "We run the risk of people really questioning the legitimacy of the election."
Congress approved $400 million in federal funding to help states hold the elections as part of the CARES Act coronavirus aid package passed in March - that's just one-tenth of the $4 billion that experts at the Brennan Center have estimated will be needed this year to hold safe and fair elections during the pandemic.
Introducing a vote-by-mail system in new locales will require officials to pay for new paper ballots and thick security envelopes, and to buy expensive new machines to sort and tabulate them. Postage alone will cost nearly $600 million, the center estimated.
A fresh coronavirus aid bill passed in May in the Democratic-led House of Representatives includes $3.6 billion in new election funding for state and local governments. Some Republicans said they were open to considering more election funding, but opposed planned rules to make states boost mail-in voting, and the bill has no chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate.
Trump and his Republican allies say mail voting is prone to fraud and favors Democrats, although independent studies have found little evidence of those claims. Democrats say efforts to discredit mail balloting, coupled with a possible fall in polling venues, could depress turnout.
Hans von Spakovsky, a former Republican member of the Federal Elections Commission who works at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said officials could cut costs by focusing on keeping polling places safe, rather than trying to ramp up voting by mail.
"I'm not saying that this is easy but it is not going to be as difficult as all these people are predicting," von Spakovsky said.
(Graphic: Pandemic voting - fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/nmovajbxwpa/index.html)
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to comment.
Amy Klobuchar, the senior Democrat on the Senate rules committee that oversees federal grants for elections, told Reuters money was so short that funds intended for election security, for instance, were being used to buy masks and cleaning supplies.
"That's not a one-or-the-other choice. We need voters to be safe and we need our elections to be secure," she said.
"EPIC FAILURE"
Some local governments are already squeezing election budgets, as cities across the country face a projected $360 billion revenue loss over the next three years due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Georgia sent absentee ballot requests to all voters ahead of its June 9 elections, which officials cited in local media estimated would cost at least $5 million. The program helped fuel record primary turnout in a state that has long been solidly Republican but which polls show could be competitive in November.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, told state lawmakers late last month there was not enough money to do the same for November, and that the health crisis "has somewhat dissipated." He instead will ask voters to request their ballot through a website. Raffensperger's office declined to comment on the funding shortages, or on a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases in Georgia since then.
Most county governments in Georgia don't have the money to send out requests themselves, said Deidre Holden, co-president of the state's association of county election officials.
"If Congress doesn't act we are going to see epic failure once again," said Holden, an independent, who is also elections supervisor in Georgia's Paulding County, a Republican-dominated suburb of Atlanta.
In Philadelphia, falling revenues have left an election budget of $12.3 million, instead of $22.5 million that officials proposed in early March. The city's vote could be critical: Pennsylvania is a state where Trump won by less than a percentage point, and about a fifth of its registered Democrats live in Philadelphia.
The city expects about $750,000 in CARES Act grant money, but it already spent more than its expected grant holding its June 2 primary, its top election official, Commissioner Lisa Deeley, told Reuters.
LaVera Scott is director of elections for Ohio's Lucas County, a Democratic-leaning area including Toledo in the battleground state that elected Democrat Barack Obama twice, but voted for Trump in 2016. Local officials asked her to cut her budget by 20%, and she has ruled out buying some safety equipment such as Plexiglas sneeze guards for more than 300 polling stations that the county hopes to operate.
"Feasibly, that's not a cost that we can do here," she said.
Scott also worries about not having enough staffing. Elderly polling workers are sending her apologetic greeting cards to say they won't do the job this year for fear of catching the virus, she said.
RESULTS? "WHO KNOWS WHEN"
Voting rights advocates and election experts have been warning for months that a chaotic election could cause voters to question the results. Worse, if those results are delayed, a candidate could claim victory prematurely.
Without further federal funding, some election boards in Michigan won't be able to buy new machines to count ballots faster, or cover all the postage costs of mail-in ballots, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told Reuters.
She told U.S. House lawmakers in June that the state needs $40 million from the federal government, far above the $11 million allocated to the state under CARES Act.
"This means ... that election results may not be available until long after election night," Benson, a Democrat, said in an emailed statement.
Michelle Anzaldi, the clerk for Michigan's Pittsfield Charter Township, a suburb of Detroit, said her current vote-counting machines take between three and five seconds to count each ballot. A newer model can process more than 100 a minute but could cost more than $100,000.
With a budget crunch looming, the count will just have to wait.
"Instead of being tabulated by 10 p.m. at night, it could be who knows when," she said.
(Reporting by Jason Lange and Simon Lewis, Additional reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Sara Ledwith)
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 13, 2020 21:43:29 GMT
Joe Biden Credits Elizabeth Warren With Helping Craft His New Economic Planwww.yahoo.com/huffpost/joe-biden-credits-elizabeth-warren-with-helping-craft-his-new-economic-plan-172449259.html Kevin Robillard HuffPost July 10, 2020, 10:24 AM
Former Vice President Joe Biden is explicitly crediting Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) with helping develop his new plan for rebuilding the U.S. economy, a sign that Warren has been able to influence the policy positions of the presumptive Democratic nominee as his campaign continues to vet potential vice presidential picks.
“I am grateful to so many ― including my friend Elizabeth Warren, labor unions, and other progressive partners for their help in putting together this bold new set of policies aimed at healing our economy and ensuring good, dignified jobs for American workers,” Biden wrote in an email to members of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a Warren-allied progressive group, that is scheduled to go out later Friday. “In the face of Donald Trump’s egregious mismanagement of the public health and economic crises, there has never been a more important moment to reinvest in good-paying jobs for workers across our country.”
Biden’s plan, which he began to roll out Thursday during a speech near his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, includes $400 billion of federal procurement spending on products manufactured in the United States and a $300 billion investment in government research on electric vehicles and other advanced technologies. The Biden campaign says the spending will help create more than 5 million new jobs.
Elements of the plan are similar to proposals Warren released during the primary, including pushes to increase government procurement of American-made products. But while Warren aimed to spend $150 billion a year on clean energy technology, Biden plans to spend $300 billion on a wider variety of products.
“This money will be used purposefully to ensure all of America is in on the deal, including communities that have historically been left out — Black, brown and Native American entrepreneurs, cities and towns in every region of the country,” Biden said in the speech. “This will be a mobilization of R&D and procurement investments in ways not seen since World War II.”
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) helped former Vice President Joe Biden develop a plan for empowering American manufacturing and research. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images)
Since becoming his party’s presumptive nominee earlier this year, Biden has made halting but significant steps toward more populist economic positions without adopting the full-scale progressivism of Warren or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). That tone continued on Thursday, when Biden declared it was time to “end shareholder capitalism.”
Allies of Warren have praised many of these steps, and have argued they show Warren’s ability to influence Biden and his campaign.
“Biden clearly takes the enormity of this crisis seriously, recognizes that bold progressive solutions are needed in this moment, and smartly is collaborating with Elizabeth Warren and other progressive thinkers and organizations as he develops solutions,” said Adam Green, the co-founder of the PCCC. “When it comes to this ambitious plan to create millions of good-paying union jobs, and his engagement with progressives in developing it, credit is definitely due.”
Warren is still seen as a top contender to become Biden’s running mate, though the former vice president is under intense pressure to select a Black woman for the job. Biden is unlikely to announce his vice presidential pick until later in July or early August.
Warren acknowledged she had talked to Biden’s team but gave full credit to the former vice president.
“I’m glad to talk to anyone about it, and Biden’s team is a smart economic team, we’ve had a lot of back-and-forth,” she said Thursday during an appearance on CNN. “But understand, these are the plans that the vice president has embraced because it’s his vision. He doesn’t just want to build the old economy, he wants to build the next economy.”
Republicans are likely to attack Biden, who has a healthy lead over President Donald Trump in polling, for acknowledging Warren’s influence. The GOP has argued that Biden’s election would empower radical elements of the Democratic Party despite his center-left stances on most policy issues.
Biden’s speech on Thursday was seen as the beginning of an effort to limit Trump’s advantage on the economy. Biden plans to roll out additional policies on clean energy, aiding family caregivers and advancing racial equity in the coming weeks.
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 16, 2020 22:11:59 GMT
Chuck Todd Breaks Down What New Polling Means For Trump's Re-Election Bid | Andrea Mitchell | MSNBC
MSNBC 3.29M subscribers
Chuck Todd joins Andrea Mitchell to discuss the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden that shows the president falling further behind in his bid to win a second term. Aired on 07/16/2020.
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 19, 2020 0:13:44 GMT
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Post by heatwavedave on Jul 22, 2020 22:12:30 GMT
Scaramucci: 'Biden is actually more of a Republican than President Trump' www.yahoo.com/finance/news/scaramucci-biden-republican-trump-175148720.html
Adriana BelmonteSenior Editor
Yahoo FinanceJuly 22, 2020, 10:51 AM
President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, are locked in a tight battle for the Oval Office as the 2020 presidential election nears.
And some Republicans are vocally hoping for Biden to unseat Trump.
“Many Republicans feel that Joe Biden is actually more of a Republican than President Trump if you really study his record, and you studied Trumpism,” Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBride Capital and former White House Communications Director, said during Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit Extra. “And so, I think it’s going to be a very difficult election for the president.”
Biden has garnered support from several notable Republicans, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and former Sen. Jeff Flake. And, a group of Republicans — including George Conway, husband of White House advisor Kellyanne Conway — dubbed “Never Trumpers,” have formed The Lincoln Project, a group dedicated towards electing Trump out of office.
“I think many Republicans feel this is now a battle for democracy,” Scaramucci said. “This is the biggest schism in the Republican Party since the Gerry Ford-Ronald Reagan schism in 1976. And so, a good portion of Republicans, myself included, have broken away from the president and would choose Joe Biden over President Trump.”
Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden greets supporters at an event at Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, U.S. June 11, 2019. REUTERS/Jordan Gale
Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who vied for the Republican nomination in 2016, will be speaking in support of Biden at the upcoming Democratic National Convention (DNC).
“You’ve got a number of things going on right now in 2020,” Scaramucci said. “Very different from 2016. And that’s basically the schism in the party. And if Governor Kasich represents that, I’m very excited that he’s going to be speaking at the DNC.”
This isn’t the first time Scaramucci has expressed support for the former Vice President. Back in January, he told Yahoo Finance that Biden was among the Democratic candidates who could best stand a chance against Trump in the election. Scaramucci has also been outspoken about his criticism towards Trump, claiming he is “doubling and tripling down on full-on racism.”
‘A battle for democracy’
Biden is currently polling at 46% while Trump is at 38%, according to a recent Reuters poll. That poll indicated that 34% of voters said their most important factor in choosing a candidate was one who has “a robust plan to help the nation recover” from the coronavirus.
There's no federal mask mandate. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance)
The longtime Delaware Senator is considered by most to be a moderate Democrat, although he has recently consulted the staffs of progressive-leaning congresspersons Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) for devising a health care plan with a public option and a sustainable climate change proposal.
Some of Biden’s positions, meanwhile, are not as progressive as many Democrats would like. For example, Biden is against Medicare for all (although he does support a public option) and has not indicated support for free college for all, just two free years at a community college.
Adriana is a reporter and editor covering politics and health care policy for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @adrianambells.
READ MORE:
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www.yahoo.com/finance/news/anthony-scaramucci-on-donald-trump-2020-presidential-race-164938605.html QAnon: Why rabid pro-Trump conspiracy theories keep gaining steam
www.yahoo.com/finance/news/americans-buying-rabid-pro-trump-conspiracy-theories-120653906-180250093.html Scaramucci: Trump is ‘doubling and tripling down on full-on racism’ www.yahoo.com/finance/news/scaramucci-trump-is-doubling-and-tripling-down-on-full-on-racism-202027080.html
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 25, 2020 0:01:35 GMT
Road To 270: A Look At The 2020 General Election Poll Average | MTP Daily | MSNBC
MSNBC 3.31M subscribers
NBC News National Political Correspondent Steve Kornacki breaks down the 2020 general election poll average across states as Joe Biden continues to maintain lead over Donald Trump. Aired on 7/24/2020.
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Post by the Scribe on Aug 4, 2020 2:21:16 GMT
drama, lies, incompetence, go awayHow Joe Arpaio's Fate in Arizona Could Be a Window Into Trump'swww.yahoo.com/news/joe-arpaios-fate-arizona-could-190333782.html Hank Stephenson The New York TimesAugust 3, 2020, 12:03 PM
Joe Arpaio, former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., at a Walmart in Scottsdale, Ariz., July 23, 2020. (Adriana Zehbrauskas/The New York Times)
PHOENIX — After 24 years of doling out his punitive brand of justice in Arizona’s most populous county, Joe Arpaio, who billed himself as “America’s toughest sheriff,” suffered a landslide defeat in 2016, largely because of his hard-line immigration stances and his own pugnacious defiance, which earned him a criminal conviction for contempt of court.
Now he’s trying to win back his old job.
Arpaio faces his first test in the Republican primary election Tuesday, when he must survive a three-way race that includes a challenge from his former chief deputy, Jerry Sheridan.
Few in the state believe Arpaio, 88, can mount a successful comeback and win in November, saying that he’s too old, too out of touch or too politically damaged to run a credible campaign in 2020.
There are signs that Arpaio, a former kingmaker in Republican circles, may not even survive the primary. Nearly 80% of Arizonans cast their ballots early by mail, and a recent poll of Republicans who had already voted showed Arpaio and Sheridan statistically tied.
Still, strategists and political operatives are monitoring Arpaio’s fate for signs of the broader implications for Arizona politics. The former sheriff had closely aligned himself with President Donald Trump on immigration, earning the president’s praise. The two men are stylistic doppelgängers who vilify unauthorized immigrants and are pushing a strident law-and-order message amid a nationwide movement to stop police abuses against people of color.
When Trump issued the first pardon of his presidency, in August 2017, it went to Arpaio.
Arpaio’s falling star among Republicans in the vast suburbs of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and surrounding communities, signals not only his fading appeal. It’s also a sign of Trump’s downward arc in a state that has long leaned conservative but is now considered a critical up-for-grabs presidential battleground.
Recent polls show Joe Biden holding a slight edge over Trump, who won the state by 3.5 percentage points in 2016. A New York Times/Siena College poll in June found Biden ahead of the president by 7 percentage points.
“If you want to track the trajectory of Trumpism, you should study Arizona circa 2006 to about 2016,” said Kirk Adams, a Republican former speaker of the Arizona House and former chief of staff to Gov. Doug Ducey. “Arizona was the precursor.”
Democrats know Arpaio’s popularity has slipped among Republicans and independents, and are eager to leverage Trump’s fondness for him as a way to bludgeon the president. Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told reporters on a conference call in late June that national Democrats would “leave no ZIP code behind” to flip the newly minted battleground state.
“If the voters in Arizona want to know the difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, look no further than Joe Arpaio,” Perez said. “The Obama-Biden administration prosecuted Joe Arpaio. Donald Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio.”
The president is flagging in Arizona polls largely because he has alienated suburban Republicans and independent voters, the same ones who drove a spike into the heart of Arpaio’s political career.
Trump’s slump in the polls is firmly tethered to the coronavirus, while the most potent attack on Arpaio among suburban voters is the millions in taxpayer dollars spent on legal settlements largely related to the harsh conditions in his jails and his immigration-related policing.
But the broad strokes of their problems are the same.
“People are tired of the drama,” Adams said. “They’re just flat-out fatigued from the daily reality TV show. Those people are prime Biden voters. And as they go, so goes Maricopa County and so goes the state.”
Trump’s pull in Arizona, a traditionally conservative state where anti-immigrant sentiment is prevalent, remains strong. The state’s quickly changing demographics give Democrats hope they can flip the state, but that will depend on strong Latino turnout as well as independents and moderate Republicans being sufficiently motivated to vote the president out. Those swing voters could come back into the fold for Trump if the coronavirus becomes a slightly lesser focus in the race.
Barrett Marson, a Republican political consultant, said that while Arpaio was unlikely to win his old job back, it was less clear if the same independent voters who soured on him have hit that point with the president.
“The fates of those two are linked — not tied together — but linked,” he said. “If you’re put off by one, you’re certainly put off by the other.”
A decade ago, brashly charismatic populist personalities like Arpaio and former Gov. Jan Brewer, also a Republican, dominated Arizona’s political landscape, as did the issue of immigration. But Arizona today is a more image-focused state, better exemplified by Ducey, a Republican who has tried to repair the state’s reputation as an intolerant desert backwoods, as well as its relationship with Mexico.
But for many people around the world, Arizona is still synonymous with “Sheriff Joe,” the outrageous lawman who once boasted that he was “honored” to be compared to the Ku Klux Klan.
It’s not the image local political and business leaders want.
Sharon Harper, a developer and member of Greater Phoenix Leadership, a group of mostly Republican political influencers, was the chair of Ducey’s reelection campaign in 2018 but is crossing the aisle in the Maricopa County sheriff’s race to support the Democratic incumbent, Paul Penzone, a centrist former Phoenix police sergeant with a deliberately understated style.
“I don’t really think of it so much as supporting a Democrat as much as I think about wanting to stand against bigotry, racism and the divisiveness that I attribute to Arpaio when he was in that office,” she said.
Ducey, who in 2014 earned Arpaio’s then-coveted endorsement, has not endorsed Arpaio or Penzone.
On the campaign trail, Arpaio travels the county in his mobile headquarters, a gaudy 33-foot motor home covered with images of him and the president. He presses palms like it’s 2019. He dons a face mask, but only occasionally.
When the motor home pulled into a Walmart parking lot one recent morning in Scottsdale, a small crowd gathered to gawk at the spectacle. Arpaio still has loyalists.
“You’re a legend in New York,” Todd Hall, 42, a former New Yorker, said as he loaded groceries into his car. “Hell yeah, I’ll vote for you.”
Though Arizona’s demographics are trending more Democratic, Arpaio has not changed.
He promises that if he’s elected again, he’ll employ the same tactics, some of them illegal, that he used to. If he wins, one of his first priorities would be to reopen his Tent City jail, an outdoor detention facility in the scorching desert that was subject to several lawsuits.
“I wanted to come back, not because I lost, but because there were so many things that disappeared after I left,” he said in an interview. “The tents went down, everything went down. If there’s any time in history for a sheriff like me to get back, it’s now, with all the chaos.”
Penzone, who is unchallenged in the Democratic primary, spent his first four years in office trying to unravel Arpaio’s legacy, ending the practice of forcing male inmates to wear pink underwear and shuttering Tent City — which now houses a drug recovery program.
Regaining the trust that Arpaio eroded with the Latino community, and repairing the department’s image, is a continuing project. Penzone has fired, demoted and disciplined deputies accused of biased policing.
But the same Latino community groups and activists who drove Arpaio’s defeat say that while Penzone has put a friendlier face on the department, he hasn’t done enough to address systemic racism.
Penzone ended Arpaio’s practice of holding inmates suspected of being in the country illegally for extended periods on behalf of federal immigration authorities. But he has left intact the sheriff’s office’s agreement to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in county jails.
Carlos Garcia, a Phoenix City Council member and former executive director of Puente Human Rights Movement, said this policy put unauthorized immigrants in danger of deportation for even minor infractions. Garcia worked to elect Penzone, but said he now had his doubts.
“I think in the yearning to get rid of Arpaio, we failed to really understand who Paul Penzone was,” Garcia said. “I don’t know if ‘disappointed’ is enough. He’s done absolutely nothing except close Tent City, and he did that for other reasons, not for the reasons it should have been shut down. Unfortunately, Arpaio’s culture remains.”
Penzone acknowledged that his office had not rooted out all of its problems, but said he was working to address concerns about mistreatment of inmates and biased policing.
“What you’re seeing is an organizational change that’s not going to happen overnight,” he said in an interview. “You can’t have 3,500 employees and root out all the bad ones overnight when they had 24 years of previous leadership. But to say that what went on under that guy is going on under this guy is just dishonest.”
Penzone’s campaign finance reports read like an invitation list to a Chamber of Commerce gala.
His top donors include the Arizona Diamondbacks’ owner, Earl Kendrick, and his wife, Randy, as well as the Arizona Cardinals’ owner, Michael Bidwill. Barry Goldwater Jr., a son of the famous Arizona conservative Barry Goldwater, and Andrew McCain, a son of former Sen. John McCain, are also donors.
It’s a fact that Arpaio is keenly aware of as he ticks off a list of Republican donors to his Democratic opponent’s campaign, noting that the common thread is that they are allies of Ducey and McCain.
“They don’t care about public safety — they only care about their reputations and how much beer they can sell and how much business they’re losing. And they don’t like the reputation I’m giving to this area?” he said. “They fear me. They know I’m going to come back and do the job.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2020 The New York Times Company
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Post by the Scribe on Aug 6, 2020 1:44:36 GMT
As it turned out the GOPTrumpers steered the US into a recession BEFORE the pandemic economic shut down and these people were happy with it then? Shows what propaganda and partisanship can do to one's brain. The pandemic which came near the beginning of the recession only made things worse and showed the incompetence people who hate government have for ruling our great nation. Had they NOT cut vital programs put in place to deal with pandemic type emergencies perhaps it could have been contained. But alas conservatives do not have the mindset needed to trust the government experts. Government is one big conspiracy theory to the mind of a victim.New poll shows plummeting GOP satisfaction with direction of countrywww.yahoo.com/news/new-poll-shows-plummeting-gop-satisfaction-with-direction-of-country-192013687.html David Knowles Yahoo NewsAugust 5, 2020, 12:20 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. Thanks to a marked shift among Republican voters since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, just 13 percent of Americans surveyed now say they are satisfied with “the way things are going in the United States.”
A poll by Gallup released Wednesday shows that the percentage of Republicans who say they are “satisfied” with the direction the country is heading has fallen by 60 points since February, when the pandemic began spreading rapidly across the U.S.
“The plunge in the U.S. mood, both in the past month and since February, is mostly occurring among Republicans. Republicans’ satisfaction today (20%) is about half what it was a month ago (39%) and down 60 points since February, after the Senate acquitted President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial. The current figure is easily the lowest for Republicans during the Trump administration, with their prior low being 38% in October 2017,” Gallup said on its website.
Just 7 percent of Democrats say they are satisfied with how things are going in the country, while 12 percent of independents agree with that assessment.
The pollster also cited the protests in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the economic downturn caused by the pandemic as influencing the steep drop concerning satisfaction.
While it may be tempting to conclude from the poll that President Trump has failed to make good on his 2016 campaign promise to “make America great again” to his own supporters, Gallup notes that the president’s support from Republicans remains at 91 percent.
Thirteen percent satisfaction is also not the lowest number recorded by the pollster. That distinction occurred during the 2008 financial sector crash in the final days of George W. Bush’s presidency, when just 7 percent of Americans surveyed said they were satisfied with where the country was heading. The same week that Gallup recorded that figure, however, 57 percent of Republicans said they still approved of the job Bush was doing.
The problem for Trump, however, is that despite today’s hyperpartisan political environment, Americans have been moving away from the Republican Party. Since January, when the GOP enjoyed a 2-percentage-point lead over Democrats in terms of party self-identification, Americans have shifted, giving Democrats an 11-point edge by the end of June, according to another Gallup poll.
“Although the public does not have to be highly satisfied for incumbents to be reelected, the current level of satisfaction sits well below the low-water mark (33%) at which an incumbent has won reelection in the past,” Gallup said on its website.
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Post by the Scribe on Aug 7, 2020 8:14:22 GMT
ELECTIONS WATCH: Biden Says He Wouldn't Stand In The Way Of A Trump Prosecution August 6, 20209:00 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition Barbara Sprunt 2017 square BARBARA SPRUNT
5-Minute Listen ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2020/08/20200806_me_biden_says_he_wouldnt_stand_in_the_way_of_a_trump_prosecution.mp3?orgId=1&topicId=139482413&d=300&p=3&story=899375561&dl=1&siteplayer=true&size=4794249&dl=1
Credit: Video: NABJ-NAHJ, Image: KC McGinnis for NPR
Joe Biden says that he believes prosecuting a former president would be a "very unusual thing and probably not very ... good for democracy," but he would not stand in the way of a future Justice Department pursuing criminal charges against President Trump after he leaves office.
The comments from the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee came during a virtual interview Tuesday with members from the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
"Look, the Justice Department is not the president's private law firm. The attorney general is not the president's private lawyer. I will not interfere with the Justice Department's judgment of whether or not they think they should pursue the prosecution of anyone that they think has violated the law," Biden told NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro.
Trump has been connected with alleged illegal activity by his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen and investigators working for former special counsel Robert Mueller. What isn't clear is whether federal authorities are investigating the president or whether prosecutors might take action against Trump if he no longer enjoyed the privileges that protect him from being indicted as a sitting president.
Biden made clear that any future prosecution against Trump would not be directed by him if he's elected president.
"In terms of saying, 'I think the president violated the law. I think the president did this, therefore, go on and prosecute him' — I will not do that," he said.
"If prove to be a criminal offense, then in fact, that would be up to the attorney general to decide whether he or she wanted to proceed with it. I am not going to make that individual judgment," Biden added.
Sen. Kamala Harris of California told The NPR Politics Podcast last year that if elected president, her administration's Department of Justice would bring criminal charges against Trump after his presidency, saying, "I believe that they would have no choice." Harris is a top contender on Biden's shortlist for vice president.
Immigration
Biden also told Garcia-Navarro that he would not tear down parts of the wall along the U.S. southern border built during the Trump administration, but he vowed to end its construction.
When asked about asylum-seekers waiting in camps in Mexico due to the Trump administration's policy known as "Remain in Mexico," Biden said reversing Trump's policies will have to be done with care.
"Because if we just say, 'OK, all done. I've withdrawn the order,' you're going to have a crisis on the other side of the border as well," Biden said. "And we shouldn't be putting these people when they come across the border in jail; we should be monitoring them."
Watch Biden's response on rolling back Trump immigration policy:
Credit: Video: NABJ-NAHJ, Image: KC McGinnis for NPR The controversial "Remain in Mexico" policy, officially named the Migrant Protection Protocols, was first implemented in January 2019 and mandates that asylum-seekers coming through Mexico wait outside the U.S. while their immigration proceedings take place. As NPR's Vanessa Romo reported, the policy has led to 60,000 migrants getting sent back across the border, with tens of thousands still there.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided in March to allow the program to continue.
Biden added that a push for more humanitarian resources is needed and said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement "is going to go back to school."
"The idea that ICE is sitting outside of a Mass on Sunday to arrest a parent coming out as undocumented, the idea that they're going to schools, the idea they're going to doctors' appointments is wrong," Biden said. "You have so many young children, so many young children under enormous ... psychological pressure wondering whether or not they're going to come home and there's going to be no one there."
Biden declined to offer new insight into his thinking for a vice presidential pick, telling the journalists, "You'll find out shortly."
CBS' Errol Barnett pointed to reports that former Sen. Chris Dodd, who's on Biden's vice presidential search committee, has been critical of Harris for not having a more conciliatory tone toward Biden in the early primary debates.
"Well, [Dodd] didn't say that to the press. He was talking to somebody offline, and it was repeated," Biden said. "Now, I don't hold grudges, and I've made it really clear that I don't hold grudges. I think it was a debate. It's as simple as that. And she's very much in contention."
Reopening schools and businesses
Biden said it's challenging to foresee what the country would look like in January if he were entering office then, but he said he would scale back reopenings in places seeing spikes of the coronavirus if he were president today.
"Everyone, wherever there is a significant percentage of people with COVID, should be required to keep social distancing and masks," Biden said. "Bars should not be open. There should not be congregations of more than 10 people."
As for the Trump administration's desire to reopen schools this fall, Biden said it only works if it's done safely.
"Look, I want our schools to open. The question is, will the president do the work he needs to make them safe? Just ordering your schools to open, like Trump has done, isn't going to be good enough," he said.
Biden's plan includes giving school districts "uniform guidance without political interference" on safety protocols for schools that are able to reopen, directing resources to districts to implement guidance and bolstering virtual learning for districts that can't reopen safely.
"Start working now to close the learning gap in terms of distance learning because of COVID. President Trump should stop tweeting and start doing his work," he said.
Election security
"Frankly, this is the thing that keeps me up most nights," Biden said in response to a question from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Tia Mitchell about voter confidence in a secure election. "Making sure everyone who wants to vote gets to vote, making sure that everyone's vote is counted. And we're going to undertake a historic effort in terms of resources, commitment to beat back every voter suppression effort."
"No campaign has ever built anything to the scale that we've built to make sure we can get out the vote. We have a major, major dedicated operation in states to address the head-on voter suppression in any form that it's going to take, and steps we can take to go to court as well," he said.
The pandemic has caused election experts to worry about a shortage of poll workers for the general election, and states are preparing for an increase in mail-in voting this fall.
The White House has repeatedly advanced conspiracy theories surrounding the integrity of mail-in voting, and Trump went so far as to suggest delaying the November election based off the false claim that mail-in voting can be "rigged."
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