Voter Suppression by Nancy OhanianOver the weekend, AP reported that Trump and congressional Republicans have been so overwhelmed with negative polling and pressure from voters that they're starting to back down on their vow to torpedo the House's decision to extend the $600 a week unemployment enhancement. The GOP "compromise" to give the plebs $200 a week instead, just did not fly-- anywhere. Trump's negotiators-- Mnuchin and Mark Meadows-- say they'll give in on the $600 but not on state and local aid, food stamp increases and assistance to renters and to people with mortgages. (Trump offered a one-week extension of the $600 unemployment payments and Democrats suggested he have his head examined, Pelosi noting that "Clearly they did not understand the gravity of the situation.") The Trumpists then offered a $400 benefit for 4 months and Pelosi told them the amount is $600 and that that is barely enough anyway. Now Trump is pretending he was for the $600 anyway and is trying to blame everything on the Democrats. No one's buying it.
Washington’s top power players agree that Congress must pass further relief in the coming days and weeks.Democrats hold a strong negotiating hand-- exploiting GOP divisions-- and they are expected to deliver a necessary trove of votes.Both sides say the talks have not produced much progress, but they could be nearing a critical phase over the weekend and into next week. The pending COVID-19 rescue bill, the fifth since the pandemic has struck, is likely the last one before the November election.Republicans controlling the Senate have kept the relief measure on “pause” in a strategy aimed at reducing its price tag. But as the pandemic has worsened in past weeks-- and as fractures inside the GOP have eroded the party’s negotiating position-- Republicans displayed some greater flexibility.
In fact, yesterday, McConnell told a Kentucky radio station that a third of the Republicans in the Senate won't support any pandemic relief bill whatsoever. McConnell said every senator who votes no, will have to decide what to tell his or her constituents.Writing for the Washington Post Saturday, Toluse Olorunnipa, Josh Dawsey and Annie Linskey reported on a very related matter, namely how Trump's flailing election campaign is trying to start fresh again. They see "a presidency increasingly operating with an air of desperation as it tries to avoid political disaster in November" and a campaign "in crisis." They've even taken down their ad campaigns and they reassess their failing messaging strategy. No wonder Trump wants to postpone the election!Unfortunately for his strategists who are determined "to mount a more aggressive defense of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic," an undisciplined and self-destructive Trump himself "has reverted to touting unproven miracle cures, attacking public health officials and undercutting his own government’s push to encourage good health practices. Trump briefly lamented his predicament during a taxpayer-funded event Friday in Florida that doubled as a political rally and a showcase of poor public health practices. 'We had an easy campaign, and then we got hit by the China virus,' Trump said as uniformed sheriff’s deputies stood behind him and a crowd of dozens of supporters huddled before him. Few people wore masks or practiced social distancing." How many of them will be as dead as Herman Cain before the election?Tomorrow, the campaign plans to try to turn the election away from a referendum on Trump-- which even they now see as a sure loser-- to an election about Biden. As we were predicting all during the primary, we're in for an ugly scorched earth campaign that focuses not on how the help the American people but on which disgusting candidate has a less disgusting and corrupt family, on which compulsive liar lies most, on which servant of special interests serves worse special interests more diligently... Every single day, we will be reminded what could have been had Obama not organized a Party coup for a dead-as-a-door-nail Biden campaign or, as others see it, as an Obama third term, albeit with him behind the curtain this time. Meanwhile, Trump will be trying to persuade that the wretchedly conservative Biden is a member of the Squad and controlled by Pelosi, Bernie and AOC. Of course, the Orange Menace himself is unquestionably "the greatest impediment to any successful campaign pivot, as the president has rejected calls from Republican allies and lawmakers to project a steady hand during what is shaping up to be another lost summer of self-inflicted setbacks." On every level of the campaign, staffers are trying to position themselves as the ones who won't be blamed after the deluge hits in 3 months.
The turbulent final week of July capped a month that may rank among the most ominous of Trump’s term in office, marked by erratic behavior and flashing warning signs.A slew of public polls showed Trump falling further behind Biden, who now leads by double digits nationally; Trump demoted his campaign manager Brad Parscale and replaced him with longtime GOP operative Bill Stepien; nearly 25,000 Americans died of the novel coronavirus, and a record 2 million were infected; Trump canceled the Republican National Convention celebrations; the economic recovery from a record contraction slipped into reverse; and 30 million Americans lost their $600 weekly federal unemployment assistance after the White House and Congress struggled to negotiate a stimulus package....Campaign officials have denied there is any lingering tension over Parscale’s demotion. But Stepien’s elevation and swift embrace of new tactics amount to a tacit rebuke of the former campaign manager’s tenure. The Stepien-led review of spending and strategy comes as a legal complaint this past week accused the campaign and an affiliated fundraising committee of failing to properly report nearly $170 million in campaign spending through firms run by Parscale. The Trump campaign denied any wrongdoing.Campaign officials said that when the pause in ad spending ends Monday, new television spots will aim to brand Biden as a tool of liberal extremists. The negative ads will initially target swing states that have the earliest mail-in voting dates.Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin are among states that begin mailing out absentee ballots to voters more than 45 days before the Nov. 3 election, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Michigan, Georgia and Texas are among states where ballots will also begin hitting mailboxes in September.The campaign, which held an all-staff meeting at its Arlington headquarters on Wednesday that one official described as a “call to arms,” is operating under a renewed sense of urgency as it becomes clearer that a large portion of the electorate will likely cast their ballots early by mail as a result of the pandemic. That gives Trump even less time to turn things around.But even as Stepien and top campaign aides try to impress on the staff that time is limited, Trump has done little to show he plans to change tactics. Trump’s allies say they realize the pandemic will likely be the central issue for voters heading into the election and have urged him to show he is in command of the crisis.The president has instead opted to double down on divisive messaging, reverting to form after briefly appearing to embrace a more serious tone about the pandemic.In recent days, Trump has used his massive social media platform to promote a doctor who falsely claimed Americans did not need to wear masks because the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine is a “cure” for the coronavirus.Trump continued to express support for the doctor, Stella Immanuel, after a reporter informed him Tuesday that she had also claimed that alien DNA is used in medical treatments. When pressed, he abruptly ended the news briefing and walked away.Earlier in the same briefing, Trump complained that health officials, including top infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci, are popular but “nobody likes me.”“Why don’t I have a high approval rating?” Trump asked before answering himself: “It can only be my personality. That’s all.”...On a strictly political level, Republicans are worried that the president’s onslaught against mail-in voting could hamper their efforts to turn out the vote. Trump’s attempts to draw a distinction between universal mail-in voting and individually requested absentee voting, while welcomed and encouraged by party officials, have not had the intended effect on Republican voters. GOP party officials have struggled to convince voters to request mail-in ballots.“He has denigrated mail-in voting to the point that Democrats are dominating requests for absentee ballots,” said David Wasserman, House editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report....Trump, as he often does when he feels under pressure, is preparing to go more aggressively into attack mode. Campaign officials expect a ruthlessly negative race in the final months.“We are doing a new ad campaign on Sleepy Joe Biden that will be out on Monday,” Trump wrote Friday on Twitter. “He has been brought even further LEFT than Crazy Bernie Sanders ever thought possible.”Stepien has told allies he wants attacks going forward to focus on the liberal figures trying to influence Biden. Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont and self-described democratic socialist, has featured heavily in Trump’s messaging against Biden.But it’s not clear that the strategy is working. Several campaign aides and allies admitted that they have struggled to negatively define the former vice president in the eyes of voters-- a long-standing goal for the summer that is quickly slipping out of reach. As Biden has largely remained in his Delaware home due to the pandemic, many of Trump’s attacks on his mental acuity, liberal policies and approach to public safety have not broken through.“One thing that we have found in our focus groups is that people just don’t know anything about Joe Biden,” said Kelly Sadler, the communications director for America First, the official pro-Trump super PAC.America First, which is currently running ads painting Biden as weak on crime, is conducting polling to test which messages might work best against the former vice president in the final stretch of the race.Trump campaign ads set to run in the coming days are also aimed at turning up the pressure on Biden, who the president has tried to brand as “sleepy” before switching to more ominous descriptors such as “corrupt” and “puppet of the militant left.”As it goes on the attack in the political realm, Trump’s campaign is in a defensive crouch when it comes to the electoral map. Polls show Biden leading across the battleground states and competitive in Republican strongholds such as Texas and Georgia.Trump’s campaign, which has already spent $1 billion, is using its hefty war chest to defend Republican territory, including Arizona.America First, the super PAC, has stopped running ads in Michigan, acknowledging that its less likely than other swing states to remain in Trump’s column in November, an official said. The group is currently running television spots in North Carolina, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.Stepien has also sought to focus the campaign on securing the most direct path to 270 electoral votes. The campaign, which has also pulled back advertising in Michigan, has gamed out scenarios where Trump loses some of the states he won in 2016 and still ends up victorious.“We only need to win either Wisconsin or Michigan or Pennsylvania to win this thing again,” Stepien told reporters on July 24.
Most campaign operatives on both sides of the aisle agree that Trump is far more likely to lose Florida, North Carolina, Iowa and Arizona than win Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania. Early on, Trump tried persuading the media that Minnesota, New Mexico and New Hampshire would be battleground states. He's losing each by double digits and instead Texas and Georgia are battleground states, the GOP's worst nightmare. As of August 1, according to RealClearPolitics, the polling averages in the top battleground states all show Trump down:
• Wisconsin- Trump losing by 5.0 points• North Carolina- Trump losing by 4.7 points• Florida- Trump losing by 6.2 points• Pennsylvania- Trump losing by 6.0 points• Michigan- Trump losing by 7.9 points• Arizona- Trump losing by 3.7 points
Other battleground states that RealClearPolitics is tracking:
• Ohio- Trump losing by 1.5 points• Minnesota- Trump losing by 9.0 points• New Hampshire- Trump losing by 9.3 points• New Mexico- Trump losing by 11.0 points• Colorado- Trump losing by 10.0 points• Nevada- Trump losing by 4.0 points• Georgia- Trump is winning by 2.3 points• Virginia- Trump losing by 11.5 points• Texas- Trump is winning by 0.2 points• Iowa- Trump is winning by 1.5 points• Maine- Trump losing by 11.5 points