Impact2020: March 17, 2020
Welcome to your Impact2020 briefing for Tuesday, March 17. Go vote or stay home? Ohio won’t have in-person voting after declaring a health emergency, but polls are still open in Florida, Arizona and Illinois. It hasn’t been smooth sailing...
On the Ground
Coronavirus vs. voting
Life is all about balance, isn’t it? Right now, government officials and political candidates are struggling to find the right balance between keeping people safe during a coronavirus pandemic and encouraging them to vote, report McClatchy’s Alex Roarty and David Catanese.
Take Ohio, for example. “Gov. Mike DeWine, a first-term Republican, said it was antithetical to tell people to stay home except to vote. Late Monday, a judge denied his motion to delay the March 17 election, but DeWine’s health director ordered the polls closed anyway due to ‘an unprecedented public health crisis.’ The Ohio Supreme Court allowed that decision to go forward in an overnight ruling.”
But the story there is far from over. “Lawsuits are expected Tuesday seeking to allow additional days for absentee balloting and to perhaps move the election to a date other than June 2,” writes John Futty of the Columbus Dispatch.
‘We do believe it’s safe’
Primaries in Arizona, Florida and Illinois were still going on as scheduled Tuesday.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker banned gatherings of 50 people or more, but didn’t postpone Tuesday’s election. Pritzker said with preventative measures such as cleaning and practicing social distancing, “We do believe it’s safe.”
The governor urged anyone who is sick, including poll workers, to stay home. But the state is already seeing dwindling numbers of poll workers, reports Kelsey Landis for the Belleville News-Democrat: “St. Clair County lost roughly 400 election judges over the course of one week.”
Florida also decided to forge ahead with Tuesday’s primary. Despite recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and the White House to limit group gatherings, Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee said “precinct-based voting is unlike the gatherings our health professionals have advised Floridians to avoid,” report the Miami Herald’s Alex Daugherty and David Smiley.
Some elections officials aren’t expecting huge crowds at the polls “because more Democrats voted by mail this year than in 2016 and the Republican primary is noncompetitive.” Officials projected a 20% voter turnout before the health crisis.
“If 20% don’t show up tomorrow, we’re probably going to have to move precincts in real-time,” said Broward County Supervisor of Elections spokesman Steve Vancore.
A polling place worker uses gloves outside of the Boca Raton Library during the Florida primary election, Tuesday, March 17, 2020, in Boca Raton, Fla. Credit: Julio Cortez/AP
Thinking ahead
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear decided to push back his state’s May 19 primary until June 23 so the government could have more time to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams said he recommended the election be delayed after “feedback from county clerks of both parties around the state,” reports Daniel Desrochers of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
In Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan ordered that the state’s April 28 primary be postponed until June 2, the Baltimore Sun’s Luke Broadwater and Pamela Wood report.
Ohio, Kentucky and Maryland join Georgia and Louisiana in delaying their upcoming elections. Wyoming suspended the in-person portion of their April 4 caucuses.
Trail Mix
March Madness
Going back to Kentucky for a moment, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s campaign is asking his potential Democratic opponent, Amy McGrath, to stop running political ads during the COVID-19 pandemic, reports Desrochers.
In Arizona on Tuesday morning, there were last-minute changes to polling locations. Maricopa County “closed 80 polling places and made the remaining 151 voting locations ‘vote centers’ -- where voters can vote at any location,” reports The Arizona Republic.
Joe Biden “spent nearly as much time convincing voters that they should feel safe voting Tuesday as he did explaining why they should vote for him” during a virtual town hall with Florida voters, Smiley writes for the Miami Herald.
It took a while, but Biden was declared the winner of Washington’s Democratic presidential primary, David Lightman and Sara Gentzler report for the Tacoma News Tribune. He beat Bernie Sanders 37.8% to 36.4% with 99% of precincts reporting from last Tuesday’s primary. That gave Biden 43 delegates to Sanders’ 41, according to the Associated Press.
April Showers
Hawaii’s Democratic Party is figuring out how to best conduct its presidential primary, writes Chad Blair of the Honolulu Civil Beat. “Interim Party Chair Kate Stanley said local Democrats are consulting with the Democratic National Committee on how to coordinate the April 4 contest. The primary is the first for local Democrats to be conducted primarily through mail-in voting.”
“Pennsylvania officials are still considering moving the date of the April 28 presidential primary election due to the coronavirus pandemic,” Jonathan Lai reports for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
GOP and Democratic officials in North Carolina are trying to switch their regular party conventions to virtual ones. “Both parties have county conventions scheduled for this month and congressional district conventions in April. Those gatherings are the first steps in selecting delegates to the national conventions this summer,” reports Jim Morrill of The Charlotte Observer. Officials for both national conventions say they continue to monitor the situation.
Reminder for Impact2020 subscribers: Sign up to text with my McClatchy colleague David Catanese about all the latest developments on the campaign trail.
Number of The Day
3
President Donald Trump leads Biden by three points, 48% to 45%, in a new Univision poll of Florida, Bianca Padró Ocasio reports for the Miami Herald. Trump also leads Sanders 49% to 42% in a general election matchup in the state.
Padró Ocasio notes that the poll was conducted a day before Trump’s announcement of national emergency for the coronavirus pandemic. And “Trump’s favorability ratings took a dive in a parallel poll of Hispanic voters, with 62% of Florida Latinos saying they disapprove of Trump’s overall performance as president, compared to 38% who said they approved,” she writes.
For Planning Purposes
March 17
The Arizona, Florida and Illinois primaries take place.
March 18
American Samoa holds its Republican presidential caucuses.
When you can’t go to the studio, go to the...bathroom?!
Stephen Colbert can’t deliver his Late Show monologue from his regular place so he made like a rubber ducky (or is it rubber duckie?) and spoke from his tub. @StephenAtHome, indeed.
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This story was originally published March 17, 2020 at 12:49 PM.