Impact2020: May 13, 2020
Welcome to your Impact2020 briefing for Wednesday, May 13. Donald Trump’s campaign uses an old Bernie Sanders attack on Joe Biden, a good election night for the GOP, and new polls show tight races in Georgia and Wisconsin.
On the Ground
Your turn
Joe Biden has largely escaped criticism on issues involving Cuba and Latin America during the 2020 race, with Bernie Sanders taking much of the GOP’s fire during the primary. But that’s starting to change.
President Donald Trump’s campaign is now attacking the former vice president’s “positions in the region — an onslaught that could hurt Biden’s campaign while helping Trump in Florida among Hispanic voters,” the Miami Herald’s David Smiley reports.
Trump’s campaign is planning to release ads critical of Biden’s policies on Cuba and Latin America, with a focus on a TV interview in which Biden said he’ll restore the Obama administration’s Cuba policies that opened diplomatic ties and loosened travel and business restrictions. Trump reversed those policies in 2017.
Lara Trump, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said: “I think Joe Biden, he’s going to have a problem with a lot of people, especially Cuban Americans, because he wants to go back to Obama-era Cuba policy, He wants to support the Cuban regime, which right now is propping up Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. People in Venezuela are starving to death.”
Credit: Matt Rourke, AP
Biden’s campaign fired back that it’s Trump’s Latin America policies that have failed, and “his policies toward Cuba have done nothing to advance democracy and human rights on the island.” But even with the impending ads, it appears the Cuba and Latin America policy is not top of mind for the Biden campaign, Smiley notes.
California GOP dreamin’
Republican Mike Garcia jumped out to a 56% to 44% lead over Democrat Christy Smith in the special election in California’s 25th congressional district.
“Early returns represented mostly vote-by-mail ballots. More than 420,000 ballots were mailed to voters in Los Angeles and Ventura counties and more are expected to arrive at election offices later this week,” the Ventura County Star’s Tom Kisken writes. “They need to be postmarked no later than Tuesday’s election day.”
Regardless of the final result, Garcia and Smith will face off again in November for a full term for the seat previously held by Democrat Katie Hill.
In Tuesday’s other special election in Wisconsin’s 7th congressional district, Republican Tom Tiffany defeated Democrat Tricia Zunker 57% to 43%, Laura Schulte and Megan Stringer report for the Wausau Daily Herald.
And in Nebraska, Tuesday’s statewide primary shattered “the state record for absentee voting with nearly 400,000 mail-in ballots in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic,” Grant Schulte reports for the local AP.
“In a closely watched Democratic primary for an Omaha-based congressional district, voters chose progressive Kara Eastman over a more conservative candidate. Eastman will once again face Republican Rep. Don Bacon, as she did in 2018.”
Henry J. Cordes and Aaron Sanderford have more on the coming Bacon-Eastman showdown for the Omaha World-Herald.
Convention watch
Democrats moved one step closer to allowing delegates to vote virtually during the national convention in Milwaukee this summer.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Bill Glauber reports that the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee “unanimously adopted a resolution … giving the team overseeing the convention the authority to change the format, size and dates of the event. Delegates will also be able ‘to participate in the convention in person or by means that allow for appropriate social distancing.’”
The full Democratic National Committee still needs to approve the measure.
Trail Mix
Battleground state watch
An internal GOP poll shows a tight presidential race in Georgia, with Biden at 47% and Trump at 46%, Greg Bluestein reports for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The poll also found close contests for both U.S. Senate seats in the state.
Registered Democratic voters now outnumber Republicans in all suburban Philadelphia counties, Andrew Seidman reports for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The Inquirer’s Julia Terruso also wraps up Jill Biden’s virtual events in Pennsylvania yesterday.
Michael Bloomberg’s gun control group is planning to spend at least $5 million backing Democrats up and down the ballot in Arizona, Ronald J. Hansen writes for the Arizona Republic.
“Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office sent a letter Tuesday insisting that Austin and Travis County officials modify their latest stay-at-home orders to match statewide executive orders, threatening legal action if they fail to comply,” Ryan Autullo and Philip Jankowski report for the Austin American-Statesman.
Election disruption
An anti-Trump GOP group launched an ad campaign pushing senators in Kentucky, North Carolina and Missouri to pass a coronavirus relief bill funding mail voting and absentee voting, McClatchy’s Francesca Chambers reports.
The State’s Maayan Schecter reports on how South Carolina lawmakers fast-tracked legislation allowing any registered primary voters to request an absentee ballot while the state is under an emergency order for the June primary.
“A prominent Latino civil rights group is jumping into the fight to expand Texas’ voting-by-mail eligibility, alleging the restriction that limits age eligibility for voting by mail to those 65 and older disproportionately harms Texas Latinos,” the Texas Tribune’s Alexa Ura reports.
Indiana voters have requested 275,000 applications for mail-in ballots ahead of the June 2 primary, which is already approaching 2016 primary levels, Dan Carden reports for The Times of Northwest Indiana.
Number of the Day
3
Biden leads Trump by 3 points, 46% to 43%, in Wisconsin, according to a new Marquette University Law School poll.
Sign up to receive texts about the latest presidential campaign developments from McClatchy’s David Catanese.
For planning purposes
May 13
Joe Biden holds a virtual fundraiser
Trump meets with the governors of Colorado and North Dakota at the White House
The Biden campaign hosts a virtual organizing event in Texas with Beto O’Rourke
May 14
Jill Biden holds virtual events in Arizona
May 19
Idaho and Oregon primaries
May 22
Hawaii primary
You don’t?
“I don’t think you’re the end all,” Sen. Rand Paul snapped at Dr. Anthony Fauci during a partially virtual Senate committee hearing.
Coming up
A new episode of the Beyond the Bubble podcast drops tomorrow on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts
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This story was originally published May 13, 2020 at 12:50 PM.