Impact2020: May 28, 2020
Welcome to your Impact2020 briefing for Thursday, May 28. Both campaigns see a diminishing group of undecided voters up for grabs in the battleground states, Joe Biden weighs in on a California labor initiative, and the latest on the mail voting fights in Texas and Wisconsin.
On the Ground
The undecideds
Election Day may still be more than five months away, but the Donald Trump and Joe Biden campaigns are already finding that not many undecided voters are up for grabs.
McClatchy’s David Catanese reports that “Biden and Trump campaign officials estimate this crop of swing voters only makes up somewhere around 5% of the total electorate in 2020, a considerably smaller available slice than in the last election.”
Credit: Associated Press
The bloc of undecided voters is dwindling as the result of accelerated political polarization in the Trump era. Pollsters also often find that many voters who claim to be undecided actually lean in one direction.
Catanese writes that those who are truly on the fence — they tend to be younger than 50, college-educated and in the middle to upper-middle class income bracket— likely won’t make up their minds till the final stretch of the race. Still, both campaigns are heavily targeting these voters with ads, as they could be pivotal in some battleground states that are usually won by the narrowest of margins.
Sending a message
Biden came out against the California initiative to overturn the new state law requiring companies to provide more benefits to app-based workers for companies like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash, David Lightman and Hannah Wiley write for the Sacramento Bee.
They note that Biden, who received an endorsement from the AFL-CIO Wednesday, “has consistently supported the effort to get benefits for gig workers.”
Biden is expected to carry California easily in November, but “his full-throated support for the state initiative could send a message to union interests all over the country.” The former vice president is aiming to perform better than Hillary Clinton, who won just 51% of the vote in union households despite winning several major labor group endorsements.
The latest mail voting battle
The Texas Supreme Court ruled that a lack of immunity to the coronavirus does not make a voter eligible for a mail-in ballot under state law.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Tessa Weinberg explains how the matter reached the court: “Attorney General Ken Paxton had asked the state’s highest civil court to weigh in on the issue to prevent local election officials in some of Texas’ largest counties from processing mail-in ballots for voters who cite the disability category and normally would not qualify.”
Ultimately, the ruling was a win for Paxton.
“While the court agreed with Paxton that a lack of immunity to the virus alone would not qualify a voter for a mail-in ballot, they declined to order local election officials to investigate mail-in ballot applications they have received and said there is no evidence election officials have processed faulty ones,” wrote Weinberg.
Several groups have launched legal challenges in court seeking to loosen Texas’ vote-by-mail restrictions amid the pandemic. Under current law, “voters must submit an application and be 65 or older, disabled, out of the county on Election Day and during in-person early voting or confined in jail.”
Trail Mix
Election disruption
Wisconsin election officials agreed to send absentee ballot applications to most voters in the state this fall, but some hurdles still remain, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Patrick Marley reports.
For the second time, a federal judge blocked a lawsuit filed by a conservative vote-monitoring group requesting to effectively cancel Nevada’s mostly mail primary election, Riley Snyder reports for the Nevada Independent.
As the tension over the Republican National Convention grows between Trump and North Carolina leaders, other states are “chomping at the bit” to host the event, Jim Morrill reports for the Charlotte Observer.
A pair of conservative groups sued to remove a proposed constitutional amendment expanding Medicaid eligibility from the August ballot in Missouri, Jason Hancock writes for the Kansas City Star.
Battle for Congress
Rep. Steve King faces a GOP competitive primary in Iowa’s 4th congressional district next week after national and state GOP groups split with him, Stephen Gruber-Miller reports for the Des Moines Register.
Kansans for Life, the leading anti-abortion group in the state, endorsed Roger Marshall over his Republican rivals in the Kansas Senate primary, Bryan Lowry reports for the Kansas City Star.
Colorado Democratic Senate candidate John Hickenlooper must testify in his ethics trial, even if it takes place remotely, the Denver Post’s Saja Hindi reports.
Battleground state watch
The Texas Tribune’s Patrick Svitek and Alex Samuels take a look at why Julián and Joaquin Castro have not formally endorsed Biden, even though they both insist they are committed to defeating Trump.
Svitek also reports that Biden, Julián Castro, Beto O’Rourke, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren will address the virtual Texas Democratic convention next month.
Coming Up
We’ll have a brand new episode of the Beyond the Bubble podcast available this evening. Download it on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts.
Number of the Day
10
Democrat Mark Kelly leads GOP Sen. Martha McSally by 10 points, 51% to 41%, in the high-profile Arizona Senate race, according to a new High Ground poll. Biden also is ahead of Trump in the state 47% to 45%.
For planning purposes
May 29
Vice President Mike Pence travels to Georgia
Pete Buttigieg hosts virtual organizing training with volunteers and supporters in New Hampshire for Biden campaign
June 2
Primaries in Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Washington, D.C.
June 6
Virgin Islands holds its Democratic caucus
Biden addresses the Texas Democratic Party convention
June 9
Georgia and West Virginia hold primaries
June 23
Kentucky and New York hold primaries
Those cupcakes though...
White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway raised some eyebrows with her comments that compared waiting in line for cupcakes with waiting in line to vote.
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This story was originally published May 28, 2020 at 1:42 PM.