Impact2020: August 6, 2020
Welcome to today’s Impact2020 briefing! This is McClatchyDC reporter Jack Kelly filling in for Meta Viers. Today, we dive into the Senate race in Kansas, how Medicaid expansion in Missouri is splitting the state’s gubernatorial candidates, and Trump’s latest battleground state visit.
On the Ground
Kansas showdown
With the primary now in the rearview mirror, GOP Rep. Roger Marshall and Democratic state Sen. Barbara Bollier are scrambling to set the terms of the U.S. Senate fight in Kansas, the Kansas City Star’s Jonathan Shorman and Bryan Lowry report.
But those terms are more straightforward for Marshall than Bollier, who wants to be the first Democrat to represent Kansas in the Senate since the 1930s. “Staying competitive in Wichita is likely crucial for Bollier,” Shorman and Lowry write, as Marshall dominated his primary opponents in Wichita “and his political home base of western Kansas.”
Bollier “moved swiftly … to intensify her outreach to Republicans, releasing a new ad with Tom Moxley, a former Republican state lawmaker … in central Kansas,” reports Shorman and Lowry. She has also “been a fundraising machine,” setting “record for Kansas Democrats and her campaign said … she is heading into the general election with $4.5 million.”
“Still, Republicans believe their party, which holds a significant registration advantage over Democrats, will quickly unite around Marshall,” they write.
Not in Kansas anymore (but in Missouri!)
“Missouri voters resoundingly approved Medicaid expansion, … and Gov. Mike Parson says he will abide by the will of the people,” the Kansas City Star’s Jason Hancock and Caitlyn Rosen report.
However, his “Democratic rival this fall, state Auditor Nicole Galloway, isn’t so sure” he’ll follow through, saying “she has no doubt that Parson and the Republican-led state legislature will attempt to undermine Medicaid expansion.”
“History can be our guide,” Galloway said. Parson “campaigned against Medicaid expansion and said he’d raise taxes and cut other programs if you voted for it.”
“As Parson and Galloway set their sights on a November election that will be shaped by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, health care promises to be a defining issue,” write Hancock and Rosen.
Trump hits the road
President Donald Trump is visiting a Whirlpool appliance plant in Clyde, Ohio, today, marking his latest trip to a battleground state.
The Toledo Blade’s Liz Skalka writes that in the 2016 election, the president “vowed to bolster the U.S. economy and reinvigorate domestic manufacturing. But when he returns here Thursday, it’s to a state confronting unemployment on level with the 2008 Great Recession ... and a still-raging health emergency that’s killed more than 3,500 Ohioans.”
Trump “won’t see much of that when he tours Whirlpool’s successful appliance plant.” The manufacturing plant employs 3,000 people and can churn out 20,000 washing machines a day.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who was originally scheduled to meet Trump when he arrived in the state, tested positive for coronavirus, Randy Ludlow reports for the Columbus Dispatch.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden criticized Trump’s response to the pandemic and the suffering economy ahead of his trip to Ohio, where Biden holds a slight lead in the polls, Skalka writes.
“Donald Trump is visiting Ohio, not to extend a hand to struggling families, but to try to paper over his record of broken promises to workers and raise money for his campaign,” Biden said.
Trail Mix
Battleground state watch
The Democratic Party of Georgia and three voters filed a federal lawsuit asking a judge to require more polling places and emergency paper ballots to avoid longs at the polls, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Mark Niesse reports.
Voting advocates in Michigan are warning that November’s election could be a “disaster” if the state does not address issues with its vote-by-mail system, the Detroit Free Press’ Dave Boucher reports.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed an executive order restoring voting rights to thousands of state residents with felony convictions who have served their sentences, The Des Moines Register’s Stephen Gruber-Miller and Ian Richardson report.
As the Trump campaign works to chip away at his broad unpopularity with Black voters, a Black Voices for Trump campaign event at the McLennan County Republican Party headquarters in Texas drew virtually only white voters, the Texas Tribune’s Alex Samuels reports.
Kanye West has filed paperwork to appear on the presidential ballot in yet another battleground state, this time in Ohio, Cleveland.com’s Seth A. Richardson reports. Once again, an attorney with ties to Republicans filed the petitions for West.
Battle for Congress
It’s primary day in Tennessee, where the marquee race is the GOP primary to replace longtime Sen. Lamar Alexander. The Tennessean’s Joel Ebert writes that the race reached “a near-fever pitch in the last month with leading candidates Bill Hagerty and Manny Sethi working overtime to sway GOP voters.”
In the South Carolina Senate race, Democrat Jaime Harrison is attacking GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham in a new ad for spending on “lavish” travel, The State’s Joe Bustos reports.
Number of the Day
3%
That’s the margin that both Trump and GOP Sen. Joni Ernst lead their Democratic opponents by in Iowa, according to a new Monmouth University poll. Biden is trying to reclaim Iowa, a state Barack Obama won twice, while Theresa Greenfield is aiming to help Democrats regain the majority in the Senate.
Listen Up
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A six-pack to go
Freshman Rep. Joe Cunningham, a South Carolina Democrat, released a new TV ad poking fun at himself. Cunningham, who once tried to bring a six-pack of beer onto the House floor, called his actions a “rookie mistake.” Cheers.
For Planning Purposes
August 6
Trump visits Ohio
Biden delivers remarks at the virtual National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference
Tennessee holds its statewide primary
August 7
Sen. Sherrod Brown participates in a virtual Biden campaign roundtable in Cleveland
August 9
Jill Biden delivers the keynote address for an Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund event
August 11
Vice President Mike Pence visits Arizona
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This story was originally published August 6, 2020 at 1:06 PM with the headline "Impact2020: August 6, 2020."