Impact2020: August 13, 2020
In today’s Impact2020 briefing, we examine the Republican strategy (err, strategies) to take on Kamala Harris. We also take a look at how Team Trump is swooping into the battleground states in the Midwest as the Democrats stick to mostly virtual visits, and what’s happening in the tight Senate race in Kansas.
On the Ground
An all-of-the-above approach
Republicans immediately started attacking Kamala Harris after Joe Biden selected her as his running mate, but McClatchy’s David Catanese reports that they “are struggling with a unified approach — much as they have wavered in settling on a single line of attack against Biden himself.”
Catanese writes that the party’s strategic challenge is “whether to cast Harris in traditional GOP terms as a ‘radical liberal’ or attempt to open up a wedge between progressives over her checkered record as a prosecutor in California.”
Credit: Carolyn Kaster, AP
For now, President Donald Trump and his allies are taking an all-the-above approach. But with some voters just getting to know Harris, “deploying so many messages at once risks diluting the potency of any single one sticking,” Catanese writes.
Ed Brookover, a former adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign, suggested criticisms of Harris could focus on two aspects of her record: her fierce opposition to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh over sexual assault allegations while looking past those made against Biden, and “accusing her of pandering to the extreme left of the Democratic Party by evidence of her voting record and campaign statements on defunding the police and immigration enforcement.”
Congressional watchdog groups have found that Harris’ voting record has been among the most liberal in the Senate, but the whole picture is more complicated, David Lightman reports for the Sacramento Bee.
“Her liberal profile is a split tale,” said Don Kusler, national director of Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal advocacy group that compiles ratings based on major votes. As an attorney general and prosecutor in California, her record was one “that would have many liberals … angered or at least rolling their eyes.” But he said that as a senator, “her record since is solidly liberal according to our scoring.”
Convention counterprogramming
Trump is expected to up his battleground state travel next week with stops in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Arizona. Trump’s trip to Wisconsin is likely to take place Monday — the same day the virtual Democratic National Convention, which was originally set in Milwaukee, kicks off, Patrick Marley and Bill Glauber report for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Trump suggested during a Wisconsin-focused tele-rally on Wednesday that Democrats were ignoring the state “just like they did in 2016,” and promised to visit “many times through the campaign and beyond.” Vice President Mike Pence, who is visiting Iowa today, is also slated to appear in Wisconsin next Wednesday, the same day Harris is scheduled to give her convention speech.
As Marley and Glauber write: “In short, the Republicans are planning to unleash the ultimate convention troll.”
New poll shows tight KS Senate race
A new poll shows Republican Rep. Roger Marshall in a tight Kansas Senate race with Democrat Barbara Bollier, Bryan Lowry reports for the Kansas City Star.
The poll, conducted by SurveyUSA, “was crowdfunded by a Tennessee college student hoping to highlight races in red states that he thinks are more competitive than people realize,” Lowry writes.
The survey shows Marshall at 46% and Bollier at 44% in a state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. It comes on these heels of a recent Democratic poll showing Marshall with a one-point lead.
While Bollier’s campaign said the polls confirm a close race, “Marshall’s pollster Robert Blizzard disputed the validity of the SurveyUSA poll because it relied on a mixed methodology of recorded phone calls and online sampling,” Lowry reports.
The SurveyUSA poll commissioned by Jack Vaughan, a field organizer for the Knox County Democratic Party in Tennessee, started as a joke on Twitter, Lowry writes. It’s the third poll that Vaughan and two friends have commissioned since July. They chose to do surveys in Alaska, Montana and Kansas “because they are second-tier targets for Democrats this election cycle with a dearth of polling because of low population and strong Republican leanings.”
Trail Mix
Battleground state watch
The Allentown Morning Call’s Laura Olson takes a closer look at whether Harris can help Biden in Pennsylvania.
Tuesday’s primary runoffs exposed some “difficulties” that “could quickly derail a more strenuous Election Day on Nov. 3” in Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Mark Niesse reports.
Milwaukee’s election chief says the odds of getting results in by midnight on Nov. 3 are not promising without a change in state law, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Allison Dirr reports.
The Detroit Free Press’ Christina Hall reports that 165 absentee ballots showed up in the Sterling Heights election office nearly a week after the primary election, raising some concerns about what could happen in November.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he has begun the process to apply for the program that would give unemployed people $400 a week, the Raleigh News & Observer’s Will Doran reports.
Election disruption
Kentucky’s secretary of state submitted a preliminary plan to conduct the general election without no-excuse absentee balloting by mail for all of the state’s voters, a departure from the June primaries, the Lexington Herald-Leader’s Jack Brammer reports.
California Democrats are worried about two major “wild cards” for the state’s biggest-ever mail voting election. Kate Irby has the details for the Sacramento Bee.
Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court ruled that the votes cast in last Sunday’s botched primary election are valid and will be counted, and that the election will be continued this Sunday in certain precincts that experienced problems, the Miami Herald’s Syra Ortiz-Blanes reports.
Listen Up
The McClatchy team is breaking down Biden’s historic selection of Harris as his running mate on a brand new episode of the Beyond the Bubble podcast. Available this evening on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts
Number of the Day
48%
That’s how many Americans who said they had confidence in law enforcement, according to a new Gallup poll, marking a 27-year low.
About the Ye candidacy…
Trevor Noah couldn’t resist a “Late Registration” joke during an update on Kanye West’s independent presidential bid.
For Planning Purposes
Aug. 13
Pence visits Iowa
Biden and Harris receive a coronavirus briefing and deliver remarks in Wilmington, Del.
Pete Buttigieg participates in virtual Biden campaign event in North Carolina
Aug. 17-20
The Democratic National Convention takes place
Aug. 18
Primary elections in Alaska, Florida and Wyoming
Aug. 24-27
The Republican National Convention is scheduled
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This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 12:26 PM.