Impact2020: September 29, 2020

It’s presidential debate day! But will what happens tonight matter in November? We discuss it in today’s Impact2020 briefing. Plus, we take a look at Joe Biden’s efforts to cut into Donald Trump’s margins in rural areas of battleground states and our chances of seeing Mitch McConnell and Amy McGrath debate.

On the Ground

Cutting into Trump’s rural base

Democrats think Joe Biden has a chance of cutting into President Donald Trump’s rural voter base in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, McClatchy’s Dave Catanese reports from Monaca, Pa.

While Trump may easily win rural areas in these states, “preventing him from running up the score — to 60 or even 70 percent of the vote — could be the difference between a second Trump term and a President Joe Biden,” Catanese writes.

Terry Noble, who chairs the Pennsylvania Democratic Party’s rural caucus, said, “We don’t want Trump’s number coming out of Clearfield starting in the 7s. We want it starting in the 6s.”

Catanese reports that while Hillary Clinton “missed that rural marker in almost every county where she wasn’t the victor” in 2016, “polling shows Biden’s lead in the state is based on a stronger performance in northeast Pennsylvania, which includes his childhood home of Scranton as well as western Pennsylvania.”

The Biden campaign is doing more rural outreach with a “continual stream of events and town halls, albeit virtually, focused on rural concerns such as technological deficits and access to health care,” notes Catanese. “Local leaders feel more tended to with regular contact via texts and calls from staff.”

Jordan Ball, Biden’s rural coalition director in Pennsylvania, told other Democrats recently that “rural and small town Pennsylvanians will decide this year’s presidential election. We’ll stop the bleeding, we’ll narrow the margins.”

Swaying the few remaining undecided voters

Political junkies may be excited for tonight, but as the Columbus Dispatch’s Darrell Rowland writes, polls show that voters have largely decided who they’ll cast their ballots for, which raises doubts that the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden will change many minds.

Justin Buchler, a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, which is hosting the debate along with the Cleveland Clinic, said: “We don’t tend to see much evidence in the historical record of elections turning on presidential debates.”

Early voting has also changed the impact of these debates, as millions of voters across the country have already had the opportunity to submit their ballots for weeks.

A coin toss determined that Trump will get the first question in the 90-minute debate, moderated by Fox News’ Chris Wallace in front of a limited live audience. After the debate, Biden plans to make a stop in Alliance, Ohio before traveling into western Pennsylvania for another four stops, Rowland reports. “It will be his first campaign event in Ohio since March 10.”

Meanwhile, Trump is scheduled to speak in Duluth, Minn., on Wednesday.

Speaking of debates…

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Democratic challenger Amy McGrath may face each other in a televised debate before the November election after all — if there’s a female moderator.

The Lexington Herald-Leader’s Daniel Desrochers reports that the McGrath campaign accused McConnell of refusing to participate in debates with female moderators and said they would participate in a debate hosted by Gray TV scheduled for Oct. 12 “once the gender balance of the moderators is restored.”

“While McConnell has not formally declined the invitation to the KET debate, which is hosted by Renee Shaw, his campaign indicated Monday that it would only accept the Gray TV debate hosted by WKYT’s Bill Bryant,” Desrochers writes.

WKYT’s news director would not say if the station was open to changing moderators, saying “we still hope that the McGrath campaign will accept our latest invitation.”

Desrochers also reports that McGrath passed on commenting about Amy Coney Barrett, saying she doesn’t believe any Supreme Court nominee should be considered right now.

Trail Mix

Battleground state watch

• An anti-Trump Republican group is running Spanish-language TV ads in Miami-Dade County, Fla. that compare the president to Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Alex Daugherty has details in the Miami Herald.

• The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Patrick Marley reports that the stakes are high as the Wisconsin Supreme Court is set to hear arguments about removing thousands of people from the voter rolls, but a ruling may not come until after the November election.

• Early voting has officially begun in Pennsylvania, Jonathan Lai and Jonathan Tamari write for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

• A federal appeals court has blocked a lower court’s order to reinstate straight-ticket voting in Texas, the Dallas Morning News’ James Barragán reports.

• “We will not let the infection that President Trump has injected into the presidency and into Congress, that has paralyzed our politics and pitted Americans against each other, spread to the United States Supreme Court,” Kamala Harris said during her trip to Raleigh, N.C. on Monday. The Raleigh News & Observer’s Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan has more.

Battle for Congress

• Florida Rep. Donna Shalala violated the STOCK Act again when she failed to disclose two sales within 45 days, Alex Daugherty reports for the Miami Herald.

• Former GOP Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal endorsed Rep. Doug Collins over Sen. Kelly Loeffler in the state’s U.S. Senate race, Greg Bluestein reports for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Number of the Day

9

Two new New York Times/Siena College and Washington Post/ABC polls show Biden leading Trump by 9 points in Pennsylvania.

A country divided?!

This pre-debate debate tries to answer the question causing rifts in households everywhere: does pineapple belong on pizza?

For Planning Purposes

Sept. 29

The first presidential debate takes place in Cleveland

Kamala Harris holds a virtual fundraiser

Vice President Mike Pence travels to Pennsylvania for a debate watch party

Sept. 30

President Donald Trump visits Duluth, Minn.

Joe Biden travels to Ohio and Pennsylvania

Pence travels to Atlanta, Ga.

Oct. 1

Pence travels to Council Bluffs, Iowa

The Beyond the Bubble podcast team releases a new episode discussing the presidential race in a key battleground state. Download and listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts

Oct. 2

Trump visits Sanford, Fla.

Oct. 3

Trump visits La Crosse and Green Bay, Wis.

Oct. 7

The vice-presidential debate takes place

If someone forwarded this email to you, please consider signing up here for our daily roundup of 2020 election news from McClatchy and other local journalists.

This story was originally published September 29, 2020 at 11:57 AM.