Impact2020: October 14, 2020
Impact2020: Some Republicans see a Trump ‘landslide’ + Biden ads coming to gas stations
In today’s Impact2020 briefing, we take a look at the dueling town halls set for this week, why Trump supporters aren’t buying that the president is in danger of losing, and why you’re about to see Biden ads in some pretty unusual places.
On the Ground
‘He’s going to win in a landslide’
There are a lot of signs President Donald Trump is facing serious headwinds less than three weeks out from Election Day: he’s falling further behind Joe Biden in the polls, getting vastly outspent and recovering from COVID-19.
Yet McClatchy’s David Catanese reports that many rank-and-file Republican voters and local party officials are as convinced as ever that Trump is headed toward victory.
The president’s supporters argue that the crowds he is attracting at rallies and the Trump banners in their neighborhoods “measure enthusiasm that can’t be accurately tracked by surveys.” They also remember how wrong many of the state-based polls were in 2016.
“All the polls said he had no chance,” said Jay Wetz, a 75-year-old who voted early for Trump in Phoenix. “That’s what I see again. … He’ll win Arizona. He’s the man, that’s why.”
In response to a set of recent polls that showed Trump down as much as 10 points in Wisconsin, Richard Kucksdorf, a GOP chairman in rural Shawano County, said: “Who cares what the polls say? …I think he’s going to win in a landslide.”
Catanese points out: “An alarmingly visceral and hardened distrust of the media among Republicans has created a parallel political universe around the country: One where a Trump defeat is almost unfathomable, especially when that possibility is perpetuated by sources they have viewed as hostile for the last four years.”
“Take no offense,” offered former Pennsylvania GOP Gov. Tom Corbett in a recent interview, “Nobody believes you guys.”
Coming to a gas station near you
Soon you may not be able to fill up at the pump without seeing a Joe Biden ad on the TV screen.
McClatchy’s Alex Roarty reports that the Democratic National Committee is making use of a recent surge in cash by launching unconventional ads that they “hope will reach pockets of the electorate unlikely to see digital or TV ads.”
This week in the battleground states of Nevada, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, people will start to see the ads in a range of unusual locations, including aerial banners, gas station TVs, and city sidewalks encouraging them to vote for Biden. The DNC has even rented space on the world’s second largest billboard in Las Vegas encouraging people to make a plan to vote, Roarty notes.
Party officials said the ads, backed by a seven-figure investment, are meant to complement Bidens’ broader campaign of TV and digital ads.
In Miami anyway
The second presidential debate may not happen in Miami on Thursday, but Trump will be in the city anyway now that he has agreed to participate in a televised NBC News town hall that evening, the Miami Herald’s David Smiley reports.
Vice President Mike Pence will hold two Miami events earlier in the day, Smiley writes: a mid-morning campaign rally at the Memorial Cubano near Florida International University’s West Miami-Dade campus, and a faith-based campaign event at the Lubavitch Educational Center in North Miami-Dade.
Smiley notes: “The Trump campaign’s visits come during the heat of mail voting in Florida, and just a few days before in-person early voting begins Monday. Trump held a rally in Central Florida Monday, and has another scheduled Friday in Ocala.”
As for Biden, he will be in Philadelphia Thursday evening for an ABC News town hall. He visited Broward County, Fla., yesterday, the Miami Herald’s David Smiley, Jacqueline Charles and Joey Flechas report, where he told supporters “you can determine the outcome of this election. We win Florida and it’s all over.”
Trail Mix
Battleground state watch
In the first week since early voting began, 193,000 Ohioans have cast ballots at early voting centers, which is three times as many as the same point in 2016, Rick Rouan reports for The Columbus Dispatch. And nearly 2.5 million Ohioans also have requested absentee ballots by mail.
The Columbus Dispatch’s Catherine Candisky examines how Democrats are gaining ground in an affluent suburb west of Cleveland.
“The first day of early voting in Texas saw long lines, a record number of voters in the state’s most populous county and relatively few hitches,” Shawn Mulcahy writes for the Texas Tribune.
Election disruption
Virginia’s voter registration deadline has been extended to Thursday following a website outage on what was originally the final day to register, the Virginian-Pilot’s Robyn Sidersky reports.
Battle for Congress
North Carolina’s Senate race is poised to become the most expensive in U.S. history, Jim Morrill and Karl Evers-Hillstrom report for the Charlotte Observer.
And in South Carolina, Sen. Lindsey Graham already set a record: his campaign brought in $28 million in the third quarter, an all-time high for Senate Republicans. As Joseph Bustos notes in The State, that’s about half of the $57 million his Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison raised over the same quarter.
After years of House Republicans attempting to repeal Obamacare, the party’s two high-profile candidates in Miami say they support a different approach, Alex Daugherty reports for the Miami Herald.
COVID update
Without a COVID-19 vaccine before the election, Trump is promising emergency approval of an experimental drug as a way to appeal to senior citizens, reports McClatchy’s Michael Wilner.
Number of the Day
72%
A joint poll from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the University of Pennsylvania found that 72% of Indian American voters plan to vote for Biden.
‘Please like me’
Photo credit: Gene J. Puskar, AP
Trump makes a plea, half in jest, to suburban women while campaigning in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Polls show that his prospects have slipped in suburban parts of the state since 2016.
For Planning Purposes
Oct. 14
President Donald Trump travels to Des Moines, Iowa
Vice President Mike Pence visits Grand Rapids, Mich.
Joe Biden holds a virtual fundraiser
Oct. 15
Trump visits Greensville, N.C. before traveling to Miami for an NBC News town hall
Biden participates in an ABC News town hall in Philadelphia
Kamala Harris travels to Charlotte and Asheville, N.C.
A new episode of the Beyond the Bubble podcast is available on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts.
Oct. 16
Trump visits Macon, Ga.
Harris travels to Cleveland, Ohio
Oct. 17
Trump travels to Muskegon, Mich., and Janesville, Wis.
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This story was originally published October 14, 2020 at 12:42 PM.