Impact2020: November 2, 2020
Election Day is tomorrow! So in today’s Impact2020 briefing, we’re looking at the presidential candidates’ final moves on their quest for 270 electoral votes, why after everything the coronavirus pandemic may still be the ultimate factor, and the latest early voting numbers in Florida and North Carolina.
On the Ground
The path to 270
President Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s campaigns are entering Election Day with diverging views of the battleground map.
Even as some Democrats begin to raise the prospect of a blowout, Biden’s braintrust “is remaining steadfastly focused on the same core six swing states they first identified when the general election began as their easiest path to reaching 270 electoral votes,” McClatchy’s Alex Roarty and David Catanese report.
The Democratic nominee’s campaign “has dedicated the overwhelming bulk of its resources to a trifecta of former ‘blue wall’ states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and Sun Belt states — Arizona, Florida and North Carolina — determined not to repeat their party’s mistakes of four years ago.”
“There’s no extra credit in getting beyond 270,” said Jenn Ridder, the Biden campaign’s national states director. “That doesn’t make us win more. We need to get to 270.”
Roarty and Catanese note that no other states have seen more advertising from the Biden campaign than those six, and this month, Biden has logged more stops in Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan than every other state combined.
Credit: Alex Brandon, AP
Meanwhile, McClatchy’s Francesca Chambers and Michael Wilner report that Trump’s team sees a narrow yet achievable path to victory despite his polling deficit.
“They are dividing the president’s time and resources between a dozen states in the campaign’s closing days, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida — four states that if lost would mean a struggle to keep the White House,” Chambers and Wilner write. “Senior officials and surrogates see evidence in voter registration trends and crowds at their campaign stops that Nov. 3 will be a repeat of Trump’s upset victory in 2016.”
“You can’t dispute the turnouts, you can’t dispute the fact that all of us around the country are working hard and we’re seeing the same things no matter if we’re in Arizona, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Nevada,” said Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law and a senior campaign adviser. “It feels like the enthusiasm, the energy, and the momentum is solidly behind the president.”
For more on the state of the battleground map listen to the latest episode of the Beyond the Bubble podcast. Download and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts.
Biden’s broad base
One reason Democrats feel confident about Biden’s standing in the core battleground states is that he “has built an unusually broad base of support,” ranging from center-right Republicans to progressive Democrats, Roarty reports
Their shared turn toward Biden “is thanks mostly to a loathing of Trump. But Roarty notes that if he wins, “a President Biden would be forced to grapple with a pair of supportive factions that seek very different different actions from his White House, pitted between a left wing … that demands sweeping fixes to the country’s structural problems and moderate Republicans … who want to restore Washington a calm epicenter of bipartisan problem solving.”
Progressives list a number of reasons for their more full-throated backing of Biden compared to Hillary Clinton in 2016, including the Unity Task Force he established with Bernie Sanders that led to the former vice president embracing a more progressive policy agenda. “As an organization, we view Biden as someone that we can push,” said Hannah Laurison, executive director of Pennsylvania Stands Up, a liberal advocacy network in the state.
They also cite the fear many of them feel about a second Trump term. Even some moderate Republicans like James Greenwood, an elected Republican official in Pennsylvania for more than 20 years, said he thought Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic was “practically criminal.” But Greenwood sees a Biden presidency as an opportunity to return the country to what he considers a normal way of governing.
“They are still moderate Democrats that could work with the Republicans to find the middle,” he said. “It makes for better politics, and a better mood for the country. We don’t need the pendulum swinging to the left after four years of Trump. We need to bring it back closer to the center.”
Trump’s biggest challenge
As for Trump’s response to the coronavirus, Wilner notes that it wasn’t always going to define this election.
Less than a year ago, “Trump was reaching new heights in public polling and setting fundraising records. His job approval, especially on the economy, suggested he was well-positioned to win reelection,” Wilner writes. “But the arrival of a once-in-a-century pandemic in March forever changed the 2020 campaign, upending Trump’s presidency and jeopardizing his candidacy.
Trump’s “insistence that the nation is ‘rounding the corner’ of the pandemic, despite all evidence to the contrary, has hurt him with the voting groups that he needs the most. Senior citizens and suburban women, two core blocs in his winning 2016 coalition, are fleeing him in droves.”
Trail Mix
Battleground state watch
Trump’s hopes of winning a second term “could very well depend on his ability to squeeze every last drop of red out of Miami-Dade County,” the Miami Herald’s David Smiley writes.
At the end of the two-week early voting period in Florida, Democrats cast more than 100,000 ballots compared to 88,000 for the Republicans, Smiley and Howard Cohen report for the Herald.
“After inspectors found dozens of undelivered ballots sitting in a post office in South Miami-Dade County, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General is preparing to sweep other mail facilities in Miami-Dade for ballots that haven’t reached their destination ahead of the Nov. 3 election,” Aaron Leibowitz and Rob Wile report for the Miami Herald.
Nearly 13,000 Florida felons are now eligible to vote after efforts by Michael Bloomberg, LeBron James and other celebrities to pay off their court fines, Lawrence Mower and Langston Taylor report for the Tampa Bay Times.
More than 4.5 million North Carolina voters have already cast their ballot, which accounts for more than 95% of the state’s total 2016 turnout, the Charlotte Observer’s Jim Morrill writes.
The Texas Supreme Court rejected a Republican-led effort to throw out nearly 127,000 votes from Harrison County’s drive-through voting locations, but there’s a similar lawsuit in federal court being heard today, the Texas Tribune’s Jolie McCullough reports.
McClatchy’s Tara Copp examines whether Trump can count on high levels of support again from members of the military.
Battle for Congress
GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina has made the closing argument of his reelection campaign questioning Democrat Cal Cunningham’s character, but the latest polling suggests voters haven’t been swayed, Luke DeCock, Brian Murphy and Tim Funk write for the Raleigh News & Observer.
The Sacramento Bee’s Kate Irby explores what high youth voter turnout could mean for California’s close House races.
The Charlotte Observer’s Danielle Chemtob lays out how Republican Madison Cawthorn polarized the battle for North Carolina’s 11th congressional district.
Number of the Day
97%
That’s the share of the vote the North Carolina State Board of Elections expects to have counted in the hours after the polls close tomorrow night, Will Doran reports for the Raleigh News & Observer.
“This is why we march”
Credit: Carli Brosseau, Raleigh News & Observer
A march to the polls event in Graham, N.C., was mired by pepper spray and arrests. The Raleigh News & Observer reports that a 5-year-old was among those pepper sprayed just after a moment of silence held in memory of George Floyd.
For Planning Purposes
Nov. 2
President Donald Trump travels to Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin
Joe Biden visits Pennsylvania and Ohio
Vice President Mike Pence visits Pennsylvania and Michigan
Kamala Harris campaigns in Pennsylvania
Barack Obama visits Florida and Georgia
Nov. 3
Election Day
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This story was originally published November 2, 2020 at 11:46 AM with the headline "Impact2020: November 2, 2020."