WHAT'S BREWING
UNDETERRED BY COVID-19, TRUMP STICKS TO SUPERSPREADER RALLIES With less than a week of voting left, Trump pushes ahead with mass rallies despite a surge in COVID-19 cases and mounting criticism that he is prioritizing his reelection above the health of his supporters. Biden holds a comfortable lead in national polls, which also show a public increasingly dismayed by Trump’s mishandling of the largest public health crisis in U.S. living memory. Polls in battleground states that will likely decide the election are tighter than the national surveys. [Reuters]
BIDEN AIMS CLOSING PITCH AT YOUNG BLACK MEN For much of the 2020 election cycle, Joe Biden has focused intently on cementing gains among white women. But in the closing stages of the race, Biden and other Democrats have shifted their focus back to a more traditional backbone of the party’s support: Black voters -- especially Black men. Democratic strategists and pollsters say this push is vital to shore up one of Biden’s only remaining vulnerabilities: The possibility that Black voters, and younger Black men in particular, won’t turn out and support Biden at levels necessary to ensure his victory. [HuffPost]
THE WHITE HOUSE GAVE UP ON THE KEY TO ECONOMIC RECOVERY Congress sprung into action this spring to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, and economists generally agree that the massive $2 trillion legislation they passed in March actually worked to keep millions of Americans afloat. But the relief from the CARES Act is gone. Enhanced unemployment payments ended this summer and those $1,200 relief checks were spent. And as coronavirus cases rise, Republican senators are dithering on another relief package, which economists say is absolutely necessary as millions face unemployment, eviction and hunger. [HuffPost]
DEMOCRATS ARE RECLAIMING POPULISM Democrats throughout the country are winning back a small but potentially critical number of voters in counties and cities that flipped to support Trump four years ago, thanks to a renewed outreach from Democrats and the loss of the populist edge the Republican Party developed in 2016. These areas, where voters are disproportionately white, rural and older, and without college degrees, are mostly in the northern half of the country, especially in the Midwest. They have disproportionate political power due to the overrepresentation of rural states in the Senate and the Electoral College. [HuffPost]
THE DEATH OF SEASONS In January, even before the coronavirus pandemic put the world askew, Jan Tore Jensen noticed some disturbing changes to the rhythms of life in his home city of Oslo, Norway. “The botanical garden in Oslo was opening up. Flowers were blooming, and something was kind of off,” recalls Jensen, head of Norwegian outdoor-gear company Bergans. Winters have been trending warmer for years, and in northern European countries like Norway, where snow-filled winters are part of the national identity, the loss is palpable. [HuffPost]
20 FORMER REPUBLICAN ATTORNEYS BACK BIDEN Twenty former U.S. attorneys ― all appointed by GOP presidents ― gave Joe Biden their “strongest endorsement” in an open letter slamming the president. Trump “has clearly conveyed that he expects his Justice Department appointees and prosecutors to serve his personal and political interests in the handling of certain cases – such as the investigations into foreign election interference and the prosecution of his political associates,” says the letter signed by ex-prosecutors who served in Republican administrations from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush. [HuffPost] |
