A new Fox News poll finds Joe Biden is up by 49% to 40% over President Trump, a lead that is outside the poll’s margin of sampling error. Another 11% would vote for someone else or are undecided.
Interesting: Biden’s advantage grows to 25 points, 57% to 32%, in close counties (where Hillary Clinton and Trump were within 10 points in 2016).
Like other recent surveys, a new Fox News poll finds President Trump’s approval rating ticking up to 48% to 51%.
However, here’s a hint at whether voters will blame Trump for the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic: “By a 53% to 34% margin, more believe a quicker response from the federal government could have slowed the spread of coronavirus in the U.S. than say it is so contagious that nothing could have prevented it spreading the way it has. Some 30% of Republicans join 73% of Democrats in saying the government could have made a difference had it acted faster.”
“A leading Democratic super PAC is reserving $17 million worth of digital ads in key battleground states to start after the Democratic National Convention in July and run through Election Day in November,” McClatchy reports.
“The online ad blitz from Priorities USA is slated for Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — a quintet of swing states that strategists in both parties expect to be at the center of the general election.”
Philadelphia Inquirer: “June 2 is shaping up to be the Super Tuesday of postponed primaries. Pennsylvania will join 11 states and the District of Columbia in voting that day, after rescheduling its primary due to the coronavirus.”
“Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday signed a bill moving the primary back five weeks to allow enough time for people to register to vote by mail, for polling locations to shift and to give election officials time to prepare for an election in unprecedented circumstances.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign is making “seven in-house software projects available to everyone for free on GitHub, the most popular destination for open-source software on the web, in the hope that other Democratic campaigns can build on what they developed during the campaign,” Wired reports.
“West Virginia is rolling out a plan to send every registered voter in the state an application to vote absentee in upcoming elections as people across the state follow a ‘Stay at Home’ order from the governor amid the COVID-19 outbreak,” WHSV reports.
Cook Political Report: “As the COVID-19 outbreak forces more states to delay spring primary and runoff dates, it’s had another, more subtle effect: it’s all but frozen the House recruitment process in place and curtailed fundraising, benefiting incumbents and candidates who had already built large war chests and disadvantaging recent entrants. On the whole, that boosts Democrats, the party on defense this cycle.”
President Trump said there is “no way” he’ll cancel the GOP convention in August, despite the uncertainty surrounding planned events due to the coronavirus pandemic, The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “We are definitely planning — it’s toward the end of August. Somebody was asking today, ‘Will you cancel your convention?’ I said no way I’m going to cancel the convention. We’re going to have the convention, it’s going to be incredible.”
“For President Trump, the power and the perils of incumbency are on full display as he seeks to steer the nation through a never-before-seen moment in modern America. He’s cast himself as a wartime president, even as he sends conflicting signals on whether his bigger priority is ending the pandemic or restarting the US economy, both of which will now undoubtedly influence his re-election,” CNN reports.
“Seven months before Election Day, the President is working overtime to build a glowing narrative about his administration’s coronavirus response.”
“His rally-like rhetoric from the White House may be paying dividends — for now, at least — as three polls this week show more Americans view Trump’s handling of the crisis through a positive light than a negative one. His approval rating has ticked up. It’s an open question whether those early reviews represent more of a rallying effect, which presidents often experience during times of national emergency, or if the support will endure after the true scope of the deadly outbreak is fully known.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders acknowledged that “it’s going to be a very steep road” to defeat former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, discussing in frank terms the challenges facing his already lagging campaign amid the coronavirus pandemic, Politico reports.
Said Sanders: “We are assessing the situation we’re in. It’s changing every day because elections are being delayed. We don’t hold rallies, obviously. We don’t do door-to-door campaigning, which hundreds of thousands of volunteers had been doing. We’re doing a virtual campaign, if you like. But right now, we’re focusing on the health care and economic crisis facing the country.”
Ryan Liza: “The Biden campaign has been studying the ’18 midterms. No, not the ones two years ago when Democrats took over the House by aggressively recruiting moderates and sweeping swing districts across the country, a precursor to Biden’s own centrist strategy in the Democratic presidential primaries this year.”
“They’ve been studying the midterms of 1918, the year of the Spanish flu pandemic when large gatherings were banned in many places and candidates were forced to invent new ways to communicate with voters and run their campaigns. Turnout plummeted that year to 40%, from 50% in the 1914 midterms.”
Washington Post: “Since mid-January, President Trump has spent a total of 12 hours speaking publicly about the novel coronavirus — amounting to more than 137,000 words… He has tweeted about the virus 138 times. And in the past week alone, the president has spoken for 287 minutes — more than 4½ hours — during daily coronavirus news conferences.”
“Trump’s on-air ubiquity is part of a deliberate White House strategy to place the president front and center as the pitchman and public relations impresario for the coronavirus response.”
“He is saturating cable news and Twitter, filling the airwaves and Internet with words — often hopeful and optimistic talk that at times contradicts his public health experts, is not always rooted in scientific reality and can veer off topic.”
Joe Biden has told former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) is in his “top three” to be his vice presidential nominee, Mediaite reports.
“A source close to the Biden campaign said Biden has privately mentioned Cortez Masto as someone who would be on his shortlist for vice president and said he really likes and respects her, appreciates her intellect and leadership, and the history she made as the first Latina U.S. senator.”
It’s not so much the American people don’t want a revolution, it’s that they don’t want Bernie.
Some polls are showing low enthusiasm for Biden among Dems, maybe given his having gone rather quiet in recent days. Suggestion- a Biden/DNC/former Obama admin. members with contacts to try to activate sources for hospital protective gear and testing materials as well as ventilators, offered to Governors irrespective of partisanship? Push successes achieved with media.