Category: Joe Biden

Too Big to Contest

Trump has hinted the election won’t be legitimate because of cheating. Democratic activists say a decisive victory would overrule his objections.

EMBOLDENED BY SURGING polling advantages and alarmed at President Donald Trump’s taunting talk about delaying the elections, many Democrats are changing their goal for this November.

It’s not sufficient to just win enough Electoral College votes to elect Democrat Joe Biden as the next president, their argument goes. They have to wallop Trump – widening the Democrats’ political footprint after four tumultuous years and discouraging Trump from trying to challenge the election results.

Democratic activists and state party officials emphasize that they aren’t taking anything for granted. And many rank-and-file Democrats feel burned by 2016, when political prognosticators – but not polls, which were fairly accurate – predicted an easy win by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Continue reading.

Biden Tells Americans To Ignore Trump, Heed Public Health Experts

Republicans, led by Donald Trump, have been pushing for schools to reopen this fall, even as concerns about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic remain high.

More recently, Trump, along with several high-profile conservatives, began boosting the profile of a Houston-based pediatrician and minister who claimed, according to the Daily Beast, that she had “successfully treated hundreds of patients with hydroxychloroquine,” an unproven drug that Trump has repeatedly pushed as a cure for COVID-19 — an attempt to undermine health officials who say sending kids back to school so soon is unwise or dangerous.

On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden recommended that Americans listen to public health experts over Trump and the doctor he promoted, chastising Trump’s tweets, which frequently contain false or misleading information about the ongoing threat from the virus. Continue reading.

Voters Are Starting To Doubt Trump’s Reelection Chances

For months now, President Trump has trailed Joe Biden in the polls. First, it was only a 5- or 6-percentage-point gap, but since the middle of June, that margin has widened to anywhere from 8 to 9 points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average.

But until very recently, voters didn’t seem all that convinced that Biden could win. In poll after poll, comparatively more voters said they thought Trump would win reelection in November. Now, though, that view may be shifting.

Over the past two and a half months, the share of voters who said they expect Trump to win has fallen from about 45 percent to around 40 percent in polling by The Economist/YouGov, as the chart below shows, while Biden’s share has slowly ticked up to where Trump’s numbers are. (Roughly a fifth of respondents still say they’re “not sure.”) Continue reading.

Trump’s sweeping claim that Biden wants to ‘abolish all charter schools’

Washington Post logo“One is incredible: Abolish all charter schools. Charter schools are doing great.”

— President Trump, remarks in the Rose Garden, July 14, 2020

“Abolish school choice, end school choice, abolish — they want to abolish all school choice, end it. They want to abolish charter schools. This is just never-ending.”

— Trump, remarks during an Arizona telerally, July 18, 2020

As president, Bill Clinton was considered a powerful advocate for promoting charter schools, even winning the first-ever lifetime achievement award from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Now, President Trump is charging that former vice president Joe Biden (and his fellow Democrats) has gone so far left that he wants to “abolish all charter schools.” These are publicly funded schools but operated under contract by independent groups, allowing for more flexibility in curriculum and hiring.

Is there much basis for Trump’s claim? Let’s examine what Biden stands for — as well as his position on “school choice,” which Trump also claims he wants to abolish.

The Facts

Trump claims he’s citing a portion of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force Recommendations, designed to bridge policy gaps between Biden, who has a record as a centrist, and his last rival for the Democratic nomination, the left-leaning Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The section on charter schools was eventually added to the draft Democratic Party platform for 2020: Continue reading.

Biden announces plans to boost black and Latino finances

Washington Post logoWILMINGTON, Del. — Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, announced a plan Tuesday to spend tens of billions of dollars to help people of color overcome inequities in the economy, a move that comes amid financial and racial upheaval nationwide.

The plan calls for dedicating $30 billion of previously proposed spending on a small-business opportunity fund for black, brown and Native American entrepreneurs. Biden also proposed tripling the goal for federal contracting with small disadvantaged businesses, from 5 percent to at least 15 percent of all spending on materials and services by 2025.

“We need to make bold, practical investments to recover from the economic mess we’re in and to rebuild for the economic future our country deserves,” Biden said, adding that his plan would “deal with systemic racism and advance racial equity in our economy.” Continue reading.

Don’t Count Trump Out

Polling could be wrong. The economy could recover just enough. He could announce his own October surprise.

Let’s stipulate right away that President Donald Trump is losing this race. Set aside the particulars—how suburban voters are migrating toward Joe Biden, and how seniors are rethinking their support too. Consider the basics.

Presidents are supposed to keep Americans employed. The jobless rate now stands at 11 percent—more than 3 points higher than when Jimmy Carter lost reelection in 1980 and when George H. W. Bush was defeated in 1992.

Presidents are supposed to keep Americans safe. About 140,000 have died from COVID-19, more than twice the number that perished in the Vietnam War, which doomed Lyndon B. Johnson’s reelection chances in 1968. Continue reading.

100 days out, parties fear chaotic election

The Hill logoA little more than three months before November’s election, partisans who back both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are growing anxious over what they see as the mounting potential for a chaotic contest marred by disenfranchised voters, administration errors and mountains of litigation.

The new anxiety comes on top of the typical nerves that plague campaign operatives. Republicans are increasingly concerned that Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the attending economic crisis has put off so many voters that his path to reelection is narrowing precipitously. Democrats are almost universally convinced that Biden’s polling lead is a mirage, a potential repeat of the 2016 calamity they did not see coming.

But a series of quieter developments have people on both sides nervous that Election Day may bring a host of its own unpredictable disasters. Continue reading.

Polls Indicate Trump Defectors Could Tip Texas For Biden

While the Cook Political Report still has Texas as a “lean red” state in its 2020 Electoral College Ratings, a Quinnipiac poll released last week showed former Vice President Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump 45 percent to 44 percent among registered voters. And according to the Houston Chronicle, a decisive number of anti-Trump Republicans could be contributing to Biden’s lead in the state.

Jacob Monty, an immigration attorney in Houston, became a Republican years ago — attributing his party affiliation to an affection for the Bush family.

“I never had to apologize for them,” Monty told the Chronicle. “I always felt welcome. I never had to explain, ‘Oh, what Bush meant was …'” Continue reading.

Trump, Biden build legal armies for electoral battlefield

The Hill logoPresident Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden with help from allies have amassed an expansive legal war chest and marshaled armies of attorneys for what is on track to be the most litigated election season in U.S. history. 

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has pledged $20 million this cycle to oppose Democratic-backed efforts to ease voting restrictions while Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said his campaign has assembled 600 attorneys as a bulwark against election subterfuge.

With a little more than three months until Election Day, the voting rules in key battleground states are the focus of bitterly partisan court fights that could influence the outcome of the presidential race. These include lawsuits to expand mail-in voting in Texas, extend vote-by-mail deadlines in key Rust Belt swing states and restore the voting rights of up to one million indigent Floridians with felony records.  Continue reading.

‘He’s kind of co-opted the party’: Trump-Republican defectors in Texas could tip the state in Biden’s favor

AlterNet logoWhile the Cook Political Report still has Texas as a “lean red” state in its 2020 Electoral College Ratings, a Quinnipiac poll released last week showed former Vice President Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump 45% to 44% among registered voters. And according to the Houston Chronicle, a decisive number of anti-Trump Republicans could be contributing to Biden’s lead in the state.

Jacob Monty, an immigration attorney in Houston, became a Republican years ago — attributing his party affiliation to an affection for the Bush family.

“I never had to apologize for them,” Monty told the Chronicle. “I always felt welcome. I never had to explain, ‘Oh, what Bush meant was …’” Continue reading.