Daily Archives: October 27, 2020

The day after the election, Isabelle Anderson, 33, went to a get-to-know-your-colleagues happy hour for staff members of the Bay Area middle school where she worked as a psychologist. Many of their students were undocumented immigrants.

Oct. 27, 2020, 9:49 p.m. ET

It was the unhappiest of gatherings.

Everyone just sat there, feeling so lethargic, said Ms. Anderson, who now lives in St. Louis. Some people were crying. We were wondering what was going to happen to our students, to the parents. The wake-like atmosphere became so oppressive that everyone finally just went home.

In Woodstock, N.Y., Abbe Aronson is still haunted by the wrenching experience of her 2016 election party, which began as a celebration and ended with a group of zombified adults weeping in the living room.

Ms. Aronson, a publicist, has not organized anything this year. She is battling pre-election stress with an arsenal of diversionary activities: baking, volunteering, doing crossword puzzles, potting plants, posting innocuous feel-good images on social media, taking sanity walks in the woods with a tiny pod of friends.

The walk lasts until everybody is feeling better or at least not crying, she said.

But anything can set her off. Recently, her longtime mail carrier, an older man who brings biscuits for her dog and to whom she gives a Christmas present every year, mentioned that he had started listening to this really funny guy named Rush Limbaugh on the radio. Do you know what a feminazi is? he asked.

I told him, Ernie, I am one, she said.

They have not spoken since. She is sleeping between two and five hours a night. Im talking to you and my neck is throbbing and Im having a visceral response, she said. I have a recurring pain in my left shoulder and my left neck, from being middle-aged and furious.

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The Election Is Almost Over. That Doesn't Mean Democrats Are Relaxed. - The New York Times

Biden and his team have stayed engaged, as Trumps campaign has continued to visit and otherwise actively campaign in the state. Biden has visited several times, and may be back. In the past week alone, the Biden campaign has sent Jill Biden; Kamala Harriss husband, Doug Emhoff; Pete Buttigieg; and the pop star Lizzo all over the state, and Harris and Emhoff were back there today. (Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were also in Michigan this past week.) Democrats TV spending has remained high, and issue-specific, such as the campaign ad that started running earlier this month, just in the Traverse City market, highlighting the effect of climate change on fruit farmers. Clintons Michigan ads in 2016 mostly focused on calling Trump terrible, without a clear positive message about her or the Democratic Party.

Read: A warning from Michigan

Despite these efforts, Democrats know that much will likely hinge on the Black vote. So in late September, when Harris came to Michigan for her first in-person trip since joining the ticket, she started the day in Flint, another largely Black city that, like Detroit, saw lower turnout in 2016 than it had four years before. Sticking to the campaigns strategy of speaking directly to local issues, she took a walking tour of Black-owned small businesses with Stabenow and the Flint native and former WNBA player Deanna Nolan, visiting a barbershop, then a bookstore, then a clothing store. At a market a few blocks away, she laughed with farmers as she bought honeycrisp apples, corn, and jalapeos, talking up Bidens economic-recovery plan to each person she met.

In front of another barbershop that afternoon, in Detroit, Harris laid into the Trump administration for trying to end the Affordable Care Act and health-insurance protections for preexisting conditions. She talked about how poverty is trauma-inducing, and called the push for a $15 hourly minimum wage a floor that didnt do anything to build Black equity. We have an opportunity to declare and demonstrate the power to shape the future, she said, urging listeners not to be cowed into giving up and not voting. Let us not let them take our power.

With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, more than 1.6 million Michiganders have voted, about a third of the expected vote total (which assumes a higher turnout than in 2016). Democrats like those numbers, but they also worry that they dont actually represent additional supportersthey may just be eating into the votes that in past years came on Election Day.

Even if the Democrats Michigan strategy comes together, flipping just this one state wont get Biden to 270 electoral votes. But the Biden campaign knows that Michigan is central to its chances. Im traveling around the country, but I keep coming back to Detroit, Harris said today at a polling place there. You know, in 2016, right, we remember what happened? When we got hit by this natural disaster whos now in the White House, right? In 2016, they won by just on an average two votes per precinct So lets make sure that doesnt happen again, shall we? And that means: Lets make sure everybody votes.

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The 11,000 Votes That Haunt Michigan Democrats - The Atlantic

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When Democrat Brandy Chambers read in The Dallas Morning News last month that her opponent, state Rep. Angie Chen Button, R-Richardson, now supports Medicaid expansion, Chambers could not believe it.

Shocked would be a good word, Chambers recalled in an interview.

Button and other Texas Republicans have long resisted expanding Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program, even though Texas has the countrys highest uninsured rate. But Button said she now sees the need for expanding the program due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has left many Texans jobless and without health insurance.

Button is not the only Republican lawmaker raising eyebrows about seemingly new policy positions now that the partys majority in the Texas House is on the line. Another endangered incumbent, Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, recently expressed regret for supporting the divisive bathroom bill that sought to limit public restroom access for transgender people and headlined the 2017 legislative year without ever becoming law.

That legislation, along with Medicaid expansion, is among a litany of issues that are cropping up in the final weeks of the Nov. 3 election that will decide the balance of power in the Legislatures lower chamber. The stakes are high, with the battle unfolding ahead of the 2021 redistricting process during which lawmakers will draw new political boundaries for the state.

Democrats are nine seats away from the majority after picking up 12 seats in 2018, some of which Republicans are serious about winning back. But in many cases, Republican lawmakers who have held the House majority since the 2003 session are facing the first truly competitive general elections of their lives and being forced to answer for votes in a way they have never had to before.

Take for example the Legislatures massive cuts to public education in 2011, which Democrats are using to try to undercut the GOPs renewed focus on school funding during the most recent session.

That was 10 years ago, and over the last four sessions since, weve steadily increased public education funding, Rep. Sarah Davis, R-Houston, said in a recent interview, playing down the issue.

While Democrats press Republicans over health care and public education, the GOP is hoping to portray their Democratic opponents as too liberal and beholden to national Democrats, seeking to put them on defense over issues including police funding and taxes.

For example, as Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Killeen, fights for reelection, he is airing a TV ad that claims the policies of his Democratic opponent, Keke Williams, would threaten Texas economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Its no surprise Keke Williams doesnt fight for us, a narrator says. Williams is bankrolled by out-of-state liberal extremists.

National Democratic super PAC Forward Majority is spending over $12 million in the state House fight this fall, and health care is its top issue. The Democrats dominant focus on health care mirrors the strategy they led with to help flip the U.S. House in 2018 and are relying on again this year to pad their ranks, especially in Texas.

Forward Majority is flooding state House districts with ads tying Republicans on the ballot to their partys yearslong push to repeal the Affordable Care Act and with it, its protections for people with preexisting conditions. The U.S. Supreme Court is slated to hear a Texas-led challenge to the federal health care law Nov. 10.

Forward Majoritys ads accuse GOP lawmakers of doing the bidding of insurance and drug companies when it comes to health care. And who suffers? a narrator asks. Patients with preexisting conditions like heart disease or cancer, denied coverage.

Republicans are pushing back by pointing to their passage of Senate Bill 1940 last session. If Obamacare went away, that law would allow the Texas Department of Insurance to take initial steps to temporarily bring back the high-risk insurance pool that the Legislature abolished in 2013. That option provided high-priced coverage to Texans with preexisting conditions who could not find it elsewhere, and by the time it was ended, it covered a small number of Texans 23,000.

One health-care expert Stacey Pogue, senior policy analyst at the left-leaning Every Texan think tank in Austin said the law is a wholly inadequate substitute for the Affordable Care Act.

It does nothing, Pogue said. Its perplexing that anybody would point to that as an achievement.

The dominant issue Republicans are using to criticize Democrats is law enforcement, with GOP candidates touting their support for police and seeking to tie their Democratic opponents to the defund the police movement. The term means different things to different people, but among some activists protesting police brutality, the movement aims to redirect some funds from police budgets to social services.

Abbott has done his part to make support for law enforcement the central issue of the general election for Republicans, asking candidates to sign a pledge against defunding the police and releasing multiple legislative proposals to punish local governments who cut police budgets.

While no Democrat running in a battleground district is known to have explicitly embraced the idea, Republicans are working to portray their opponents as being anti-law enforcement. A prime example is House District 67, where Leach, the incumbent Plano Republican, is airing a TV ad that labels his Democratic rival, Lorenzo Sanchez, an anti-police zealot.

The attack is based on anti-police Facebook posts from a Sanchez campaign staffer, including one calling police a terrorist organization, as well as a June campaign event where Sanchez said he agreed after a speaker advocated for taking guns away from police.

When the issues first came up earlier this fall, Sanchez issued a statement that did not directly address them but said he does not support defunding police. As for the staffers comments, The Dallas Morning News editorial board reported that Sanchez told them that he cant be responsible for everything anyone associated with his campaign says. And in a story published last week by the Plano Star Courier, Sanchez said he believes in deadly force as a last resort but that it would be foolish to de-arm cops.

In other contests, the police-related attacks appear to have less of a basis. Rep. Steve Allison, R-San Antonio, is airing a TV ad in which he says, I stand with our police; my opponent wants to defund them. But the Tribune could not find any evidence of his opponent, Celina Montoya, expressing such support, and Allisons campaign has not provided any backup.

I think that theres absolutely, without question, room for us to have some criminal justice reform, but none of us are calling to, you know, abolish the police or anything of that sort. Its silliness, Akilah Bacy, the Democrat running against Republican Lacey Hull for an open Houston seat, said during a Texas Tribune event Friday.

Some Republican candidates are acknowledging they also have to say what they support when it comes to police reform. Justin Berry, an Austin police officer challenging Rep. Vikki Goodwin, D-Austin, is broadcasting a TV ad where he calls for "de-escalation training and body cameras for all officers. Those ideas also appear in a commercial from Jacey Jetton, the GOP nominee for an open seat in Fort Bend County. Jettons spot additionally advocates for ensuring our police look more like the communities they serve.

Republicans are also trying to put Democrats on defense on fiscal issues, claiming the partys candidates would support higher taxes and even a state income tax. In most cases, that claim appears to be based on Democratic opposition to Proposition 4, the 2019 constitutional amendment that made it harder than ever for Texas to institute a state income tax. Critics called the proposition a political stunt that could hamstring future generations when the Texas economy is not doing as well.

While Democrats insist that opposing the proposition does not equate to supporting a state income tax, Republicans say the optics are tough for Democrats.

Thats a very painful position, said Dave Carney, the governors top political adviser.

Abbotts campaign conducted a statewide survey in August and settled on taxes as one of the four most effective lines of attack against Democrats in battleground House contests.

In one race where the issue has flared up, Elizabeth Beck, the Democratic nominee against Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, is asking TV stations to take down an ad hes airing that attacks her on taxes, saying it contains blatant lies. Among other things, the commercial claims she supports a statewide income tax, citing a 2019 tweet from her urging followers to vote against Proposition 4.

The ad also seizes on an October event where she talked about creating new streams of revenue New revenue means new taxes, a narrator says though it leaves out part of the event where she clarifies that she would not be in favor of raising taxes or creating a state income tax.

Gun violence is also factoring into some races, mainly at the behest of Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, the national gun control group. It announced last month that it would spend $2.2 million on digital ads and direct mail across 12 districts, seeking to elect a gun sense majority to the Texas House.

Everytowns ads invoke the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting in which a gunman killed 23 people and injured 23 others while targeting Hispanic Texans to criticize Texas Republicans for inaction on universal background checks. One spot says the coronavirus pandemic is not the only public health crisis facing Texas families.

A few Democratic challengers are bringing up gun issues on their own. In one of Democrats best pickup opportunities, Joanna Cattanach is running a TV spot against Rep. Morgan Meyer, R-Dallas, that says he has stuck to the far rights agenda voting to allow guns in schools. The commercial cites Meyers vote for House Bill 1387, the 2019 law that lifted the cap on the number of school marshals who could be armed on public school campuses.

Public education has also been an issue thats come up in a number of competitive races, with Republicans highlighting an $11.6 billion school finance reform bill the Legislature passed in 2019.

In Tarrant County, Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, has aired a TV ad casting himself as a lawmaker "on a new mission to improve Texas schools."

Tinderholt, a member of the hardline conservative Texas House Freedom Caucus, voted for the legislation, which was championed by GOP state leaders and received bipartisan support. But his ad is notable it marks yet another push by Republicans to bolster their credentials and track records at the Legislature on public education. Tinderholt faces a challenge from Democrat Alisa Simmons.

Democrats facing competitive reelection bids are also trying to capitalize on the school finance bill from last year. In Williamson County, Rep. James Talarico, a Round Rock Democrat, recently released a TV ad titled A teacher in the House. The ad highlights his experience as a teacher and how that helped him work across the aisle to pass historic school reform in 2019. Talarico faces a challenge from Republican Lucio Valdez.

Candidate-specific issues have, of course, also emerged in certain races. In the open race for House District 96 in Tarrant County, the national Democratic group Forward Majority has criticized the Republican in the race, David Cook, for overseeing an attempt while serving as Mansfield mayor in 2016 to fund an indoor ice rink using a $1.8 million contribution from Mansfield schools.

The Mansfield City Council ultimately reversed course and decided against asking Mansfield ISD to be a funding partner after school district taxpayers pushed back on it, Cook told The Dallas Morning News in September. But Forward Majority still seized on the issue, saying in an ad it aired for the race that Democrat Joe Drago will "put kids ahead of politicians wasteful pet projects."

In another Dallas-area race, Linda Koop, a Republican running for the seat she lost last cycle to Democratic Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos, recently aired an ad knocking Ramos over her lone vote against a bill in 2019 to legalize childrens lemonade stands. Ramos, for her part, has argued that she voted against the legislation because it takes away local control and is about public safety."

Its unclear whether any of the issues that have emerged in some of the most competitive races will end up getting much play at the Legislature when it convenes for its regular session in January.

On top of questions over how exactly the Capitol will operate in the era of the pandemic, the uncertainty over which party will control the House is looming over what issues lawmakers could debate.

Matt Mackowiak, a GOP strategist and chair of the Travis County Republican Party, said the legislative session will likely be consumed by grappling with the billions of dollars in shortfalls facing the state budget and responding to the pandemic, among other issues.

The 2021 legislative session is going to be a very difficult one, he said, and its hard to predict which direction things will go until we see the makeup of the Texas House and learn who the new Speaker will be."

Every Texan, Everytown for Gun Safety and Facebook have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Texas Republicans, Democrats battle for control of House in 2020 election - The Texas Tribune

MACON, Ga. President Trump held a rally in Georgia on Friday, 18 days before the November general election. It wasnt a good sign for him.

That Mr. Trump is still campaigning in what should be a safely Republican state and in others that should be solidly in his column like Iowa and Ohio is evidence to many Democrats that Joseph R. Biden Jr.s polling lead in the presidential race is solid and durable. Mr. Trump spent Monday in Arizona, too, a state that was once reliably Republican but where his unpopularity has helped make Mr. Biden competitive.

For some Democrats, Mr. Trumps attention to red states is also a sign of something else something few in the party want to discuss out loud, given their scars from Mr. Trumps surprise victory in 2016. Its an indication that Mr. Biden could pull off a landslide in November, achieving an ambitious and rare electoral blowout that some Democrats think is necessary to quell any doubts or disputes by Mr. Trump that Mr. Biden won the election.

On one level, such a scenario is entirely plausible based on the weeks and the breadth of public polls that show Mr. Biden with leads or edges in key states. But this possibility runs headlong into the political difficulties of pulling off such a win, and perhaps even more, the psychological hurdles for Democrats to entertain the idea. Many think that Mr. Trump, having pulled off a stunning win before, could do it again, even if there are differences from 2016 that hurt his chances.

This much is clear: Landslide presidential victories have become rare the last big one was in 1988, and a more modest one in 2008 and Mr. Trump is still ahead of or running closely with Mr. Biden in many of the states he won in 2016 when the margin of error is factored in.

Democrats see flipping states like Texas and Georgia as key to a possible landslide; Texas hasnt voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976, and Georgia since 1992. A New York Times and Siena College poll published on Tuesday found Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump tied among likely voters in Georgia.

Until Democrats win a statewide election, were not a purple state, said Brian Robinson, a Republican political consultant in Georgia. We may be a purpling state. But until they win, this is a red state.

It is just such a historic rout of Mr. Trump that some Democrats increasingly believe is necessary to send a political message to Republicans, a moral one to the rest of the world, and serve a key logistical purpose: getting a clear Electoral College winner on Nov. 3, rather than waiting for an extended ballot counting process.

To many, a commanding victory that sweeps Democrats to control of the Senate as well would set the stage for a consequential presidency, not just one that evicts Mr. Trump.

What theyre going to need in order to move the country forward is to demonstrate that a ton of people are with him and are aligned with his agenda, said Mara Teresa Kumar, chief executive officer at Voto Latino, a voter mobilization group that has endorsed Mr. Biden. That the people want to address climate change in a big bold way. They want to address health care in a big bold way. And they want to address education in a big bold way.

Keep up with Election 2020

She added: The only way to make Republicans find a spine is if this is a massive turnout election.

For a party still traumatized by the ghosts of 2016, overconfidence or overreach are the last things most Democrats feel or want to project.

This race is far closer than some of the punditry were seeing on Twitter and on TV would suggest, read a memo last week from Mr. Bidens campaign manager, Jennifer OMalley Dillon. In the key battleground states where this election will be decided, we remain neck and neck with Donald Trump.

But even some Republicans have begun talking about a possible drubbing in a second Blue Wave that would power Mr. Biden to a huge Electoral College victory and help Democrats retake the Senate.

Last week, one Republican, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, warned constituents of a possible Republican blood bath in November, earning the ire of the president in the process. The conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch has told friends he expects Mr. Biden to win in a landslide, according to a published report he did not deny.

Mr. Bidens campaign has also stepped up travel and investment in states that were expected to be out of reach for Democrats sending Jill Biden to Texas, and scheduling events for Senator Kamala Harris and her husband in Georgia and Ohio, before a staffer tested positive for coronavirus and her travel schedule was limited.

But perhaps the biggest sign of an expanded Democratic map is the signals coming out of the Trump campaign as he finds himself in places like Macon rather than trying to expend resources in states Hillary Clinton won in 2016.

The subtle shift in thinking among some Democrats that the goal for Election Day should not only be to defeat Mr. Trump but do so by a large margin is about setting the tone for the post-Trump era.

A crushing Electoral College victory, the thinking goes, would deliver an unmistakable rejection of Mr. Trumps political brand and minimize the impact of Mr. Trumps rhetorical war against mail-in ballots and any attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the election.

Mr. Biden, a cautious moderate, without the limitless charisma of President Obama, who has portrayed himself as more a transitional figure than a transformative one, might seem an unlikely figure to produce a political tsunami. He has balked at progressive litmus test issues such as the Green New Deal or expanding the number of Supreme Court justices.

Oct. 27, 2020, 9:49 p.m. ET

But Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, which seeks to add left-wing Democrats to Congress by challenging more moderate incumbents, said his group is at peace with Mr. Bidens current positioning; the goal is to create a movement so vast that Mr. Biden has to shift his thinking. This election is the first step, he said.

Lincoln was not an abolitionist, F.D.R. not a socialist or trade unionist, and L.B.J. not a civil rights activist, Mr. Shahid said. Three of the most transformative presidents never fully embraced the movements of their time, and yet the movements won because they organized and shaped public opinion.

He added: A major victory would help provide Democrats even more of a mandate to govern through the bold policy unseen since the era of F.D.R. and L.B.J.

And Mr. Biden, for all his low-key style, has shown signs of thinking big. After all, he promised during the primary not just to win but to beat Mr. Trump like a drum and restore the soul of the nation with a robust rejection of the white grievance politics the administration has embraced.

Jon Ossoff, the Democratic candidate in one of the two contested Senate races in Georgia, said he appreciated Mr. Bidens greater investment in the state. He argued that Democrats winning in the state would represent more than an additional Senate seat, or 16 electoral votes in a presidential election, but would break the Republican vise grip on the South and beat back the Southern Strategy of racial division that has kept the region solidly Republican for decades.

A win, Mr. Ossoff said, would prove it is no longer possible to divide Southerners on racial lines in order to win elections. Because there will be a multiracial coalition that is demanding more progressive leadership.

In a recent interview, the former presidential candidate Beto ORourke made a similar case in regard to his home state of Texas.

Texas, more than any other state, has the ability to decide this on election night, he said. And what would be so powerful, and have so much political and poetic justice, is if the most voter-suppressed state in the union, with such a diverse electorate, turned out in the greatest numbers that put Joe Biden over the top.

The last two weeks have also mobilized a particular wave of optimism among Democratic political operatives based on Mr. Trumps erratic performance in the first debate and Mr. Bidens surging lead in amassing financial resources for the campaign finale.

On Friday, a group of progressives launched a new super PAC for the campaigns final stretch, investing $2.5 million to flip Georgia. The group, called New South, had a clear message for Mr. Biden and Democrats: the future of the party is here and the moment to embrace it is now.

In Georgia, two Senate races are up for grabs, we have the opportunity to clinch the election for Biden and Harris, and we can flip the state house heading into the crucial redistricting, said Ryan Brown, who leads the group. Both the stakes and the possibilities of the Georgia elections this year warrant our attention and this large-scale investment.

However, voters in both parties reflect tempered expectations shaped by 2016 and Georgias political history.

Mr. Robinson, the Republican operative, said he believes polling has over-sampled Democratic constituencies.

We have seen for years, polls showing Democrats tied or ahead in the middle of October, Mr. Robinson said. The media gets in a tizzy, and the Democrats get confidence, and then the Republicans win.

He said, If the polls are tied in Georgia, that means the Republicans are winning.

Dennis Jackson, a 58-year-old Democrat who voted early in Atlanta a day before Mr. Trumps rally, shared Mr. Robinsons skepticism, after the heartbreak of the 2016 election and the 2018 governors race, when Stacey Abrams, the former state House minority leader and the Democratic nominee, lost to the Republican Brian Kemp by a narrow margin.

More people are getting involved, Mr. Jackson said, but some people dont know how this goes. I do.

Jonathan Martin contributed reporting from Washington.

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Could Biden Win the Election in a Landslide? Some Democrats Cant Help Whispering - The New York Times

The damage to Americans faith in these institutions could be lasting, he said. So, before we go any further, we should shut off the cameras, close the Senate, and talk face to face about what this might mean for the country.

Republicans wanted no such discussion. They voted within a matter of minutes to reopen the proceedings and move ahead with considering Judge Barrett.

Its just harassment, said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. Its not about substance.

But it was left to Mr. McConnell, the architect of Republicans takeover of the federal courts, to offer a fuller response. Turning away from the cameras to speak directly to Republican members seated at their desks, he offered a selectively curated history of the devolving judicial nominations process in the Senate, reaching back to Democrats rejection of Robert Bork, a conservative nominee, in 1987.

Mr. McConnell argued that the decision to block Judge Garland had been consistent with history and so was the decision to confirm Judge Barrett because now, unlike then, the same party controls the White House and the Senate. Democrats view the Garland blockade as a serious escalation from which the chamber has not recovered.

This is not spin. This is fact, Mr. McConnell said. Referring to Democrats, he added: Every new escalation, every new step, every new shattered precedent, every one of them was initiated over there. No exceptions.

In a sign of how toxic the relationship between the two leaders had become four years after Mr. Schumer assumed his leadership post, Mr. McConnell suggested his counterpart was merely reaping what he had sown.

I hope our colleague from New York is happy with what hes built, Mr. McConnell said. I hope hes happy with where his ingenuity has gotten the Senate.

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Democrats Try to Shut Down Senate, Seeking to Stain Barrett Confirmation - The New York Times

Johnson, a second-term senator who hasnt said whether hell run again, has been an adamant defender of President Donald Trump and Democrats think that record will not play well in the perennial battleground in 2022.

While an announcement eight days before the presidential election might rankle some in the party for sidetracking from an all-hands-on-deck attempt to oust President Donald Trump from the White House, the move gives Nelson a head start on other Democrats expected to flock to challenge Johnson in the weeks after the presidential election.

The early start could allow Nelson to take advantage of sky-high Democratic enthusiasm thats translated into fundraising records across the country, which could wane after Nov. 3, especially if Joe Biden wins.

Other Democrats whose names are already circulating as possible candidates include Milwaukee Bucks senior vice president Alex Lasry, who also served as the Democratic National Convention host committee finance chair. Lasry, the son of billionaire hedge fund manager and Democratic bundler Marc Lasry, could quickly mount of a formidable, well-funded campaign.

Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who took on a national role speaking for Wisconsin in the wake of police shooting of Jacob Blake and the subsequent Kenosha riots, is another name in the mix, as well as state Attorney General Josh Kaul.

Nelsons announcement coincides with an expected Monday confirmation vote on Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court. Nelson criticized Johnson, who, after testing positive for Covid-19 earlier this month, vowed to wear a moon suit to return to the Senate and cast a vote in favor of Barrett if needed.

I think his record, I think his behavior and what he has done and what he has said not just the last couple of years but for the last nine years makes him very vulnerable, Nelson said. Ron Johnson is an unmitigated disaster and a conspiracy nut, among other qualities. Every time he opens his mouth he embarrasses himself and our state.

Nelson said his county about an hour-and-a-half north of Milwaukee has been one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus, putting him on the frontlines of the pandemic as the state has undergone one of the most severe spikes in the nation.

Nelson assailed Johnson for recent remarks seeming to underplay the virus, as well as Johnsons decision to attend a fundraiser while he awaited the results of a Covid-19 test. He later tested positive. Nelson said the senator was especially vulnerable electorally because he had voted against the first coronavirus relief package.

Nelson, who rolled out an announcement video on Monday, served as a Bernie Sanders delegate earlier this year. He argues hes well-positioned to win statewide because hes demonstrated he can win over voters in a key swing area. He was elected three times to the state assembly and elected three times as Outagamie county executive, most recently in April. The county, which voted twice for Barack Obama, swung to Trump in 2016, along with the rest of the state.

That year, Nelson ran unsuccessfully for an open seat in Congress, losing to now-Rep. Mike Gallagher by more than 20 points.

For his part, Johnson, first elected in 2010, has not announced his 2022 intentions, refusing to rule out any of three scenarios: retirement, reelection or a potential run for governor against Democratic incumbent Tony Evers. When he last ran for reelection in 2016, Johnson said it would be his final term in the Senate but he backtracked last year.

Sen. Johnson will make any decision about 2022 after the upcoming election, said Ben Voelkel, a Johnson spokesperson.

Even if they retain control of the Senate in next week's elections, the 2022 cycle will be a challenging one for the GOP. Two swing-state Republican senators, Richard Burr of North Carolina and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, have already said they will retire in 2022 rather than run for reelection. Also on the ballot in two years are Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who will be 89 years old on Election Day 2022.

If he does seek a third term, Democrats view Johnson as vulnerable because of his steady loyalty to Trump and controversial remarks about the Covid crisis, including downplaying the severity of the virus, even as Wisconsin hospitalizations have soared.

We have unfortunately been snookered into this mass hysteria that isnt even close to the real risk, Johnson said in recent remarks to Wisconsin business leaders. And so weve shut down our economy. Weve had this economic devastation.

Democrats have also cast Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, as hyper-partisan because of his role in releasing a conflict-of-interest report on Biden's son, Hunter, and attempting to bring outsize attention on his business dealings overseas. Democrats have also hammered Johnson for comments he's made about everything from outsourcing to calling media coverage of coronavirus "panic porn." He also drew a rebuke from Dr. Anthony Fauci for comparing deaths caused by coronavirus to traffic accidents: We dont shut down our economy because tens of thousands of people die on the highways, Johnson remarked.

Since January, Johnsons favorability numbers have hovered in the 30s, according to the Marquette Law School poll, under-performing Trump, Evers and Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

He has defended Donald Trump to the hilt, Nelson added, predicting that would come back to haunt Johnson.

But Republicans point back to 2016, when Democrats predicted Johnson was headed for sure defeat, only to watch him overcome former Sen. Russ Feingold, the liberal icon he had ousted six years earlier.

He's been a dead man walking two times before, and it just never really sticks when it comes down to the ballot box, says Brian Reisinger, a former Johnson adviser, also referencing Johnson's 2010 victory. He's the sort of person that it becomes fashionable for the Democrats and for the national Beltway media to bash him because he sticks his neck out there."

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Democrats already angling to take out Ron Johnson in 2022 - POLITICO

What Republicansare saying

Jim Brown,57, of Gainesville,cites religious liberty as one of his top issues. Jim Brown

Im a Christian,and I think its obviously important to worship as I choose, he said.

Replacinglate Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgties into his ideals.Im conservative, and I like to make sure my views are adhered to on the Supreme Court, Brown said.

The economy is important for me, being a small business owner, he said.The Democrats are going to tax me to death. Ive lived through both (parties in control), and I know what happens there. Itend toside with the Republican because they tax less.

He said he favors Trump because he is a conservative and hes the one on the Republican ticket. Is he perfect? No, hes not perfect, but as far as the options we have available, hes a much better option than Joe Biden.

Brown said he cant see from the Democratic perspective how conservative thinking is flawed, because I dont know what their thought process is.

Warren Daubenspeck,69, of Gainesville, said he sees balancing the budget and the countrys national debt are key issues for him. Warren Daubenspeck

I dont think our country should be in debt and,at somepointin time, its going to have to be paid, he said.

Daubenspeck said one of the main reasons he voted for Trump in 2016 was the potential to replace several Supreme Court justiceswith ones holding aliteralreading of the U.S. Constitution.

And he was able to do that in fact, threeofthem, or 2 so far, he saidbefore the U.S. Senates confirmation ofAmy Coney BarrettonMonday, Oct. 26.

As far as his support for Trump, I look at the alternative, and I think the alternative vote would be for a more socialistic type ofgovernment and more federal government involved in our lives, Daubenspeck said.

He believes the Democrats live in a bubble who dont know what the common person is thinking about.

What were thinking about is making sure we have worked hard our whole lives and its OK to beprosperousand we shouldnt have to pay the government abnormal taxes, Daubenspeck said. Its OK to be that way.

ForJennifer Marlow, 61, ofGillsville, public safety is a main concern for her and at the heart of keyissues,including immigration. Jennifer Marlow

Alot of the things that go on(locally)involvesdrugs andmaybe some(people) over here illegally-- somewhohave been deported and come back,she said. Im really glad police around here are up on this and stopping a lot of the drugs, which is a big concern to me.

Marlowsaid President Trump sometimes says things he shouldnt say, but he willsay what he means, and you know where he stands. I feel like he is fighting for us. I think he is trying to make it safe here for us and doing what he can.

She said she believes Biden, by contrast, wont be a strong leader, if elected.

I feel like he wont be the one making decisions. I think they got him in there justto getpeopletovote on that side, and somebody else is going to be taking over for him, probably.

Jennifer Schade, 43,of Gainesville,who identified as moderate on the survey, said the Second Amendment may be a major political issue these days, but dont overlook the First Amendment.

If we lose (both), we lose our fabric, she said.

The First Amendment isactually alarger issue for Schade, particularly blocks on freedom of speech or press. Even ifit's a bad idea, Im better off hearing the bad idea, rather than being told you cant hear it because its a bad idea, Schade said.

Immigration is important to me because, while I have wonderful friends who are immigrants, they have come here legally, Schade said. Theyve done the process. It is a safety concern for me because I want to be able to know who my neighbors are--people who are vetted.

As for Trumps appeal, I appreciate the fact that he is real, regardless of how hes portrayed, she said. If you look at what heactually doesversus what the media says about him, hes been fair, hes been overgenerous to underprivileged communities.

Schade conceded he has a terrible mouth, but that does not make him a terrible human. Maybe hes like me you cant always articulate what we want to say, but we know what were going to say and do.

She believes Democrats and more liberal thinkers thinkincorrectly thatthose who are more conservative dont care about poverty, dont care about race. We all have the exact same problems. We just disagree on what the proper solution is.

Gary Vogel, 66, of Gainesville,said hes never seen an election where theres so much distinction between the two parties. Youve got one party thats for a lot ofthings Im in favorofand one party thats really against things Im in favor of.

I almost tell people Im not voting for Donald Trump. Im voting for the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court candidates, all conservative issues.

Vogel added: I thought (Trump) was an egotistical, arrogant crazy man for years. I dont think that so much anymore, but hes still certainly a lightning rod for controversy based on some of his tweets and the way he belittles people. I think he could be more presidential.

If he had to pick out a top issue, its the Supreme Court makeup.

Thats going to decide so many issues for the next 30 years, he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not as biganissue to Vogel and many Republicans in the survey.

Youve got to respect that its out there, but I think weve gone totally overboard, Vogel said. To shut down the entire economy of the United Statesforsixmonths is, in my mind, is insane.

As a hardware store owner in South Hall, if I had to be shut down for three months, I wouldnotbe coming back, he said.

I dont understand people who would even vote for a party that is pro-abortion, that wants to defund the police,that has supported riots in the streets of United Statescities that have refused outside help to quell those riots.

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Survey results are in. Here's what local Republicans, Democrats are saying ahead of 2020 presidential election - Gainesville Times

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) North Carolina Democrats are responding to Vice President Mike Pences visit Tuesday. Local and state Democratic candidates came out Tuesday to make another last push of their own before election day.

Democrats called Pences rally Tuesday evening a likely super spreader event, saying their event was a stark contrast.

With nearly five million votes already cast in North Carolina, Democrats told voters their work isnt over yet.

State Rep. Deb Butler, Sen. Harper Peterson, Wilmington City Councilman Kevin Spears and a number of other local and state Democratic candidates came out to the 1898 Memorial in downtown Wilmington Tuesday. Candidates emphasized the need for every voter to show out this year, saying the 2020 election runs straight through North Carolina.

Over the last few months, the Trump administration and Trump family have made numerous visits to North Carolina, and namely the Cape Fear region. However, we havent seen quite as big of a presence from the Biden campaign in Wilmington.

Sen. Peterson says he thinks that speaks to how seriously former Vice President Joe Biden is taking the coronavirus pandemic.

He believes its real, and we see through data and statistics that its coming back, Peterson said. Its going up. He understands that, so large crowds, unbridled audiences without masks is not his style, He is out in public, but in a different way.

Rep. Butler acknowledges visits from Sen. Kamala Harriss husband to Wilmington, and several Democrats to other parts of North Carolina in recent weeks.

They feel that North Carolina is in the plus column for them, Butler said. I dont say theyve ignored North Carolina. Theyve sent emissaries. Doug Emhoff has been here several times. Kamala Harris has been to North Carolina several times, so has Cory Booker. So a lot of top surrogates have come to North Carolina.

At Tuesdays event, Democrats put a focus on the need for clean drinking water, funding for public education and Medicaid expansion. These have been some contentious issues both statewide and nationwide, especially in the middle of the pandemic.

Peterson says he believes theyre in a position of unification, and are determined to bring the country together. He calls COVID-19 the number one challenge our country is facing right now.

Getting our country healthy, so our economy and our schools can be healthy, he said. We are opposing the Republican Party of division, trying to separate, divide us, weaken us. Having us fight against one another on these principles and these priorities.

Candidates also highlighted the importance of North Carolina being a bellwether state. Peterson put an emphasis on just how many key races there are this year, from the seat for President, all the way down to races for local offices.

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'One week to heal nation': Democrats respond to VP Pence's visit in campaign push - WWAY NewsChannel 3

Over the last 100 years, Americans have engaged in a long debate about the role of markets and the welfare state. Republicans favored a limited government, fearing that a large nanny state would sap American dynamism and erode personal freedom. Democrats favored a larger state, arguing that giving people basic economic security would enable them to take more risks and lead dignified lives.

That debate ebbed and flowed over the years, but 2020 has turned out to be a pivotal year in the struggle, and it looks now as if we can declare a winner. The Democrats won the big argument of the 20th century. Its not that everybody has become a Democrat, but even many Republicans are now embracing basic Democratic assumptions. Americans across the board fear economic and physical insecurity more than an overweening state. The era of big government is here.

In this weeks New York Times/Siena poll, two-thirds of Americans support allowing people to buy health insurance through the federal government, the public option. Two-thirds support Joe Bidens $2 trillion plan to increase the use of renewable energy and build energy-efficient infrastructure. Seventy-two percent of likely voters, including 56 percent of Republicans, support another $2 trillion in Covid-19 relief to individuals as well as state and local governments.

Covid-19 has pushed voters to the left. Its made Americans feel vulnerable and more likely to support government efforts to reduce that vulnerability. A study led by the economists Alex Rees-Jones, John DAttoma, Amedeo Piolatto, and Luca Salvadori, found that people in counties with high numbers of Covid-19 infections and deaths were significantly more likely to support expanding government-provided unemployment insurance and expanding government-provided health care. This greater support for social safety net programs transcends political ideology.

The 2020 shift to the left follows years of steady leftward drift. In 2015, a majority of Americans believed that government is doing too many things better left to business and individuals. Now only 39 percent of Americans believe that, while 59 percent think, Government should do more to solve problems, according to Pew Research Center.

Two-thirds of Americans think government should do more to fight the effects of climate change. At least 60 percent of Americans support raising the minimum wage and providing tax credits to low-income workers. Eighty-two percent of voters and 70 percent of Republicans would like to consider legislation to expand paid family and medical leave.

Its commonly said that in the age of polarization the Democrats are moving left and the Republicans are moving right, but thats not true. As Charles Blahous and Robert Graboyes of the Mercatus Center show, both parties are moving left, its just that Democrats are moving left at 350 miles an hour while Republicans are moving left at 50 miles an hour.

To show how the whole frame of debate has shifted, Blahous and Graboyes list the policies that are commonly discussed among Democrats now but that would have been too far left to get a hearing at the Democratic National Convention of 1996. Theyve come up with many examples, including canceling college debt, more than doubling the minimum wage, shutting down coal-fired plants and guaranteeing every American a job. Then they look for current Republican policies that would have been considered too conservative for the 1996 Republican National Convention. They couldnt find any.

We can see the familiar historic pattern. A crisis hits, like Covid-19, the financial crisis, World War II or the Great Depression. Government expands to meet the crisis. Republicans eventually come around and ratify the expansion.

It should be said there are limits to how far left the country is drifting. This is still a nation where 72 percent of people call themselves moderates or conservatives and only 24 percent call themselves liberal. Americans still have a strong basic faith in democratic capitalism and dislike socialism, by a two-to-one margin.

In the background of this debate is the fact that the last 30 years of neoliberal economics have seen the greatest reduction in global poverty in all human history. Many have a vestigial memory of the 1970s stagflation and the 1980s Eurosclerosis, when bloated government regulations clogged economies and slowed prosperity.

Even while support for government programs rises, trust in government is near record lows. Americans like it when government sends out checks to pay for things like child care, college and Covid-19 relief. They do not like proposals that concentrate power in Washington.

Still, you can see why Donald Trump was careful, both in 2016 and 2020, to focus his campaign on cultural and American identity issues and studiously avoid having a debate on role-of- government issues. Even by 2016, Republicans could no longer win that debate.

If you want to get a sense of where the center of gravity might be on these issues, Id point you to a report by Brink Lindsey and Samuel Hammond of the Niskanen Center. They call for a much stronger social safety net to protect people from the hazards of life poverty, sickness, joblessness but they also call for reform in three sectors where government has been captured by insider manipulation: housing, finance and health care.

It was a vigorous debate that lasted many decades, but the liberal welfare state won a robust capitalist economy combined with generous social support.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

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How Democrats Won the War of Ideas - The New York Times

But now on top of that, three times a week, 29-year-old Caldwell-Liddell is racing to get Detroit voters, especially the black community, to, in her words, "wake up."

Trump's Michigan victory was one of the biggest surprises of 2016. He won the state by just 10,704 votes. Wayne County, which includes Detroit, the largest Black-majority city in the country, was critical to that result. Hillary Clinton still won the county by a large margin -- but she received about 76,000 fewer votes than President Barack Obama did in 2012.

While Caldwell-Liddell is motivated and focused on preventing Trump's re-election, she also says, "the Democratic Party has not done a good job at all in taking care of communities like ours." And it's she clear she struggles with that burden.

"(Democrats) take us for granted because they know that Black women are going to help them get the big wins they need, where it matters. But they also know that they can give us the bare minimum, knowing that we aren't going to choose the other side," she said. "

"It says we still got a long way to go when the backbone of the country is the most neglected piece of the country," she said.

She isn't coordinating with any campaign, but she is pounding the pavement at bus stops and outside convenience stores to try to make sure Detroiters are registered to vote and are going to vote. Many of them are disillusioned by the systemic racism they see within their city, the President's response to the coronavirus pandemic that has hit minority communities hardest and the economic inequality that has persisted for decades in Detroit and is only made worse by the pandemic.

"I know for a fact that if just a portion of the folks who sat home in 2016 made it to the polls, had someone to empower them to do it, that could have changed the outcome for Michigan," Caldwell-Liddell said.

"On countless days when I go out and canvass, I will go up and talk to someone and they'll say, 'Listen, lady, I know that what you're saying is probably right. I know that you just want me to get out and vote. But I'm sorry. I've got gotta feed my kids. I don't even have time to listen to what you're saying,'" she said. "That's a part of why I started doing this work with Mobilize Detroit...because at this point, this is our survival now. What happens politically is a part of our survival. And there's no escaping that."

Fighting against apathy

Amber Davis, 29, is one of those people who sat out the 2016 election after supporting Obama in 2012.

"I didn't like Trump and I didn't like Hillary," Davis said. "I didn't really care who won that election."

Davis, a part-time massage therapist and full-time student pursuing a career in IT, says she cares now. She's voting for Biden, even though she says she doesn't really like him either.

"If I get Trump out of office by voting for Biden, then so be it," she said. Davis adds it is the President's handling of the pandemic that clinched her vote this time. "This coronavirus and everything that's going on, it is horrible. So he got to go."

She says she is disillusioned by politics in general because she says no matter which party wins the White House, her life doesn't get any easier.

"We feel like our votes don't matter. We feel like it's just a waste of time," Davis said.

Caldwell-Liddell knows what it is like to not have time for politics, especially presidential politics. In just the past year, she says her family was forced out of a home they had rented for the past four years. Then the next home had plumbing issues and instead of fixing it, the landlord simply just had the water shutoff, requiring Caldwell-Liddell to take them to court to get anything fixed. In the midst of all of this, she lost her pregnancy.

"I ended up having a stillbirth at seven months pregnant, living in a house with no water in a city that did not care to take care of me," she said. "And things like that are allowed to happen because when folks like me are too worried about surviving to pay attention to what's happening down at City Hall."

She is now turning that apathy into action.

"I know that as a voter and as a Black woman, that there is a job that I have to do in order to get a representative who will come close to protecting my people in office. But I'm not necessarily excited about having another representative there who really does not inherently understand the needs of our community."

Caldwell-Liddell is voting for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, spending free time that she doesn't have trying to get others in Detroit to vote for him, but she's not excited about it. This election for her is more a vote against Trump.

"I don't really have many feelings towards Joe Biden one way or the other," she says. "Kamala (Harris) makes me feel a lot better than Joe, to be honest with you."

She says getting Trump out of office means life or death for her community. "Donald Trump is a president that does not care about people that look like me, about people like me, in any shape or form."

Sitting out any election is something 63-year-old Markita Blanchard simply does not understand.

"I've always voted straight down the street," she says while sitting in her backyard filled with the plants and flowers she shows off with pride. "There is no justifiable excuse not to."

"People died for that right for us to have the opportunity to vote," she added.

Like Caldwell-Liddell, Blanchard has also lived in Detroit her whole life. She and her three brothers still live in the house they grew up in, now all taking care of their 93-year-old mother.

Blanchard works as a janitor at a local public school. While she describes her childhood in the westside of Detroit as a "fairytale," she describes life today as a struggle.

"We're not exactly living paycheck to paycheck. I consider myself living paycheck and a half to paycheck," she said.

The main street in her neighborhood looks nothing like how Blanchard describes it from her childhood. A "ghost town" now sits where grocery stores, dry cleaners, Black-owned gas stations and a movie theatre once stood. This economic collapse is one reason Blanchard is voting for Biden. She says she's with him "100%," reserving more colorful language to describe Trump.

"He's full of s***. I'm saying he has done nothing," Blanchard says with an apology. "It's like we're living in a sitcom and it's not funny. It's not funny at all."

"I've had people say, well, he's not my President. I didn't vote," Blanchard recalls with visible anger. "I say, if you did not vote, you did vote for him."

Impact of coronavirus and police shootings

One critical pursuit of the Biden campaign in Michigan is to turn out those voters who didn't vote in 2016. But the Trump campaign is also taking steps to court those same people, including setting up an office just down the road from the Democratic Party's on Detroit's West side, covered with signs declaring "Black Voices for Trump."

"I've never seen it. I've never seen it ever, ever before," said President Pro Tempore of the Detroit City Council Mary Sheffield. "What that tells me is the importance of not only Michigan but Detroit in the black vote, the importance of the black vote...because both parties need us."

Sheffield says she is worried about what she senses is still a lack of enthusiasm this late in the game among Democrats in Detroit. She thinks the coronavirus pandemic is partly to blame.

"Joe Biden is not really the most exciting person. And I think, unfortunately, in light of COVID, we lost that personal touch with him that a lot of communities need to get them excited and to get them engaged," Sheffield said.

The coronavirus has disproportionally hit Black communities across the country, and Detroit is no exception. African Americans have made up 62.2% of the more than 14,000 confirmed cases in Detroit and 82.9% of the deaths.

While coronavirus may have hurt grassroot engagement for the campaigns, Sheffield says a different issue is sure to motivate Black voters.

"What we saw with George Floyd did spark a reaction in so many people and I think that's going to help also increase some of the voter turnout that we see in Detroit," she said.

Federal action in the police killing of Breonna Taylor is the one thing Davis says could actually swing her vote and convince her to vote for Trump.

"He could get Breonna Taylor's killers arrested, that's what he could do," she said. "I would definitely vote for Trump."

Taylor's death also weighs heavily on Wendy Caldwell-Liddell.

"When you're black in America, you know racism is alive and well," she says when asked about it.

She pauses, looks off, and shifts in her chair.

"Now I have to battle with that on top of the thoughts of when I send my son into the world," she said. "And now it's when me and my daughter are at home asleep, minding our business. Now, I've got to think about that, too."

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Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party. And they feel the heavy burden of this election. - CNN