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Ipsos National Poll: Biden 52% and Trump 40%

Any Trump bump due to the Republican National Convention is long gone, assuming one existed at all. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll has Joe Biden leading Donald Trump nationally by double digits, 52% to 40%. At the start of July, the Real Clear Politics average had Biden ahead by 9 points. The difference between a 9-point lead and a 12-point lead could just be statistical noise, but it certainly makes it hard to make a case that the convention helped Trump at all.

The poll showed that just 3% will vote for another candidate, such as Jo Jorgensen (LP) or Howie Hawkins (GP). Five percent are still undecided. What they are waiting for is beyond us. If the Democrat were Hawkins and the Republican were Jorgensen, we could believe that some people were still on the fence, but Trump and Biden are a tad better known than those two.

The poll showed that the top two issues are dealing with the pandemic (28%) and restoring trust in government (23%). The economy came in third (19%). Only 14% were interested in someone who is tough on crime, which is probably why Trump's attempts to scare June Cleaver's followers with stories of marauding (Black) mobs are not going to be a winner.

While Trump is still favored by noncollege whites, he doesn't have the level of support he had in 2016, when some of them were voting against Hillary Clinton, not for Trump. That's not going to happen this time, since few people despise Biden the way many people despised Clinton.

Trump doesn't have a lot of time to turn things around. North Carolina started sending out absentee ballots last week and in-person voting starts in a number of states in early October. By October 15, millions of people will have already voted, so any October surprise after that will have a limited impact. (V)

Trump Is Gaining among Latinos in South Florida

One bright spot for Donald Trump is Florida, without which he is doomed. Roughly speaking, Florida elections work like this: Democrats roll up big wins in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties in South Florida; Republicans sweep the Panhandle and northern part of the state; and whoever wins along the I-4 corridor, which runs from Tampa to Daytona Beach, smack through Orlando, wins the state.

However, this year, Republicans are making a huge effort to reduce the Democrats' advantage in the South by outspending them in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale media market by $4 million so far, much of it on Spanish-language TV and social media ads. The reason for the focus on Spanish-language ads is that more than half the population of Miami-Dade was not born in the mainland U.S. Many are from Latin America, although there is also a contingent from Puerto Rico.

The ads are working, it appears, as Joe Biden is underperforming Hillary Clinton in South Florida. State Sen. Annette Taddeo (D) has been warning the Biden campaign about this, but the response was to kill the messenger: "You just bitch about everything." The message may finally have gotten through, though. Biden dispatched running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) to speak in Florida today and is starting to hire more Latino staff there.

A recent poll by Bendixen & Amandi, which polls in both English and Spanish, showed that Biden was ahead of Trump 55% to 38% among likely Miami-Dade voters. This is far less than the 30-point margin Hillary Clinton won the county with and probably not enough to offset expected huge losses in the Panhandle. Among Latinos, Trump is slightly ahead in Miami-Dade, 47% to 46%, largely on the strength of the Cuban Americans, many of whom detest socialism in every way, shape, and form, and have been bludgeoned with ads calling Biden a socialist. Now that Biden is starting to see he has a problem, his ads are fighting fire with fire, and accuse Trump of being a caudillo (dictator), which is likely to get a negative reaction from those people who fled one.

Trump's approach is to get the Cuban Americans all riled up. Over 70% of Miami-Dade's registered Republicans are Cuban Americans. However, they are not a monolithic group; younger, American-born Cuban Americans are less conservative than their parents and grandparents. That said, one person who is popular with them is Alexander Otaola, an Instagram influencer who emigrated to Miami in 2003 and also has a popular YouTube show. At first he supported Barack Obama, but now he is entirely in for Donald Trump. Otaola told reporters that he is popular because he is successful and success attracts even more followers and viewers. Carlos Odio, who runs the Democratic Research firm Equis Labs, said that Otaola alone is probably a net win of 90,000 votes for Trump.

But Cuban Americans aren't the only Latinos in Florida. There are over 1 million Puerto Ricans as well. Many of them live around Orlando, in central Florida. All of them are U.S. citizens and became entitled to vote as soon as they established residence in Florida. Biden is fighting Otaola by using popular Puerto Rican rap singer Bad Bunny, who could energize young Puerto Ricans and possibly offset some of the losses among Cuban Americans. So the presidency could end up depending on whether a Cuban-American influencer or a Puerto Rican rap singer has the most followers on Instagram. (V)

HHS Tried to Muzzle Fauci

Politico has obtained e-mails that show Paul Alexander, a senior adviser to Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Michael Caputo at HHS, giving instructions to Anthony Fauci about what he should say during media interviews. The positions they wanted him to take are contradicted by mainstream science. Instead, they just promote political positions Donald Trump has taken. For example, Fauci was instructed to say that schoolchildren should not wear masks in school. Most scientists think that they should.

Fauci has been walking a fine line for months. He certainly doesn't want to lie but he also realizes that if he is not careful, Donald Trump will demote him and replace him with some toady who will lie about everything, potentially causing COVID-19 to spread even more rapidly. (V)

Trump Releases a List of Possible New Supreme Court Justices

Sigmund Freud notwithstanding, most people don't want to die. One person who really, really, really doesn't want to die—at least not before Jan. 20, 2021—is Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsberg. She understands better than just about anyone what her death this year would mean for the entire country for decades to come. Republicans understand this, too. In fact, for many Republicans, one of the chief motivations when voting for president is Supreme Court appointments, and in particular their desire to reverse Roe. v. Wade. For Democrats, there are so many other issues (e.g., racial justice, the environment, and inequality) that the Supreme Court doesn't stand out as a top issue.

For these reasons, yesterday Donald Trump unveiled a list of 20 people he might nominate as Supreme Court justices if Ginsberg dies or Stephen Breyer retires, or both. It is a naked attempt to woo people who oppose abortion to vote for him, despite their disapproval for how he has handled his job in so many ways. It could shore up a bit of support, although probably not a lot of "abortion-is-my-only-issue" voters who were thinking of voting for Biden. Still, with the Jerry & Becki Falwell burlesque show only recently closed, Trump may feel he has to do something to keep evangelicals inside the tent.

One name on the list, Amy Coney Barrett, who Trump placed on the Seventh Circuit, has an excellent chance of getting the nod if Trump gets another chance. She's a woman, but a very conservative one. Amul Thapar of the Sixth Circuit is a favorite of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Also on the list are two Latinos, a Black AG from Kentucky, and a judge who was born in Taiwan. These are to show how "open-minded" Trump is. They have zero chance against solid conservatives like Barrett and Thapar.

Just for the fun of it, Trump also threw in a couple of politicians: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Josh Hawley (R-MO). Cruz has a degree from the Harvard Law School but is probably too much of a loose cannon for Trump. Cotton is running for the 2024 Republican nomination. Hawley has already said he doesn't want to be on the Court. In the end, the smart money is betting on Barrett if Ginsberg doesn't make it until Jan. 20.

Of course, if the Democrats take control of the Senate, then Jan. 6 is the real deadline because a Democratic Senate might decide it doesn't want to be a rubber stamp, even if Trump wins another term. Just imagine what would happen if the Senate decided to take the first part of "advise and consent" seriously. It could present the president with a list of five possible nominees—along with the announcement that it was going to vote on and reject anyone not on the list. That would really change the balance of power in the government, and there is nothing the president could do about it except suffer rejection after rejection. (V)

Senate Races Are Almost All Filled in Now

On Tuesday, there was an upset in the Republican senatorial primary in New Hampshire. Corky Messner, a multimillionaire Trump-loving recent transplant from Colorado beat Gen. Don Bolduc (ret.) for the right to lose to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). It sort of got lost in all the other news. Shaheen was born in Missouri but she has lived in the Granite State for 47 years, so she can probably get away with calling Messner a carpetbagger. On the other hand, since Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) isn't running for anything right now (except maybe for secretary of the treasury), the slur "Pocahontas" is available for Messner to use. But Shaheen will wear it proudly if he does: She is a 12th-generation descendant of the actual Pocahontas.

Only one more partisan primary is left. Next Tuesday, Delaware Republicans will decide who they would like to be crushed by Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE). They can pick activist Lauren Witzke, who wants to ban all immigration to the U.S. for 10 years, or the slightly less loony James DeMartino, a lawyer the Republican establishment backs—not because he has a prayer of winning—but because he is less likely to embarrass the Party (see: Greene, Marjorie Taylor).

There are also two races that won't be between just two major candidates; the jungle primaries in Louisiana and in the Georgia special election. Louisiana is a done deal: Sen. Bill Cassidy (R) will be reelected. As to the special election, the biggest question is whether there will even be a Democrat in the Jan. 6 runoff. It is possible that Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) will face each other, with no Democrat in a race that could determine control of the Senate. This shows what's wrong with these jungle primaries. It is possible that the three Democrats combined get 40+ percent of the primary vote and yet the runoff could be between two Republicans. In California, the reverse is sometimes true: No Republican is on the ballot for some races in November. Jungle primaries are a terrible idea because they sometimes deprive Democrats or Republicans of any candidate at all in the final election. Ranked-choice voting would solve the problem without the need for a runoff.

In any event, our Senate page is now complete (except for Delaware), so please take a look. There is a link to it every day in the blue bar near the top of the page. (V)

Why Predicting The Election Is So Difficult This Year

Making predictions is hard—especially about the future. Political predictions are notoriously difficult, as we saw in 2016. This year may be even worse for a number of reasons, as pointed out by the Washington Post's David Byler. Here is a summary.

A point Byler didn't raise, but has to be part of any rational discussion, is how Trump will cheat and whether he will get away with it. Voter suppression in its many forms (photo ID, ex-felons in Florida, etc.) is a given. Goons patrolling polling places trying to scare off voters is a certainty. The USPS delaying ballots is going to happen, even with the bad PR. AG William Barr releasing a report by U.S. Attorney John Durham that might say Mueller was wrong and Obama illegally spied on Trump's campaign is likely. What about collusion with Russia? No doubt many plans are being hatched as you read this. It is these unknown unknowns that make it especially hard to predict anything.

And one other thing. Most of the voters supporting Biden don't really like him that much (or at all). They just want to get rid of Trump. If Biden is leading by 10 points in the national polls in October and also ahead in the swing states, some of Bernie Sanders' supporters are going to think: "He's going to win anyway, so I am going to vote for the Green Party to send him a message." Welcome to 2016. (V)

Eight Questions That Could Decide the Election

Byler's colleague at the Post, James Hohmann, also took a stab at this subject, but framed it differently. He said that these eight questions will determine the election results:

In short, even the known unknowns could have a huge effect, let alone the unknown unknowns. (V)

Anonymous Sources Are Essential to Modern Political Reporting

There has been a lot of criticism of the sources for the story in The Atlantic about how Donald Trump has dissed soldiers and veterans. Why are they anonymous? Can you trust anonymous sources? The reality of modern politics is that a lot of sources are willing to talk to the media, but fear reprisals if it gets out that they talked. Hence their willingness to talk but only when credited as "senior administration official" or something like that. The National Journal has a piece by long-time reporter Tom DeFrank which discusses a time in 1987 when George W. Bush gave him a scoop about his father's upcoming election campaign on background. Bush gave him permission to publish it and even encouraged him to do so. But Bush also said that after it was published, he would denounce DeFrank and call the article "total bullsh*t." DeFrank said he understood that and agreed to it. Then it happened as described.

In this week's piece, DeFrank said that agreeing to conditions like that is a prerequisite for getting information from many players these days. They will tell you the truth, let you publish it with an anonymous source, then attack you in public as soon as it comes out. That's how the game is played.

Next week we will get another dose of anonymous sourcing when Bob Woodward's book comes out. Woodward quotes Trump as telling his trade adviser Peter Navarro: "My f*cking generals are a bunch of pu**ies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals." Elsewhere in the book he calls the military "suckers" and the generals "weak." Needless to say, if the generals cared more about trade deals than about military alliances, they should be immediately fired, since their job is about protecting the country, not selling soybeans. Woodward spoke extensively to Jared Kushner while he was writing the book and some of the anonymously sourced information may have come from him. Needless to say, if Trump thinks Kushner is the rat, it will get, shall we say, dicey, in the White House and put Ivanka Trump in a rather awkward position.

Woodward's book also says that Trump was told that the coronavirus was going to cause a health emergency on a par with the 1918 flu epidemic, which killed 50 million people worldwide. Nevertheless, in public he pooh-poohed it and said it was no worse than an ordinary flu, even though he knew better. It's going to be particularly hard for the President to deny this portion of Woodward's reporting since the source was Trump himself, and Woodward has him on tape. The book will no doubt make a big splash when it comes out next week. (V)

Democrats Are Looking Down

Downballot that is. Whereas Republicans have always understood how important races for state legislatures are, Democrats have always focused on the presidential race and, to a lesser extent, Congress. But it is the state legislatures that do the gerrymandering, so control of them in the upcoming redistricting year is extremely important. This cycle, Democrats have apparently gotten the message and are planning to spend $15 million to win key races for the state legislatures in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona.

The super PAC Forward Majority was launched in 2017 with the goal of taking back state legislatures in advance of redistricting. It is really getting going now. One of the targets, Texas, would be the biggest win but it is also the steepest climb. To break the Republicans' trifecta, the Democrats would have to flip 9 seats in the Texas House. The last time the Democrats had a majority in the Texas House was 2000. Forward Majority is going to spend $6 million on 18 state House races in hopes of picking up nine of them.

Arizona is an easier target. To break the Republicans' trifecta there, the Democrats need to flip four seats in the state Senate or two in the state House. They are going to spend $2.8 million on six Senate and five House races there. There is also a real hope that if Joe Biden and Mark Kelly both win, their coattails might be enough to flip enough seats in either the state Senate or state House or both. Note, however, that the state legislature doesn't control map-drawing in the Grand Canyon State.

In Florida, the group will spend $2.5 million on 19 state House races to try to break the Republican trifecta there. They are not going after the state Senate though.

In North Carolina, the group is not working directly on flipping seats, but will give $250,000 to another group, Put NC First, which is trying to flip the state legislature. While North Carolina has a Democratic governor (Roy Cooper) who is likely to be reelected, he does not have the power to veto gerrymandered maps.

In all the states, the emphasis is on suburban House and Senate districts due to (1) their rejection of Donald Trump and (2) demographic changes in the districts. As a consequence, many state districts are represented by right-wing Republicans who are now a bad fit for their district. (V)

Ginsberg Comes Clean

That's Benjamin, not Ruth Bader (who spells her name with a 'u,' anyhow). For some 40 years, Republicans have been claiming there is massive voter fraud, especially when they lose close elections. In fact, in 2016, Donald Trump claimed massive voter fraud even though he won (although he lost the popular vote). Not only have Republicans claimed that there is fraud, but they have filed lawsuits over and over asserting it. One of their top lawyers, Benjamin Ginsberg, led many of the lawsuits. Ginsberg retired from practicing law last month and has apparently decided he can finally tell the truth: There is no voter fraud. It is an amazing admission from someone who has devoted nearly his entire professional life to filing lawsuits that he knew were false. His op-ed in the Washington Post detailing that he lived a lie all his life has to rank right up there with Lee Atwater's deathbed apology for how he ran George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign and made openly racist ads smearing Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis that he knew perfectly well were false.

Ginsberg noted that last week Trump urged his voters to commit a crime by voting twice. That's the only voting fraud that there is. He also said that the 40 lawsuits the Republicans have filed about voting fraud are basically all bogus. There is no voting fraud. They were all filed to encourage the creation of rules making it harder for Democrats to vote. He further said: "These are painful conclusions for me to reach," which is not surprising since he filed many of the lawsuits knowing they had no basis.

Ginsberg also addressed Trump's claim that there is tremendous fraud and illegality going on, and says: "the lack of evidence renders these claims unsustainable. The truth is that after decades of looking for illegal voting, there's no proof of widespread fraud." He also pointed out that a study of three states where all votes are by mail turned up a fraud percentage of 0.0025%. It's a bit late coming clean after 38 years of trying to suppress Democratic votes for partisan advantage, but better late than never.

One possible consequence of his op-ed could be that in the ongoing cases, some of which he filed, the judge is going to be given the op-ed and come to the conclusion that the case has no merit and should be dismissed immediately. We'll see. (V)

Today's Presidential Polls

Biden continues to have a small lead in Florida, but that state always goes right down to the wire. If SurveyUSA is right, then Republican hopes to pick off Minnesota are a pipe dream. Biden is clearly ahead in Pennylvania and Wisconsin, but his margins seem to go up and down, depending on who is polling. (V)

State Biden Trump Start End Pollster
Florida 50% 47% Sep 07 Sep 08 St. Pete polls
Minnesota 49% 40% Sep 04 Sep 07 SurveyUSA
Oklahoma 35% 60% Sep 02 Sep 08 Sooner Poll
Pennsylvania 53% 44% Aug 31 Sep 07 Marist Coll.
Wisconsin 48% 44% Aug 30 Sep 03 Marquette Law School

Today's Senate Polls

At this point, it is not news any longer that the Senate career of Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) will be over in 4 months. It was nice while it lasted. However, if Cal Cunningham is really leading Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) by 10 points, that is definitely news. Other polls show Cunningham ahead, but by much less. Still, if Cunningham is very popular, his coattails could help Biden in North Carolina. (V)

State Democrat D % Republican R % Start End Pollster
Arizona Mark Kelly 53% Martha McSally* 38% Aug 30 Sep 04 Redfield and Wilton Strategies
Michigan Gary Peters* 50% John James 38% Aug 30 Sep 03 Redfield and Wilton Strategies
Minnesota Tina Smith* 47% Jason Lewis 36% Sep 04 Sep 07 SurveyUSA
North Carolina Cal Cunningham 47% Thom Tillis* 37% Aug 30 Sep 03 Redfield and Wilton Strategies
Oklahoma Abby Broyles 33% Jim Inhofe* 57% Sep 02 Sep 08 Sooner Poll

* Denotes incumbent


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