Home » White House 2020 (Page 2)
Category Archives: White House 2020
Decision 2020: Has Georgia finally arrived at a political tipping point?
Democrats are in contention in presidential, U.S. Senate races, poised to pick up another U.S. House seat
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
ATLANTA (CFP) — When the smoke clears from the 2020 election, a whole new political day may have dawned in Georgia.
Democrats appear ready to capture another U.S. House seat, which would give them six out of 14 seats in the state delegation, nearly at parity with Republicans. They also have a shot at both U.S. Senate seats and an outside chance of capturing a majority in the Georgia House.
And, in perhaps the biggest surprise of all, Joe Biden could become the first Democrat to carry the Peach State in 28 years.
That’s a best case, rosy scenario for the Democrats, one which Republicans would no doubt dismiss as wishful thinking. But even if this optimistic scenario doesn’t all pan out, 2020 is likely to go down as the best year state Democrats have had since they suffered a collapse in 2002, losing the governorship and control of the legislature after a decade in which they had lost their grip on the state’s federal offices.
Trump, Biden neck-and-neck in Georgia polls
In 2016, Donald Trump carried Georgia by 5 points–enough to get the state’s 16 electoral votes but the weakest showing by a Republican since Bob Dole in 1996. The biggest shock in that race was Hillary Clinton carried both Cobb and Gwinnett counties, which had for decades been impenetrable Republican redoubts in the Atlanta suburbs.
These suburbs, which continued to swing toward the Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, are key in the presidential race. Trump should get a sizable win in rural areas and small towns; Biden will easily carry the urban cores of the Atlanta and the state’s other cities; so the suburbs will be where this contest is won or lost.
Polls now show the race between Biden and Trump within the margin of error. The biggest sign the state is truly competitive: Both Trump and Biden are making October campaign stops in Georgia, which rarely gets a glimpse of presidential candidates outside of the primary season.
U.S. Senate
Because of the retirement of Republican Johnny Isakson at the end of last year, both of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats are up this year. Republican David Perdue is seeking a second term, and Republican while Kelly Loeffler, a wealthy Atlanta businesswoman and political newcomer appointed to fill Isakson’s seat by Governor Brian Kemp, will try to keep it in an all-party special election.
Perdue is facing Democrat Jon Ossoff, who rose to national prominence in an expensive but ultimately unsuccessful U.S. House race shortly after Trump’s election. At the beginning of the race, Perdue wasn’t thought to be in much trouble, but Ossoff has closed the gap, with polls showing the race within the margin of error.
A major source of contention in the race has been the coronavirus epidemic, with Ossoff hitting Perdue for downplaying the severity of the disease during the early days of the pandemic and voting to dismantle Obamacare, which Ossoff says has provided a lifeline to virus victims.
Perdue has hit Ossoff over his fundraising from out-of-state sources, charging that Ossoff’s contributors support a “radical socialist agenda” that he would pursue as a senator.
Ossoff has raised nearly $33 million, much of it in small dollar online contributions from Democratic donors across the country. Perdue has raised about $21 million.
Because of a quirk in Georgia law, if neither Perdue or Ossoff break 50%, they will face each other in a January runoff, which could happen if a Libertarian candidate also in the race draws off enough support.
In the special election, 20 candidates are running, and polls show three are competing for spots in a January runoff: Loeffler; Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Collins from Gainesville, who has been trying to run at Loeffler from the right; and Democrat Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, a pulpit once held by Martin Luther King Jr.
Warnock has surged to the front in the latest polls, consolidating Democratic support with an ad blitz. Loeffler and Collins are running neck-and-neck for the second spot, in a race that has divided state Republicans into two camps.
Collins, one of Trump’s most vocal defenders during last year’s impeachment fight, decided to challenge Loeffler after Kemp passed him over for the Senate appointment. But he has so far not gotten the president’s endorsement, and Loeffler has been battling him for supremacy on the right by firmly embracing Trump and taking conservative stands on social issues.
One key metric to look at on election night will be whether the Republicans in the race collectively attract more votes overall that the Democrats, which could be a sign of things to come in the runoff.
Warnock has raised the most money, at $22 million, but Loeffer has more money to spend, after tapping her considerable personal fortune for $23 million in loans. Collins trails at $6 million.
Depending on results in other states, control of the U.S. Senate could hinge on two runoff elections in Georgia in January — a circumstance that would attract massive amounts of money and national attention to the Peach State.
U.S. House
The focus in the U.S. House races with be the 6th District, in Atlanta’s near northwest suburbs, and the 7th District, in the near northeast suburbs.
Two years ago, Democrat Lucy McBath flipped the 6th District seat, defeating Republican Karen Handel, Handel is back for a rematch, but McBath — like other freshmen Democrats defending seats in districts Trump won in 2016 — has raised a mountain of money, nearly $8 million, to less than $3 million for Handel
Trump won this district by less than 2 points in 2020. Demographic changes, including more minority voters, are also contributing to its shift from red to purple, and most election handicappers are giving McBath the edge.
Handel will need a strong margin from East Cobb and North Fulton counties to offset McBath’s strength in more diverse areas such as Sandy Springs and Doraville.
In the 7th District, Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux, who lost this race by just 400 voters in 2018, is back for another try, facing Republican Rich McCormick, a physican and retired Marine pilot. (The Republican incumbent, Rob Woodall, retired.) Bourdeaux also enjoys a fundraising advantage, $4.7 million to $2.4 million.
The largest population center in this district is Gwinnett County, where Democrats have been winning legislative seats and county offices in recent years. White voters are also now a minority here, which should help Bourdeaux.
If both McBath and Bourdeaux win, the Georgia delegation will be split 8R and 6D, closer than it has been since 1994.
State Legislature
In the battle for the state House, Democrats need to pick up 15 seats in the 180-member House to gain control, after picking up 11 seats in 2018. The party is targeting seats in the Atlanta suburbs, where Democrats have been making gains in recent years, although it is unclear if enough flippable seats remain to get to 15.
Democrats would need to pick up eight seats in the 56-member Senate to take control, which is considered much less likely.
We tweet @ChkFriPolitics Join us!
Decision 2020: Can Joe Biden break through and make the South matter?
Texas and Georgia join North Carolina and Florida on list of 2020 presidential swing states
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
(CFP) — Twenty years ago, George W. Bush became the first Republican to sweep the entire South in a non-landslide election, and in the five presidential elections since, a Democrat has carried Virginia three times, Florida twice, and North Carolina once.
Every other state in the region went for the Republican, every time. If you add it up, that’s 64 state wins for the Republican, to just six for the Democrat.
The candidates for president
But if the pre-election polls are correct, the GOP’s lock on the South — which has been a bedrock of the party’s Electoral College fortunes — appears to be loosening, albeit slightly, in 2020. So election night may not be as much of an afterthought in the South as it has been for the past two decades.
Indeed, the results in three Southern states that report results early could point toward who is going to win the White House, even as the rest of the country finishes casting ballots.
Virginia seems almost certain to go Democratic for the fourth election in a row. North Carolina and Florida are, as expected, toss-ups, as they have been in the last three elections. But in 2020, the races in both Texas and Georgia are within the margin of error, which could complicate–if not end–Donald Trump’s hopes of winning re-election if Joe Biden wins either one.
Polls even show that in South Carolina, which hasn’t gone for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976, Trump’s lead may be in single digits. And while a win in the Palmetto State still seems like a stretch, a close race between Trump and Biden would be a sign that the president’s political fortunes have dipped even in a region he swept four years ago.
The 2020 race is also unusual in another respect — it is the first presidential race since 1972 where neither party has a Southerner on its ticket.
The list of four Southern swing states in 2020 echoes 2016, when Trump took them by single-digit margins while rolling up double-digit victories everywhere else. He won Florida by 1 point, North Carolina by 4, Georgia by 5, and Texas by 9.
In the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats made gains in the suburbs around major cities in Georgia and Texas, which is the template Democrats are using for 2020. However, they had less success in North Carolina, where Republican candidates held up better.
The Biden campaign has been up with ads in Georgia and has spent a token amount in Texas, although it has yet to commit any substantial resources to either state. Both Biden and Trump have campaigned in Georgia, although they have not yet barnstormed Texas.
These Southern states are much more important to Trump than they are to Biden, who can win the White House without them if he flips Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan back into the blue column. While Trump could survive losing either Georgia or North Carolina, if he can hold the line in the Upper Midwest, a loss in either Florida or Texas would be catastrophic.
Florida and Georgia have two of the earliest poll closing times in the country, at 7 p.m. Eastern (the Florida Panhandle stays open another hour), and North Carolina closes a half hour later. So those three states could be among the first places where winners can be declared, unless the races are extremely close.
If Trump wins these states, the result won’t tell us much about the eventual outcome. But a Biden win in any of them — particularly Florida — will point to a Democratic victory, and we will likely know the Florida result before the results in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
No matter what happens in 2020, the results will almost certainly change how the presidential game is played in the South in 2024.
Four years from now, Texas and Georgia will be seriously contested by both sides, particularly if Biden wins or comes close this year. That will add two new large states where campaigns have to add significant resources, particularly in Texas, which has more than 20 TV markets.
For Republicans, who have not had to worry about the South at the presidential level for decades, more competition in the region complicates their path to the White House. For Democrats, the ability to win in the South gives them additional paths to 270 that reduce the number of must-win states elsewhere. So the long-term consequences of this election could be enormous.
That’s why, on Nov. 3, the South will matter as it hasn’t mattered in the last 20 years.
We tweet @ChkFriPolitics Join us!
President Donald Trump returns to campaign trail with raucous rally in Tulsa
Smaller-than-anticipated crowd attends event, the country’s first large-scale indoor gathering since the coronavirus lockdown
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
TULSA (CFP) — After being sidelined from the campaign trail for three months by the coronavirus lockdown, President Donald Trump was back in his element Saturday night, addressing thousands of adoring supporters as he returned to the campaign trail in Tulsa.
“I stand before you today to declare that the silent majority is stronger than ever before,” Trump told the crowd at the BOK Center. “We”re going to stop the radical left. We’re going to build a future of safety and opportunity for Americans of every race, color, religion and creed.”
Donald Trump rallies supporters in Tulsa (From Fox News via YouTube)
Trump touted the achievements of his first term, saying that “together, we are taking back our country. We are returning it to you, the American people.”
While the campaign claimed that more than 1 million people had registered for the event and had set expectations of a capacity crowd, parts of the arena were visibly empty. According to the Tulsa Fire Department, only 6,200 people attended, based on a count conducted by the fire marshal.
Trump and Pence had been scheduled to address the crowd in an overflow area set up outside the arena, but that event was canceled, and crews began dismantling the stage as Trump was speaking inside.
Trump campaign officials issued a statement saying “radical protesters, coupled with a relentless onslaught from the media, attempted to frighten off the President’s supporters.” Trump told the audience that “a bunch of maniacs” had interfered with the rally, although news media coverage showed no significant violence or obstructions outside of the arena.
State and local police and National Guard units had been brought in to provide security for the event and separate rally-goers from groups who were protesting the event in downtown Tulsa near the arena.
In his return to active campaigning, Trump, who had promised his supporters a “wild evening,” didn’t disappoint, offering up plenty of political red meat in a speech that lasted for nearly an hour and 50 minutes.
He attacked the “fake news” as “sick,” called coronavirus “kung flu,” complained that an “unhinged left-wing mob is trying to desecrate our history,” and called activists trying to defund the police “stone cold crazy.”
And he heaped particular scorn on the Democrat he will face in November, Joe Biden, repeatedly calling him “Sleepy Joe,” implying that Biden is unwell, and charging that he has “surrendered to the left-wing mob.”
“If Biden is elected, he will surrender the country to these mobsters,” Trump said. “If Democrats gain power, the rioters will gain control.”
Trump also called for a new law mandating jail time for people who burn the American flag and decried protests against police violence from NFL players, saying “we will never kneel to our national anthem or our great American flag.”
The rally was the country’s first large-scale indoor gathering since the coronavirus lockdown began in March. While attendees were screened with temperature checks before entering, there was little social distancing among the crowd, and most people — including Trump — did not wear face masks, which were optional.
The doors of the arena opened four hours before the event began, with people sitting in close proximity the entire time.
Local health officials in Tulsa expressed concerns about holding the rally amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis. The Oklahoma Supreme Court Friday rejected a request to force attendees to abide by guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which would have required social distancing and masks.
Attendees had to sign a waiver agreeing not to sue the campaign if they were exposed to coronavirus. On the morning of the event, Trump campaign officials acknowledged that six workers who had helped set up the rally tested positive for coronavirus.
In his remarks, Trump did not address the coronavirus concerns surrounding the rally, but he did tout his administration’s response to the pandemic, which he said saved “hundreds of thousands of lives.”
Biden took to Twitter to chide the president for going ahead with the rally despite concerns about exposing attendees to the virus.
“Donald Trump is so eager to get back to his campaign rallies that he’s willing to put people at risk and violate CDC guidelines — as long as they sign a waiver promising not to hold his campaign liable,” Biden said. “Unbelievable.”
We tweet @ChkFriPolitics Join us!
Texas Democrats’ virtual convention full of optimism about finally turning red to blue
Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi rally the Lone Star party faithful with predictions of fall success
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
AUSTIN (CFP) — A Democrat hasn’t carried Texas in a presidential race since 1976, won a Senate race since 1986, or won the governorship since 1988. Republicans hold majorities in both houses of the legislature and control every statewide partisan office.
But you wouldn’t know that from the tone at the week-long virtual Texas Democratic Convention that concluded on Saturday, where past woe was eclipsed by present optimism.
Whether that optimism is cockeyed or not will be decided in November after a political season completely disrupted by the coronavirus crisis.
Joe Biden gives virtual address to Texas Democratic Convention
“I think we have a real chance to turn [Texas] blue because of all of the work that you have done,” Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said in his address to delegates. “We’re building the diverse coalition to win up and down the ballot in the fall.”
The key to turning Texas blue, according to Biden, will be Latino voters, who make up a quarter of the state’s registered voters.
“Donald Trump‘s anti-Latino, anti-immigrant agenda has targeted Latinos, with dire consequences,” Biden said, pledging to introduce immigration reform on “day one” if he’s elected president.
In her address, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “Republicans in Washington know how strong and formidable our members and candidates are” which is why Republicans are “running for the exits” — a reference to the six GOP House members who are retiring in 2020.
“Know your power,” Pelosi said. “Your engagement in organizing today is more important than ever before.”
Republicans, of course, see such bravado from Democrats as wishful thinking. Responding to a debate during the convention between the two Democratic candidates in the U.S. Senate runoff, the Texas GOP chair, James Dickey, called it a “race to socialism, each vying to be the most leftist and most extreme.”
Biden, Dickey said, would lead Democrats “off a cliff” in November.
In 2016, Trump carried Texas by nine points, about 800,000 votes ahead of Hillary Clinton. That would be large margin to overturn in 2020, and, if as Biden says, Latino voters are the key, it is worth noting that Trump’s share of the Latino vote in 2016 nationally was comparable to what Republicans usually earn, despite his position in favor of tighter border controls.
Also, in Texas, about 30 percent of Latinos identify as Republican — higher than in any other state except Florida — and an analysis of polling in 2019 found that partisanship trumps immigration and other issues as a barometer of whether they are likely to shift allegiance.
However, the coronavirus crisis has pushed the entire election process into unpredictable territory, disrupting both conventional wisdom and conventional modes of campaigning — as witnessed by the fact that Texas Democrats opted for a virtual convention with speeches on Facebook, rather than gathering party activists together in a hall.
Texas Republicans, by contrast, are still planning to hold an in-person convention in Houston from July 16-18. Social distancing measures will be in place, although face masks will be optional.
In addition to the presidential race, Texas Democrats are also trying to defeat Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn and are targeting seven U.S. House seats, three where Republicans are retiring and four where Democrats are trying to unseat incumbents.
State Democrats also have hopes of flipping the nine seats in the Texas House they would need to win to take control for the first time in 18 years.
In the U.S. Senate race, the July 14 Democratic runoff pits MJ Hegar, 44, a former Air Force pilot who narrowly lost a House race in 2018, against State Senator Royce West, 67, one of Dallas’s leading African-American political figures who has served in the legislature since 1993.
Hegar, who has the endorsement of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, came in first during the first round of primary voting in May but was well short of a majority in the crowded field with 22 percent. West earned a runoff spot with just 15 percent of the vote.
We tweet @ChkFriPolitics Join us!
Joe Biden sweeps to another victory in Florida Democratic presidential primary
Biden has now gone 10-for-10 in Southern primaries; Trump clinches GOP nomination
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
MIAMI (CFP) — Former Vice President Joe Biden easily vanquished his last major Democratic rival, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in Florida’s Democratic presidential primary Tuesday, in a race overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden took 62 percent of the vote, sweeping every one of the state’s 67 counties. Sanders took just 23 percent.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s victory in the state’s Republican primary, against minor opposition, put him across the delegate threshold to clinch his party’s 2020 nomination. The president changed his residency to Florida earlier last year.
Florida election officials opted to proceed with Tuesday’s primary despite the national coronavirus shutdown. The run-up to election day was subdued, with neither Democratic candidate holding any rallies or campaign events. Trump has also called a halt to rallies with his supporters.
Biden speaks via video after Florida win
Biden’s win in Florida was wide and deep, taking his string of Southern victories to 10. His delegate margin over Sanders from the Sunshine State alone was more than 80 delegates.
The closest Sanders came to Biden was in Alachua County, home to the University of Florida. where Biden won by 11 points. But Sanders was pummeled in the heavily Democratic counties in South Florida, failing to clear 20 percent of the vote in either Broward or Palm Beach counties and getting just 22 percent in Miami-Dade.
Despite the concerns about coronavirus, the total turnout of Democratic voters was 1.7 million, about the same as it was in 2016, when Sanders took 33 percent of the vote in a race against Hillary Clinton. However, Florida makes extensive use of early voting that was less impacted by the pandemic.
Sanders, who was in Washington as the Senate considers emergency legislation to deal with the pandemic, did not make any public appearance after the vote.
With traditional election night celebrations canceled, Biden had to make do with a web video shot in his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
“We’ve moved closer to securing the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, and we’re doing it by building a broad coalition that we need to win in November,” Biden said.
As he did when he swept through the primaries a week ago, Biden also out an olive branch to Sanders and his supporters.
“Senator Sanders and I may disagree on tactics, but we share a common vision,” he said. “Our goal as a campaign, and my goal as a candidate for president, is to unify this party and then unify the nation.”
Four Southern states have yet to vote in the presidential race — Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
Georgia’s primary, scheduled from March 24, has been moved to May 19; Louisiana’s has been moved from April 4 to June 20; and Kentucky’s has been moved from May 19 to June 23. West Virginia’s primary is still scheduled for May 12.
Chicken Fried Politics 