It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy.
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FIVE THINGS THE CAMPAIGNS’ FLIGHT PATTERNS TELL US ABOUT THIS ELECTION
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews ([link removed])
Correspondent
Hello from our shared perch watching the last week of voting in the 2020 election.
There remains no lack of uncommon news, including another coronavirus outbreak at the White House and the confirmation of a potentially bench-shifting conservative justice to the Supreme Court.
But amid all that, the calendar still reigns. Campaigns have just seven days remaining to get their voters to the polls. Less time equals increased air traffic as the presidential and vice presidential candidates are revving up their travel, for what has been the busiest past three weeks of campaigning since the pandemic hit.
Here are a few things the travel patterns indicate:
Three states are the belles of this ball: NC, PA and MI
There are more states in play right now than existed at the founding of the nation.
But three of them -- North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan -- seem to be the most frequently visited. The visits are too numerous to list and continue to pile up.
Why? First, each has a significant number of electoral votes: Pennsylvania has 20, Michigan has 16 and North Carolina has 15. Second, all were narrowly won by Donald Trump in 2016, yet previously won by President Barack Obama at least once (North Carolina), if not twice (Michigan and Pennsylvania).
The threesome are united in importance: neither campaign can afford to lose two or more of them. And yet, one of them will.
This is down to microtargeting
The work of behind-the-scenes number crunchers for each campaign is now visible for all who know how to read it, as candidates stop in some spots which might otherwise seem unusual.
For example, consider the president’s weekend trip to Robeson County, North Carolin. The county’s largest town, Lumberton, is no metropolis. But it is the key to a critical swing county in a critical battleground state.
Robeson County voted for Obama twice and then switched parties to favor Trump in 2016. It is also home to the largest Native American population east of the Mississippi, largely members of the Lumbee Tribe, which is asking for federal recognition that Trump has now promised. And it shows campaigns are focused not just on swing states, or swing counties, but even smaller swing populations.
The middle of the country is mostly not in play
Take a look at this handy map of campaign travel put together by the Chicago Tribune ([link removed]) . It makes the campaign stops look like an artistic endeavor to place a ring of dots around the border and edge states of the country, including those near the Great Lakes. As for the vast territory in the middle, only a few dots in swing state Iowa appear.
It’s a visual reminder of a fact of modern politics: America is divided not just by red and blue but by geography. The more rural (though not entirely rural, of course) states in the nation’s heartland are seen as decidedly red, not worth either campaign making a visit in these late critical days of the race.
It could come down to a single electoral vote
As is well known, there are 538 electoral votes up for grabs in the presidential election. To win, a candidate needs 270.
Consider then how mathematically extraordinary it is that the Trump campaign has been visiting the two places that are worth just a single electoral vote.
By each state’s law, Maine and Nebraska don’t award all their electors to the statewide winner of the popular vote, but rather divide their electoral votes across Congressional districts. The result is two swing Congressional districts -- Maine’s second and Nebraska’s second -- that each award a single electoral vote to whomever wins the popular vote within their boundaries.
Two votes out of 538 seems pennies to pounds. But Trump is not risking it, visiting Omaha, Nebraska, today and spending time in Bangor, Maine, on Saturday.
Campaigns still dream (and put each other on defense)
In this race for 270 electoral votes, the campaigns are still daring to dream, traveling to areas that seem like a tougher sell.
For the Biden campaign, this includes Ohio, which Trump won in 2016 by 8 points and where he has held a consistent lead in the polls throughout 2020. Biden himself was there in early October; his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, was in the state last week; and her husband, Doug Emhoff, heads there Thursday. Similarly, Harris is traveling to Texas on Friday, a historically red state where the president has had a consistent, though sometimes small lead.
For the Trump team, this means Chester County, Pennsylvania, where First Lady Melania Trump made her first campaign appearance of the year today. Hillary Clinton won the suburban Philadelphia county by 9 points in 2016.
Why are the campaigns targeting these places? They have different reasons. The Biden campaign sees signs of a massive early turnout that could swing their way and put some usually red or at least pink states in their column. At the same time, challenging the president on his usual turf forces his campaign to make tough decisions about where to mount offense and where to ramp up defense.
For the Trump campaign, the choice of Chester County may be an attempt to repair a seeming wound: the loss of white suburban women.
FIVE STOPS ON THE NEWSHOUR 2020 MAP
By NewsHour Politics Team
Pennsylvania. Trump, Biden focus on Pennsylvania. ([link removed]) By Judy Woodruff and Kate Grumke. Judy takes a deeper look at the Keystone State and the blitz of campaign events there with some in-depth interviews with voters.
Florida. In Florida, these key voting blocs will have a significant impact ([link removed]) . By Yamiche Alcindor and Saher Khan. Traveling to one of the biggest prizes up for grabs on Election Day our team looked at three key groups that could decide it all in Florida: seniors, Black voters and Latino voters.
Georgia and Texas. In a year of uncertainty, voters’ fears of not being counted prompt record early turnout ([link removed]) . By Daniel Bush. A tidal wave of voters have shown up for early in-person voting in Georgia and Texas, but what does that mean and what does that tell us about voters’ concerns about this election?
Missouri. In a redistricting battle, Missouri voters ask to reverse their 2018 decision ([link removed]) . By Zachary Green. This election could have enormous consequences on the U.S. political map overall, with state legislatures preparing to redraw districts next year and, in Missouri and two other states, ballot measures that could overhaul that redistricting process itself.
Wisconsin. For Wisconsin voters, COVID-19, economy are top of mind. ([link removed]) By PBS NewsHour Weekend. The Badger State is a politically coveted part of the Rust Belt and a place struggling with another resurgence of COVID-19. Our Hari Sreenivasan spoke with PBS Wisconsin reporter Zachary Schultz to understand how the two intertwine.
#POLITICSTRIVIA
By Kate Grumke, @KGrumke ([link removed])
Politics producer
As NewsHour’s politics team prepares to cover an unprecedented presidential election, the outcome of which could take days or weeks to be determined, we’ve been brushing up on our election history. The final result of the 2000 presidential election was the most delayed of any in recent history. Election Day was on Nov. 7 that year. Early the next morning, Vice President Al Gore called Texas Gov. George W. Bush to concede, but later that morning called back to retract his concession.
Our question: On what date did Gore finally, definitively concede the election to Bush?
Send your answers to
[email protected] (mailto:
[email protected]) or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.
Last week, we asked: Who fired Archibald Cox?
The answer: Robert Bork
Bork was later nominated to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan. But the Senate ultimately rejected his nomination after contentious hearings spearheaded by then-Sen. Joe Biden. The Democrats of the Senate Judiciary Committee focused on Bork’s ideology, and even brought up the fact that he had fired Cox. His failed nomination gave rise to some political slang: to be “borked.”
Congratulations to our winners: Bob Schmid and Ed Witt!
Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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** How voter suppression continues and how the pandemic has made it worse
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