Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee raise $100k in three days.

Biden Goes On Air In Ohio, Trump Goes Dark

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign is expected to move forward with huge television ad outlay in Ohio, according to Medium Buying, just as the Trump campaign canceled its ads for the next week.

Trump is also canceling ads in Iowa.



https://politicalwire.com/2020/09/28/biden-campaign-goes-on-air-in-ohio-trump-campaign-goes-dark/

Mike Bloomberg commits $4 million to Biden ground game in Florida

Joe Biden’s ground game in Florida is getting a jolt from billionaire Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg told the Miami Herald Monday that he’s giving $4 million to get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of the Democratic presidential nominee in the nation’s largest swing state. With the money, grassroots organizations held back for months by the coronavirus pandemic plan to promote Biden by talking face-to-face with voters in minority and “underrepresented” communities.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has upended this election season and changed the way campaigns are run in many ways — but one thing that remains unchanged is the importance of a strong ground game in engaging voters, informing them of what’s at stake in this election, and ensuring they know how to make their voices heard at the ballot box,” Bloomberg said in a statement to the Herald. “And that’s especially true of Florida, where mail-in ballots have already been sent out and early voting begins in just three weeks.”

Bloomberg’s spending on neighborhood canvassing is only one piece of a $100 million commitment to beat President Donald Trump in Florida, a state he must win to be reelected. About half that money has been put into TV ads largely intended to reach Black and Hispanic voters.

But with polls suggesting the race in Florida is tight while 5 million mail ballots go out, progressive groups and Florida strategists believe the extended absence of a Biden ground game has left a weak spot in his campaign and could burn him in a state where elections can be won by a few hundred votes. Trump’s campaign returned to in-person campaigning months ago, as the president continued to dismiss the severity of the pandemic.



https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article246051305.html#storylink=cpy

Former Trump campaign manager involuntarily committed, Fort Lauderdale police say

Former Trump campaign manager Bradley Parscale was involuntarily committed to a hospital Sunday by Fort Lauderdale police after his wife reported that he was suicidal, according to police.

Officers responded just before 4 p.m. to Parscale’s Desota Drive home in the tony Seven Isles area after his wife called about “an armed male attempting suicide,” according to a press release. Police said that Parscale’s wife, Candice Parscale, told officers “her husband was armed, had access to multiple firearms inside the residence and was threatening to harm himself.”

“Officers determined the only occupant inside the home was the adult male,” stated the release, which identified the man as Parscale. “Officers made contact with the male, developed a rapport, and safely negotiated for him to exit the home.”

Police say Parscale was detained and taken to Broward Health Medical Center under Florida’s Baker Act law, which allows officers to involuntarily commit a person who is a danger to themselves or others.

Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s spokesman, wished Parscale well and blamed Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans for the incident.



https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article246056115.html#storylink=cpy

In Miami, Spanish-language ad by Jeb Bush operatives likens the president to Castro

A group of political operatives with ties to former Republican Florida Gov. Jeb Bush pledged a month ago to “surgically target” small groups of voters around the state to help Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Part of that strategy includes running TV ads focused on reaching Latino voters in Miami-Dade County.

Republican Voters Against Trump, an anti-Donald Trump super PAC, will begin airing a TV ad on Tuesday in Spanish that compares the president to Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

“Dictators. Communists. Enemies of freedom and America, but friends of Donald Trump,” the ad says, while playing images of violence in Venezuela and Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un. “Remember, dictators lie to you first and then ruin lives to get whatever they want.”

The strategy of trying to draw parallels between Trump and authoritarian leaders is one that the Republicans have also attempted against Democrats, including trying to tie Biden to Maduro by using a photo of the two greeting each other at former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s swearing-in ceremony in 2015.



https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article246067775.html#storylink=cpy

Former campaign rivals join forces in Florida to defeat Trump

The effort to defeat Trump in Florida and mobilize the Hispanic vote for former Vice President Joe Biden has led to some strange bedfellows.

An anti-Trump political committee, The Lincoln Project, run by current and former Republicans, announced Monday it has joined with three Democrat-leaning groups to target Hispanic voters and counter the messaging of the president’s campaign.

The team of former rivals includes Mi Familia Vota, UnidosUS Action Fund and Nuestro PAC, which was founded by Bernie Sanders' former political adviser, Chuck Rocha. The four groups will host a bipartisan virtual town hall on Wednesday as part of their voter mobilization effort and multi-media marketing campaign.

Together, they say, they can correct the mistakes each has made over the past 30 years working with Hispanics in Florida, and replicate their successes.




https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2020/09/28/former-campaign-rivals-join-forces-in-florida-to-defeat-trump/

Fix coming to Georgia touchscreens to restore missing Senate candidates

Georgia election officials told a federal judge Monday that they’ll quickly correct a problem with touchscreen voting computers that left off the names of some of the 21 candidates in a special election for the U.S. Senate.

But attorneys suing the state government said they’re alarmed by technical difficulties so close to the time in-person early voting begins on Oct. 12. They want the government to replace the touchscreens with paper ballots filled out by hand.

Software on the state’s 30,000-plus touchscreens will be replaced to prevent an issue where the second column of U.S. Senate candidates sometimes didn’t appear. Those candidates included Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrats Matt Lieberman, Ed Tarver and Raphael Warnock. Another Republican candidate, U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, wasn’t affected because his name appeared in the first column.

“The plaintiffs are flagging this as some apocalyptic scenario on social media, and it’s not. This is a very minor issue,” said Bryan Tyson, an attorney for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.



https://www.ajc.com/politics/fix-upcoming-to-georgia-touchscreens-to-restore-missing-senate-candidates/ASEWAGDAR5DFPGW2OPULV4N3JY/

How Pa.'s victim advocate found herself in the crosshairs of the GOP-led Senate

The signs at first were subtle.

In the spring of 2019, legislation that she was championing had come to a screeching halt in the Republican-controlled Senate. Advocates for the bill, known as Marsy’s Law, were baffled by the chamber’s inaction on a measure that otherwise had wide and enthusiastic support among rank-and-file GOP legislators.

By summer, the legislature had quietly eliminated funding for her office — Pennsylvania’s Office of Victim Advocate — which was later rescued by the Wolf administration when it was absorbed into a different state agency.
And though few have taken notice or spoken publicly about it, Victim Advocate Jennifer Storm’s nomination for another six years at the helm of the state office that advocates for survivors of crime, domestic violence, and physical and sexual abuse has lingered in limbo in the Senate for the last 10 months.
Now, Storm is again in the cross hairs of the Senate, where Republicans who control the chamber just this month suddenly pushed a proposal that, if approved, would effectively make her ineligible to remain on the job. And, though perhaps for different reasons, not every Democrat was opposed to the measure.

Republican leaders say the bill is not personal, but an attempt to better position the advocate to fall back on legal knowledge to provide guidance to victims. But interviews with more than a half-dozen legislators, legislative aides, advocates, and others paint a more complex picture.

Storm, they say, has angered Joe Scarnati, the top Republican in the Senate, with her advocacy and pointed outspokenness in high-profile cases involving victims of sexual abuse, including women who came forward during the #MeToo movement to level allegations against onetime legislators and legislative employees.



https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/spl/pa-jennifer-storm-victim-advocate-senate-joe-scarnati-20200928.html

Report: Biden, wife will tour Western Pa. by train on Wednesday

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will be touring through Western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio by train on Wednesday, according to CNN, citing campaign sources.

The tour, which will focus on the economy and working families, marks Mr. Biden’s most ambitious campaign trip since March, when he was forced to cancel in-person campaigning due to COVID-19.

He will be making the tour with his wife, Jill, CNN reported.

It will be Mr. Biden’s first trip to the area since Aug. 31, when he made his first major speech since formally accepting the Democratic party’s presidential nomination at an event at Mill 19 in Hazelwood.



https://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2020/09/28/Report-Joe-Biden-wife-tour-Western-Pennsylvania-by-train-Wednesday-campaign/stories/202009280093

Joe Biden to campaign in Ohio for first time since March

Joe Biden's first post-debate campaign stop will be in eastern Ohio, the Democrat's first in the Buckeye State since early March.

The former vice president and second lady Jill Biden plan to take a "train tour" through eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania starting Wednesday, the campaign announced on Sunday. The campaign did not provide more information about specific stops.

The tour follows Tuesday night's debate with President Donald Trump in Cleveland. Recent polling has shown a close race in Ohio: Biden leading by a couple points but within the polls' margin of error.

Trump won big in the eastern edge of Ohio, which helped him beat Hillary Clinton by 8 points in 2016. Barack Obama won several of those counties in 2008, and Democrats are hoping to swing back some of those votes this year. The subject of the tour, according to the campaign, is to highlight how Biden will build back the economy to benefit working families "not the super-wealthy and corporations."







https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/28/joe-biden-campaign-train-tour-ohio-first-time-since-march/3559922001/