To get votes, families are cutting deals

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"I told my mom, 'Feel free in four years, vote for a Republican, anyone who is reasonable,' " Dave McDonnell, 44, said about a conversation with his mother, who is one of this election's pivotal voters in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

" 'But just this year, this year's different. I just ask that you don't vote for Trump,' I told her. I think she's under a lot of pressure from my siblings, too," said McDonnell, an engineer in Baltimore.

Amid all the get-out-and-vote cheerleading, postcard-writing and phone-banking, folks are trying to see whether they can make a difference among the people they know best. And they're being ruthless.

"I told them they can't see their grandkids anymore if they vote for him," Sheerie, a 36-year-old mother of four in Roswell, Ga., told me, about her desperation to break through with her Trump-loving parents. "I just don't think they can hold those views and be with the kids."

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/To-get-votes-families-are-cutting-deals-15659568.php

This is the brother-against-brother part of the battle. Families and friends who could once put politics aside over turkey and birthday cake are now firmly cleaved. It's crunch time. And some are using everything they have to change minds.

"Desperate times, absurdist measures," tweeted author and television writer David Simon, in the bargain he is offering to his fans.

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"If you voted Trump, or 3rd party, or sat out 2016 and are now willing to end vile misrule by voting for Biden," he wrote, "send a photo of you in voting line or your mail-in ballot and I'll send a written apology for killing any TV character. #HonorSystem."

https://twitter.com/ASavageNation/status/1318226459756879873

https://twitter.com/tonyschwartz/status/1318347277099012100

Tired or not, Americans have growing concerns about Trump’s leadership amid a resurgent pandemic — and those concerns appear to be dimming his hopes of a comeback. Nearly two-thirds of registered voters (63 percent) now say the “number of cases is increasing,” up sharply from 57 percent last week and 48 percent the week before that. A full 60 percent think the pandemic will get worse this fall; only 15 percent think it will get better.

As a result, Biden’s existing advantage over Trump on the question of who would do a better job handling COVID-19 — the top issue of 2020 — has nearly tripled from 7 points two weeks ago (45 percent to 38 percent) to 19 points today (52 percent to 33 percent). Sixty-three percent say Trump has not been wearing a mask or social distancing appropriately; 60 percent say he has not followed the advice of medical experts closely enough; and 59 percent say he has underestimated the risks of COVID-19 — something that just 8 percent of registered voters say about Biden.

https://news.yahoo.com/yahoo-news-you-gov-poll-the-tide-turns-against-trump-as-biden-surges-to-his-largestever-lead-among-likely-voters-175644323.html

In dealing with the pandemic, a majority (54 percent) say the former vice president has behaved appropriately.

Key demographic groups are moving away from Trump in response. Right now, the president is losing independents, 39 percent to 37 percent; he won them by 4 points in 2016. He is losing suburban voters by 14 points (50 percent to 36 percent); he also won them by 4 points in 2016. Trump’s current leads among white voters (7 points) and seniors (3 points) are less than half of what they were four years ago (20 points and 7 points, respectively). Nine percent of 2016 Trump voters now say they are voting for Biden; just 4 percent of 2016 Hillary Clinton voters say they are voting for Trump.

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html

https://twitter.com/younakahara1970/status/1318329494013239296?s=19

https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1318277852140249088?s=09

Trump ordered malts during a classified intelligence briefing: report


President Trump once ordered malts during a highly classified briefing on Afghanistan in an incident that has become a legend within the CIA, according to a report by Politico

Just a few months after he took office, Trump reportedly insisted to a room of senior defense and intelligence officials, that they must try the malts at his New Jersey golf club while they discussed classified intelligence.


"Does anyone want a malt?" he asked in the meeting, according to three former CIA officials who recounted the events to Politico. "We have the best malts, you have to try them."

Insiders say the incident illustrated to them Trump's apparent disinterest in intelligence briefings. Politico reports that some also view it as an insight into the start of Trump using intelligence information as a weapon in partisan battles.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-ordered-malts-during-a-classified-intelligence-briefing-report/ar-BB1abxEn?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=iehp

Trump’s Eggs Are Mostly in One Basket
While Democrats can feel good about the record number of early voters, I believe the most important story now is tactical.

The Trump campaign spent millions of dollars sending mailers encouraging his supporters to request mail ballots and vote in-person. The Trump campaign sent three mailers to my household, addressed to the prior occupant, encouraging him to request a mail ballot and vote in-person early. (Who hasn’t lived here in several years and is no longer on the voter file. That is some poor targeting.) His money has largely been wasted because Trump’s supporters are listening to his rhetoric about mail ballot fraud. Even if occasionally he grudgingly tells his supports to vote by mail or vote early, Republicans aren’t doing it yet. Maybe Trump feels he can waste his money this way, but throwing away money only means the Biden campaign has even more of a cash advantage over Trump.

Meanwhile, the Biden campaign is analyzing the same early voting data of individual voters available to me. They are merrily scratching names off their target universe and re-concentrating their efforts onto voters they want to vote who haven’t participated yet. This means that Biden is able to more effectively use the money he has.

Trump is putting his eggs into the Election Day basket, and that is risky. It is not unheard of for bad weather to happen on Election Day – a snowstorm, rain, or even a tropical disturbance. Bad weather is known to depress turnout. There will be fewer polling locations because of COVID, so Election Day lines could be unusually long and miserable to stand in with bad weather. A COVID issue could unexpectedly shutter an election office or polling location, creating last minute chaos.

Again, maybe Republican start voting in-person over the next two weeks. If I were running a campaign, I’d much prefer to be the one where I’ve already banked millions of votes more than my opponent.

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/Early_Vote_Analysis_10_18.html