Colombian leftist Gustavo Petro won the most votes in the country's presidential election on Sunday but not enough to avoid a runoff.
"What's not in doubt today is change," Petro told cheering supporters in central Bogota.
"Now it's about seeing what we will do with Colombia, what Colombian society wants for its own country."
Read more at:
Colombia: Presidential race heads to a runoff between a leftist and businessman | News | DW | 30.05.2022
Showing posts with label Presidential elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Presidential elections. Show all posts
5/30/22
11/7/20
USA - Live: Joe Biden elected president of the United States after winning Pennsylvania - by Lauren Chadwick
Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States after being projected to win the battleground state of Pennsylvania. He is also projected to win the state of Nevada.
Read more at: Live | Joe Biden elected president of the United States after winning Pennsylvania | Euronews
Read more at: Live | Joe Biden elected president of the United States after winning Pennsylvania | Euronews
11/5/20
USA - the Electorial College under scrutiny: If the Electoral College can't be abolished, can it be reformed?
When the results of the popular and electoral votes match, as they did for every presidential, election from 1892 to 1996, the electoral college feels like an anachronistic quirk of the system, the constitutional equivalent of a powdered wig or quilled pen. But when they are in opposition and the loser of the popular vote wins the election, as in 2000 and 2016, it feels much more threatening to the principles of democracy, which—in theory—is organized around majority rule.
read more at: If the Electoral College can't be abolished, can it be reformed? — Quartz
read more at: If the Electoral College can't be abolished, can it be reformed? — Quartz
11/4/20
US Election 2020 - final results will be days off: Tighter than expected vote may take days to resolve
Mr Trump, a Republican, claimed to have won and vowed to launch a Supreme Court challenge, baselessly alleging fraud, while Mr Biden, a Democrat, said he was "on track" to victory.
Read more at: US Election 2020: Tighter than expected vote may take days to resolve - BBC News
Read more at: US Election 2020: Tighter than expected vote may take days to resolve - BBC News
10/29/20
US Presidential Elections: Wall Street drops Donald Trump in favor of Joe Biden
For a long time, Wall Street had only two concerns about the upcoming US presidential election. Some feared a chaotic handover of power should President Donald Trump lose the election and challenge the result. Others dreaded a victory for the Democrats because of a fear that their tough economic policies could endanger recent stock gains.Now they support Joe Biden.
Read more at: Wall Street drops Donald Trump in favor of Joe Biden | Business| Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW | 29.10.2020
Read more at: Wall Street drops Donald Trump in favor of Joe Biden | Business| Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW | 29.10.2020
9/26/20
USA: Democrats prepare for the apocalypse scenario of backdoor elector swaps - by Alayna Treene, Hans Nichols
Democratic lawyers are preparing to challenge any effort by President
Trump to swap electors chosen by voters with electors selected by
Republican-controlled legislatures. One state of particular concern:
Pennsylvania, where the GOP controls the state house.
Why it matters: Trump's refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, together with a widely circulated article in The Atlantic about how bad the worst-case scenarios could get, is drawing new attention to the brutal fights that could jeopardize a final outcome.
What we're hearing: Stung by the Supreme Court Bush v. Gore decision in 2000, there’s a separate effort to ensure that no state recounts, like Florida in 2000, are cut short by the Supreme Court, according to a Democratic attorney familiar with the strategy.
Read more at:
Democrats prepare for the apocalypse scenario of backdoor elector swaps - Axios
Why it matters: Trump's refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, together with a widely circulated article in The Atlantic about how bad the worst-case scenarios could get, is drawing new attention to the brutal fights that could jeopardize a final outcome.
What we're hearing: Stung by the Supreme Court Bush v. Gore decision in 2000, there’s a separate effort to ensure that no state recounts, like Florida in 2000, are cut short by the Supreme Court, according to a Democratic attorney familiar with the strategy.
- The Biden campaign has been reluctant to telegraph their precise strategy, but campaign officials have enlisted thousands of lawyers and volunteers on voter protection efforts across the country, and have set up national and state voter hotlines, according to the campaign.
- They also plan an aggressive response to vote suppression activities.
- One Trump campaign source told Axios that their lawyers will litigate where needed, including suing in key states that have changed election laws to allow for an extended period of time to vote or to count ballots.
- “There are a lot of options if it turns out that the election results aren’t fair and free,” the source said.
- "Trump can say 'I don't concede, I think it's rigged,' but he would not be the president," a Trump legal adviser told Axios.
Read more at:
Democrats prepare for the apocalypse scenario of backdoor elector swaps - Axios
9/14/20
US Presidential Elections: The Democrats May Not Be Able to Concede - by Shadi Hamid
A loss by Joe Biden under these circumstances is the worst case not
because Trump will destroy America (he can’t), but because it is the
outcome most likely to undermine faith in democracy, resulting in more
of the social unrest and street battles that cities including Portland, Oregon, and Seattle
have seen in recent months. For this reason, strictly law-and-order
Republicans who have responded in dismay to scenes of rioting and
looting have an interest in Biden winning—even if they could never bring
themselves to vote for him.
In presidential elections, once is a fluke; twice is a pattern. I struggle to imagine how, beyond utter shock, millions of Democrats will process a Trump victory. A loss for Biden, after having been the clear favorite all summer, would provoke mass disillusion with electoral politics as a means of change—at a time when disillusion is already dangerously high. If Democrats can’t beat a candidate as unpopular as Trump during a devastating pandemic and a massive economic contraction, then are they even capable of winning presidential elections anymore? Democracy, after all, is supposed to self-correct after mistakes, particularly mistakes as egregious as electing Donald Trump—whose unfitness for the nation’s highest office makes itself apparent with almost every passing day.
Read more at:
The Democrats May Not Be Able to Concede - The Atlantic
In presidential elections, once is a fluke; twice is a pattern. I struggle to imagine how, beyond utter shock, millions of Democrats will process a Trump victory. A loss for Biden, after having been the clear favorite all summer, would provoke mass disillusion with electoral politics as a means of change—at a time when disillusion is already dangerously high. If Democrats can’t beat a candidate as unpopular as Trump during a devastating pandemic and a massive economic contraction, then are they even capable of winning presidential elections anymore? Democracy, after all, is supposed to self-correct after mistakes, particularly mistakes as egregious as electing Donald Trump—whose unfitness for the nation’s highest office makes itself apparent with almost every passing day.
Read more at:
The Democrats May Not Be Able to Concede - The Atlantic
US Presidential election: a divided Republican party questions Trump legacy - by Demetri Sevastopulo
Donald Trump turned heads last week when he praised people who adhere to the QAnon conspiracy theory that claims Satan-worshipping paedophiles in powerful positions around the globe are gunning for the US president.
“These are people that love our country,” Mr Trump said at the White House. “They like me very much.”
Mr Trump was commenting after Marjorie Greene, a QAnon proponent, won a Republican primary in Georgia, before later distancing herself from the theory. She will almost certainly beat her Democratic opponent in the conservative district on November 3 — the same day that Mr Trump will face Joe Biden in the presidential election.
After Mr Trump called Ms Greene a “future Republican star”, Liz Cheney, the third-highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, said QAnon was “dangerous lunacy” that had no place in politics. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, went even further: “QAnon is nuts. And real leaders [would] call conspiracy theories conspiracy theories. If Democrats take the Senate in November, blow up the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court, garbage like this will be a big part of why they won.”
The two conservatives were among only a handful of Republicans who were publicly indignant, illustrating a conundrum for the party as it opens its political convention on Monday. Candidates such as Ms Greene pose a threat to the broader future of the 166-year-old party. But they enjoy the strong support of Mr Trump and his base — the ultra-conservative segment of the Republican electorate which is most active in primary races.
Read more at:
US election: a divided Republican party questions Trump legacy | Financial Times
“These are people that love our country,” Mr Trump said at the White House. “They like me very much.”
Mr Trump was commenting after Marjorie Greene, a QAnon proponent, won a Republican primary in Georgia, before later distancing herself from the theory. She will almost certainly beat her Democratic opponent in the conservative district on November 3 — the same day that Mr Trump will face Joe Biden in the presidential election.
After Mr Trump called Ms Greene a “future Republican star”, Liz Cheney, the third-highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, said QAnon was “dangerous lunacy” that had no place in politics. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, went even further: “QAnon is nuts. And real leaders [would] call conspiracy theories conspiracy theories. If Democrats take the Senate in November, blow up the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court, garbage like this will be a big part of why they won.”
The two conservatives were among only a handful of Republicans who were publicly indignant, illustrating a conundrum for the party as it opens its political convention on Monday. Candidates such as Ms Greene pose a threat to the broader future of the 166-year-old party. But they enjoy the strong support of Mr Trump and his base — the ultra-conservative segment of the Republican electorate which is most active in primary races.
Read more at:
US election: a divided Republican party questions Trump legacy | Financial Times
9/8/20
USA Presidential Elections: Donald Trump has dragged Joe Biden on to his own turf - by Janan Ganesh
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During a verbose half-century in public life, Joe Biden has never made such a succinct case for his election. “Ask yourself,” he said in Pennsylvania on Monday, “Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?” In 16 words — the last one delivered with a thespian frown — the US Democratic presidential hopeful alluded to a long career of moderation. The Republican friends. The orthodox foreign policy. The prison-building crime bill. There is no less plausible Jacobin in the party.
Everything about the line was perfect, in fact, except its necessity. Two months away from an election, a candidate should not have to distance himself from political violence. As deftly as he did it, one of Washington’s old saws — “If you’re explaining, you’re losing” — feels dangerously apt. What should trouble Mr Biden is not the recent narrowing of his poll lead over President Donald Trump.
Some tightening is natural as the election nears. Far more ominous is the change in the subject of national discourse. As recently as May, Mr Biden’s attitude to protesters and those who police them was not at all germane. Nor was anything, come to think of it, bar the coronavirus pandemic.
That he must now explicitly disown rioters shows how much the terms of political trade have moved against him over the summer. What had promised to be a single-issue election — a plebiscite on the handling of Covid-19 — has spread to more familiar themes of crime and race. The issue of the day is less public health than public order. To that extent, a drowning president has a life line.
Read more at:
Donald Trump has dragged Joe Biden on to his own turf | Financial Times
https://www.ft.com/content/0f5ef88b-c2e3-452f-999d-c30daa073b39
During a verbose half-century in public life, Joe Biden has never made such a succinct case for his election. “Ask yourself,” he said in Pennsylvania on Monday, “Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?” In 16 words — the last one delivered with a thespian frown — the US Democratic presidential hopeful alluded to a long career of moderation. The Republican friends. The orthodox foreign policy. The prison-building crime bill. There is no less plausible Jacobin in the party.
Everything about the line was perfect, in fact, except its necessity. Two months away from an election, a candidate should not have to distance himself from political violence. As deftly as he did it, one of Washington’s old saws — “If you’re explaining, you’re losing” — feels dangerously apt. What should trouble Mr Biden is not the recent narrowing of his poll lead over President Donald Trump.
Some tightening is natural as the election nears. Far more ominous is the change in the subject of national discourse. As recently as May, Mr Biden’s attitude to protesters and those who police them was not at all germane. Nor was anything, come to think of it, bar the coronavirus pandemic.
That he must now explicitly disown rioters shows how much the terms of political trade have moved against him over the summer. What had promised to be a single-issue election — a plebiscite on the handling of Covid-19 — has spread to more familiar themes of crime and race. The issue of the day is less public health than public order. To that extent, a drowning president has a life line.
Read more at:
Donald Trump has dragged Joe Biden on to his own turf | Financial Times
8/11/20
USA Democratic VP named: Joe Biden selects California Senator Kamala Harris as running mate
Joe Biden named California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate on
Tuesday, making history by selecting the first Black woman to compete on
a major party’s presidential ticket and acknowledging the vital role
Black voters will play in his bid to defeat President Donald Trump.
Read more at:
Joe Biden selects California Senator Kamala Harris as running mate | Euronews
Read more at:
Joe Biden selects California Senator Kamala Harris as running mate | Euronews
7/16/20
USA: How the GOP Plans to Suppress the Vote and Sabotage the 2020 Election - by Victor Juhasz
In June, President Trump sat in the Oval Office for one of his periodic interviews-turned-airing-of-grievances. When the conversation turned to the 2020 election,
Trump singled out what he called the “biggest risk” to his bid for a
second term. It was not the mounting death toll from COVID-19, or
further economic damage inflicted by the pandemic, or anything else a
reality-dwelling president might fret about.
“My biggest risk is that we don’t win lawsuits,” Trump told the Politico reporter he’d invited. He was referring to the series of lawsuits filed by his campaign and the Republican National Committee that fight the expansion of mail-in voting and seek to limit access to the ballot box in November. “We have many lawsuits going all over,” he said. “And if we don’t win those lawsuits, I think — I think it puts the election at risk.”
Going into 2020, Trump had the political winds at his back with a strong economy, roaring stock market, and historically low unemployment. Then came COVID-19. As of this writing, more than 135,000 Americans are dead from the virus, more than 3 million have gotten infected, and the economy has tipped into Great Depression territory. With Trump at the helm, the U.S. government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has ranked as one of the worst anywhere in the world.
By midsummer, the president’s approval ratings had sunk to the high 30s. According to Gallup, in the past 72 years only one incumbent president with a comparably dismal standing, Harry Truman, went on to win re-election. The possibility of Trump going down in flames, Hindenburg-style, and bringing the rest of the Republican ticket with him had even Fox News speculating on whether he might drop out of the race before the election.
But Trump defied the prewritten obituaries in 2016, and he could do it again this year. In recent months, a central theme of his re-election strategy has come into clear, unmistakable focus: Trump and his Republican enablers are putting voter suppression front and center — fear-mongering about voting by mail, escalating their Election Day poll watching and so-called ballot-security operations, and blocking funding to prepare the country for a pandemic-era election. “The president views vote-by-mail as a threat to his election,” a lawyer for the Trump campaign recently told 60 Minutes. Attorney General William Barr told Fox News that vote-by-mail “absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud.” And Trump blasted out in a May tweet that “MAIL-IN VOTING WILL LEAD TO MASSIVE FRAUD AND ABUSE. IT WILL ALSO LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY. WE CAN NEVER LET THIS TRAGEDY BEFALL OUR NATION.”
“They’re shouting the quiet part out loud,” Marc Elias, one of the Democratic Party’s top election lawyers, tells Rolling Stone. “They’re not whispering it. They’re shouting it.”
Justin Clark, a senior lawyer on the Trump 2020 campaign, had a message for the group of Republican lawyers gathered at a members-only club in Madison, Wisconsin, last November. Every time he met with President Trump, Clark told the group, Trump asked, “‘What are we doing about voter fraud? What are we doing about voter fraud?’”
“Traditionally, it’s always been Republicans suppressing votes in places,” Clark said. He would later explain that he was referring to what Democrats say about Republicans, but it was all part of a larger point — namely, to ensure the president’s election, the Trump campaign and RNC were stepping up their efforts to root out the supposed scourge of “voter fraud.”
EU-Digest: Democrats must be aware that dangers loom from all around them, and that they can not cry victory until the fat lady sings - or in other words, that in the November elections they hit the big slam, and win the White House, the Congress and the Senate.
Read more at:
How the GOP Plans to Suppress the Vote and Sabotage the 2020 Election - Rolling Stone
“My biggest risk is that we don’t win lawsuits,” Trump told the Politico reporter he’d invited. He was referring to the series of lawsuits filed by his campaign and the Republican National Committee that fight the expansion of mail-in voting and seek to limit access to the ballot box in November. “We have many lawsuits going all over,” he said. “And if we don’t win those lawsuits, I think — I think it puts the election at risk.”
Going into 2020, Trump had the political winds at his back with a strong economy, roaring stock market, and historically low unemployment. Then came COVID-19. As of this writing, more than 135,000 Americans are dead from the virus, more than 3 million have gotten infected, and the economy has tipped into Great Depression territory. With Trump at the helm, the U.S. government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has ranked as one of the worst anywhere in the world.
By midsummer, the president’s approval ratings had sunk to the high 30s. According to Gallup, in the past 72 years only one incumbent president with a comparably dismal standing, Harry Truman, went on to win re-election. The possibility of Trump going down in flames, Hindenburg-style, and bringing the rest of the Republican ticket with him had even Fox News speculating on whether he might drop out of the race before the election.
But Trump defied the prewritten obituaries in 2016, and he could do it again this year. In recent months, a central theme of his re-election strategy has come into clear, unmistakable focus: Trump and his Republican enablers are putting voter suppression front and center — fear-mongering about voting by mail, escalating their Election Day poll watching and so-called ballot-security operations, and blocking funding to prepare the country for a pandemic-era election. “The president views vote-by-mail as a threat to his election,” a lawyer for the Trump campaign recently told 60 Minutes. Attorney General William Barr told Fox News that vote-by-mail “absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud.” And Trump blasted out in a May tweet that “MAIL-IN VOTING WILL LEAD TO MASSIVE FRAUD AND ABUSE. IT WILL ALSO LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY. WE CAN NEVER LET THIS TRAGEDY BEFALL OUR NATION.”
“They’re shouting the quiet part out loud,” Marc Elias, one of the Democratic Party’s top election lawyers, tells Rolling Stone. “They’re not whispering it. They’re shouting it.”
Justin Clark, a senior lawyer on the Trump 2020 campaign, had a message for the group of Republican lawyers gathered at a members-only club in Madison, Wisconsin, last November. Every time he met with President Trump, Clark told the group, Trump asked, “‘What are we doing about voter fraud? What are we doing about voter fraud?’”
“Traditionally, it’s always been Republicans suppressing votes in places,” Clark said. He would later explain that he was referring to what Democrats say about Republicans, but it was all part of a larger point — namely, to ensure the president’s election, the Trump campaign and RNC were stepping up their efforts to root out the supposed scourge of “voter fraud.”
EU-Digest: Democrats must be aware that dangers loom from all around them, and that they can not cry victory until the fat lady sings - or in other words, that in the November elections they hit the big slam, and win the White House, the Congress and the Senate.
Read more at:
How the GOP Plans to Suppress the Vote and Sabotage the 2020 Election - Rolling Stone
7/5/20
US presidential elections: Biden and the American Left
The plutocrat-friendly “centrism” that has dominated American
politics and both political parties for the last 40 years is not
holding.
This policy has led to deep social and economic inequalities for which it has no credible solutions on offer.
For the left wing of the U.S. Democratic Party, this has been good news and bad news.
Note EU-Digest: The US Democratic party needs to study the very successful German model of Social Democracy, which is the way to go if you want to give everyone of the US electorate an equal bite of the US budget pie.
Read more at :
Biden and the American Left - The Globalist
This policy has led to deep social and economic inequalities for which it has no credible solutions on offer.
For the left wing of the U.S. Democratic Party, this has been good news and bad news.
Note EU-Digest: The US Democratic party needs to study the very successful German model of Social Democracy, which is the way to go if you want to give everyone of the US electorate an equal bite of the US budget pie.
Read more at :
Biden and the American Left - The Globalist
7/3/20
USA Presidential Elections - Fundraising: Biden and Allies Collect More Cash Than Trump for Second Straight Month
Democrat Joe Biden edged out Republican Donald Trump in fundraising for a
second straight month in June, data from the rival US presidential
campaigns showed on Wednesday.
Biden and allied Democratic groups raked in over $141 million during the month, while President Trump and closely tied groups hauled $131 million.
Biden and Allies Collect More Cash Than Trump for Second Straight Month | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com
Biden and allied Democratic groups raked in over $141 million during the month, while President Trump and closely tied groups hauled $131 million.
Biden and Allies Collect More Cash Than Trump for Second Straight Month | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com
6/29/20
Poland presidential election heads for second round - BBC News
Poland's President Andrzej Duda has
topped the first round of voting but must still go into a run-off vote
in the presidential election.
With more than 99% of results in, Mr Duda took just under 44% of the vote and Mr Trzaskowski just over 30%.
Read more at:
Poland presidential election heads for second round - BBC News
6/1/20
US Presidential election: Joe Biden, the Moderate, Plans the Most Radical Economic Overhaul Since FDR
Go forth, Biden urged his financial brain trust, and bring back the
boldest, most ambitious proposals they'd ever dreamed of to reshape the
U.S. economy, with an eye toward making it more fair for all Americans
and less easily unhinged by a future crisis like the coronavirus
pandemic. Should he unseat Donald Trump in the November election, the
challenge before him would be at least on par with what Franklin Delano
Roosevelt contended with when he came to power in 1933. Biden wanted
FDR-sized solutions.
Read more at:
Joe Biden, the Moderate, Plans the Most Radical Economic Overhaul Since FDR
Read more at:
Joe Biden, the Moderate, Plans the Most Radical Economic Overhaul Since FDR
5/17/20
USA Presidential Elections - Democrats: Only 54% of Democrats Want Biden As Nominee says Rasmussen Poll
Joe Biden has the support of just over half of Democrats, although the
vast majority still expect the former vice president to be their party’s
presidential nominee.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of Likely Democratic Voters are satisfied with Biden as the Democrats’ 2020 nominee. Twenty-eight percent (28%) think the party should find someone else to be their nominee, while another 18% are undecided.
Read more at:
Only 54% of Democrats Want Biden As Nominee - Rasmussen Reports®
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of Likely Democratic Voters are satisfied with Biden as the Democrats’ 2020 nominee. Twenty-eight percent (28%) think the party should find someone else to be their nominee, while another 18% are undecided.
Read more at:
Only 54% of Democrats Want Biden As Nominee - Rasmussen Reports®
5/6/20
EU: Poland postpones presidential election amid pressure over coronavirus
Just days before it was due to take place, Poland has called off its presidential election. The ruling PiS party faced mounting opposition over its plans to press forward with the vote despite the ongoing pandemic.
Note EU-Digest: This is a poor excuse to cancel an election. There are a large number of alternatives available to vote from your home.
Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/poland-postpones-presidential-election-amid-pressure-over-coronavirus/a-53355947
Note EU-Digest: This is a poor excuse to cancel an election. There are a large number of alternatives available to vote from your home.
Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/poland-postpones-presidential-election-amid-pressure-over-coronavirus/a-53355947
4/26/20
USA: Presidential Elections: Nervous Republicans See Trump Sinking, and Taking Senate With Him - by Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman
Democrats raised substantially more money than Republicans did in the
first quarter in the most pivotal congressional races, according to
recent campaign finance reports. And while Trump is well ahead in money
compared with the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, Democratic
donors are only beginning to focus on the general election, and several
super political action committees plan to spend heavily on behalf of him
and the party.
Perhaps most significantly, Trump’s single best advantage as an incumbent — his access to the bully pulpit — has effectively become a platform for self-sabotage.
His daily news briefings on the coronavirus outbreak are inflicting grave damage on his political standing, Republicans believe, and his recent remarks about combating the virus with sunlight and disinfectant were a breaking point for a number of senior party officials.
On Friday evening, Trump conducted only a short briefing and took no questions, a format that a senior administration official said was being discussed as the best option for the president going forward.
Glen Bolger, a longtime Republican pollster, said the landscape for his party had become far grimmer compared with the previrus plan to run almost singularly around the country’s prosperity.
Read more: Nervous Republicans See Trump Sinking, and Taking Senate With Him
Perhaps most significantly, Trump’s single best advantage as an incumbent — his access to the bully pulpit — has effectively become a platform for self-sabotage.
His daily news briefings on the coronavirus outbreak are inflicting grave damage on his political standing, Republicans believe, and his recent remarks about combating the virus with sunlight and disinfectant were a breaking point for a number of senior party officials.
On Friday evening, Trump conducted only a short briefing and took no questions, a format that a senior administration official said was being discussed as the best option for the president going forward.
Glen Bolger, a longtime Republican pollster, said the landscape for his party had become far grimmer compared with the previrus plan to run almost singularly around the country’s prosperity.
Read more: Nervous Republicans See Trump Sinking, and Taking Senate With Him
4/17/20
'USA: Passing the buck': Cuomo, Trump exchange barbs over coronavirus testing
The governors of Michigan, Florida and other states outlined tentative steps on Friday to reopen their economies, a day after President Donald Trump unveiled guidelines for a phased lifting of restrictions for stopping the coronavirus pandemic. But New York's governor said that it was vital for testing to be ramped up before any discussion of reopening the economy could occur.
Read more at :
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-coronavirus-friday-1.5535967
Read more at :
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-coronavirus-friday-1.5535967
4/6/20
USA - Presidential Elections: the US presidential election is frozen in time – can it survive? by David Smith
The coronavirus pandemic has taken a wrecking ball to the Olympics, Edinburgh Festival and UN’s Cop26 climate conference.
In America, presidential primary elections have gone down like skittles, the Democratic national convention has been postponed and campaigns are frozen in time.
All of which raises the question: can the 2020 general election itself survive?The presidential vote is due to take place on 3 November. The date is set by federal law and Donald Trump has no power to delay it alone. That would require legislation enacted by Congress and signed by the president. Such an outcome still remains unthinkable to most. But many unthinkable events have unfolded in the last month.
“We’re in completely uncharted waters here and I don’t think anybody knows what’s going to happen,” said Monika McDermott, a political science professor at Fordham University in New York.
“By November the picture might be completely unrecognisable. We don’t even know if the election is going to happen as scheduled. There’s talk out there about postponing it or changing it to a mail-in only election.”
The profound uncertainty has upended political campaigns like nothing else in living memory. It was a month ago – 3 March – that the former vice-president Joe Biden won 10 states on Super Tuesday, the biggest day in the primary calendar, and took firm control of the Democratic race. Trump, meanwhile, was holding regular campaign rallies in packed arenas.
Now, Biden finds himself holed up in his basement in Wilmington, Delaware, struggling to break into the national conversation through TV interviews and virtual campaign events. Trump has been denied the lifeblood of rallies but switched to his other favourite medium – television – with daily coronavirus taskforce briefings from the White House. Polls suggest he is benefiting moderately from a “rally around the flag effect”.
Media coverage that would normally be all about the race for the White House is dominated instead by an extraordinary public health and economic crisis, with the US death toll from the virus expected to top 100,000. Trump and Biden continue to work on the assumption that, come November, the worst of the pandemic will be over. The US held midterm elections in 1918 even in the grip of the Spanish flu that killed 675,000 people nationwide.
What remains unknown is whether the pandemic will help or hurt Trump at the ballot box. He declared a national emergency on 13 March but has been fiercely condemned for previously downplaying the virus, squandering crucial weeks and leaving the country unprepared. The president has “has blood on his hands”, argued the Boston Globe editorial board this week, while Biden’s supporters say the former vice-president would bring precisely the stable leadership the country needs.
The PRRI says that, in less than three weeks, Trump has seen the highest increase in his favourability rating since the institute began tracking it in 2015. Its analysis of 1,008 adults polled between 17 and 22 March found that overall Trump’s favorability increased from 40% in February to 49% in March, with unfavorable opinion decreasing 10 points. Favourability in the battleground states of Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin jumped 13 points.
Jones explained: “We’re seeing a typical American reaction at times of national crisis, a ‘rally around the flag effect’. It happened with George W Bush after 9/11 and Barack Obama after the killing of Osama bin Laden. But on this one, we’re looking at something different, the very front edge of the US finally taking this seriously.
Trump’s central re-election argument was the economy, but the coronavirus outbreak has caused the quickest collapse the US job market has ever seen, throwing 10 million people out of work in just two weeks, and destroyed countless businesses. Griffin said: “Economic shocks in an election year are about as bad as it could get in terms of timing for a president seeking re-election. How are the American people going to interpret the action of this administration?”
Trump’s critics believe that, pandemic or no pandemic, he was always doomed to defeat. Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, said: “Trump was in trouble and I still think he is. As the autopsies go down on his handling of this, it’s not a good story.
“Trump does not have discipline and that has been the case all through his presidency. He does not take advice. He’s headstrong and he insists on what his gut tells him to do. He’s in a precarious position and I don’t think this pandemic changes it. If anything, it illustrates why he’s in that precarious position.”
Note EU-Digest: The November elections could be a major test as to the strength of US Democracy, because as the saying goes: "there's no telling what someone will do when they're pushed to the edge ".
Read More: The US presidential election is frozen in time – can it survive? | US news | The Guardian
In America, presidential primary elections have gone down like skittles, the Democratic national convention has been postponed and campaigns are frozen in time.
All of which raises the question: can the 2020 general election itself survive?The presidential vote is due to take place on 3 November. The date is set by federal law and Donald Trump has no power to delay it alone. That would require legislation enacted by Congress and signed by the president. Such an outcome still remains unthinkable to most. But many unthinkable events have unfolded in the last month.
“We’re in completely uncharted waters here and I don’t think anybody knows what’s going to happen,” said Monika McDermott, a political science professor at Fordham University in New York.
“By November the picture might be completely unrecognisable. We don’t even know if the election is going to happen as scheduled. There’s talk out there about postponing it or changing it to a mail-in only election.”
The profound uncertainty has upended political campaigns like nothing else in living memory. It was a month ago – 3 March – that the former vice-president Joe Biden won 10 states on Super Tuesday, the biggest day in the primary calendar, and took firm control of the Democratic race. Trump, meanwhile, was holding regular campaign rallies in packed arenas.
Now, Biden finds himself holed up in his basement in Wilmington, Delaware, struggling to break into the national conversation through TV interviews and virtual campaign events. Trump has been denied the lifeblood of rallies but switched to his other favourite medium – television – with daily coronavirus taskforce briefings from the White House. Polls suggest he is benefiting moderately from a “rally around the flag effect”.
Media coverage that would normally be all about the race for the White House is dominated instead by an extraordinary public health and economic crisis, with the US death toll from the virus expected to top 100,000. Trump and Biden continue to work on the assumption that, come November, the worst of the pandemic will be over. The US held midterm elections in 1918 even in the grip of the Spanish flu that killed 675,000 people nationwide.
What remains unknown is whether the pandemic will help or hurt Trump at the ballot box. He declared a national emergency on 13 March but has been fiercely condemned for previously downplaying the virus, squandering crucial weeks and leaving the country unprepared. The president has “has blood on his hands”, argued the Boston Globe editorial board this week, while Biden’s supporters say the former vice-president would bring precisely the stable leadership the country needs.
The PRRI says that, in less than three weeks, Trump has seen the highest increase in his favourability rating since the institute began tracking it in 2015. Its analysis of 1,008 adults polled between 17 and 22 March found that overall Trump’s favorability increased from 40% in February to 49% in March, with unfavorable opinion decreasing 10 points. Favourability in the battleground states of Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin jumped 13 points.
Jones explained: “We’re seeing a typical American reaction at times of national crisis, a ‘rally around the flag effect’. It happened with George W Bush after 9/11 and Barack Obama after the killing of Osama bin Laden. But on this one, we’re looking at something different, the very front edge of the US finally taking this seriously.
Trump’s central re-election argument was the economy, but the coronavirus outbreak has caused the quickest collapse the US job market has ever seen, throwing 10 million people out of work in just two weeks, and destroyed countless businesses. Griffin said: “Economic shocks in an election year are about as bad as it could get in terms of timing for a president seeking re-election. How are the American people going to interpret the action of this administration?”
Trump’s critics believe that, pandemic or no pandemic, he was always doomed to defeat. Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, said: “Trump was in trouble and I still think he is. As the autopsies go down on his handling of this, it’s not a good story.
“Trump does not have discipline and that has been the case all through his presidency. He does not take advice. He’s headstrong and he insists on what his gut tells him to do. He’s in a precarious position and I don’t think this pandemic changes it. If anything, it illustrates why he’s in that precarious position.”
Note EU-Digest: The November elections could be a major test as to the strength of US Democracy, because as the saying goes: "there's no telling what someone will do when they're pushed to the edge ".
Read More: The US presidential election is frozen in time – can it survive? | US news | The Guardian
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