With President Trump hospitalized for COVID, the campaign enters a perilously uncertain stretch with just 30 days to go until Election Day.
To complicate matters, as of this writing, more than 3.2 million people have already voted in the election (including yours truly). And millions more will cast their ballots in-person or through the mail leading up to Election Day.
Democratic nominee Joe Biden has responded to the hospitalization by taking down his negative advertising. If the situations were reversed, I highly doubt Trump would do the same (his campaign ran ads featuring Hillary Clinton being sick with pneumonia in 2016).
In short, I don’t know what will happen now. I think the closing message should be focused on: the Trump administration has not kept America safe during this crisis. This message can be reinforced through contrasts between how Biden is proposing to curtail the pandemic (universal mask wearing, increasing testing & contact tracing, addressing critical disparities in our health care system) versus how the Trump administration has mismanaged it so far. If a message of this nature is characterized as “negative,” then one can say that the truth doesn’t care whether it’s called positive or negative. It is what it is.
Days until Election Day: 30
This Week’s WTF Moment in Congress
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is suspending all Senate business until October 19 due to multiple GOP senators testing positive for coronavirus, except for the confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court. McConnell clearly wants this done before Election Day for one reason only; he most likely doesn’t have the votes to confirm her in the lame-duck session of Congress after the election.
Reading List
Italy set to toughen coronavirus restrictions (Politico)
As virus spreads across GOP ranks, some Republicans say party will pay price for ‘stupid’ approach (The Washington Post)
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