Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Joe Biden’s Democratic presidential campaign is reserving $280 million in digital and television ads through the fall, nearly twice the amount President Donald Trump’s team has reserved.

The Biden campaign announced in a Wednesday memo it’s reserving $220 million in television airtime and $60 million in digital ads, in contrast to the $147 million the Trump campaign has reserved, according to a review of Kantar/CMAG data by The Associated Press. Both campaigns can add to or subtract from their reservations at any time.

Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is reserving airtime in 15 states, which includes a number of traditional swing states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida—as well as a number of historically Republican states, including Arizona, Georgia and Texas, and a few traditional swing states that seemed to be moving away from Democrats in recent years, such as Ohio and Iowa. His campaign says a “significant portion” of the reservation will be minute-long ads.

It’s part of an effort to solidify what Biden aides say are the multiple paths to an Electoral College victory open to Biden heading into November. The campaign says it will continue to drive home a message focused on what it says is Trump’s lack of leadership on the coronavirus and that it sees Biden as the best messenger in the ads.

“We think it’s important that people see him, and hear him, because it goes to the issue of leadership, and the kind of reassuring presence and stable leadership which we believe people see in Joe Biden,” said Biden senior strategist Mike Donilon. But campaign aides said Biden’s vice presidential pick, whom he’s expected to announce next week, will have a “robust presence” on the campaign, including advertising.

On digital, the campaign is reserving ads on streaming services like Hulu, YouTube and ESPN, as well as podcasts and mobile and online gaming platforms.

The campaign also plans to launch an “unprecedented” paid media campaign to educate voters on their options for voting, heading into an election year when record numbers of voters are expected to vote via mail due to the coronavirus pandemic and new registration and voting requirements and options have cropped up in states nationwide in recent months. Patrick Bonsignore, the campaign’s director of paid media, said much of the campaign’s reservation is focused on the summer and early fall, when early voting starts in some key states.

“We know that in a …read more

Source:: Time – Politics

In the raging debate among Trump-critical conservatives over whether the goal in November should be merely to defeat the president or to pursue the more radical strategy of burning the Republican Party to the ground, I’m firmly on the side of scorched earth.

The case for maximalism is strong. The head of the party is a corrupt and malicious imbecile. Republicans in Congress are a mix of Trump enablers, obstructionist-demagogues out to maximize the wealth of their donors, know-nothing conspiracist loons, and a few reformers experimenting with the most politically palatable way to blend nationalism with socialism. All of them are primarily motivated by the drive toward self-promotion within the right-wing media complex. And when we move further down the Republican hierarchy to the state and local level, things only get worse.

So yes, it would be very good for the Republican Party of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, Louie Gohmert, Devin Nunes, and all the rest of them to be leveled to the ground so a wholly new party — a more reasonable, responsible, principled, and honorable party — can be built in its place.

There’s just one difficulty with the plan: It does nothing to address the root of the problem, which no one — not the minimalist Trump haters, and not the fiercest maximalists out to pummel the party’s establishment — has a clue how to solve.

That is the problem of the Republican voter.

Every one of those politicians — from Trump on down to Gohmert and Nunes and beyond — was elected by these voters. In the midst of a pandemic that has killed 160,000 in under six months and that the president shows no sign of understanding how to combat, his approval rating among Republicans remains at 91 percent. Thanks to this unshakable support, his overall approval has barely dipped below 40 percent through the nightmare of recent months and is currently creeping back up toward his norm of the past year (around 42 percent).

That may — God willing — be low enough for Trump to lose his bid for re-election to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. But the loss, if it happens, will come despite his continued support from the overwhelming majority of Republicans, …read more

Source:: The Week – Politics

Cori Bush, a onetime homeless woman who led protests following a white police officer’s fatal shooting of a Black 18-year-old in Ferguson, ousted longtime Rep. William Lacy Clay Tuesday in Missouri’s Democratic primary, ending a political dynasty that has spanned more than a half-century.

Bush’s victory came in a rematch of 2018, when she failed to capitalize on a national Democratic wave that favored political newcomers such as Bush’s friend, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

But this time around, Bush’s supporters said protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis and outrage over racial injustice finally pushed her over the edge.

“This moment has really galvanized voters, especially in Missouri’s 1st” Congressional District, Bush campaign spokesman Keenan Korth said. “They’re ready to turn the page on decades of failed leadership.”

Bush, 44, also had backing from political action committee Justice Democrats and Fight Corporate Monopolies this election. She campaigned for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders during his presidential bid.

Bush’s primary win essentially guarantees her a seat in Congress representing the heavily Democratic St. Louis area. Missouri’s 1st Congressional District has been represented by Clay or his father for a half-century. Bill Clay served 32 years before retiring in 2000. William Lacy Clay, 64, was elected that year.

Clay didn’t face a serious challenger until Bush. This year, he ran on his decades-long record in Congress.

“This election is a simple choice,” Clay said in a Monday statement. “Cori Bush’s Empty Rhetoric, or my record of real results and real reforms for the people.”

Both Clay and Bush are Black, and Black residents slightly outnumber whites in the district that includes St. Louis and north St. Louis County.

Bush became ill while pregnant with her second child in 2001 and had to quit her job at a preschool. When she and her then-husband were evicted from a rental home, the couple, their newborn and 14-month-old son lived out of a Ford Explorer for several months.

Eventually, the couple divorced. Bush earned a nursing degree. She also became a pastor.

Michael Brown’s death in 2014 in Ferguson vaulted her into another role: activist. She became a leader of some of the many protests that followed the fatal police shooting of the Black, unarmed 18-year-old. She was back on the streets in 2017 after a white St. Louis officer was acquitted in the shooting death of a black suspect.

She continues to lead protests.

“She’s being buoyed by this movement, and the movement’s origin …read more

Source:: Time – Politics

(TOPEKA, Kan.) — Kansas Republicans on Tuesday nominated Rep. Roger Marshall for the Senate over polarizing conservative Kris Kobach, heeding the party establishment’s advice as it tries to keep a normally safe seat out of play in what could be a difficult year for the GOP.

Marshall prevailed comfortably in a crowded primary field with the backing of major farm, business and anti-abortion groups but without a pre-election endorsement from President Donald Trump sought by Senate Majority Mitch McConnell and others for the two-term congressman for western and central Kansas. Marshall overcame Kobach’s reputation as a conservative firebrand and informal adviser to Trump.

Marshall will face Democratic state Sen. Barbara Bollier, a former lifelong moderate Republican who received national attention at the end of 2018 by switching parties. GOP leaders have worried for months about Bollier’s ability so far to raise more in contributions than the top GOP candidates combined.

Travis Heying–The Wichita Eagle/APRoger Marshall pumps his fist after speaking to supporters near Pawnee Rock, Kan., Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020, after defeating Kris Kobach in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.

Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, is nationally known for advocating restrictive immigration policies and alienated independent and moderate GOP voters in losing the Kansas governor’s race in 2018. Marshall and his allies made that loss a key issue as he and Kobach battled atop the GOP field.

Bob and Debbie Rosenberger said Kobach’s loss in 2018 was on their minds as they cast their Republican primary ballots for Marshall at a southwest Topeka church. The retired 62-year-old postal worker and his wife, a retired, 63-year-old nursing home supervisor, said they are Trump supporters and believe Marshall will help him in the Senate.

As for Kobach, Bob Rosenberger said, “Bottom line, I just don’t trust him as much as Roger Marshall.”

The race for retiring four-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts’ seat had national implications even though the GOP hasn’t lost a Senate contest in Kansas since 1932. Republicans are trying to keep their 53-47 Senate majority with competitive races in other states, including Arizona, Colorado and Maine.

Marshall immediately called for party unity at a watch party at a winery southwest of his central Kansas hometown of Great Bend. He told his supporters that the GOP’s Senate majority is at stake in his race and said he was strengthened by the contentious primary.

“I’ve always believed in this iron sharpening iron,” Marshall said in his …read more

Source:: Time – Politics