Political Roundtable: State Of The 2020 Presidential Election – WBUR

The pandemic and the protests for racial justice will certainly have an impact on the November election. We dig into what the next few months of unconventional campaigning will look like.

Guests

Kimberly Atkins, WBUR senior news correspondent covering national politics. (@KimberlyEAtkins)

Joel Payne, CBS News political contributor. Democratic strategist. (@paynedc)

Whit Ayres, Republican pollster for North Star Opinion Research. (@WhitAyres)

From The Reading List

Wall Street Journal: “Coronavirus Changes Trump Re-Election Calculus in Key States” — “Rising job losses, deaths and political tensions are putting new pressure on President Trump in key battleground states, creating uncertainty about his re-election prospects even as he projects an improved outlook on the coronavirus pandemic.”

New York Magazine: “How Do You Campaign During A Pandemic?” — “Tuesday night’s election results appear to have wrapped up the Democratic nomination for Joe Biden much faster than seemed possible even just a few weeks ago. But if before Super Tuesday we weren’t at all sure who would be the Democratic nominee, we thought we had a pretty good idea of what their campaign would look like — it would look like every other presidential campaign in memory, full of rallies and rope-line greeting, and debate halls full of voters.”

New York Times: “Covid-19 Changed How We Vote. It Could Also Change Who Votes.” — “In a normal election year, volunteers from the Columbus, Ohio, chapter of the League of Women Voters would have spent last weekend at the Columbus Arts Fair, pens and clipboards in hand, looking to sign up new voters among the festival’s 400,000 or so attendees.”

Politico: “Biden: ‘I reject the premise that’ remote campaigning is hurting my White House bid” — “Former Vice President Joe Biden argued Tuesday there is “no evidence” to suggest his White House bid is being hindered by the constraints of remote campaigning amid the coronavirus pandemic.”

The Nation: “How to Canvass During a Pandemic” — “Rebecca Parson, like many progressive insurgents running for Congress, was hoping to ride a strong ground game to victory. Knocking on doors in Washington State’s 6th Congressional District, which ropes in most of the city of Tacoma, she was aiming to lay the groundwork to pull off an upset again Derek Kilmer, a centrist Democrat and deficit hawk. And then, the novel coronavirus struck.”