Sunday, September 13, 2020

 

Trump officials interfered with CDC reports: Politico

The CDC's weekly MMWR reports are the key link between the CDC and the public.

Politically appointed members of the Department of Health and Human Services' communications teams were allowed to review, change and delay reports authored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a bombshell report published by Politico late Friday.

The Politico report said that the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, a public report compiled by scientists that's served as the key communication avenue between the CDC and health care providers, researchers, journalists and the public since the 1980s, has been tinkered with when CDC findings didn't align with President Donald Trump's public statements about coronavirus.

ABC News has not independently confirmed the Politico report.

"[The assistant secretary for public affairs] clears virtually all public-facing documents for all of its divisions, including CDC," Michael Caputo, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, confirmed to ABC News.

"Our intention is to make sure that evidence, science-based data drives policy through this pandemic -- not ulterior deep state motives in the bowels of CDC," Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no scientific or medical background, said in a statement.

According to Politico, in one instance, Caputo and his team pushed to retroactively adjust CDC reports that they said inflated the risk of COVID-19. The critique, in the communication team's opinion, was that the CDC reports did not explicitly point out that Americans with COVID-19 could have become infected because of their own behavior, according to the Politico story.

In another instance, Caputo's team tried to slow down a CDC report on hydroxychloroquine, the controversial malaria drug that Trump frequently referenced as a potential COVID-19 treatment during press briefings. A report about hydroxychloroquine that said "the potential benefits of these drugs do not outweigh their risks" was withheld for roughly a month while the team investigated the CDC author's political leanings, according to Politico.

Several CDC staff members told ABC News they were infuriated to learn Caputo's team made attempts to revise the weekly reports in ways inconsistent with science, something they would have previously thought not possible.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden weighed in on the Politico report via his campaign manager.

"When Donald Trump told Bob Woodward that he wanted to downplay the virus, this is the exact kind of repugnant betrayal that he meant," Kate Bedingfield, Biden's deputy campaign manager, said in a statement.

"This report is further proof that the Trump Administration has been systematically putting political optics ahead of the safety of the American people," she added. "Trump's failure has left us with 6 million infected, millions more unemployed, and the worst outbreak in the developed world. We deserve so much better."

Political appointees demand ability to rewrite CDC case reports


"CDC to me appears to be writing hit pieces on the administration," reads one email.


JOHN TIMMER - 9/12/2020

Enlarge / Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), listens during a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus. Redfield may be finding himself trapped between scientists and political appointees.

Political appointees in the Department of Health and Human services are objecting to reports on the COVID-19 pandemic from the Centers for Disease Control, and are trying to exercise editorial control of future reports. That's the bottom line of an extensive report from Politico that was based on both internal emails and interviews with people in the organization. The problems apparently stem from the fact-based reports from the CDC running counter to the Trump administration's preferred narrative about the spread of the pandemic and the appropriate public health responses.

The CDC documents at issue are termed Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which provide rapid summaries of the state of our knowledge about public health issues. Typically, they're the product of a CDC-backed investigation into a known issue; in the past, they've focused on things like outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. While they don't have the weight of peer-reviewed literature, they're widely considered to be scientifically reliable, and their rapid publication makes them a valuable resource for public health officials.

It's easy to see how the reports' accurate information could be viewed as counter to the preferred message of the Trump administration. Trump has made reopening schools a centerpiece of his pandemic policy, but CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly reports have described how SARS-CoV-2 can spread rapidly in a school-aged population, how young children can bring the disease home and pass it on to adults, and how children can suffer severe complications from the disease.

Rather than recognizing that facts aren't supportive of their policies, the administration's political appointees have apparently decided that the CDC is not presenting the facts because it's trying to undercut Trump. Politico quotes Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official now at Health and Human Services, as saying "Our intention is to make sure that evidence, science-based data drives policy through this pandemic—not ulterior deep state motives in the bowels of CDC." One of the emails obtained for the story, written by another political appointee, says "CDC to me appears to be writing hit pieces on the administration," and another accused the reports of being used to "hurt the president."

Paul Alexander, one of the few involved who has an epidemiology background, complained in another email, "CDC tried to report as if once kids get together, there will be spread and this will impact school re-opening... Very misleading by CDC and shame on them." Yet that's exactly what appears to be happening in many locations, suggesting the CDC has a better grasp on the issue than Alexander does.

The political staff has attempted to block the release of some of the Morbidity and Mortality reports, and demanded the ability to review and edit all future reports. (Alexander, apparently unironically, suggested he needed to ensure the reports were "fair and balanced.") While all of the planned reports were eventually published, Politico indicates that the non-scientific staff are gaining increased oversight of the reports prior to their publication

Trump ally who sought to change CDC Covid reports claims he was fighting 'deep state'

Michael Caputo worked on the Trump campaign in 2015 and 2016 and has links to Russia. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
 in New York

A former Trump campaign official now spokesman for the US health department sought to change key reports on the coronavirus pandemic, in some cases “openly complaining” that they “would undermine the president’s optimistic messages about the outbreak”, according to internal emails seen by Politico.

The official, Michael Caputo, told the website he was attempting to stymie “ulterior deep state motives in the bowels” of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.

The news comes after reports that a whistleblower at the Department of Homeland Security said he was told to stop making Donald Trump “look bad”, via reports on Russian election interference.

It also comes as a new book by Bob Woodward details the president’s reasoning behind optimistic messaging about the coronavirus outbreak.“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward in March, more than a month after telling him the virus was “deadly stuff”.

“I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

Trump’s comments – and Woodward’s decision to save them for his book – caused outcry. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, 6.4m people have been infected in the US and more than 192,000 have died. Other counts put the death toll over 200,000.

Caputo, who became spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services in April, is a Republican consultant who worked on the Trump campaign in 2015 and 2016. He has links to Russia, having worked in the country’s energy industry, and to Roger Stone, a Trump ally whose sentence arising from the Russia investigation was commuted by the president.

Politico reported that under Caputo’s direction, CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports were subject to “substantial efforts to align … with Trump’s statements, including the president’s claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether”.

“Caputo and his team have attempted to add caveats to the CDC’s findings,” the website said, “including an effort to retroactively change agency reports that they said wrongly inflated the risks of Covid-19 and should have made clear that Americans sickened by the virus may have been infected because of their own behavior.”

One report Caputo’s team tried to stop, the website said, concerned hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug which Trump and key aides pushed for use in treatment of Covid-19 but which studies have said can be dangerous. The report was published last week, reportedly after being held for a month because its authors’ political views were in question.

In one August email seen by Politico, another political appointee accused the CDC of writing “hit pieces on the administration” and trying to “hurt the president”.

Caputo told the website: “Buried in this good [CDC] work are sometimes stories which seem to purposefully mislead and undermine the president’s Covid response with what some scientists label as poor scholarship – and others call politics disguised in science.”

He also said: “Our intention is to make sure that evidence, science-based data drives policy through this pandemic – not ulterior deep state motives in the bowels of CDC.”

The “deep state” conspiracy theory, enthusiastically propounded by the president and senior aides, holds that a permanent government of bureaucrats and intelligence officials exists to thwart Trump’s agenda.

Trump recently claimed that the “deep state” was responsible for the Food and Drug Administration delaying approval for unproven Covid therapeutics.

Steve Bannon, a former Trump campaign manager and White House strategist now under indictment for fraud, was a key early proponent of the “deep state” theory.

He is on record saying it is “for nut cases” and “none of this is true”.

Another Chinese rocket falls near a school, creating toxic orange cloud
Most of China's launch fleet is powered by hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide.

ERIC BERGER - 9/8/2020
Enlarge / A Long March 4B carrier rocket lifts off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Taiyuan in north China's Shanxi Province in April, 2019.
Xinhua/Liu Qiaoming via Getty Images

On Monday, a Long March 4B rocket launched from China's Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center carrying a remote-sensing satellite. This 50-year-old spaceport is located in north-central China, about 500km to the southwest of Beijing.

As often happens with the first stages of Chinese rockets launching from the inland Taiyuan facility, the spent Long March 4B booster fell downstream of the spaceport. In this case, it landed near a school, creating a predictably large cloud of toxic gas.

Unlike most of the world's spaceports, several of China's launch sites are located at inland locations rather than near water to avoid such hazards. For security purposes, China built three of its major launch centers away from water during the Cold War, amid tensions with both America and the Soviet Union.


Some impressive footage from today's Long March 4B first stage return.
ℹ:https://t.co/9oRPoR0ZdF pic.twitter.com/SEl7t1u5xJ
— LaunchStuff (@LaunchStuff) September 7, 2020

In recent years China has begun to experiment with grid fins to steer its rockets back to Earth—and eventually to potentially land boosters like SpaceX does with its Falcon 9 rocket. However this project seems driven more by a desire to master reuse technology than to protect its population, as China has been launching from Taiyuan since 1968 with seemingly little regard for nearby residents.

Compounding the problem of dropping rocket first stages on the surrounding countryside is that China continues to use toxic hydrazine fuel for its first stages. Hydrazine, which is two nitrogens bound together by hydrogen atoms, is an efficient, storable fuel. But it is also highly corrosive and toxic.

When a Crew Dragon spacecraft exploded during a test in April 2019, it produced large clouds of toxic orange gas that could be seen for miles around on Florida beaches. These reddish clouds were caused by nitrogen tetroxide, the oxidizer that combusts with hydrazine fuel. This spacecraft—and many others in the past, including the space shuttle—used storable propellants for in-space operations. NASA has been working to find "green" propellants that would obviate the use of hydrazine for even in-space operations.

It is a different story for rockets, however. The use of hydrazine as a fuel for launch vehicles has been phased out for most of the world. The last major US rocket to use hydrazine was United Launch Alliance's Delta II rocket, which used the toxic fuel in its second stage. This rocket was retired in 2018. Russia's workhorse Proton rocket uses hydrazine for its first and second stages.


FURTHER READING Once again, a Chinese rocket has doused a village with toxic fuel

Yet the majority of China's launch fleet is powered by hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer. This includes its human-rated Long March 2F rocket as well as the widely used Long March 4 family. All of these rockets, with their toxic first stages, launch over land and have caused numerous incidents over the years. These fuels are cheap and relatively easy to use, and it would have been natural for China to use them in the 1980s and 1990s when these boosters were developed. But their use continues unabated today.

China is slowly changing. Its new family of large rockets, the Long March 5 fleet, is fueled by liquid oxygen and kerosene, like SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. Paradoxically, however, the Long March 5 rockets typically launch from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site—over the ocean.


ARS TECHNICA
FAKE NEWS 
“Canada has just criminalized all CV19 measures requiring masks, distancing, quarantining & vaccines.”



By Madison Czopek September 11, 2020

No, Canada did not criminalize COVID-19 restrictions


• The Canadian government has not enacted a law that criminalizes COVID-19 restrictions or prevents enforcement of those guidelines.

• There are places in Canada where you can be fined for disobeying COVID-19 public health orders.

• The post appears to be referring to a proclamation issued by a “council of citizens’ assemblies.”

See the sources for this fact-check

Facebook posts stated on September 9, 2020 in a post:

A Facebook post claims Canada passed new legislation against COVID-19 public health orders.

"Canada has just criminalized all CV19 measures requiring masks, distancing, quarantining & vaccines — meaning they cannot force/fine you to wear a mask etc," the text on the photo post reads. "Any attempt to impose such measures is now considered a CRIME."

That’s not true. The caption of the post mentions a "law" passed by "a council of citizens’ assemblies" on Sept. 8. The actions of this group do not have legitimate standing in Canada.

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

Claims about this new "law" have been publicized by a group called the Republic of Kanata, which describes itself as "a new society growing up within the shell of the old. Citizens are united within a new jurisdiction in local Republican Assemblies that replace the existing Canadian government structures."

Republic of Kanata says its law "struck down and criminalized" all COVID-19 measures, such as those requiring masks, social distancing or quarantining. The law also encourages people to "actively resist" coronavirus regulations.

According to a Republic of Kanata press release, "The law was issued by the National Council of Common Law Assemblies (NCCLA), which unites more than forty such Assemblies across Canada within the jurisdiction of the Republic of Kanata."

Although a group of people want this to be law, it is not.

The group has no legal authority in Canada. A spokesperson for the Canadian House of Commons confirmed that no such law has been passed to criminalize public health measures for COVID-19

The post also incorrectly claims that Canadian cities and provinces can no longer implement COVID-19 safety requirements or impose fines for violating those measures.

In several places in Canada, there are fines and other penalties for violating the public health orders designed to slow the spread of COVID-19.

In Canada’s Alberta province, fines for violating orders for self-isolation begin at $1,000. Canada’s capital city of Ottawa has required masks in enclosed public spaces since July, and police officers can impose $200 fines.

On Sept. 10 — two days after the Facebook post’s supposed-law criminalized the COVID-19 measures — officials in Quebec announced the police would begin handing out fines to people who aren’t wearing masks in accordance with public health regulations.
Our ruling

An image on Facebook says, "Canada has just criminalized all CV19 measures requiring masks, distancing, quarantining & vaccines — meaning they cannot force/fine you to wear a mask etc. Any attempt to impose such measures is now considered a CRIME."

The caption of the post refers to a "law" passed by a "a council of citizens’ assemblies" that is not real, enforceable law in Canada. People can also be fined for violating the public health orders designed to slow the spread of COVID-19 in many places in Canada.

We rate this claim False.

Our Sources

CBC, "Quebec will hand out fines to those who refuse to wear masks," Sept. 10, 2020

CTV News Montreal, "Quebec will fine those who don’t wear masks," Sept. 10, 2020

Alberta, "Help prevent the spread," accessed Sept. 10, 2020

Global News, "Ottawa council passes mask bylaw with fines of $200 for violators," July 15, 2020

Ottawa, "Temporary Mandatory Mask By-law (By-law No. 2020 – 186)," accessed Sept. 11, 2020

Ottawa Public Health, "Learn more on the Temporary Mandatory Mask By-law," accessed Sept. 11, 2020

Email interview with Canadian House of Commons spokesperson, Sept. 11, 2020

Canada Department of Justice, "Government of Canada’s response to COVID-19," accessed Sept. 11, 2020

Republic of Kanata, "Republic of Kanata," accessed Sept. 11, 2020

Republic of Kanata, "Media," Sept. 8, 2020

YouTube, "National Law in Canada Strikes Down Police State Measures, Empowers Citizens to Resist," Sept. 7, 2020

COVIDIOTS
Dakotas lead US in virus growth as both reject mask rules
Coronavirus infections in the Dakotas are growing faster than anywhere else in the nation

STEPHEN GROVES and DAVE KOLPACK Associated Press
12 September 2020


SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- Coronavirus infections in the Dakotas are growing faster than anywhere else in the nation, fueling impassioned debates over masks and personal freedom after months in which the two states avoided the worst of the pandemic.

The argument over masks raged this week in Brookings, South Dakota, as the city council considered requiring face coverings in businesses. The city was forced to move its meeting to a local arena to accommodate intense interest, with many citizens speaking against it, before the mask requirement ultimately passed.

Amid the brute force of the pandemic, health experts warn that the infections must be contained before care systems are overwhelmed. North Dakota and South Dakota lead the country in new cases per capita over the last two weeks, ranking first and second respectively, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers.

South Dakota has also posted some of the country's highest positivity rates for COVID-19 tests in the last week — over 17 percent — an indication that there are more infections than tests are catching.

Infections have been spurred by schools and universities reopening and mass gatherings like the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which drew hundreds of thousands of people from across the country.

“It is not a surprise that South Dakota has one of the highest (COVID-19) reproduction rates in the country,” Brookings City Council member Nick Wendell said as he commented on the many people who forgo masks in public.

The Republican governors of both states have eschewed mask requirements, tapping into a spirit of independence hewn from enduring the winters and storms of the Great Plains.

New evidence shows young children can transmit COVID-19
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study identified that 12 children infected at child care centers went on to infect 12 others, including parents and siblings.

The Dakotas were not always a hot spot. For months, the states appeared to avoid the worst of the pandemic, watching from afar as it raged through large cities. But spiking infection rates have fanned out across the nation, from the East Coast to the Sun Belt and now into the Midwest, where states like Iowa and Kansas are also dealing with surges.

When the case count stayed low during the spring and early summer, people grew weary of constantly taking precautions, said Dr. Benjamin Aaker, president of the South Dakota State Medical Association.

“People have a tendency to become complacent,” he said. “Then they start to relax the things that they were doing properly, and that’s when the increase in cases starts to go up."


Health officials point out that the COVID-19 case increases have been among younger groups that are not hospitalized at high rates. But infections have not been contained to college campuses.

“College students work in places where the vulnerable live, such as nursing homes,” said Dr. Joel Walz, the Grand Forks, North Dakota, city and county health officer. “Some of them are nursing students who are doing rotations where they’re going to see people who are really at risk. I worry about that.”

Over 1,000 students at the states' four largest universities (the University of North Dakota, North Dakota State University, South Dakota State University and University of South Dakota) left campus to quarantine after being exposed to the virus, according to data released by the schools. The Sturgis rally also spread infections across the region, with health officials in 12 states reporting over 300 cases among people who attended the event.

But requiring masks has been controversial. In Brookings, opponents said they believed the virus threat was not as serious as portrayed and that a mandate was a violation of civil liberties.

“There are a lot of things we have in life that we have to deal with that cause death,” business owner Teresa Holloman told the council. “We live in America, and we have certain inalienable rights.”

Though Brookings passed its ban, another hot spot — North Dakota's Morton County, just west of the capital city of Bismarck — soundly rejected a mask requirement after citizens spoke against it. Brookings may be the lone municipality with such an order in the Dakotas outside of Native American reservations, which have generally been more vigilant in adopting coronavirus precautions. Native Americans have disproportionately died from COVID-19, accounting for 24% of deaths statewide.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem have resisted mask requirements. Burgum promotes personal choice but tried to encourage masks with a social media campaign. Noem has discouraged mask requirements, saying she doubts a broad consensus in the medical community that they help prevent infections.

At a press briefing, Burgum displayed a slide that showed active cases in neighboring Minnesota rising to record levels since implementing a mask mandate July 25.

"In the end, it’s about individual decisions, not what the government does," he said.

Noem, who has yet to appear at a public event with a mask, carved out a reputation as a staunch conservative when she defied calls early in the pandemic for lockdown orders.

But both governors face increasing pressure to step up their approach.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, told MSNBC that the states' virus levels were “disturbing,” especially as fall weather arrives and Americans begin spending more time indoors.

"You don’t want to start off already with a baseline that’s so high,” Fauci said.

Neither governor appears ready to yield any ground.

“We will not be changing that approach,” Noem spokesman Ian Fury said Thursday, citing a low hospitalization rate and the fact that only 3% of intensive-care beds are occupied by COVID patients.

Doctors in both states warn that their health care systems remain vulnerable. Small hospitals in rural areas depend on just a handful of large hospitals to handle large inflows of patients or complex procedures, said Dr. Misty Anderson, president of the North Dakota Medical Association.

Aaker, the president of the South Dakota physician's group, said medical practices have seen patients delaying routine care during the pandemic, meaning that doctors could soon see an uptick in patients needing more serious attention.

“Now we are adding a surge in coronavirus cases potentially,” he said. "They are worried about being overwhelmed.”

———


About 8,800 unaccompanied children are expelled at US border

About 8,800 unaccompanied children have been quickly expelled from the United States along the Mexico border under a pandemic-related measure that effectively ended asylum

SAN FRANCISCO -- About 8,800 unaccompanied children have been quickly expelled from the United States along the Mexico border under a pandemic-related measure that effectively ended asylum, authorities said Friday.

The Trump administration has expelled more than 159,000 people since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emergency order took effect in March, a figure that also includes more than 7,600 adults and children who crossed the border in families.

The figures on children were reported for the first time in a declaration by Raul Ortiz, the Border Patrol's deputy chief, as part of the administration's appeal of an order to stop housing children in hotels.

The administration “immediately” expelled most children and families to Mexico but more than 2,200 unaccompanied children and 600 people who came in families were held until flights could be arranged to return home, Ortiz said.

The administration asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a ruling last week that found use of hotels skirted “fundamental humanitarian protections.”

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles ruled that using hotels for long-term detention violated a two-decade-old settlement governing treatment of children in custody. She ordered border agencies to stop placing children in hotels by Tuesday.

Justice Department attorneys argued that settlement doesn't apply during the public health emergency and that hotels were appropriate.

“While in these hotels, the government provides minors with supervision by specialists, recreation, amenities, and protective measures against COVID-19,” the attorneys wrote.

Before the pandemic, unaccompanied children were sent to state-licensed shelters operated by the Department of Health and Human Services and often released to family members while seeking asylum.

FROM THE RIGHT
Woodward Revelations Hurting Trump
A new poll shows meaningful shifts in public attitudes.

JAMES JOYNER · SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2020 · 21 COMMENTS














Yahoo News has a new poll out with a feel-good story: Trump is falling further behind. Let’s hold our horses a bit before celebrating.

“New Yahoo News/YouGov poll: Trump falls 10 points behind Biden amid reports he misled Americans about COVID-19 and disparaged U.S. soldiers.”

Donald Trump has fallen further behind Joe Biden following bombshell reports that the president knowingly misled Americans about the dangers of COVID-19 and privately disparaged dead U.S. soldiers as “suckers” and “losers,” according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

The survey, which was conducted from Sept. 9 to 11, shows Biden leading Trump by 10 percentage points among registered voters, 49 percent to 39 percent. The previous Yahoo News/YouGov poll found Biden ahead by just 6 points immediately after the Republican National Convention.

The results suggest that a week of unrelenting and unflattering revelations about Trump — from the Atlantic report on his alleged contempt for Americans wounded or killed in war (which appeared on Sept. 3) to Bob Woodward’s recordings of Trump admitting he downplayed the deadliness of COVID-19 (released on Sept. 9) — has damaged the president’s standing with voters.

My initial reaction was that the analyst was taking a change in a single poll within the range of sampling error and explaining it based on what had happened in the news since. But, no, they actually polled on those items.

Asked if their opinion of Trump’s coronavirus response has changed because of Woodward’s big scoop — a tape of Trump privately acknowledging the virus was “deadly stuff” even as he publicly sought, in his own words, “to play it down”— nearly a quarter of Americans (23 percent) say yes. Even 15 percent of those who voted for Trump in 2016 say the Woodward news has changed their mind about the president’s handling of the pandemic.

Those might seem like small numbers. But in an age of extreme polarization, they could augur a real shift. Overall, 15 percent of Americans say the Woodward quotes have made them less likely to vote to reelect the president in November — and a third of these were 2016 Trump supporters.

The military story seems to have had a similar impact. Asked which candidate shows more respect for the military, 50 percent of registered voters name Biden, compared to 39 percent for Trump. By the same margin, voters say Biden would do a better job leading the military than the current commander in chief.

Reactions to Trump’s reported remarks on the military were predictably partisan, but nearly a quarter of independents (23 percent) say the news increased their support for Biden, compared to just 9 percent who say the news increased their support for Trump. Six percent of 2016 Trump supporters say they have moved toward Biden as a result.

Again, I’m naturally skeptical of this simply because it didn’t change my opinion of Trump. But, of course, I’m almost certainly in the top 1 percent in interest in political news and my views are much more firmly rooted than normal citizens who pay rather scant attention.

This is a much more telling bit of information:

This reflects a larger problem for Trump. Only 1 percent of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 supporters say they will vote for the president in November. At the same time, 8 percent of Trump’s 2016 supporters say they will vote for Biden.

There were a lot of people who voted for Trump who had never voted for a Republican simply because they were tired of “politics as usual” and thought he would “reboot the system.” One presumes he’s lost most of those people.

More detail from the poll:

Registered voters reject Trump — and prefer Biden — on nearly every major issue. For instance, a wide majority of them (57 percent) disapprove of the president’s handling of the pandemic; only 40 percent approve. By a 17-point margin (48 percent yes to 31 percent no) voters say the current coronavirus situation in the U.S. would be better right now if Biden had been president instead of Trump.

Likewise, only 37 percent of registered voters approve of the way the president has handled the Black Lives Matter protests; 54 percent disapprove. In the wake of the protests in Kenosha, Wis., an even larger majority of registered voters (57 percent) say Trump “makes things worse” when he talks about race. Just 27 percent say he “makes things better.” By a 15-point margin, voters believe that Biden (49 percent) would have handled the Black Lives Matter protests better than Trump (34 percent).

Looking forward, a 10-point plurality thinks that if Biden is elected, there will be less violence of the sort seen in Kenosha (42 percent) rather than more (32 percent). Half as many voters believe Biden wants to “abolish the suburbs” (23 percent) — a frequent Trump attack — than believe he wants to do no such thing (46 percent). And a full 61 percent predict there will be more violence if Trump is reelected, while just 20 percent say there will be less.

Those are really good numbers. The thing is, we don’t know how they’re distributed or how salient they are for voters.

As we’ve beaten to death here over the years—and regular readers, who are also off the charts in interest in these things or they wouldn’t be, well, regular readers instinctively understand—we don’t elect Presidents on a national popular vote but in 51 statewide contests. It’s quite possible these attitudes aren’t the same in the “swing” states.

Additionally, there are almost certainly a significant number of traditional Republican voters who think Trump is a lying scumbag who has totally mismanaged the pandemic but will nonetheless vote for him because they can smell the opportunity to take over the Supreme Court and overturn Roe v. Wade.

As always, aggregates of polls are better than individual ones and they, too, are good news for Biden. The slightly Republican-leaning RealClearPolitics average also shows Biden’s lead widening—although not as wide as it once was.

While 7.5 points isn’t 10, it’s still significant. Moreover, the fact that Trump hasn’t tied, much less led, the race for even a single day going back more than a year is telling.

The FiveThirtyEight gang uses a more rigorous methodology in choosing and weighting polls but paint a remarkably similar picture:

Even with that, though, they give Biden only a 75 percent chance of winning 270 Electoral votes, compared to Trump’s 24 (there’s a 1 percent chance of a 269-269 tie). Mostly, though, that’s because the state polls are fewer and thus less reliable. Plus, they’re overcorrecting for the perception they got it wrong in 2016 and being extra cautious.


About James JoynerJames Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College and a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm vet. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.