I mentioned below that it would be a terrible mistake to shut down the Democratic presidential primary process now. Obviously here I don’t literally mean shut it down. The primaries are official elections. But I mean in the broader sense of trying to push things forward to Biden being the presumptive nominee. No more debates. Stuff like that.
But TPM Reader PP just wrote in and says he’s a 70 year old election judge in a state with an upcoming primary and, yeah, he thinks there is a reason to rush.
It is extremely belated. We know this. But the CDC is finally getting some real information up and online. The key page is here, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Summary. There are links toward the upper left to a series of charts and graphs on cases in the US, testing in the US and more.
Anthony Fauci’s “things will get worse” statement this morning – no surprise to anyone paying attention – seems like the second inflection point of this crisis within the United States. The first was CDC’s Nancy Messonnier’s February 25th ‘not if but when’ comment.
Why did Joe Biden do so much better in Michigan against Bernie Sanders in 2020 than Hillary Clinton, who lost state, did in 2016? I think the answers to this say something, maybe obvious, about the voters’ preference for Biden this year and their support for Sanders in 2016. Read More
As you can see in the footer of this post and every Editors’ Blog post for the foreseeable future we’ve added a section of critical links about the COVID-19 Crisis. There are some key, canonical information sources I’ve already added which you can see below (you need to click through to the full post). I’ll be adding more and cycling ones in and out going forward. Some will be important articles; most will be key data sources as opposed to particular news reports. I will try to keep the list short because my goal is to keep the key information sources at your fingertips, ready at hand.
TPM exclusively reported yesterday that the state of Washington has discussed applying for a Medicaid waiver that would expand the state’s ability to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak, but it needs a national emergency declaration from President Trump in order to do so. The Trump administration has thus far withheld making such a move.
This morning, a Senate Democratic aide confirmed to TPM that a group of lawmakers, including a Washington senator, are preparing to ask the Trump administration to declare a national emergency over the coronavirus.
JoinThere was a push last night from Rep. Jim Clyburn for party leaders to step in and essentially call time on the Democratic presidential primary race. The call was echoed by James Carville. The race is almost certainly over in any real sense. But jumping in to shut it down would be a terrible, terrible idea.
It certainly looks like Joe Biden is having a very strong night. It’s hard to conceive of just how stark a comeback or reversal this is, hard to remember when in recent American electoral history there’s been anything like it. Biden spent most of February in complete free fall, not just losing but an epic collapse. Two weeks later it looks like he’s on the verge of putting together a prohibitive lead that simply won’t be possible for Sanders to overcome. The dynamics were pretty clearly in place before the Coronavirus took over the national conversation. But it’s hard not to think a national climate of fear and risk aversion is helping solidify or accelerate the trend in Biden’s favor.
We’ve so much more news than just primaries at the moment. But tonight there are primaries too. We will be bringing you live election results from every state and our staff live blog right here.