With 50 days until Election Day, a New York Times/Siena College survey released over the weekend shows Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump in four battleground states.
According to the survey, Biden leads Trump in Minnesota, 50% to 41%; in Wisconsin, 48% to 43%; in Nevada, 46% to 42%; and in New Hampshire, 45% to 42%.
The polls were conducted Sept. 8-11 and surveyed 814 likely voters in Minnesota, 760 in Wisconsin, 462 in Nevada and 445 in New Hampshire. with margins of error ranging from 3.9 percentage points in Minnesota to 5.5 percentage points in New Hampshire.
Wisconsin was one of three Midwestern states Trump flipped in 2016, and the president and Biden have made recent campaign stops in the Badger State. Kenosha has become yet another racial and social justice flashpoint since the Aug. 23 shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man shot seven times in the back by police as he was getting into a car while they were trying to arrest him. Though the first three nights after Blake’s shooting were riddled with fires and gun violence, the situation has calmed since then.
While Trump toured the destruction in the city and expressed his support for local law enforcement, Biden spent more than an hour in private with Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr., his siblings and one of his attorneys, B’Ivory LaMarr. Blake’s mother Julia Jackson and another attorney, Ben Crump, joined by phone.
On Sunday night, Wisconsin Democrats offered a star-packed livestreamed script reading of “The Princess Bride” to help Biden’s campaign in the state.
The original cast of the 1987 film reunited along with guest stars Whoopi Goldberg, Eric Idle of Monty Python and Josh Gad. All the money raised benefited Wisconsin Democrats. After the reading, comedian Patton Oswalt moderated a Q&A with cast members
It took only a $1 donation to gain access to the stream, but donations averaged $27 going into the event. Party spokesman Phil Shulman said Monday he doesn’t know how much was raised in total.
While Wisconsin Democrats were raising money virtually, Trump held his first indoor rally since June in Nevada, telling the crowd the nation was “making the last turn” in defeating the coronavirus.
“We are not shutting the country again. A shutdown would destroy the lives and dreams of millions of Americans,” said Trump, before using his inflammatory moniker for the coronavirus. “We will very easily defeat the China virus.”
Relatively few in the crowd wore masks except those in the stands directly behind Trump, whose images would end up on TV, who were mandated to wear face coverings.
Recognizing that many supporters were uncomfortable to gather in a large group indoors, where the virus spreads more easily, the Trump campaign shifted to holding smaller, outdoor rallies, usually at airplane hangars. But those rallies have grown in size in recent weeks.
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, has limited in-person gatherings indoors and outdoors to 50 people since May, a recommendation based on White House reopening guidelines. In a statement released just before the rally began, Sisolak said Trump was “taking reckless and selfish actions that are putting countless lives in danger here in Nevada.”
The city of Henderson informed Xtreme Manufacturing on Sunday the event as planned was in direct violation of the governor’s COVID-19 emergency directives and that penalties would follow. The Trump campaign pushed back against the restrictions with the president saying he would support those in attendance “if the governor came after you.”
“If you can join tens of thousands of people protesting in the streets, gamble in a casino, or burn down small businesses in riots, you can gather peacefully under the First Amendment to hear from the president of the United States,” campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said.
The rally came the night before Trump was to travel to California to receive a briefing on the wildfires racing through the region.
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