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      'Get off Twitter': Joe Biden urges Trump to focus on safely reopening schools

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      Joe Biden

      Democratic candidate sought to put virus at heart of the campaign as rivals gave duelling speeches on Wednesday

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      Joe Biden tells Trump to ‘get off Twitter’ and focus on reopening schools – video

      Joe Biden attempted to regain the narrative in the US presidential election on Wednesday, telling Donald Trump to “get off Twitter” and focus on safely reopening schools during the coronavirus pandemic.
      The Democratic nominee sought to put the virus back at the heart of the campaign after two weeks that saw the president capitalise on sporadic violence in American cities, which has blighted largely peaceful protests over police brutality and systemic racism, to push a “law and order” theme and force Biden on to the back foot.
      With opinion polls narrowing two months before election day, Trump and Biden gave duelling speeches, both in cities called Wilmington but in different states, as they entered the final sprint to 3 November.
      Declaring reopening schools “a national emergency” as he spoke in his home town, Wilmington, Delaware, Biden demanded: “Mr President, where are you? Where are you? Why aren’t you working on this? We need emergency support funding for our schools and we need it now. Mr President, that’s your job, that’s your job.”
      He added: “That’s what you should be focused on now, getting our kids back to school safely, keeping schools safely able to remain open once they open. Not whipping up fear and division, not inciting violence in our streets.
      “Get off Twitter and start talking to the congressional leaders in both parties. Invite them to the Oval Office. You always talk about your ability to negotiate. Negotiate a deal. A deal for somebody other than yourself.”
      Trump was in Wilmington, North Carolina, for ceremonies marking the 75th anniversary of the end of the second world war.
      Showcasing the symbolic power on an incumbent president, Trump marked his visit to a battleground state with a speech in front of battleship. His remarks mostly concerned the creation of the first “American World War II Heritage City”, but he included a reference to his key campaign theme.
      “American warriors did not defeat fascism and oppression overseas only to watch our freedoms be trampled by violent mobs here at home,” Trump said.
      The vast majority of protests have been peaceful. Those that have turned violent have involved factions from either side of the political divide.
      “These people only know one thing,” Trump said, “and that’s strength. That’s all they know, strength.” More

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      Joe Biden tells Trump to 'get off Twitter' and focus on reopening schools – video

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      Joe Biden has described school closures as a ‘national emergency’ as he sought to put the coronavirus pandemic back at the heart of the US election campaign, after two weeks of Trump seeking to capitalise on sporadic scenes of violence in cities to push a ‘law and order’ theme

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      Covid cases could surge in battleground midwest during Labor Day holiday

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      As health officials warned that gatherings on the upcoming Labor Day holiday weekend in the United States could fuel the spread of coronavirus, political observers are closely watching attitudes about the virus in the midwest, where Donald Trump and Joe Biden are locked in a struggle that could decide the presidential election.Two new national polls published on Wednesday found that Trump retained the support of 40%-41% of voters – within the narrow band of support he has held since he took office, even as the confirmed death toll from Covid-19 in the United States approaches 200,000.One of the polls, for Grinnell College by the highly reputed Selzer & Company, found that Trump enjoys a 49-45 lead over Biden among voters ages 55 and older – precisely the group most vulnerable to serious complications or death from coronavirus.But in midwestern states such as Iowa and Minnesota, in particular, new warnings about coronavirus are being sounded just as the presidential election enters its final weeks and absentee voting begins.“We cannot afford to have this Labor Day weekend further accelerate the community spread, because if that happens, what comes next is going to be worse,” Jan Malcolm, the Minnesota health commissioner, told local MPR News on Monday. “For a while now, we feel we’ve been kind of walking on the edge of a cliff.”A White House coronavirus taskforce sent Iowa health officials a report this week warning that the state has the highest rate of cases in the United States, according to the Des Moines Register.The state has recorded just over 1,000 deaths from Covid-19, and the more than 65,000 confirmed cases have disproportionately affected communities tied to regional packing plants.Biden was scheduled to speak on Wednesday about Trump’s handling of the pandemic, and on Thursday the former vice-president planned to hold a community meeting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the site of protests after the shooting of Jacob Blake by a white police officer last month. More

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      Eighty-one Nobel winners back 'pro-science' Biden for president

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      Eighty-one American winners of Nobel prizes in the fields of chemistry, medicine and physics have endorsed Joe Biden for president, based on the candidate’s support for science.An open letter signed by the laureates asserts that the United States is at a unique historical crossroads demanding that leaders “appreciate the value of science”. The Biden campaign released the letter on Wednesday.The letter from the Nobel laureates endorses Biden with three sentences:
      At no time in our nation’s history has there been a greater need for our leaders to appreciate the value of science in formulating public policy. During his long record of public service, Joe Biden has consistently demonstrated his willingness to listen to experts, his understanding of the value of international collaboration in research, and his respect for the contribution that immigrants make to the intellectual life of our country. As American citizens and as scientists, we wholeheartedly endorse Joe Biden for President.
      The letter does not make explicit reference to the coronavirus pandemic or to the climate emergency, but it does single out an issue outside the expertise of the signatories: immigration.Biden respects “the contribution that immigrants make to the intellectual life of our country”, the letter says.In July, the Donald Trump administration advanced a plan to deport foreign students in the United States whose classes had moved online owing to the pandemic, but the plan was soon shelved.Trump has described climate change as a conspiracy advanced by China and he regularly undermines efforts by public health officials to communicate the most basic details about coronavirus transmission and safety measures.He has failed to get the pandemic under control, while claiming the virus will simply go away, and has put the US on the path to leaving the landmark international Paris climate accord the day after the presidential election, 4 November.The group endorsement was organized by Representative Bill Foster of Illinois, CNN reported. Before joining Congress, Foster worked as a high-energy physicist and particle accelerator designer at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and was a member of the team that discovered the top quark, the heaviest known form of matter, according to his official biography.The Nobel prizes were endowed in 1895 by Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist whose pioneering work in explosives led to an industrial career and fortune. Laureates outside the sciences include Biden’s former running mate, Barack Obama, who was awarded the 2009 Nobel peace prize. More

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      Electoral college explained: how Biden faces an uphill battle in the US election

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      US elections 2020

      Trump won the presidency in 2016 despite Clinton receiving almost 3m more votes, all because of the electoral college. How does the system work?

      Wed 2 Sep 2020 02.30 EDT

      Last modified on Wed 2 Sep 2020 02.31 EDT

      Who elects the US president?
      When Americans cast their ballots for the US president, they are actually voting for a representative of that candidate’s party known as an elector. There are 538 electors who then vote for the president on behalf of the people in their state.
      Each state is assigned a certain number of these electoral votes, based on the number of congressional districts they have, plus two additional votes representing the state’s Senate seats. Washington DC is also assigned three electoral votes, despite having no voting representation in Congress. A majority of 270 of these votes is needed to win the presidency.
      The process of nominating electors varies by state and by party, but is generally done one of two ways. Ahead of the election, political parties either choose electors at their national conventions, or they are voted for by the party’s central committee.
      The electoral college nearly always operates with a winner-takes-all system, in which the candidate with the highest number of votes in a state claims all of that state’s electoral votes. For example, in 2016, Trump beat Clinton in Florida by a margin of just 2.2%, but that meant he claimed all 29 of Florida’s crucial electoral votes.
      Such small margins in a handful of key swing states meant that, regardless of Clinton’s national vote lead, Trump was able to clinch victory in several swing states and therefore win more electoral college votes.
      Biden could face the same hurdle in November, meaning he will need to focus his attention on a handful of battleground states to win the presidency.
      A chart showing electoral college votes by state
      The unequal distribution of electoral votes
      While the number of electoral votes a state is assigned somewhat reflects its population, the minimum of three votes per state means that the relative value of electoral votes varies across America.
      The least populous states like North and South Dakota and the smaller states of New England are overrepresented because of the required minimum of three electoral votes. Meanwhile, the states with the most people – California, Texas and Florida – are underrepresented in the electoral college.
      Wyoming has one electoral college vote for every 193,000 people, compared with California’s rate of one electoral vote per 718,000 people. This means that each electoral vote in California represents over three times as many people as one in Wyoming. These disparities are repeated across the country.
      A visual of population per electoral vote by state
      Who does it favour?
      Experts have warned that, after returning two presidents that got fewer votes than their opponents since 2000, the electoral college is flawed.
      In 2000, Al Gore won over half a million more votes than Bush, yet Bush became president after winning Florida by just 537 votes.
      A chart showing recent election outcomes by popular vote and electoral college margins
      Professor George Edwards III, at Texas A&M University, said: “The electoral college violates the core tenet of democracy, that all votes count equally and allows the candidate finishing second to win the election. Why hold an election if we do not care who received the most votes?
      “At the moment, the electoral college favours Republicans because of the way Republican votes are distributed across the country. They are more likely to occur in states that are closely divided between the parties.”
      Under the winner-takes-all system, the margin of victory in a state becomes irrelevant. In 2016, Clinton’s substantial margins in states such as California and New York failed to earn her enough electoral votes, while close races in the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Michigan took Trump over the 270 majority.
      A visual showing margins and electoral votes by state gained by Trump and Clinton in 2016
      As candidates easily win the electoral votes of their solid states, the election plays out in a handful of key battlegrounds. In 2016, Trump won six such states – Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – adding 99 electoral votes to his total.
      The demographics of these states differ from the national average. They are older, have more white voters without college degrees, and often have smaller non-white populations. These characteristics generally favour Republicans, and made up the base of Trump’s votes in 2016.
      For example, 67% of non-college-educated white people voted for Trump in 2016. In all six swing states, this demographic is overrepresented by at least six percentage points more than the national average. More

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      Most Democrats fear Trump could reject election defeat, poll shows

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      Three in four supporters of Democratic challenger Joe Biden are worried about the prospect of Donald Trump rejecting the US presidential election result if it goes against him, an Opinium Research poll for the Guardian shows.The survey underlined fears that the president will not accept the outcome of November’s race, triggering a constitutional crisis. Last week two congressional Democrats wrote to the Pentagon seeking assurance that the military would ensure an orderly transfer of power.Nearly half of all Americans (47%) say they are worried about the possibility of Trump losing the election but refusing to concede defeat, Opinium found. Among Biden voters, that figure climbs to 75%, whereas for Trump voters it stands at 30%.Conversely, two in five (41%) Trump voters are worried that Biden will lose but not concede, as opposed to one in four Biden voters (28%).Trump has spent months spreading disinformation and attacking the integrity of the voting process. He declared in August: “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.” It appears that he is making some headway in encouraging Americans to distrust their democracy.Three in five (60%) Trump voters are worried that the election is being rigged, according to the poll. More than half of Biden voters (53%) share the same concern.The president has repeatedly sought to delegitimise mail-in voting, expected to surge to a record high because of the coronavirus pandemic, making baseless claims that it is prone to irregularities. Despite the lack of evidence, these broadsides appear to have gained some traction.Three in four (73%) Trump voters are worried about mail-in voting being used to commit fraud, according to Opinium, more than double the share of Biden voters (36%) with the same anxiety.In addition, a majority of both camps are worried about the beleaguered postal service not being able deliver ballots for mail-in voting in time and that their vote won’t be counted properly. More than a third of citizens are worried that they won’t be able to cast their vote.Five states already vote almost entirely by mail and the practice has been growing nationally with each presidential election. The pandemic is expected to accelerate that trend, from 20.9% in 2016 to 39% who say they vote by mail in 2020.There is a stark partisan divide that Trump is apparently seeking to exploit. More than two in three (68%) of the president’s supporters say they intend to vote in person, while just one in four (27%) intend to vote by mail.By contrast, more than half (56%) of Biden supporters plan to vote by mail and two in five (39%) intend to vote in person. The imbalance has raised fears that media outlets will jump the gun and project a winner based on in-person votes, long before the mail-in ballots are counted. A state such as Virginia might appear to favour Trump on the night but trend towards Biden as the days pass.A potential scenario was summarised by Crooked Media’s daily newsletter: “We could see election-night results that skew overwhelmingly towards Trump, with days of lag time before all the Biden ballots get counted. It’s a possibility that journalists should be prepared for, in the event that Trump tries to claim victory based on incomplete returns.”Opinium Research’s poll confirms that many people are braced for a break from the tradition of a winner being declared in the early hours of the morning after election day.Just 36% of Americans say they expect to know the result the next day, with 23% expecting to know within the next week and 17% saying some time later on in November. The disputed 2000 election between George W Bush and Al Gore prompted an epic legal battle that was not settled by the supreme court until 12 December.Opinium surveyed 2,002 American adults between 21 and 25 August, after the Democratic national convention but before the Republican one. The survey was conducted online and weighted to represent the US adult population according to demographics, education and past voting behaviour.It found Biden leading Trump by a huge 15 points – 56% to 41% – among those who are registered to vote and indicate that they are certain to do so. In swing states Wisconsin and Florida, Biden enjoys leads of 14 points (56% v 42%) and seven points up (53% v 46%) respectively.Biden has a big advantage over Trump on the issues of healthcare and race relations but trails the president on the economy (42% for Trump v 39% for Biden). This remains one of the Trump campaign’s big hopes, given the importance of the economy in past elections; Trump has been pushing for businesses and schools to reopen despite the persistence of Covid-19.Biden’s selection of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate has also boosted his standing. Americans are more confident that Harris would be ready to take on the presidency if the situation arose (52%) than the current vice-president, Mike Pence (47%).Opinium Research’s findings come amid growing concerns in some quarters that Trump, who has routinely pushed boundaries and shattered norms, even delivering his Republican national convention acceptance speech at the White House, is determined to cling to power irrespective of the election outcome.Last week the Washington Post reported that Democratic congresswomen Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey wrote to Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and the defense secretary Mark Esper, noting the military’s obligations to follow the orders of the legitimately elected commander in chief.“The questions would have been almost unthinkable at any time in the nation’s history outside of the civil war,” the Post observed. “The two asked Milley if he was aware that the Uniform Code of Military Justice ‘criminalizes mutiny and sedition’ and if he understood that he was legally bound to follow the lawful orders only of the legitimately elected president.” More