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      Trump and Biden head for Minnesota as early voting begins in three states

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      Lines formed at polling stations in three states on Friday, 46 days out from 3 November, election day itself, as early voting began. Concern about ballot access under the pandemic has been widespread, particularly as Donald Trump continues to attack voting by mail with baseless claims of widespread fraud.In Minnesota, a state Hillary Clinton won by just 1.5 points in 2016 and which the Trump campaign is targeting, the president and Joe Biden were both on the campaign trail.In Virginia, the state’s two Democratic US senators were among early voters. At one site in Richmond, the state capital, dozens lined up before a polling station opened. CNN reported local officials as saying “they’ve never seen this many people show up on the first day”.Virginia was until recently a swing state but now leans firmly Democratic. Voting also began on Friday in South Dakota, which is solidly Republican.Trump has repeatedly said he wants to flip Minnesota in November, in hopes that it could offset losses elsewhere. He has visited regularly and has tailored policy moves to rural parts of the state, including reversing an Obama policy prohibiting the development of copper-nickel mining and bailing out soya bean, corn and other farmers hurt by Trump’s trade clashes with China.More recently, Trump has embraced a “law and order” message aimed at white voters concerned by protests against racism and police brutality which have sometimes turned violent. Minnesota saw unrest after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.However, polls indicate Biden has a significant edge in the state. According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll this week, Biden leads by 16 points among likely voters, 57% to 41%.On Friday, Trump was scheduled to speak in Bemidji while Biden traveled to Duluth for a tour of a union training center. Duluth mayor Emily Larson told the Associated Press: “One of the things the Trump campaign has been very good about is visibility in Duluth, but also in areas around Duluth.”In Michigan, meanwhile, a judge handed down a key ruling concerning mail-in voting, writing that the state must accept ballots postmarked the day before election day, 3 November, which arrive in the weeks following.The decision will probably result in thousands more voters having their ballots counted in a key battleground state.In 2016, Trump won Michigan by about 10,000 votes. One of the top reasons mail-in ballots are rejected is because they arrive past the deadline to be counted: 6,405 ballots were rejected for that reason in Michigan’s August primary. Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who is the state’s top election official, called for extending the deadline.The Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with reports of mail delays, have made that deadline unrealistic, wrote Judge Cynthia Diane Stevens of the Michigan court of claims.“Some flexibility must be built into the deadline in order to account for the significant inability of mail to arrive on what would typically be a reliable, predictable schedule,” the judge wrote, ordering ballots counted as long as they are postmarked by 2 November and arrive within 14 days of election day.The ruling was the second in two days extending ballot deadlines in a key state. On Thursday, the Pennsylvania supreme court blocked the state from enforcing an election night deadline for absentee ballots, instead ordering it to count them as long as they are postmarked by election day and arrive by the following Friday.The Michigan ruling was in a suit filed by Priorities USA, a Democratic group. Michigan also restricts who can return an absentee ballot on behalf of a voter. Stevens, citing the pandemic, said the state could not enforce those restrictions from the Friday before election day through election night. More

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      Republican memo warns US Senate ‘at risk’ of falling into Democratic control

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      A memo by Senate Republicans’ campaign arm has admitted that control of the upper chamber is “at risk” and that Democrats could win the Senate in November’s elections.The September 2020 political update from the National Republican Senatorial Committee summarizes the state of the race of 10 states with Senate races around the country and how the outcome of each could factor into whether Republicans or Democrats control the chamber in January.The memo, obtained by the Guardian, has been circulating among political operatives, donors and interested parties. It comes just shy of 50 days before the November 2020 elections.“The next few weeks will define the future of our country for generations to come,” the NRSC memo reads.Memos like these are often shaped like dispassionate updates but in actuality they are often used to convince interested parties that races slipping out of reach are still in play. They are also often used to juice donations to lagging candidates and counter trending narratives.Democrats need to pick up three or four seats to take control of the Senate. The fact that the NRSC memo categorizes seven Senate races as ones that simply can’t be lost or deserve serious attention suggests that it’s possible, but not certain that Democrats can take control of the Senate.“Make no mistake: the Senate Majority is at risk. Beyond the four battleground states of Colorado, North Carolina, Arizona and Maine, Democrats are going on offense in historically red states like Montana, Iowa and Georgia,” the memo continues. “They’re even eyeing states like South Carolina, where [Democrat] Jaime Harrison just reported raising a staggering $10.6m in August alone.”The memo goes on to list four states under its “firewall” rubric: Iowa, Montana, Georgia and Kansas. Those states generally trend red but Democrats have staked their hopes on candidates with track records of appealing to both Republicans and Democrats or can rally key voting blocs.All four of those states, though, are usually more fertile ground for Republicans. Georgia, in particular, has been a state Democrats have hoped to flip for the last few presidential cycles.Three states fall under the memo’s “battleground” rubric and they have all been trending toward Democrats in the past few cycles. The Arizona Democrat Mark Kelly, in particular, has consistently maintained a low double-digit or high single-digit lead over the incumbent Republican senator Martha McSally.The memo also warns that “North Carolina will be a knife fight in a phone booth until the end …”Still, the memo urges Republicans to take solace that despite the “defensive map” all is not lost. Republicans are highly likely to flip at least one Senate seat: Alabama.Notably, two major Senate races are not on this list; Kentucky and Texas. For years Democrats have vainly promised that one day Texas would flip in a statewide race. But its leaning remains toward Republicans. In Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is up for re-election. That race’s omission from the memo suggests that the Senate leader’s re-election is not a pressing concern for Republicans. More