I live three blocks from that salon. There were no riots in the neighborhood the evening it burned (which I watched).
The candidates are answering questions about police violence and the movement for Black lives. Here in Milwaukee – the biggest city in a competitive state – the city is bracing for protests in the wake of a decision not to press charges against a police office who shot a Black teenager.
As we wrote earlier this year, it’s really rare for police officers to face criminal charges for killing civilians.
In a mid-September poll from Echelon Insights, 38 percent of respondents said that protests in America were mostly peaceful demonstrations against wrongful police actions and broader racial disparities, compared with 56 percent who said protests were going too far, provoking acts of violence and looting, and destroying local businesses. This marks a change from June, when 44 percent of respondents said that protests were mostly peaceful and 52 percent said they were going too far.
I also wonder why they don’t say… “as long as you don’t fill the seat during an election, we won’t even consider it.”
Harris is strenuously trying to avoid answering this question about court-packing — perhaps not because Biden wants to do it (he was not one of the Democratic candidates who was pushing for it) but because he doesn’t!
Most Americans favor abortion and oppose overturning Roe v. Wade.
Not to toot our own horn, but many predictions from
our Slack chat this morning have come true. The latest: Perry saying that Harris would evade a question about court packing.
One way to address the court-packing question is to point out that it’s up to Congress, not the president.
Harris is right that the election is happening right now: In the FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll, 7 percent of respondents said they’d already voted. But that’s not equal between parties: 10 percent of Biden supporters said they’d already voted, compared to 5 percent of Trump supporters.
In a September poll from Morning Consult conducted after Ginsburg’s death, 56 percent of registered voters said that the Supreme Court was very important to their vote for president; prior to the vacancy, only 47 percent held that opinion. That 9-point shift in public opinion marks a 12-point increase among Democrats, a 9-point increase among independents, and a 4-point increase among Republicans.
Nate, I think that’s because Harris wants to focus on areas where the polling is overwhelmingly on Democrats’ side. She talked about process (waiting for the election to be decided) and the Affordable Care Act. She seemed to want to spend relatively little time on the specific issue of abortion.
Okay, so, “late term abortion” is not a medical term. Usually it refers to abortions in the second trimester, but doctors don’t use it because it’s imprecise.
Most Americans believe that the president elected on Nov. 3 should get to pick Ginsburg’s replacement. But a couple of new polls suggest that Barrett is fairly popular. According to YouGov/HuffPost, Americans approve of Trump’s decision to appoint Barrett, 47 percent to 42 percent. And Morning Consult/Politico found 46 percent of voters in favor of confirming Barrett, with only 31 percent opposed.
One thing I think is really interesting about the abortion debate in America is that Americans pretty heavily agree that it should be legal in most (if not all) cases … but they still describe their own opinions very differently. Like an American who says they favor abortion rights and one who says they don’t can often believe the same thing.
It’s really, really amazing how the political debate (at least rhetorically) has shifted on covering pre-existing conditions. Republicans (again, rhetorically at least) have completely conceded on what used to be a debate.
Worth remembering that Chief Justice John Roberts kept the conservatives from allowing lots more restrictions on abortion this past year. The court took a surprisingly mainstream approach, even though they had a number of hot-button issues on the docket. Most of the high-profile cases were in line with public opinion. Perhaps as a result, Democrats’ support for the Supreme Court rose a bit this year, and Republicans’ fell, according to polling by the Pew Research Center. That could all change with Barrett on the court.
Trump is tweeting a lot during this debate. For what it’s worth. A little sample.
An hour in, sentiment on Twitter has rebounded for Pence slightly, and now he and Harris are getting about the same tonal level, though Harris is still getting almost twice the volume.
Predictably, Pence attacks Harris for the active role she played attacking Brett Kavanaugh during his 2018 confirmation hearings, and then connects Harris with other Democrats’ comments about Amy Coney Barrett’s faith. He was ready to hit that pitch.
Obviously abortion is tied to the SCOTUS question, but in trying to ask them at the same time, Page allows Pence and Harris to pick and choose which issue they want to actually talk about.
As a sidebar, I’m pretty interested to see how the Coney Barret hearings actually unfold. And…if they unfold pre-election.
Harris doesn’t seem inclined to ask what abortion law she’d like to see California pass if Roe v. Wade is overturned, but instead attacks Trump’s decision to go ahead with nominating a Supreme Court pick and goes after the potential overturning of the ACA by the Supreme Court.
Nate, I think she decided to hone in on health care broadly instead of going after abortion specifically.
Three Supreme Court-related issues — the court itself, abortion and gun policy — were on the list of issues we asked people about in the recent FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll. None were named by a large share of respondents, but all were named by more Republicans than Democrats. (In fact, the Supreme Court was No. 4 on the list for Trump supporters and abortion was No. 5, while the same two issues were No. 7 and No. 12 for Biden supporters). On all three of them, Trump is named as the candidate who would do a better job handling it, though by different margins.
Trump leads on Supreme Court issues
Share of people who named each issue as the most important one facing the U.S., and whether they think Trump or Biden would handle that issue better, according to a FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll
Harris is missing some opportunities here to try to pin Pence down after he dodges the moderator’s question, like what Barrett might mean for Roe v. Wade.
Pence is trying to tee up a strategy that I’m sure we’ll see at Barrett’s confirmation hearings next week — the idea that Democrats are hostile to her Catholic faith. Democrats did bring her up her association with a non-mainstream Catholic group, People of Praise, back at her hearings in 2017, and it backfired pretty badly. So it’s clear why Republicans want to bring it up — and why Democrats may be unwilling to make that mistake again.
Sen. Dick Durbin received some pushback for his questions about Barrett during her 2017 confirmation hearings. But Durbin is also Catholic.
Pence’s home state of Indiana has been among the most aggressive in imposing new abortion restrictions. But as this map shows, there are many states that have enacted a very wide range of restrictions on abortion over the past 10 years.
Trump named Barrett as his nominee to replace Ginsburg on the Supreme Court in late September. In a poll by Morning Consult/Politico conducted after that announcement, 25 percent of registered voters said they had a favorable opinion of Judge Barrett, compared with 24 percent who said they had an unfavorable opinion of her. Fifty-one percent said they either had no opinion or had never heard of Barrett.
I often joke at conferences that I answer the question I wish people had asked, but Pence is really taking that to a new level by talking about Qassem Soleimani in response to a question about abortion.
As a reminder, if Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat, the replacement could be the third biggest ideological swing on the court in modern history.
The fact is that Pence should be in quarantine, per CDC guidelines. So it’s not crazy to speculate about his health.
This segment on foreign policy is actually one we should have more of in all debates, but domestic policy issues tend to overshadow international affairs. Thing is, a lot of times we have elections where foreign policy isn’t a big focus but becomes the most important aspect of that president’s time in office. Think of George W. Bush, for instance. Bush Tax Cuts, compassionate conservatism. But I would say his presidency was largely defined by 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Galen brought up college-educated white women. Like he said, they’re not so swingy, anymore! But college-educated white men aren’t following their lead. Fifty-three percent of white college-educated white men support Trump compared to 28 percent of college-educated white women, according to a recent ABC-Post poll. Political science suggests gender gaps are larger between college-educated men and women because they are paying more attention and better sorted by their interests.
I have been looking at my computer screen and typing this evening. Twitter got me to look up at my TV and …. yeah, I mean, that does kinda look like an eye irritation of some sort on Pence.
I am with you on that, Kaleigh!
I’m just saying, having one candidate shout and bully over the other does not improve things.
It’s so refreshing to be able to actually hear them say those things, though, Micah. It may be boring, but it’s not because they’re being civil. (It’s probably because it’s the VP debate.)
Page! Now is the time for the air horn.
Moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem was mostly symbolic — but it’s one that was very important to white evangelical Protestants, who are of course a crucial part of Trump’s base.
But please keep reading our super informative live blog, which is more interesting than this debate.
Honestly, it’s interesting that Trump didn’t bring up the killing of Al Baghdadi more. It’s a strong point for them.
This feels like a very typical vice presidential debate in that partisans on social media are both fairly happy with how their candidate is doing, although I’d say the Democrats are a bit happier about Harris than the Republicans are about Pence.
No! No calling a civil discourse boring!
Guys, a VP debate is only going to matter if someone screws up terribly. Otherwise, it’s pretty whatever.
Let’s not pretend this is some grand debate, Kaleigh. Both candidates have basically said everything the other candidate has said is totally and completely untrue.