Tag Archives: President Donald Trump

How poor regions lose out because of U.S. census undercounts

By Nick Brown

ESPANOLA, New Mexico (Reuters) – Getting an accurate count of America’s population has proven difficult in the 2020 Census as the coronavirus pandemic has hampered voluntary responses and forced officials to scale back door-knocking efforts.

The administration of President Donald Trump has placed other hurdles on the path to an accurate count. Its attempt to add a question about citizenship to the census earlier this year likely discouraged undocumented immigrants from filling out the survey, even though the administration’s effort failed, demographics experts say. Local officials nationwide worry about the impact of undercounts on their communities.

“This is going to be the worst response rate we’ve ever had,” said Lauren Reichelt, Health and Human Services Director for Rio Arriba County, New Mexico.

Rio Arriba is typical of other regions across the United States that are hardest to count – and have the most to lose from an undercount. It’s poor, rural and home to many undocumented immigrants. Low population tallies can rob such areas of badly needed federal dollars for affordable housing and child care, for instance, or resources to fight America’s opioid epidemic, according to local officials in some of the most undercounted regions in the last census, taken in 2010.

“Persistent undercounting in communities that would benefit most from targeted public and private investment makes it harder to address the very barriers that contribute to a less accurate census,” said Terri Ann Lowenthal, a consultant on census and statistical issues and former congressional staffer overseeing census matters.

The Census Bureau and the White House declined to comment for this story.

The Bureau is nearing the end of the 2020 edition of the decennial count, which will guide the allocation of $1.5 trillion a year in federal aid. The census is also a linchpin of American democracy because the population counts are used to determine the number of Congressional representatives assigned to a state and to draw maps of electoral districts.

Some of the hardest-to-count regions in the last census might be even harder to survey this year as the country reels from the coronavirus pandemic, according to a Reuters analysis of Census data. They include border areas in Texas, the lowlands of Mississippi and the northern plains of New Mexico.

‘I ALWAYS RELAPSE’

Rio Arriba officials estimated they were undercounted by 4% in 2010, after only 42% of households mailed back their census forms voluntarily. That compared to 66.5% of households that responded by mail nationally, according to Census data.

The bureau sent door-knockers to get more responses, but still had to use a Census process called imputation to estimate residency for 9.6% of Rio Arriba’s count, a far larger proportion than the national average.

Officials in the county say an accurate count would have helped narrow funding gaps that leave it without enough medicine, detox clinics, housing and other support to fight one of the community’s biggest problems: an opioid epidemic that kills people at a rate more than four times the U.S. average, according to government data.

The current U.S. Census shows no signs of reversing the trend. Rio Arriba’s voluntary response rate is running at 32%, 10 points below its 2010 rate and less than half the overall U.S. rate of 67%.

It is impossible to know exactly how much funding is lost due to an undercount, says George Washington University professor Andrew Reamer, the nation’s foremost expert on the relationship between the census and federal spending. That would require knowing exactly how many people were missed and which government programs would have served them.

Officials in Rio Arriba agree they were entitled to more federal funds for programs to address a local opioid crisis.

“A lot of the funding for my department is federal, so we end up being entitled to a lot less than we should when there’s an undercount,” said Reichelt.

The $3.4 million her department received in 2020 to fight addiction is spread thin, and even a relatively modest increase could make a big difference. The county can’t afford to build a detox center, and patients wait for weeks to get suboxone, a drug that reduces withdrawal symptoms, Reichelt said.

The Rio Arriba County Housing Authority, meanwhile, manages 54 public housing units, and assists another 25 families with rent vouchers. But the wait lists can be as long as five years, according to Reichelt.

Joey Garcia, a 32-year-old heroin addict who has been in and out of jail on drug charges, said he has struggled to get straight while on waiting lists for both subsidized housing and suboxone treatment.

“Somehow,” Garcia said, “I always relapse.”

NERVOUS TO ANSWER

The Rio Grande Valley in south Texas is a political netherworld. North of the border but south of immigration checkpoints, its four counties – Hidalgo, Cameron, Starr and Willacy – include informal communities known as colonias, often heavily populated with undocumented immigrants.

In Hidalgo, officials estimate they were undercounted by at least 10% in 2010, after just 56% of the population responded voluntarily. The Census Bureau estimated a more modest 5.4% undercount.

Either way, the undercounts reduced funding to the area’s Head Start and Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) programs, which cover only a fraction of eligible residents.

In Pueblo de Palmas, a colonia in Hidalgo County, Cristina, 35, qualifies for government-funded Head Start childcare for her four children, but only one was admitted. She asked that only her first name be used because she is an undocumented immigrant.

Both LIHEAP and Head Start are underfunded in the county. The former has a budget of $6 million, enough to serve 3-4% of qualifying households, says Jaime Longoria, the region’s community services director.

Head Start, which relies on population data to decide where to expand programs, can serve 3,700 kids in Hidalgo out of 22,000 who qualify, said Teresa Flores, the local Head Start director. An accurate count would help cover some of that gap, she said.

Cristina and her neighbor, Maria – also undocumented – both said they couldn’t remember filling out a census form in 2010 and that they were afraid to do so this year.

“I’m nervous someone will come to my house and take me away,” Maria said.

‘WE’RE BROKE’

In central Mississippi, voluntary participation in the 2010 census ranged between 45% and 60%. The rate in these areas so far this year is similar, according to Census data.

Lower funding from census undercounts has affected a crucial childcare program for low-income mothers in the nation’s poorest state, program officials said.

More than 112,000 Mississippi families are poor enough to qualify, but the program only has enough money to grant 20,000 to 25,000 vouchers, said Carol Burnett, who runs the nonprofit Mississippi Low Income Childcare Initiative.

Mississippi’s allotment under the Child Care and Development Block Grant that funds the program was $91.8 million in fiscal year 2019. An extra 1% of that total statewide – about $918,000 – could potentially serve hundreds more parents across the state, Burnett said, as the vouchers cover around $5,700 a year in expenses.

Tanisha Womack, 35, runs three daycare centers in Simpson and Smith counties, two of several counties in Mississippi that were among the hardest to count nationwide in 2010, according to the Reuters data.

Womack is certified to care for 152 children, but has just 72 children enrolled, she said, because many qualifying parents have been denied vouchers.

“We’re broke,” Womack said.

(Reporting by Nick Brown; Additional reporting by Grant Smith; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot)

Trump’s Supreme Court nominee says her religious views would not guide decisions

By Lawrence Hurley, Patricia Zengerle and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on Tuesday began the first of two days of direct questioning from U.S. senators, telling senators that her religious views would not affect her decisions on the bench.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing presents Barrett with a chance to respond to Democratic lawmakers who have been unified in opposing her primarily on what they say would be her role in undermining the Obamacare healthcare law and its protection for patients with pre-existing conditions.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, the committee’s chairman, opened the questioning by asking her about her conservative legal philosophy known as originalism, in which laws and the Constitution are interpreted based on the meaning they had at the time they were enacted.

“That meaning doesn’t change over time and it’s not for me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it,” Barrett said.

Graham asked Barrett, a devout Catholic and a favorite of religious conservatives, whether she could set aside her religious beliefs in making decisions as a justice.

“I can,” Barrett said.

Barrett called the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she served as a clerk two decades ago, as her mentor, but said she would not always rule the same way as him.

“You would not be getting Justice Scalia, you would be getting Justice Barrett. That is so because originalists don’t always agree,” she said.

Graham will be followed by Senator Dianne Feinstein, the panel’s top Democrat. Barrett sat alone at a table facing the senators.

Barrett was nominated to a lifetime post on the court on Sept. 26 by Trump to replace the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Barrett could be on the Supreme Court in time for the Nov. 10 arguments in a case in which Trump and Republican-led states are seeking to invalidate the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement that has enabled millions of Americans to obtain medical coverage.

Barrett has criticized a 2012 Supreme Court ruling authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts that upheld the law, popularly known as Obamacare.

Republicans have a 53-47 Senate majority, leaving Democrats with little to no chance of blocking Barrett’s confirmation.

If confirmed, Barrett, 48, would tilt the Supreme Court further to the right and give conservative justices a 6-3 majority, making even the unexpected victories on which liberals have prevailed in recent years, including abortion and gay rights, rarer still. She is Trump’s third Supreme Court appointment.

Trump’s nomination of Barrett came late in an election cycle when Republican control of both the White House and Senate is at stake. The confirmation hearing format has changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the public excluded and some senators participating remotely.

Democrats, including vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, on the first day of the hearing zeroed in on the fate of Obamacare, as Republicans push to confirm Barrett before the Nov. 3 presidential election between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.

The hearing is a key step before a full Senate vote by the end of October on Barrett’s confirmation to a lifetime job on the court.

Republicans have sought to portray Democrats as attacking Barrett, a devout Roman Catholic, on religious grounds, although the Democrats have so far steered clear of doing so.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and Lawrence Hurley and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Peter Cooney)

COVID-19 again? Reinfection cases raise concerns over immunity

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) – The case of a man in the United States infected twice with COVID-19 shows there is much yet to learn about immune responses and also raises questions over vaccination, scientists said on Tuesday.

The 25-year old from Reno, Nevada, tested positive in April after showing mild symptoms, then got sick again in late May with a more serious bout, according to a case report in the Lancet Infectious Diseases medical journal.

Scientists said that while known incidences of reinfection appear rare – and the Nevada man has now recovered – cases like his were worrying. Other isolated cases of reinfection have been reported around the world, including in Asia and Europe.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that reinfections are possible, but we can’t yet know how common this will be,” said Simon Clarke, a microbiology expert at Britain’s Reading University.

“If people can be reinfected easily, it could also have implications for vaccination programs as well as our understanding of when and how the pandemic will end.”

‘STILL DON’T KNOW ENOUGH’

The Nevada patient’s doctors, who first reported the case in a non peer-reviewed paper in August, said sophisticated testing showed that the virus strains associated with each bout of infection were genetically different.

“These findings reinforce the point that we still do not know enough about the immune response to this infection,” said Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at Britain’s University of East Anglia.

Brendan Wren, a professor of vaccinology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the Nevada case was the fifth confirmed example of reinfection worldwide.

“The demonstration that it is possible to be reinfected by SARS-CoV-2 may suggest that a COVID-19 vaccine may not be totally protective,” he said. “However, given the (more than) 40 million cases worldwide, these small examples of reinfection are tiny and should not deter efforts to develop vaccines.”

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

Harris, fellow Democrats target Trump Supreme Court nominee on Obamacare

By Lawrence Hurley and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic senators including vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Monday painted President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett as a threat to the Obamacare healthcare law during a deadly pandemic and denounced the Republican drive to approve her before the Nov. 3 U.S. election.

As the Senate Judiciary Committee began its four-day confirmation hearing for Barrett, Democrats voiced their strong opposition to the nomination even though they have little hope of derailing her nomination in the Republican-led Senate.

Barrett, a conservative appellate court judge nominated to replace the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, sat at a table facing the senators wearing a black face mask amid the pandemic as senators made opening statements. Barrett removed the mask when she was sworn in and delivered her own opening statement.

“I believe Americans of all backgrounds deserve an independent Supreme Court that interprets our Constitution and laws as they are written,” Barrett said, reading from prepared remarks that had been made public on Sunday, with her husband and seven children sitting behind her.

Barrett’s confirmation would give the court a 6-3 conservative majority that could lead to rulings rolling back abortion rights, expanding religious and gun rights, and upholding voting restrictions, among other issues.

But it was the fate of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement that has enabled millions of Americans to obtain medical coverage, that was the focus of Harris and her fellow Democrats. Barrett has criticized a 2012 Supreme Court ruling authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts that upheld Obamacare.

Harris, the running mate of Trump’s Democratic election opponent Joe Biden, called the confirmation process so near the election “illegitimate.”

“I do believe this hearing is a clear attempt to jam through a Supreme Court nominee who will take away healthcare from millions of people during a deadly pandemic that has already killed more than 214,000 Americans,” Harris said, speaking via a video link.

“A clear majority of Americans want whomever wins the election to fill this seat and my Republican colleagues know that. Yet they are deliberately defying the will of the people in their attempt to roll back the rights and protections provided under the Affordable Care Act,” Harris said.

Barrett could be on the Supreme Court in time to participate in a case due to be argued on Nov. 10 in which Trump and Republican-led states are seeking to invalidate Obamacare.

Barrett will face marathon questioning from senators on Tuesday and Wednesday. The hearing is a key step before a full Senate vote by the end of October on her confirmation to a lifetime job on the court. Republicans have a 53-47 Senate majority so Barrett’s confirmation seems almost certain.

A pivotal Obamacare provision that would be thrown out if the court strikes the law down bars insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions. In the hearing room, Democrats displayed posters of patients who could lose their medical coverage if Obamacare is invalidated, with senators recounting their individual stories.

Repeated Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare in Congress have fallen short, and Republicans have taken the effort to the courts.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz said the Democratic focus on healthcare and other policy issues showed they were not contesting Barrett’s qualifications to serve as a justice.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who chairs the committee, opened the hearing by saying it would be “a long contentious week” but implored senators to make the proceedings respectful.

“Let’s remember, the world is watching,” Graham added.

“This is probably not about persuading each other, unless something really dramatic happens. All Republicans will vote yes and all Democrats will vote no,” Graham said.

‘MAD RUSH’

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy condemned the Republican “mad rush” to fill the vacancy.

“They see the ability to take the courts from being independent to making them instead an arm of the far right and the Republican Party, with the potential to accomplish in courts what they have failed to accomplish by votes in the halls of Congress. And at the top of the hit list is the Affordable Care Act,” Leahy said.

Graham defended the Republican approach even while acknowledging that four years earlier they had refused to act on Obama’s nominee to fill a Supreme Court vacancy because it was an election year, and that no Supreme Court nominee had a confirmation process so close to an election.

The Senate’s Republican leaders rejected Democratic pleas to delay the hearing over COVID-19 concerns.

Due to the pandemic, Harris and some other senators participated remotely. Republican Senator Mike Lee attended in person nine days after revealing he head tested positive for the coronavirus, arriving wearing a light-blue surgical mask. He took off the mask while giving his opening statement.

Barrett is a devout Catholic who has expressed opposition to abortion. Christian conservative activists long have hoped for the court to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

Democratic Senator Cory Booker said that “Senate Republicans have found a nominee in Judge Barrett who they know will do what they couldn’t do – subvert the will of the American people and overturn Roe v. Wade.”

Republicans sought to portray the Democrats as attacking Barrett on religious grounds, though the Democrats steered clear of doing so. Speaking to reporters in Delaware, Biden said Barrett’s Catholic faith should not be considered during the confirmation process. Biden was the first Catholic U.S. vice president.

“This nominee said she wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. The president wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act,” Biden said. “Let’s keep our eye on the ball.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley, Andrew Chung and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Will Dunham)

Analysis: South Korea sees hope and threat in mixed message from North’s Kim

By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean officials have seized on conciliatory comments by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the weekend as a sign that tension could be easing but also worry the huge number of rockets he showcased is evidence that peace may be elusive.

Kim sent mixed signals as he addressed an unprecedented night-time military parade early on Saturday, wishing the neighboring Koreas would “hold hands” again after the novel coronavirus pandemic is over.

While much of the world was captivated by the appearance of a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), officials in South Korea were far more concerned by the display of new multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) and fast, maneuverable short-range missiles that would be ideal for striking targets in the South.

“The parade revealed not only an advanced ICBM but also MLRS that pose a direct threat to South Korea,” said South Korean opposition leader Kim Chong-in.

“They’ve not changed, their threats have grown even bigger.”

South Korean ruling party leader and former prime minister Lee Nak-yon said he took hope from Kim’s overture to the South as a “positive sign” but worried about what the display of new weapons said about North Korea’s intentions.

“North Korea showed advanced weapons including a new ICBM, which indicated it has not abandoned its resolve to develop weapons of mass destruction, and those weapons can threaten peace on the Korean peninsula,” Lee told a party meeting.

November’s U.S. election is compounding the uncertainty especially as the tone of ties between the two Koreas is often set by the state of North Korea’s relations with its old enemy the United States.

When a landmark summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018 brought an unprecedented easing of tension between those two countries, North Korea’s dealings with South Korea also saw a remarkable thaw.

But relations on the peninsula have been tense since a second summit between Kim and Trump collapsed last year, and they took another blow last month when North Korean troops shot dead a South Korean fisheries official detained at sea.

‘CROCODILE TEARS’

Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy in Seoul, said despite Kim’s conciliatory comments towards South Korea, his main message on Saturday was aimed at the United States.

“By showing a new ICBM, the North suggested they can test it any time if things don’t go well after the election. Inter-Korean ties don’t count to them,” Shin said.

The South Korean government said Kim’s speech would foster better ties but it urged North Korea to stick to agreements preventing armed clashes and accept a request for a joint investigation into the shooting of the fisheries official.

South Korean opposition leader Kim derided a teary display by Kim as he spoke of the sacrifices made by North Korea’s armed forces.

“It was appalling to see him shed crocodile tears after shooting our citizen to death,” he said.

Former South Korean nuclear negotiator Chun Yung-woo, pointing to North Korea’s extensive testing of MLRS and short-range missiles over the past year, while sticking to a moratorium on ICBM testing, said South Korea must not get carried away by hope for peace.

“All the media attention is on North Korea’s new strategic weapons but the most serious threat to our security is solid-fuel, short-range tactical missiles and MLRS that they’ve been madly testing over the past year,” Chun said.

“North Korea showed how it has focused on developing its capability to attack the South while our people have been absorbed in a peace campaign,” he said.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Josh Smith, Robert Birsel)

Explainer: The Electoral College and the 2020 U.S. presidential race

By Jan Wolfe

(Reuters) – In the United States, the winner of a presidential election is determined not by a national vote but through a system called the Electoral College, which allots “electoral votes” to all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on their population.

Complicating things further, a web of laws and constitutional provisions kick in to resolve particularly close elections.

Here are some of the rules that could decide the Nov. 3 contest between President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

How does the Electoral College work?

There are 538 electoral votes, meaning 270 are needed to win the election. In 2016, President Donald Trump lost the national popular vote to Hillary Clinton but secured 304 electoral votes to her 227.

Technically, Americans cast votes for electors, not the candidates themselves. Electors are typically party loyalists who pledge to support the candidate who gets the most votes in their state. Each elector represents one vote in the Electoral College.

The Electoral College was a compromise between the nation’s founders, who fiercely debated whether the president should be picked by Congress or through a popular vote.

All but two states use a winner-take-all approach: The candidate that wins the most votes in that state gets all of its electoral votes. Maine and Nebraska use a more complex district-based allocation system that could result in their combined nine electoral votes being split between Trump and Biden.

Can electors go rogue?

Yes.

In 2016, seven of the 538 electors cast ballots for someone other than their state’s popular vote winner, an unusually high number.

Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia have laws intended to control rogue electors, or “faithless electors.” Some provide a financial penalty for a rogue vote, while others call for the vote to be canceled and the elector replaced.

When do the electors’ votes have to be certified by?

Federal law requires that electors meet in their respective states and formally send their vote to Congress on “the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.” This year that date is Dec. 14.

Under U.S. law, Congress will generally consider a state’s result to be “conclusive” if it is finalized six days before the electors meet. This date, known as the “safe harbor” deadline, falls on Dec. 8 this year.

Those votes are officially tallied by Congress three weeks later and the president is sworn in on Jan. 20.

What if officials in a particular state can’t agree on who won?

Typically, governors certify the results in their respective states and share the information with Congress. But it is possible for “dueling slates of electors,” in which the governor and legislature in a closely contested state could submit two different election results.

The risk of this happening is heightened in states where the legislature is controlled by a different party than the governor. Several battleground states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, have Democratic governors and Republican-controlled legislatures.

According to legal experts, it is unclear in this scenario whether Congress should accept the governor’s electoral slate or not count the state’s electoral votes at all.

What if a candidate doesn’t get 270 votes?

One flaw of the electoral college system is that it could produce a 269-269 tie. If that occurs, a newly elected House of Representatives would decide the fate of the presidency on Jan. 6, with each state’s votes determined by a delegation, as required by the 12th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Currently, Republicans control 26 state delegations, while Democrats control 22. Pennsylvania is tied between Democratic and Republican members. Michigan has seven Democrats, six Republicans and one independent.

The composition of the House will change on Nov. 3, when all 435 House seats are up for grabs.

Will the system ever change?

Critics say the Electoral College thwarts the will of the people. Calls for abolishing the system increased after George W. Bush won the 2000 election despite losing the popular vote, and again in 2016 when Trump pulled off a similar victory.

The Electoral College is mandated in the Constitution, so abolishing it would require a constitutional amendment. Such amendments require two-thirds approval from both the House and Senate and ratification by the states, or a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures.

Republicans, who benefited from the Electoral College in the 2000 and 2016 elections, are unlikely to back such an amendment.

Individuals states do have some freedom to change how their electors are chosen, and experts have floated proposals for reforming the system without a constitutional amendment.

Under one proposal, states would form a compact and agree to award all their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the nationwide popular vote.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Aurora Ellis)

Trump resumes campaign with Florida rally 10 days after COVID-19 disclosure

By John Whitesides

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will try to put his bout with COVID-19 behind him when he returns to the campaign trail on Monday, beginning a three-week sprint to the Nov. 3 U.S. election with a rally in the battleground state of Florida.

The event at an airport in Sanford, Florida, will be Trump’s first campaign rally since he disclosed on Oct. 2 that he tested positive for COVID-19. Trump, who spent three nights in the hospital for treatment, said on Sunday he had fully recovered and was no longer infectious, but did not say directly whether he had tested negative for the coronavirus.

For months, Trump had worked furiously to shift public attention away from the virus and his handling of the pandemic, which has infected nearly 7.7 million people in the United States, killed more than 214,000 and put millions out of work.

His own illness has put the spotlight squarely on his coronavirus response during the closing stretch of the race.

Trump’s rally in Florida, and planned rallies in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Iowa on Wednesday and North Carolina on Thursday, will be watched closely to see whether the president has reshaped his campaign approach since contracting the virus.

Critics fault him for failing to encourage supporters at campaign events, and even White House staff, to wear protective masks and abide by social-distancing guidelines. At least 11 close Trump aides have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Standing alone on a White House balcony on Saturday, a maskless Trump urged hundreds of largely Black and Latino supporters to help get out the vote. Most in the crowd wore masks but ignored social-distancing guidelines.

Biden, who has said it is irresponsible for any candidate to hold events where attendees are not wearing masks or engaging in social distancing, lashed out at the president’s approach.

“President Trump comes to Sanford today bringing nothing but reckless behavior, divisive rhetoric, and fear mongering,” Biden, the Democratic former vice president said in a statement.

FLORIDA UP FOR GRABS

Trump told Fox News in an interview on Sunday that he felt good and pointed to his physician’s memo from Saturday saying he had taken a test showing he was no longer infectious.

“I passed the highest test, the highest standards, and I’m in great shape,” Trump told “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Trump also said, without producing evidence, that he was now immune, an assertion that drew a flag from Twitter for violating the social media platform’s rules about misleading information related to COVID-19.

The scientific research has been inconclusive on how long people who have recovered from COVID-19 have antibodies and are protected from a second infection.

Most recent polls in Florida, where a Trump loss would dramatically narrow his path to re-election, show Biden with a small lead. Trump won Florida over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 by just 1.2 percentage points, which helped propel him to the White House.

On his visit to Ohio, Biden will deliver a speech in Toledo meant to undermine what polls show is Trump’s last greatest strength, the view among some voters that the former real estate entrepreneur is better on handling the economy.

Biden also will attend a get-out-the-vote event in Cincinnati, his campaign said.

Trump has pulled back his advertising in Ohio in recent days, while Biden has increased his, another sign of the opportunity he and his fellow Democrats see to make more states competitive than they initially imagined.

(Reporting by John Whitesides; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw; Writing by John Whitesides and Paul Simao; Editing by Soyoung Kim, Peter Cooney and Howard Goller)

Senate hearing begins for Supreme Court nominee Barrett

By Lawrence Hurley, Andrew Chung and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday opened its four-day confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett as his fellow Republicans seek to place her on the bench ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election in the face of firm Democratic opposition.

The hearing for the conservative appellate court judge, picked by Trump to replace the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, started with senators making opening statements. Barrett herself will make her own opening statement after the 22 members of the committee are given a chance to speak.

As a result of health concerns prompted by the coronavirus pandemic, not all the senators will participate in person. Those present in the hearing room on Capitol Hill, which will include Barrett and her family, will be socially distanced and follow other guidelines.

Barrett sat at a table facing the senators wearing a face mask. Her children sat behind her, also wearing protective masks, as the hearing got underway.

Each senator has the final call on whether to attend in person. Democratic Senator Kamala Harris, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s vice presidential running mate, is among those participating remotely.

The Senate’s Republican leaders rejected Democratic pleas to delay the hearing after two Republican Judiciary Committee members and Trump himself tested positive for the coronavirus in the days following the Sept. 26 White House event at which the president announced Barrett as the nominee.

The hearing is a key step before a final full Senate vote by the end of October on her nomination for a lifetime job on the court.

Barrett is expected to tell senators that as a judge she seeks to “reach the result required by the law, whatever my own preferences might be,” according to a copy of her prepared remarks released on Sunday.

Barrett, 48, said in the statement that it will be an “honor of a lifetime” to serve alongside the current eight justices.

Her confirmation would create a 6-3 conservative majority on the court that could lead to rulings rolling back abortion rights, expanding religious and gun rights, and upholding Republican-backed voting restrictions, among other issues.

Republicans have a 53-47 Senate majority so Barrett’s confirmation seems almost certain.

Democrats have focused their criticism so far on Barrett’s potentially vital role in a case pending before the Supreme Court in which Trump and Republican-led states are seeking to invalidate the Affordable Care Act healthcare law, often called Obamacare.

One key provision bars insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Democrats have called on Barrett to recuse herself from the case, saying she would have a conflict of interest because Trump has called for the law to be struck down.

They have also demanded that she step aside from any cases involving the presidential election because Trump has said the court is likely to have to settle cases over electoral disputes.

Trump, who is running for re-election against Biden, has indicated he would expect the court to rule in his favor if Barrett is confirmed.

Under existing rules, individual justices have the final say on whether they should recuse.

Barrett, a devout Catholic who has expressed opposition to abortion, is expected to face Democratic questioning on that issue too. Christian conservative activists long have hoped for the court to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

Barrett will face questions from senators on Tuesday and Wednesday in lengthy all-day sessions. The hearing is due to conclude on Thursday with outside witnesses testifying about her qualifications.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Trump is symptom-free and stable, White House doctor says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump has had no COVID-19 symptoms for the past 24 hours, with a physical examination and his vital signs showing his condition remains stable, White House physician Sean Conley said on Wednesday.

Conley, in a statement released with Trump’s permission, said the president has been fever-free for more than four days and had not needed or received any supplemental oxygen since his initial hospitalization.

Trump was hospitalized on Friday after tests showed he had contracted COVID-19. He returned to the White House on Monday.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert and Susan Heavey; Editing by Tim Ahmann)

Cellphones in hand, ‘Army for Trump’ readies poll watching operation

By Jarrett Renshaw and Joseph Tanfani

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Republicans are mobilizing thousands of volunteers to watch early voting sites and ballot drop boxes leading up to November’s election, part of an effort to find evidence to back up President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated complaints about widespread voter fraud.

Across key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin, Republican poll watchers will be searching for irregularities, especially with regard to mail-in ballots whose use is surging amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to more than 20 officials involved in the effort. They declined to say how many volunteers have signed up so far; the campaign earlier this year said its goal was to recruit 50,000 monitors nationwide.

The mission, the officials said, is to capture photos and videos Republicans can use to support so-far unfounded claims that mail voting is riddled with chicanery, and to help their case if legal disputes erupt over the results of the Nov. 3 contest between Republican incumbent Trump and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden.

The campaign is already posting material of activity it claims is suspicious, including video of a Trump campaign observer being turned away from an early voting site in Philadelphia last month. The city says monitors are welcome in polling stations on Election Day but are not permitted in early voting facilities.

Some voting-rights activists are concerned such encounters could escalate in a tense year that has seen armed militias face off against protestors in the nation’s streets.

Poll watching by partisan observers is a normal feature in U.S. elections that dates back to the 18th century and is subject to various state laws and local rules.

Still, this year’s operation by the Trump campaign is highly unusual, voting rights advocates say, both in its focus on early voting and in its emphasis on finding evidence to support baseless assertions by the president and his supporters that Democrats plan to flood the system with phony mail ballots to steal the election.

In a recruitment video posted on Twitter in September seeking volunteers for this “Army for Trump,” the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., made the unfounded claim that Democrats plan to “add millions of fraudulent ballots” to rig the results. Trump repeatedly has refused to commit to accepting the outcome of November’s election. During the Sept. 29 presidential debate, he exhorted his supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully.”

Mail ballot requests are tilting heavily to Democrats in battleground states, which likely means Biden will be in the lead before in-person voting begins on Election Day.

In Florida, where Republicans have historically relied on mail ballots, nearly 2.5 million Democrats have requested them, compared with about 1.7 million Republicans. In Pennsylvania, more than 1.5 million Democrats have requested a mail-in ballot, nearly triple the requests from Republicans.

Republicans said they plan to monitor every step of mail voting, including setting up cameras to show people dropping off multiple ballots at drop boxes. Some states permit third-parties to drop off ballots, but the practice is banned in others, including Pennsylvania.

Pat Dion, head of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, a politically divided suburb near Philadelphia, predicted the process could get messy.

“There’s going to be lots of watchers, lots of cameras and lots of attorneys all across the country. It’s going to be chaotic,” said Dion, who said he nevertheless supports the effort.

Democrats and voting-rights advocates say Trump is trying to suppress the vote, not protect it.

“It’s an attempt to scare eligible Americans into thinking they are in danger if they go to vote,” said Myrna Perez, voting rights and elections director for the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan voting rights group.

Democrats say Trump’s team is also laying the groundwork for a challenge to mail ballots in the event he loses, possibly throwing the election to Congress or the courts to decide the outcome.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Thea McDonald said in a statement that “President Trump’s volunteer poll watchers will be trained to ensure all rules are applied equally. And if fouls are called, the Trump Campaign will go to court to enforce the laws.”

‘MAKE OUR REPUBLICAN PRESENCE KNOWN’

This is the first presidential election in nearly four decades that the Republican National Committee has been free to sponsor such “ballot security” operations without permission from a federal court. A 1982 consent decree restricted these activities after the party sent teams of gun-toting men to minority neighborhoods during a New Jersey election wearing uniforms saying “Ballot Security Task Force.”

That consent decree expired in 2018 and a federal judge declined Democratic attempts to renew it.

In Wisconsin, a state Trump won by less than a percentage point in 2016, volunteers will be posted in heavily Democratic counties around Milwaukee, Republican state party chairman Andrew Hitt told Reuters.

Pennsylvania, too, is shaping up to be a hotbed of activity. Trump won it by just over 44,000 votes in 2016. He has almost no path to securing a second term if he doesn’t win its 20 Electoral College votes again in November.

In Montgomery County, a formerly Republican bastion outside Philadelphia that is now reliably Democratic, the Republican Party is holding several virtual training sessions over the next two weeks for some 50 volunteers to monitor 11 proposed ballot drop boxes there, according to an email sent by the party to supporters and seen by Reuters. “It is critical that we make our Republican presence known, so voters know they cannot get away with fraud,” the email reads.

On the western side of the state near Pittsburgh, Trump supporter Bob Howard has volunteered to watch election offices where voters will be dropping off absentee ballots.

“We…need to make sure that all the rules are being followed, so people can trust the results,” the 70-year-old retiree said.

Democrats, meanwhile, are launching their own voter-protection efforts. But theirs is a more traditional approach that includes registered poll watchers and an army of attorneys.

In Pennsylvania, Biden’s campaign said it has launched the biggest such Democratic program there in history, with more than a thousand lawyers and volunteers. It would not provide details on whether its monitors will be deployed at drop boxes and other early voting locations alongside their Republican rivals.

LAWSUITS MULTIPLYING

Election experts said the explosion of mail balloting is testing voting laws designed around in-person balloting. There is no rule book for monitors that try to enter early polling sites or challenge voters trying to drop off their ballots, said Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin & Marshall college in Pennsylvania.

“It all comes down to county election officials, and what they agree can happen. All of this seems headed to a major court battle,” Madonna said.

Confrontations have already emerged in Philadelphia, home to about 20% of Pennsylvania’s registered Democrats.

Election administrators there defended their decision to turn away the Trump campaign operative who filmed himself attempting to enter an early voting site on Sept. 29.

“To be clear: the satellite offices are not polling places and the Pennsylvania Election Code does not create a right for campaign representatives to ‘watch’ at these locations,” Andrew Richman, chief of staff to the city solicitor, said in a statement.

The Trump campaign quickly filed a lawsuit seeking access for poll observers in early voting sites. That suit is pending.

In Northampton County in northeastern Pennsylvania, meanwhile, the Republican Party tried to get sheriff’s officers assigned to drop boxes to request identification from voters dropping off ballots, according to Frank DeVito, a Republican member of the Board of Elections.

Pennsylvania law does not require voters to show an ID to vote. The Democratic-controlled board of elections denied that request.

Undeterred, DeVito said volunteers will be watching those boxes closely.

“We are telling them to take a folding chair, take video, take photos,” he said.

(Jarrett Renshaw reported from Pennsylvania and Joe Tanfani reported from New Jersey. Editing by Soyoung Kim and Marla Dickerson)