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As I went on, I could feel a change in the atmosphere. Delegates, even (or especially) from countries I was criticizing, were leaning forward. And then I said this: If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are womens rights and womens rights are human rights, once and for all.

When I finished, the room erupted into cheers. The delegates rose, giving me a standing ovation, a rarity at buttoned-up UN gatherings. As I left the hall, women hung over banisters to grab my hand. Some had tears in their eyes. The declaration of a simple, obvious message should perhaps not have had such a galvanizing effect. But 25 years ago, it caused shock waves.

Since 1995, the phrase Womens rights are human rights has appeared on tote bags, cellphone cases, needlepoint pillows, and T-shirts. Im happy about this. But the most transformative moment of the conference wasnt my speech. It was the adoption of the Platform for Action, whereby representatives from all 189 nations committed to the full and equal participation of women in political, civil, economic, social, and cultural life. A 270-page document might not lend itself to bumper stickers or coffee mugs, but it laid the groundwork for sweeping, necessary changes.

In many ways, women are better off than they were 25 years ago. A girl born 25 years ago in Lesotho could not own property or sign a contract; today, she can. In East Africa, a girl born 25 years ago grew up in a region where female genital cutting was widespread; since then, the practice has declined significantly. In 1995, domestic violence was a crime in just 13 countries; today, it is illegal in more than 100. Weve nearly closed the global gender gap in primary-school enrollment, and maternal mortality has dropped by more than half.

Rita Colwell: Women scientists have the evidence about sexism

But the work is nowhere near done. As the changes laid out in the Platform for Action have been implemented, whats become clear is that simply embracing the concept of womens rights, let alone enshrining those rights in laws and constitutions, is not the same as achieving full equality. Rights are important, but they are nothing without the power to claim them.

In 2017, the Womens March brought millions to the streets to protest sexism and misogyny. More than a decade after the activist Tarana Burke coined the phrase Me too, the movement has reached every corner of the world. The coronavirus pandemic, the loss of millions of jobs, and the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, among too many others, have prompted activists to shine a light on the injustice and inequality facing communities of color, especially Black women. All of this has a lot to do with rights, but its also about something more. Its about power: who has it, who doesnt, and how we confront that imbalance.

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Hillary Clinton: How Far Have Women Come? - The Atlantic

The chart shows the comparison between Clinton and Biden ahead of their respective elections.

Biden has opened up a wide polling lead but we're 22 days away from the election and it's notable that this was the exact time last cycle that Clinton peaked. Her support faded over the final three weeks of the campaign and Trump won narrow victories in Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan to take the Presidency.

Will history repeat itself? As Trump gets back on the campaign trail after coronavirus, it's worth contemplating but there are two big differences: 1) Clinton never reached this much total support. Biden is at almost 52% while Clinton never hit 50%. 2) There are fewer voters who say they are undecided; leaving less room for a swing.

In 2016, almost all presidential election polls pointed to a Hillary Clinton victory over Donald Trump. The IBD/TIPP Poll was one of only two election polls credited with predicting President Trump's 2016 victory. TIPP, IBD's polling partner, succeeded in picking up on the greater enthusiasm among Republicans for their candidate.

Yet the latest IBD/TIPP Trump vs. Biden poll has a few stark contrasts with the Trump vs. Clinton race. Most obviously, a majority of likely voters back Biden (51.9%). Yet Clinton's support topped out around 45% in IBD/TIPP presidential election polls in the final weeks of the 2016 race.

Further, Biden's 9-point lead among independents in the latest IBD/TIPP 2020 election poll is a big turnaround from 2016. Trump carried independents 43%-42% in 2016, according to a postelection Pew Research survey of verified voters.

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Hillary Clinton's support peaked at this point in the last election cycle - ForexLive

PHILADELPHIA When President Donald Trump told the world that "bad things happen in Philadelphia," it was, in part, a blunt assessment of his party's struggles in the nation's sixth-most populous city.

For decades, Philadelphia has been the cornerstone of Democratic victories in the battleground state producing Democratic margins so massive that winning statewide has been a longshot for most Republican presidential candidates.

But it's a longshot Trump pulled off in 2016 and is trying to repeat again. His debate stage disdain for the City of Brotherly Love which quickly inspired memes and T-shirts underscored his campaign's months-long effort to fight the blue tide that starts in the city.

That fight has involved court challenges and statehouse wrangling over mail-in voting and poll watching, efforts Democrats characterize as voter suppression.

And it came as Trump openly declared, citing no evidence, that the only way he can lose Pennsylvania to former Vice President Joe Biden is through a massive fraud engineered by Democrats in the city of 1.6 million.

But Trump can't change the basic political math in the state: one in eight registered voters live in Philadelphia, a city that keeps delivering increasingly large Democratic margins, routinely provides one in five votes for Democratic presidential candidates and is spurring a leftward drift in the heavily populated suburbs around it.

"Trump is right, 'bad things happen in Philadelphia,' especially for him," Philadelphia's Democratic Party chair, Bob Brady, said. "And bad things are going to happen for him in Philadelphia on Election Day."

Recent polls show Trump and Biden in a competitive race in Pennsylvania, or Biden ahead by single-digits in a state Trump won by just over 44,000 votes less than a percentage point in 2016.

Trump's victory was the first by a Republican presidential candidate since 1988, and it shocked Pennsylvania Democrats to the core.

In Philadelphia, Biden's campaign is putting a heavy emphasis on turning out Black and Latino voters and is bringing in former President Barack Obama to campaign there. Trump's campaign is making its own appeal to Black and Latino voters and hoping for even better results with his white, working-class base.

Brady predicted Philadelphia will carry the rest of Pennsylvania and produce a bigger margin of victory for Biden than the 475,000 it produced for Hillary Clinton in 2016. That gap was slightly smaller than the historic margins Obama had in 2008 and 2012.

The Biden campaign has several "voter activation" centers around the city, not to mention Biden's campaign headquarters.

Trump's campaign, meanwhile, opened offices in heavily Black west Philadelphia and in heavily white northeast Philadelphia.

Thanks to a year-old state law that greatly expanded mail-in voting, people now have weeks to vote and turnout is brisk at newly opened election offices around the city where voters can fill out and cast ballots.

That is giving hope to Philadelphia Democrats, after the city's predominantly Black wards did not turn out as strongly in 2016 for Clinton as they did for Obama, including some that delivered 10% fewer votes.

"The line went around the block," state Rep. Chris Rabb, whose district is 70% Black, said of a newly opened election office there. "It was nothing that I've seen since 2008 and I've worked the polls for 16 years now."

In a city that is 42% Black, the belief that Trump has fueled a racist surge is widely held.

Breaking up concrete on a contracting job at a west Philadelphia rowhouse this week, Dexter Ayres, a lifelong Democrat, said he already voted for Biden in hopes of improving how Black people are treated in America.

Some of his friends are skeptical that voting will change anything. Ayres, who is Black, admitted that makes him wonder, "Wow, why did I vote?"

"But then I look at it like: 'Well, maybe my vote will make a difference,'" Ayres said. "I'm just praying and leaving it in God's hands."

Sitting on her front porch in west Philadelphia this week, Latoya Ratcliff, a Democrat, said she will vote for Biden, and sees more enthusiasm in her neighborhood to vote out Trump than in 2016 to vote for Hillary Clinton.

The defining issue for Ratcliff, who is Black, is racism.

"They understand a little more about getting out and getting that vote out," said Ratcliff, 39.

In northeast Philadelphia, Trump saw unexpectedly strong support from an area with a reputation for being home to unionized building trades members, police officers and firefighters. Republicans say they now expect even stronger support for Trump there.

"Back the Blue" yard signs and thin-blue-line flags are everywhere in some neighborhoods, the city's police union endorsed Trump again and the city's firefighters and paramedics union also endorsed him, breaking with its international association's endorsement of Biden.

Leaving his northeast Philadelphia home to go shopping recently, lifelong Democrat Joe Dowling said he will vote for Trump after backing Clinton four years ago. The issue that changed his mind, he said, has been the violence in the wake of George Floyd's death and a backlash against police.

"It's out of control," said Dowling, 60, who is white. "There's no reason for anybody to disrespect the police."

Democrats acknowledge that they slipped in northeast Philadelphia in 2016 the swing was about 11,000 voters from 2012.

Still, the area snapped back for Democrats in 2018 and U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, who represents it in Congress, said he expects Biden to do better there than Clinton.

He recalled a paper-shredding event his office last fall, attended by hundreds in the parking lot of the plumbers' union office in northeast Philadelphia.

"I was surprised by the animus toward Trump, people unsolicited saying, 'Gotta get him out of there, he's a disaster,'" said Boyle, a Democrat. "And it was different. I wasn't hearing that a few years earlier."

Stephen Lomas, a long-time registered Republican who lives between two Trump supporters in northeast Philadelphia, said he will vote for Biden.

Lomas, 84, who is white, said Trump and members of his administration "are tearing down our belief in the system. ... They're out-and-out crooks. They're almost traitors to our Constitution."

Besides mail-in voting, another thing that is different in this presidential election is a network of allied liberal issues and community groups in Philadelphia, organizers say, with a long-term focus on reaching people unlikely to vote in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods.

Briheem Douglas, vice president of Unite Here Local 274, a union of casino, food service and hotel workers that supports Biden, said he is canvassing harder than ever before.

Douglas, 36, tells a personal story to everyone he meets who isn't planning to vote: He is caring for the infant child of his 21-year-old niece, Brianna, who died in September from the coronvavirus.

"So I'm laser-focused on canvassing more than in 2016," Douglas said.

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For Trump, city where 'bad things happen' looms large - Minneapolis Star Tribune

While most national and swing state polling shows former Vice President Joe Biden with a substantial lead over President Donald Trump in the 2020 race, the numbers are being eyed with some wariness by voters.

That's due in part to the fact that polling in the 2016 presidential race missed the reality on the ground in key swing states, which led to spurious predictions of a strong win for then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Those key states went on to go for Trump, of course, resulting in one of the biggest perceived political upsets in modern history.

So how seriously should we take horse race polling in 2020?

To find out what's changed in polling since 2016, WBUR's Morning EditionhostBob Oakes spoke with Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group.

On how polling got the story wrong in 2016

Koczela:It was a combination of things, really. Polls were showing Hillary Clinton in the lead in key states. Then those polls were taken by aggregators and forecasters and so forth, and basically used to make a probability that Hillary Clinton would be the president.

Now, unfortunately, there was not very much polling in some swing states, polls that weren't very good in some swing states and then polls that didn't account for the education level of voters and basically had too many college-educated voters in their samples. What that does because education is such an indicator of partisanship is that if you don't account for that, you end up with a sample that is too Democratic. That hasn't always been the case. Education college education hasn't always been as partisan of a thing as it is now.

There were some other things going on too: The election was still moving at the last minute. Polls that were done you know, seven to 10 days out missed undecided voters breaking for Donald Trump at the last minute. One of the reasons that 2016 turned out the way that it did was that voters who didn't like either Trump or Clinton broke very heavily for Trump and they broke very late for Trump.

On what's changed in polling since 2016

Koczela:[In 2016,] national media outlets were focused on national polling which, of course, as we all know is not how we pick the president. So one thing you're seeing [in 2020] is a lot more state polling from groups like The New York Times and the Siena Poll ... The Washington Post. ... We never know if there's going to be some new wrinkle that's come up that we didn't anticipate, like education was in 2016, but at least we can say that the things that happened in 2016 pollsters and the broader polling community have addressed those things.

What pollsters will be watching for in 2020

Koczela:If there's one thing in 2020 that I think does pose a special challenge for pollsters, it's all the changes to the rules and not knowing exactly what that's going to do to who actually turns out. Will there be a swell of young people? Will there be a swell of Democrats early and Republicans late and does that somehow change the balance of party turnout? Does it change, you know, where voters turn out if it's more difficult to turn in ballots in some places than in others?

On the limits of polling

Koczela:I think polling sometimes has a level of precision that people want from it, that it just is not designed to provide. You know, it can describe the race it can show where the race is within a relatively wide level of precision. But it can't predict the future. It can't predict that [James] Comey is going to, you know, write a letter and change everything with a week to go, and that undecided voters are going to swing for Trump at the last minute. It can't do those things. So I think it's also just important for pollsters to be clear about what it is that we can do and what it is that polls really aren't designed to be able to do.

... People that don't do numbers in polling everyday, you know, they read Trump has a 30% chance of winning as Clinton is way ahead. Instead of: '30%, that's a lot!' You know, imagine a 300 major league hitter. That's a really good hitter. You wouldn't think, 'Well, that guy's never gonna get a hit because 70% of the time he doesn't.' That was basically the situation in 2016. That's what Five Thirty Eight was saying: that Clinton is probably going to win, but there's still a really good chance Trump's going to win.

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Have Pollsters In 2020 Learned The Lessons Of 2016? - WBUR

Noah Benjamin Reisman, a native of Port Washington who assisted presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, has died.

Reisman, whose family says he died following a tragic accident, was 26.

Born on May 22, 1994 to Steve and Elizabeth Reisman, the young Reisman attended Carrie Palmer Weber Middle School and went on to serve as as captain of the debate team at Schreiber High School, finishing second in the New York State Debate Championship. He also served as a student representative on the Port Washington Board of Education in his senior year, just before graduating in 2012.

In 2016, Reisman graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in government. During his senior year, he began serving on the advance team for Clinton, and eventually reached a position as advance motorcade lead.

Following the election, Reisman traveled to Israel, Jordan, and countries throughout Asia. He then returned to Manhattan to work as a paralegal at the law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP, in its capital markets group. He then attended the George Washington University Law School for one year, where he made the schools Law Review. He then transferred to Columbia Law School, where he was selected as a member of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

Port Washington school board President Nora Johnson paid tribute to Reisman at the boards meeting on Tuesday night.

He was a wonderful young man who was loved by everyone who had the privilege of knowing him, Johnson said. While at Schreiber, Noah served as a student representative on the board so some of us knew him, which is typical of him. He was involved, he was a doer. He was outgoing, brilliant, incredibly kind, and committed to making the world a better place during his very short 26 years, and he actually did make the world a better place. Our hearts go out to his family and friends. May his life be a blessing.

Reismans former colleague and friend Ian Mellul recalled him in a Medium post, remembering when the two of them transported the Clintons to their polling place in upstate Chappaqua on Election Day in 2016.

Significant does not even come close to describing his presence in a room, Mellul wrote. From his eye contact to his gentle, warm greetings, Noah always made you feel like you were the only person in the room.

Following his funeral two weeks ago, at which his family says Bill and Hillary Clinton were present, Reisman was buried at Mt. Ararat Cemetery in Lindenhurst and is survived by his parents, brother Sam, sister Rachel, his grandparents, and various relatives.

The family asks those who would like to honor Reismans memory to make a donation to the Noah Benjamin Reisman Foundation, which supports the values that Reisman embraced, including racial justice, educational equity, and helping those in need. Donations can be made to: The Noah Benjamin Reisman Foundation Inc.c/o Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, attn: Lorissa Garcia, 525 W. Monroe Street, Chicago, IL 60661, or online at http://www.noahbenjaminreismanfoundation.org.

If anyone would like to share a memory, the family encourages emails to liveanoahlife@gmail.com

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Port native, Clinton campaign aide Noah Reisman dies at 26 - Featured - The Island Now