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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis | Brynn Anderson/AP Photo

TALLAHASSEE Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday took steps to help localities prepare for what could be high voter turnout this year, but stopped short of extending early voting or letting counties consolidate polling places in the battleground amid signs that President Donald Trump's disparagement of mailed ballots could be resonating with Republican voters.

DeSantis called on schools to close during the August primary and November general election to make room for what might be record voter turnout. He also issued an executive order that makes it easier for state employees to work at the polls on Election Day.

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DeSantis, a Republican and Trump ally, has been under pressure for months from local election supervisors, who fear the coronavirus pandemic could affect their ability to recruit poll workers and manage balloting in a presidential year.

The announcements were relayed late Wednesday in a letter from Secretary of State Laurel Lee to the states 67 election supervisors.

The governor acted after rising pressure from Republican allies, who worry that Florida once again could become a national laughing-stock during the 2020 state and presidential elections.

Citing frightened poll workers and a loss of polling locations, the association that represents state election officials first asked DeSantis in early April to grant them flexibility over early voting, polling locations and the time period for sending out mail-in ballots.

Then Georgias primary election was marred by long lines and problems with voting machines, an ominous sign of possible trouble for a state like Florida, which has had its own run of voting calamities, including a chaotic recount that followed the 2000 presidential election.

But the DeSantis administration on Wednesday didn't act on several suggestions from supervisors, including a request to extend the number of early voting days and consolidate polling places.

Instead, the governor urged local school districts to close on Aug. 18 and Nov. 3 to make it easier to use schools as polling places.

Under the executive order, state workers will be allowed to take administrative leave to serve as poll workers. DeSantis also gave counties the ability to begin counting vote-by-mail ballots slightly before the current starting date. The governor also promised that the states emergency management division would provide sanitizers, cleaners and other protective equipment to supervisors.

Its very helpful, Im glad we got a response, Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley said. It gives us something to work with.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Terrie Rizzo said the governor's moves didn't go far enough.

Its disappointing the governor will not honor those who fought and died for us to have the right to vote by ensuring that Floridians do not have to endanger themselves to exercise their right to vote, Rizzo said in a text message. If the governor was serious about protecting our health and our vote he would expand the executive order to meet the requests of elections supervisors including expanding early voting to reduce lines on Election Day, funding to promote statewide vote-by-mail enrollment and a clear roadmap to conducting free and safe elections.

DeSantis had another reason to act: There are growing signs that the Republican voters Trump needs to win in the battleground state could abandon vote-by-mail as their preferred way to cast ballots. For decades, Florida Republicans have had a robust vote-by-mail operation, but Trump has spent months vilifying the process as rife with fraud.

During the 2018 election, voting in the state was split roughly three ways between voting by mail, early voting in person and casting a ballot in person on Election Day.

But a June poll from The Tyson Group, an organization run by GOP pollster Ryan Tyson, shows a growing number of Republican voters plan to vote on Election Day while Democrats say they plan to cast their ballots by mail.

The poll, conducted June 7-11, found that 49 percent of likely Republican voters surveyed plan to vote on Election Day itself, compared to 28 percent of Democrats.

Forty percent of Democrats said they plan to vote by mail, compared to 23 percent of Republicans. The Tyson Group interviewed 1,000 registered voters who are expected to or said they would vote in 2020. The margin of error in the poll is plus or minus 3.1 percent.

The governors action also comes as he and Florida election officials fight a lawsuit that was filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern Florida by a group of Florida voters, Democratic super PAC Priorities USA and other Democratic-leaning organizations.

The case seeks to throw out state ballot-return deadlines and laws that limit who is allowed to collect vote-by-mail ballots and return them to local election offices. The lawsuit also wants local election officials to pick up the postage cost for returning ballots, something that 17 counties including urban locales such as Broward and Orange were already planning to do.

Many election supervisors, both Democrats and Republicans, have opposed the lawsuit, which will go before a judge in late July.

The Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Florida are also fighting the lawsuit.

DeSantis announced his plan a day after the state Division of Elections told county supervisors it would distribute more than $20.2 million to them on July 1 to take precautions against the coronavirus. Congress provided $400 million in the CARES Act to help states prepare for elections during the outbreak.

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DeSantis offers Election Day help as Republicans say they'll cast ballots in person - POLITICO

Public opinion is now in favor of the protesters who have spent the last three weeks advocating for police reform in response to the death of George Floyd, a black man killed by a police officer in Minneapolis.

This is notable, because public opinion around the protests was initially split. But as the protests have grown larger and spread to more parts of the country, theres evidence they have become more popular. For instance, in a Morning Consult survey conducted June 10-12, 64 percent of Americans said they supported the protests, up 10 percentage points from the first time the pollster asked in late May and early June.

[Related: Theres A Huge Gap In How Republicans And Democrats See Discrimination]

In fact, the protests are so popular that theyre now supported by majorities of Democrats and Republicans. But this bipartisan support masks some of the enormous differences that still exist between the two parties on issues of race and discrimination.

For starters, theres a pretty big gap in just how strongly Democrats and Republicans back the protests. In last weeks Economist/YouGov poll, for instance, 73 percent of Democrats said they strongly approve of the nonviolent protests, compared with just 27 percent of Republicans. And according to the most recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll, Democrats and Republicans are also fairly split on how peaceful the protests have been, how long they should last and whats driving them. In that poll, Democrats were 40 points more likely than Republicans to say that the protests have been mostly peaceful and three-quarters of Republicans said they wanted the protests to stop now, compared to less than one-quarter of Democrats. Republicans were also 44 points more likely than Democrats to say the protests were primarily motivated by long-standing biases against the police, whereas most Democrats said the protests were motivated by a genuine desire to hold police accountable.

The fact that Democrats and Republicans are so polarized when it comes to the motives driving the protests is important because it conveys just how differently Republicans and Democrats view racism in America.

In its polling, YouGov asked respondents a number of questions on whether systemic racism was a problem or whether police killings signaled a bigger issue within American life. As you can see in the chart below, Democrats and Republicans are divided, with as much as a 60-point gap separating them on some of these issues. Recent surveys by CBS, CNN and Monmouth University have found equally large partisan divides on race and policing as well.

The thing is, public opinion about race hasnt always been this polarized.

In fact, some attitudes about race were entirely unrelated to partisanship before Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. But after he was elected, racial attitudes and party identification became increasingly intertwined to the extent that by 2012, opposition to interracial relationships or overtly negative views of African Americans predicted whether someone identified as Republican for the first time in decades.

[Related: Do You Know How Divided White And Black Americans Are On Racism?]

Of course, Donald Trumps political rise took this growing partisan polarization over race to new heights. Democrats, in particular, quickly consolidated their views in reaction to Trumps offensive statements about racial and ethnic minorities.

CBS News polls from the last 10 years underscore just how much Democrats have changed their opinion of systemic racism in a relatively short period of time. As you can see in the chart below, it wasnt that long ago when Democrats and Republicans responded pretty similarly to the question of whether white Americans had an easier time of getting ahead.

Democrats, however, are now much more likely to agree that societal advantages exist for white Americans than they were five years ago. A similar shift has happened on questions of police brutality and institutional racism within the criminal justice system. For instance, the percentage of Democrats who think that the police disproportionately use deadly force against black Americans increased by more than 30 points since CBS News first asked the question in August 2014. Meanwhile, Republicans views have remained steady just 24 percent think the police disproportionately use deadly force against African Americans.

Its certainly not surprising, then, that Democrats and Republicans are so divided over race and policing after Floyds death. The upshot of this growing polarization is that Democrats and Republicans increasingly inhabit separate realities about race in America, worlds apart on everything from the causes of racial inequality to the Confederate flags meaning to the N-words offensiveness to the value of teaching black history in schools.

[Related: How Black Americans View Their Racial Identity]

The current partisan divide over race may be predictable, but its still incredibly important especially considering this is a presidential election year. Race has long been an effective wedge issue for the Republican Party, as demonstrated by the 2016 election, when Republicans split up the Democrats diverse coalition of nonwhite voters, white racially liberal voters and racially conservative white voters. But after 12 years of Obama and Trump, racially conservative Democrats have mostly defected or converted. That means Democrats are now united about many of the racial issues that once splintered the party.

Take the Black Lives Matter movement, for example. In a June 2016 Pew Research Center poll, only 64 percent of white Democrats and 20 percent of white Republicans supported the Black Lives Matter movement. Those numbers are now up to 92 percent among white Democrats and 37 percent among white Republicans in the latest Pew survey.

[Related: Public Opinion Of The Black Lives Matter Movement Has Shifted. What Happens Next?]

The fact that Republicans experienced a nearly 20-point increase in support since 2014 doesnt bode well for them either, considering polls at this point indicate that it is Democrats and not Republicans who are now more unified on many issues of race. In fact, congressional Democrats efforts to pass sweeping legislation to help remedy some of the racial biases in the criminal justice system could even be an effective racial wedge issue for the Democratic Party heading into November.

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Republicans And Democrats Agree On The Protests But Not Why People Are Protesting - FiveThirtyEight

The recommendation is part of a new report issued by Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee Monday, which outlines the findings of a months-long investigation into the origins of the outbreak and Beijing's efforts to "conceal the spread and novel nature of the virus."

"After months of investigating, it's become crystal clear the Chinese Communist Party's cover-up of the coronavirus, especially in the early days of the outbreak, played a significant role in turning what could have been a local epidemic into a global pandemic," Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, leader of the GOP China task force, said in a statement to CNN.

"And, unfortunately, the World Health Organization under the leadership of Director General Tedros (Adhanom Ghebreyesus) only exacerbated the problem by repeatedly ignoring warnings about the severity of the virus, including from their own health experts, while at the same time parroting the CCP's propaganda without independently confirming their claims," he added.

"While I join the president in his frustration with the WHO under Tedros' leadership, I think we can affect more change within the organization as a member. I was pleased to hear NSA {Robert} O'Brien say the U.S. 'would consider coming back' once necessary reforms were enacted," McCaul told CNN.

Investigating the origins of the coronavirus outbreak has become a partisan issue in recent months as top Trump administration officials have attempted to publicly blame China, and the WHO, for the outbreak spreading to the US as it faces criticism for its own response.

However, aides involved in compiling Monday's GOP report are making clear that the findings are not just a political diversion tactic, insisting they should be reviewed separately from any oversight of the administration's domestic response. A Democratic committee aide told CNN that it was unclear if members or staff had reviewed the report released Monday.

The investigation primarily involved a thorough review of open source reporting and the recommendations were made after consulting the State Department and key allies, committee aides told CNN, adding that the probe only covers matters under the panel's jurisdiction.

But while the GOP-led probe determined that there is evidence supporting many of the allegations made by US officials, investigators ultimately disagreed with the administration's decision to withdraw from the WHO, breaking with President Donald Trump, who announced just last month that the US would do just that.

Instead, the report calls for an international investigation into the WHO's actions and for Tedros to resign.

"Director General Tedros has failed in his duties as the head of the World Health Organization. Until Tedros is no longer the head of the WHO, I do not believe the United States should contribute any additional voluntary funds," McCaul said.

On Monday, the WHO confirmed that the US still one of its member states.

"Yes, the United States is still a member of the -- a member state -- of the World Health Organization," Tedros said when asked about the relationship during a media briefing in Geneva on Monday.

Will Trump reverse his decision?

It remains to be seen if Monday's report has any impact on Trump's decision to cut ties with the WHO but committee aides told CNN that its recommendations are based on exhaustive conversations with several key US allies who agree the US should remain a member of the WHO.

The hope, aides said, is that the US can build an international coalition to enact significant changes at the WHO, which has faced questions about its independence given China's rising wealth and power.

Critics point to the WHO's effusive praise of China's response to the pandemic. Organization officials have defended their early actions when it came to fighting the coronavirus, noting that much was unknown about the virus back in January.

That argument is echoed throughout Monday's GOP report, which includes a list of unanswered questions for WHO officials who aides told CNN have failed to respond to multiple letters from McCaul.

Trump's decision to permanently terminate the US relationship with the WHO follows a years-long pattern of skepticism of world organizations, with the President claiming that the US is being taken advantage of.

The President has questioned US funding to the United Nations and NATO, withdrawn from the Paris climate accord and repeatedly criticized the World Trade Organization.

Trump has also said that if the WHO had acted appropriately, he could have instituted a travel ban on people coming from China sooner.

But health experts, US lawmakers and world leaders have expressed concern over defunding the organization amid a pandemic.

After Trump's announcement last month, a WHO spokesperson told CNN, "We have no comment to offer at this point."

Chinese government bears 'overwhelming responsibility'

Ultimately, however, the report alleges that the Chinese government bears responsibility for failing to warn the world before the outbreak spread out of control, infecting people on nearly every continent, killing hundreds of thousands and leaving many more isolated.

China had enough information to warrant a full scale public health response as early as mid-December of last year but government officials attempted to keep the spread of cases quiet, the report argues.

"Based on an examination of the early stages of the outbreak, efforts to conceal the spread and novel nature of the virus, failures to share accurate information as required by international law, and the suppression of voices seeking to warn the world, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) bears overwhelming responsibility for allowing a local outbreak to become a global pandemic," it reads.

"In sum, the COVID-19 global pandemic could have been prevented if the CCP acted in a transparent and responsible manner," the report adds.

Currently, the earliest case identified by Chinese authorities can be traced back to November 17, 2019, in the city of Wuhan, according to the GOP investigation, which notes that the cause of the virus remains unknown but is "believed to likely be the result of a zoonotic spillover event."

As the virus began to spread throughout Wuhan in November and early December, Chinese officials did not report the emerging outbreak to international health officials despite regulations that were implemented following the SARS pandemic in 2003 requiring them to do so.

Despite public reports to the contrary, the Chinese government also did not directly notify WHO about signs of the emerging coronavirus outbreak in late December, one of several instances in which Beijing violated international law as part of a sweeping cover-up of the pandemic's origins, according to the report.

Instead, WHO officials first learned about an initial cluster of atypical pneumonia cases in the Chinese city of Wuhan from online posts that were picked up by a "US-based open-access platform for early intelligence about infectious disease outbreaks," according to the GOP document, which cites public remarks made by to Dr. Michael Ryan, the executive director of the WHO's Health Emergencies Program on April 20.

"WHO headquarters in Geneva instructed the WHO China Country Office to seek verification of these reports from the PRC's government. Despite public reporting to the contrary, the PRC never notified the WHO about the outbreak in Wuhan," the GOP report reads.

But Ryan's comments were not widely reported by Western media outlets and the WHO has done little to make clear that they were never approached by the Chinese government.

Last month, Trump said that China had not properly reported information it had about the coronavirus to the World Health Organization and said China had pressured the WHO to "mislead the world."

"Chinese officials ignored their reporting obligations to the World Health Organization and pressured the World Health Organization to mislead the world when the virus was first discovered by Chinese authorities," Trump said. "Countless lives have been taken and profound economic hardship has been inflicted all around the globe."

Chinese officials have repeatedly pushed back on allegations that they are to blame for the outbreak and amplified unfounded conspiracy theories about the virus' origins.

Still no evidence virus escaped from Wuhan lab

Trump has repeatedly pointed the finger at China and the WHO while mostly giving himself rave reviews for its handling of the pandemic, despite Covid-19 testing fumbles and a national stockpile short on supplies when they were needed most.

Last month, the President undercut a rare on-the-record statement from his own intelligence community hours earlier by claiming he had seen evidence that gives him a "high degree of confidence" the novel coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, but declined to provide details to back up his assertion.

Despite warnings from scientists and intelligence professionals that the US may never know the precise origin of the virus, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also pushed the intelligence community for precise details about the origin of the virus, CNN has learned.

As a result, intelligence officials are facing enormous pressure to determine whether the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, two sources familiar with their frustrations told CNN. While the intelligence community has been wary to share details about the demands coming from the Trump administration, officials have told allies that the situation on the inside is alarming.

Assessments by scientists and those circulated among US intelligence-sharing allies have posited that it is "highly unlikely" the virus originated in a lab.

The US intelligence community has said it is looking into both possibilities and Monday's GOP report reiterates that neither the virus' origin nor patient zero are currently known.

Monday's report does, however, note that there are lingering safety questions involving the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a facility that has often been linked to theories about the outbreak's origins.

While the report makes clear that legitimate questions about the facility's security are "not evidence that the ongoing pandemic is the result of a release, accidental or deliberate, from the lab, or what the staffing status was at the time of the outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019, it is important to consider these concerns in light of the PRC's history with lab accidents."

CNN's Jacqueline Howard and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.

Original post:
Republicans urge Trump not to terminate relationship with World Health Organization - CNN

Recognizing the threat in Iowa, the presidents re-election campaign spent more than $400,000 on TV ads in the state in May and June, according to Advertising Analytics, a tracking firm.

Democrats top presidential super PAC, Priorities USA, rated Iowa this month as leaning toward Mr. Trump and outside the top-six battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida. But that might change. While Iowa isnt currently in our spending plans, its a state were keeping an eye on, said Josh Schwerin, a senior strategist for the group. The fact that its in play shows that Biden is on offense and will have multiple paths to 270, he added, referring to the electoral votes needed for victory.

Its a different story in the Senate race. Democratic outside groups have booked $24.1 million to support Ms. Greenfield with TV ads through Election Day, and Republican groups are close behind with $22.6 million on behalf of Ms. Ernst.

Democrats hoping to control the Senate need to net four seats in November (or three if they win the White House since the vice president has a tiebreaking vote). Their top targets are Republican incumbents in Colorado, Arizona and Maine. Close behind are the incumbents in North Carolina and, increasingly, Iowa.

The Senate Majority PAC, the top outside Democratic group in Senate races, has lined up $13 million for TV ads in Iowa after Labor Day. It matches $12.5 million reserved by the leading Republican outside group, the Senate Leadership Fund.

The idea that Iowas in play really shouldnt surprise people, said J.B. Poersch, president of the Senate Majority PAC, which is aligned with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. It came to the table this way, since the intensity of the caucuses.

The Iowa caucuses in February may have been a fiasco when it came to counting votes, as well as an embarrassment for Mr. Biden, who finished fourth. But a year of intense organizing by presidential hopefuls in the state brought a bounty of new Democratic voters. Democrats now outnumber registered Republicans in the state by 9,000, a reversal from the 2018 midterm elections when Republicans had a 23,000-voter advantage.

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Joni Ernst and Donald Trump Could Both Be in Trouble in Iowa - The New York Times

Photo by Louis Freedberg/EdSource

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-VA, chairperson of the House Education and Labor Committee

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-VA, chairperson of the House Education and Labor Committee

Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill continue to spar over the need for more federal education aid.

How the legislative battle is resolved could have profound consequences for Californias efforts to save its public education system from budget cutbacks, or to keep many school districts from going deep into debtor both.

Last month,Democrats in the House of Representatives voted toapprove the HEROES Act that could result in close to $60 billion in direct emergency aid to schools nationally. However, it would need approval in the U.S. Senate, and there is no indication that the GOP leadership there is ready to consider additional support any time soon. But the Senate is not expected to take up legislation regarding additional funding until sometime in late July at the earliest.

At a hearing on Monday of the House Education and Labor Committee, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-VA, the committee chairperson, said that the experience of the Great Recession makes it essential that Congress approves the additional funding, beyond the $13 billion in K-12 education funding authorized by the CARES Act approved by Congress in the spring.

The lessons from our past makes clear the school districts urgently need more relief, he said, noting that in 2008 Congress provided states nearly three times as much funding as it has approved so far. We cannot put the safety of students, teachers and communities at risk by reopening schools without providing them the resources they need.

However, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-NC, the ranking Republican on the committee, argued vociferously against more funding from Congress. She said there had been no evaluation of how the education aid through the CARES Act has been spent. Her comments underscored Republican opposition to approving additional spending for schools in particular, and for states in general.

Congress must first evaluate the impact of the billions of dollars in federal taxpayer education aid before rushing to further burden taxpayers with additional spending, she said. Demanding additional funds at this time is premature and illogical.

Yet here we are with Democrats pushing taxpayers to dole out more of their hard-earned money at a time when many Americans are being forced to tighten their belts, she said, noting that some schools have not yet spent the funds they received under the CARES Act.

On top of that, she said, money is not a cure-all solution, and it is irresponsible to throw more money at this situation, she said.

Repeating a common argument made by GOP lawmakers, she said that per-pupil education spending has increased over the years but high school seniors arent performing better than they were 30 years ago, glossing over some improvements, including much-improved graduation rates.

Gov. Newsom is hoping to receive billions of dollars more in federal aid for schools in order to offset a projected $6.4 billion reduction in funding for schools, as well as multiple other cuts in his proposed budget for next year. Meanwhile, the state Legislature on Monday approved a budget based on the assumption that California will receive billions of dollars in additional federal aid, and if it doesnt, to allow the state to defer payments of state funds to school districts. That could result, among multiple consequences, in many districts having to borrow money until the state can repay them at a later time.

In his testimony to the committee, Michael Leachman, the vice president for state fiscal policy at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive nonpartisan research and policy organization, said many school districts have never fully recovered from the effects of the Great Recession. Nationally, schools employed 77,000 fewer staff than before the Great Recession, despite serving 1.5 million more students, he said.

He said states will experience a total of $615 billion in deficit funding over the next three years. Unless school districts receive more in federal aid, he predicted that they will have to lay off more and more teachers and other workers, in addition to other cuts. The impact, he said, would be especially damaging to students of color and low-income students, because they are more likely to attend schools with fewer resources.

The $13 billion in federal education aid Congress approved through the CARES Act, he said, was far too little to meet the extreme fiscal challenges that schools are facing. Even the $60 billion in direct education funding in the Houses HEROES Act, while a significant step in the right direction, on its own it is not enough, he said.

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Democrats and Republicans in Congress spar over need for more federal education aid - EdSource