{"id":33804,"date":"2020-10-28T15:00:42","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T19:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=33804"},"modified":"2020-10-28T15:02:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T19:02:52","slug":"this-is-how-the-msm-is-publishing-fake-covid-news-to-rig-the-election-as-we-approach-nov-3rd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=33804","title":{"rendered":"This is how the MSM is publishing fake Covid news to rig the election as we approach closer to Nov. 3rd?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Surging coronavirus endangers Trump plan to counter Biden edge with Election Day vote<\/h1>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<style>.mcclatchy-embed{position:relative;padding:40px 0 56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%}.mcclatchy-embed iframe{position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%}<\/style>\n<div class=\"mcclatchy-embed\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bradenton.com\/news\/politics-government\/election\/article246574438.html\/video-embed\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h5>Waiting for long hours to cast your ballot is draining. Here\u2019s what you can bring to make standing in line more tolerable. BY LOUMAY ALESALI<\/h5>\n<p><span class=\"dateline\">BY MICHAEL WILNER AND ALEX ROARTY<br \/>\nMcclatchydc.com<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>A surge in coronavirus cases in counties critical to President Donald Trump\u2019s victory may disrupt his plans to drive up in-person voting on Nov. 3, potentially reducing Republican turnout in areas the president can least afford it.<\/p>\n<p>In Kenosha, a Wisconsin county that voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016, the positivity rate for COVID-19 test results has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kenoshanews.com\/news\/covid-19-on-the-rise-at-kenosha-county-long-term-care-facilities\/article_eaf62bbd-d247-511b-88b5-a1cf7b02ea30.html\">reached<\/a>\u00a027%. In relatively populous<b>\u00a0<\/b>Westmoreland County in Western Pennsylvania where Trump won by more than 50,000 votes four years ago, the positivity rate for coronavirus cases has nearly tripled in two weeks,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.post-gazette.com\/business\/healthcare-business\/2020\/10\/16\/Westmoreland-County-ranks-second-in-state-for-COVID-19-tests-positive-rate\/stories\/202010160177\">according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And Calhoun County, Michigan, which gave Trump a double-digit margin of victory in 2016 after narrowly voting for Obama in 2012, has recently\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wwmt.com\/news\/local\/calhoun-county-has-the-highest-rate-of-covid-19-spread-in-michigans-lower-peninsula\">seen the fastest spread<\/a> of the virus of any county in the state\u2019s lower peninsula.<\/p>\n<p>Epidemiologists and political experts alike believe numbers like these point to an increasingly dire Election Day picture, in which spiking cases and diminishing hospital capacity in counties where Trump must run up the score could scare voters away from the polls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we can assume that around the time of the election, unfortunately, we\u2019re going to see increased rates of death in particular, given the acceleration we\u2019re seeing in many parts of the country,\u201d said Dr. Laura Jarmila Rasmussen-Torvik, chief of epidemiology in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University\u2019s Feinberg School of Medicine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf the areas that are being pretty hard hit right now, there are several midwestern areas, for example, where you\u2019re seeing the health systems about to get overwhelmed \u2013 and maybe we will see changes in behavior in response to that,\u201d Rasmussen-Torvik said. \u201cIn many places, we are very much headed in the wrong direction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The surge in coronavirus cases in such critical counties comes as more unwelcome news for Trump\u2019s team, which already enters the final stretch of the campaign against Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, running out of money and down in battleground and nationwide polls.<\/p>\n<p>A record number of Americans are voting by mail, and with polls indicating that Democrats are far more likely to take advantage of that option, Republicans are warning that health scares could upend their last, best chance to catch up in the vote count.<\/p>\n<p>Relying on in-person voting was always a risky strategy from the president, who decided early on to cast doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in voting during a deadly pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the campaign, Trump has repeatedly warned that universal mail-in voting could lead to widespread voter fraud, and Republican lawyers have fought to restrict ballot receipt deadlines, the use of ballot dropboxes, and other measures that could expand the vote ahead of Election Day.<\/p>\n<div class=\"zone grid combo\">\n<div id=\"zone-el-103\" class=\"zone-el\">\n<div id=\"story-cta-widget\" class=\"inline-cta package ad-widget\">\n<h5 class=\"h1\">National Coverage. Local Perspectives.<\/h5>\n<p class=\"summary\">Impact2020 is your destination for curated election coverage, focusing on local topics influencing critical states like Florida, Texas, California and the Carolinas. Offer includes one-year digital subscription for $50; renewed at $124.99 annually unless you tell us to cancel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>There is no evidence to back up Trump\u2019s claims of voter fraud, but they have had the effect of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2020\/09\/10\/new-poll-confirms-republicans-wariness-voting-by-mail\/\">diminishing confidence<\/a>\u00a0among Republicans that voting by mail is a secure way to cast their ballots.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe president\u2019s opposition to voting by mail, or voting early, is utterly incomprehensible and has been from the start \u2013 something that Republicans have traditionally been good at, in some places. It\u2019s obviously critically important given the pandemic in general, it\u2019s critically important given the need for support from seniors,\u201d said Michael Steel, longtime press secretary to former Republican House Speaker John Boehner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a result you have greater concerns about driving substantial Election Day voting in areas where the pandemic may be on the rise,\u201d Steel said.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats, meanwhile, have already been voting early in droves, particularly through the mail. That\u2019s sparked concern among some Republicans who say<b>\u00a0<\/b>they\u2019ll need to match massive Democratic turnout engineered over the course of weeks in just a single day.<\/p>\n<p>If even a small share of their voters stay home because of concerns about coronavirus, it could have catastrophic effects up and down the ballot for the GOP.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s safe to say Republicans will need to achieve some historical level of turnout to dig themselves out from this hole,\u201d said Tom Bonier, a Democratic analytics expert who has closely tracked the early vote. \u201cThat\u2019s not to say they can\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bonier said he expects 90 million or more people could vote before Election Day \u2014 with a significant majority of them supporting Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>Of the more than 30 million people who have already voted, he said his own modeling showed about four million more Democratic voters have cast their ballots than Republicans, a 13-percentage-point gap. That discrepancy might begin to be reduced as GOP voters cast early in-person ballots \u2014 a voting method they have shown less resistance to<b>\u00a0<\/b>using than voting by mail \u2014 but he doubts the gap will close significantly.<\/p>\n<p>The danger, he added, is that the race could be affected greatly by even a small share of GOP voters opting against voting in person because of the combination of coronavirus outbreaks and unusually long lines at their local polling place.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t know how large a share of the electorate that will be, but that it\u2019s a factor that has to be a cause for concern among Republican strategists and consultants,\u201d Bonier said.<\/p>\n<p>Top epidemiologists already see the signs of a worsening wave of COVID-19 cases, fueled by a drop in temperatures and fatigue over<b>\u00a0<\/b>pandemic restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we are in store for worsening conditions \u2013 I think that they\u2019ll probably be at their worst mid-winter, and November is a step along the way,\u201d said Dr. Ed Nardell, a professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard\u2019s Chan School of Public Health and an expert on airborne diseases. \u201cUnless behavior changes, nothing about the virus is going to change, and we\u2019re already getting early data that suggests that with cooler climate, things are going to get worse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything is delayed by the incubation time of the virus, and the time it takes to get tested and report those tests,\u201d Nardell said. \u201cI do think it will be worse than it is now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some Republicans acknowledge at least limited concern about saving much of their vote for Election Day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRegardless of how one feels about COVID \u2014 how dangerous it is, how dangerous it isn\u2019t \u2014 none of that has any bearing on the fact it\u2019s a legitimate issue and concern within society right now,\u201d said Brian Westrate, treasurer of the Wisconsin Republican Party. \u201cIt would be foolish not to consider that as a potential preventative for people to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the treasurer added that Democrats should be concerned about their own voters who plan to turn out on Election Day if infection rates soar in the state. The Republican Party has actively encouraged its voters, locally in the state<b>,<\/b>\u00a0to cast their ballot through the mail if they\u2019re comfortable doing so, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve made it very clear, I hope, to voters that we\u2019re not discouraging Wisconsinites from voting by mail,\u201d Westrate added.<\/p>\n<div class=\"figure\">\n<figure class=\"gallery card slider galleryVueInstance\">\n<div class=\"preroll-container gallery-panel\">\n<div class=\"slidesWrapper\">\n<h5 class=\"slide loaded\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image__item\" title=\"true\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcclatchy-wires.com\/incoming\/ci6s74\/picture246553873\/alternates\/FREE_768\/Election_2020_Early_Voting_Florida_09665.jpg\" alt=\"true\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.mcclatchy-wires.com\/incoming\/ci6s74\/picture246553873\/alternates\/FREE_768\/Election_2020_Early_Voting_Florida_09665.jpg\" \/>Voters wait in the dark before polls open on the first day of in-person early voting in Florida, at the Spanish River Library in Boca Raton, Monday, Oct. 19, 2020. (Joe Cavaretta\/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) <span class=\"byline\">JOE CAVARETTA<\/span>\u00a0<span class=\"credit\">AP<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcclatchydc.com\/news\/politics-government\/election\/article246586573.html\">https:\/\/www.mcclatchydc.com\/news\/politics-government\/election\/article246586573.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Surging coronavirus endangers Trump plan to counter Biden edge with Election Day vote<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}