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In a statement on Saturday morning, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee indicated it was sticking with Cunningham.

North Carolinians are supporting Cal because he will protect health care coverage for pre-existing conditions, fight to bring down the costs of prescription drugs, and help our country recover from this crisis. We are confident that he will bring the same courage and determination to the Senate as he has while serving our country in uniform," said Lauren Passalacqua, a spokesperson for the DSCC.

Jesse Hunt, a spokesperson for the Senate Republican campaign arm, suggested more bad news could drop on Cunningham down the stretch.

"These are very troubling allegations, and Cal needs to be fully transparent with the voters of North Carolina. We know there is more to this story, Cal knows there is more to this story, and he needs to come clean with voters so they can make the appropriate judgment on whether hes fit for office," Hunt said.

The stakes couldn't be higher for Senate control. Democrats need to net at least three seats to win back the majority, and North Carolina has been seen as a potential tipping point state by both parties. It's unclear how Cunningham's text messages or Tillis's positive diagnosis might affect the polls, which have narrowly favored Cunningham.

Cunningham sent several text messages to a woman in which the two discussed kissing and hypothetically spending the night together, according to screenshots of the messages that were posted online Thursday. The messages were originally posted by the right-wing website NationalFile.com and confirmed by the News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., late Friday.

Cunningham's campaign also confirmed the authenticity of the text messages to POLITICO.

Sens. Thom Tillis (pictured) and Mike Lee both announced Friday they've tested positive for coronavirus. | Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP

"Would make my day to roll over and kiss you right now," Cunningham wrote in one of the messages. Dates were not included in the screenshots. The woman sent a separate text message asking when she could see him, writing, "I want to kiss you," and later, "I want a night with you," according to the screenshots.

Cunningham, an Army veteran and former state senator, is running against Tillis in one of the most expensive and competitive Senate races in the country. Cunningham has led in the polls consistently in recent weeks, and absentee voting in the state started last month.

Cunningham apologized in a statement and said he did not intend to exit the race.

"I have hurt my family, disappointed my friends, and am deeply sorry," Cunningham said in the statement. "The first step in repairing those relationships is taking complete responsibility, which I do. I ask that my familys privacy be respected in this personal matter.

"I remain grateful and humbled by the ongoing support that North Carolinians have extended in this campaign, and in the remaining weeks before this election I will continue to work to earn the opportunity to fight for the people of our state."

After Tillis tested positive for Covid-19, his campaign said it would shut down his campaign headquarters, cease in-person events and isolate for ten days.

"While we were surprised to read the news about Cal Cunningham in the News and Observer last night, our campaign is focused on the health of Sen. Tillis and our staff," Tillis spokesman Andrew Romeo said in a statement Saturday. "As we adapt our campaign in light of the senator's positive test, all questions on Cunningham should be directed to his campaign."

As of Thursday, more than 319,000 votes had already been cast in North Carolina, according to the state board of elections website.

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Sexts and coronavirus: Must-win Senate race upended down the stretch - POLITICO

Read: How tocarefullysurmount the Electoral College

But far and away the most serious threat to the effectiveness of a Biden presidency and a Democratic House and Senate is the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 senators, instead of a simple majority of 51, to move forward on most legislation. Even if Democrats win the Senate in November, they very likely wont have 60 votes, meaning that Republicans could still block legislation from being debated. Progressives have long wanted to abolish the supermajority voting threshold, but the idea has begun to gain traction among other Democrats, too, in recent weeks. Perhaps, some Democrats argue, the filibuster is a natural place to launch their democracy-reform initiative: They can put forward a slew of policies strengthening ethics guidelines and expanding voting rightsincluding a bill that would restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965and dare Republicans to vote against it. (The VRA had strong bipartisan support until the mid-2000s.) Its a pretty easy argument to make, the aide to the centrist senator told me. Democrats would be happy to be like, Look at these fuckin guys! They still want to make it difficult for people of color to vote!

Progressives are enthusiastic about that plan. If I had to guess how its going to happen, its going to be, If we cant pass the VRA, were going to get rid of the filibuster, Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, told me. Starting with H.R. 1 is a good idea, Representative Ro Khanna of California told me. The filibuster could come right next.

Then again, Democrats might not have any of these options in January. Trump could win the election; Republicans could hold the Senate or even win control of the House. The Democrats could sweep, but have something else at top of mind. Or, some of my Hill sources suggested, Biden may want to start off his first term by pursuing legislation that is more amenable to Republicans, though none of the aides I spoke with could identify what that unifying project might be. When asked about Bidens own legislative priorities, a campaign spokesperson responded that his No. 1 goal will be repairing and rebuilding from the economic ruin and public-health crisis caused by Donald Trumps utter failure to fulfill his basic duty as president: protect America.

Even if they win full control, though, Democrats wont have a lot of time. As my colleague Ronald Brownstein noted recently, the last four times a presidentof either partywent into a midterm with unified control, voters have revoked it. No party has controlled all the levers of government for more than four consecutive years since 1968. And a President Biden and an incoming Democratic Congress will be facing a mountain of tasks. There will almost certainly be early battles over government funding and coronavirus-response packages.

If Democrats find themselves in the majority again for the first time in more than a decade, though, they are determined not to squander the opportunity. In his July eulogy for Representative John Lewis, Obama implored lawmakers to quickly make changes that protect and expand the right to votenot for partisan advantage, he insisted, but in an effort to form a more perfect union. Republicans remain skeptical. But Democrats were listening.

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What Happens If Democrats Win the Senate and the White House? - The Atlantic

Youve probably heard of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but you may not have heard of Derek Kilmer. Kilmer grew up in a timber region in Washington State that had seen many of its logging jobs disappear. First at Princeton, then getting a Ph.D. at Oxford, he studied how towns recover from deindustrialization. He went back home to help his community recover economically and now represents that community in Congress.

Kilmer is the chairman of the largest ideological group among House Democrats, the New Democrat Coalition. The New Democrat Coalition is a caucus for moderate and center-left House Democrats. It has 103 House members, of whom 42 are the up-and-coming freshmen who brought the Democrats their majority. Its self-declared priorities are pro-economic growth, pro-innovation and fiscal responsibility.

You may not have heard of Kilmer or even the New Democrat Coalition. The media wing of the Republican Party wants to pretend that A.O.C., the Squad, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are the Democratic Party because it wants you to think Democrats are a bunch of socialists.

Progressive Twitter is far to the left of the actual Democratic Party and it also emphasizes A.O.C., Sanders and Warren because thats what makes its heart flutter. Even the mainstream media pays far more attention to the Squad than to Kilmer or moderates like Abigail Spanberger.

This week a thoughtful scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Danielle Pletka, fell for the mirage. She wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in which she disdained President Trump but said she would have to vote for him because the Democrats have moved so far left.

Pletkas essay kicked up a storm, but usefully raised the question: Where exactly is the Democratic Party?

The professionals who actually run the party do not fall for the mirage. Nancy Pelosi understands that her job is to manage a group that includes both A.O.C. and the New Democrat Coalitions members.

House Democrats began this Congress with nine bills that were their top priorities. They were about such things as infrastructure spending, lower prescription drug prices, voting rights, gerrymandering and democracy reform, and rejoining the Paris climate accords.

The Green New Deal and so-called Medicare for all were not on the table. Pelosi was promoting ideas a majority of the House Democrats could agree on, and these ideas are not radical left.

Joe Biden has the same approach. Biden was arguably the most moderate of the nearly 30 Democrats who ran for president in the past year. The team around him, the folks who would presumably lead his administration, are Clinton/Obama veterans and not exactly a bunch of left-wing woke activists: Mike Donilon, Ron Klain, Anita Dunn, Jake Sullivan, Jeff Zients and Bruce Reed, one of the leaders of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council.

They understand they are leading an extremely broad coalition and have done an excellent, underappreciated job of incorporating both moderate ideas and ideas from the Bernie Bros.

To the extent that Bidens gone left, its mostly in areas where the moderates agree: quadrupling federal spending on low-income housing assistance, making community college free.

A Biden administration would not be further left than the Democratic voters out in the country or their representatives in Congress. Those voters are not mostly the urban gentrifiers who propel the left; they are mostly the somewhat liberal suburbanites and Black moderates who gave Biden the nomination.

In 2018, those voters massively rejected almost all of the nearly 80 Sanders-like insurgents the left put up to challenge more moderate incumbents in primaries. This year, with only three exceptions, theyve done the same. This week Senator Chris Coons of Delaware held off a Medicare-for-all, Green New Deal challenger 73 percent to 27 percent.

If you ask whether the Democrats shifted too far left, my answer is: The party has gotten more ideologically diverse, but there is a large, strong center that will keep it in the political mainstream.

But there is a prior and more important question here: Are the Democrats a political party?

You might have thought that the Democratic and Republican Parties are different versions of the same thing, but thats no longer true. As Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution has noted, the G.O.P. is no longer a standard coalition party. Its an anti-political insurgency that, even before Trump, has been elevating candidates with no political experience and who dont believe in the compromise and jostle of politics.

Right now, Republicans are a culture war identity movement that suppresses factional disagreement and demands total loyalty to Trump.

The Democrats are still a normal political party. In 2020 they rejected the base mobilization candidates who imagine you can magically create a revolutionary majority if only you go purist.

Biden is a man who doesnt do culture war, who will separate the cultural left from the political left, reduce politics back to its normal size and calm an increasingly apocalyptic and hysterical nation.

The Democratic Party is an institution that still practices coalition politics, that serves as a vehicle for the diverse interests and ideas in society to filter up into legislation, that plays by the rules of the game, that believes in rule of law. Right now, it is the only major party that does that.

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No, the Democrats Havent Gone Over the Edge - The New York Times

In July, as the coronavirus pandemic raged, Joseph R. Biden Jr. made one trip to a battleground state. In August, he again visited just one swing state. And on the second weekend in September, less than eight weeks before Election Day, Mr. Bidens only activity was going to church near his Delaware home.

Mr. Bidens restraint has spilled over into his campaign operation, which was late to appoint top leaders in key states and embraced a far more cautious approach to in-person engagement than President Trump, and even some other Democratic candidates. While the Trump campaign claims it is knocking on a million doors a week, the Biden team is relying heavily on TV ads and contacting voters largely through phone calls, text messaging programs and other digital outreach.

That guarded strategy reflects the bet Mr. Bidens campaign has made for months: that American voters will reward a sober, responsible approach that mirrors the ways the pandemic has upended their own lives, and follows scientific guidance that Mr. Trump almost gleefully flouts.

Yet as Mr. Trump barrels ahead with crowded, risky rallies, some Democrats in battleground states are growing increasingly anxious about the trade-offs Mr. Biden has made. With some polls tightening since the beginning of the summer, they are warning him that virtual events may not be enough to excite voters, and urging him to intensify in-person outreach.

Mr. Biden has begun to accelerate the pace of his travel, and this week is one of the busiest he has had in months, with two speeches in Delaware, a trip to Florida and an appearance at a CNN town hall on Thursday near his hometown, Scranton, Pa. On Friday he will campaign in Minnesota.

Yet the concern among these Democrats is whether, in closely fought states that may be won on the margins, the Biden campaign is engaging every possible voter with an affirmative case for his candidacy, when the other side simply has more traditional tactics they are willing to use.

It feels like asymmetric warfare, said Matt Munsey, the Democratic chair in Northampton County in eastern Pennsylvania, one of the counties Mr. Trump narrowly flipped in 2016, referring to Mr. Bidens approach versus Mr. Trumps.

Livestreamed events were not necessarily reaching people, Mr. Munsey cautioned. And though he praised Mr. Biden for getting out there more, he expressed frustration that his in-person events were kept so small: The campaign has been so wary about exceeding crowd limits, he said, that local leaders have complained of not being invited.

Compounding the challenge is an on-the-ground operation that was weak during the primary season and was slow to scale up in the general election. Strapped for cash after the primaries and uncertain about how to campaign amid a national lockdown, the Biden team initially refrained from greatly expanding its staff. It entered the summer without state directors in critical battlegrounds like Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania, and efforts to establish local operations stretched deep into the summer.

Now Democrats from Florida to Nevada have worried that the team is behind where it should be in engaging some core constituencies, a problem that may also have implications for new voter registrations.

In Erie County, Pa., for instance, local party leaders have been imploring the Biden campaign to have more of a presence on the ground. They became so impatient to begin interacting directly with voters that they took it upon themselves to go from house to house to distribute campaign signs, drop literature and speak with people at a pandemic-acceptable distance.

Only recently has the campaign begun to rev up its field program in the Erie area and across the state, local officials said.

If you complain as much as I do and you beat on the doors of the national campaign, theyre eventually going to respond to you, said Ryan Bizzarro, a state representative from the county, a onetime Democratic stronghold that Mr. Trump flipped in 2016.

Beyond the risk of leaving voters feeling overlooked, Mr. Bidens limited travel schedule provided ammunition to Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly mocked him for rarely straying from his Delaware home. You need a lot of energy to do this job properly, Mr. Trump said at a campaign event in Phoenix on Monday, adding that you cant be sitting in your basement for four days.

Democrats have no interest in replicating Mr. Trumps rallies, which pose health risks and also turn off voters who are alarmed by the dangers of Covid-19. Mr. Biden has been eager to make the race a referendum on Mr. Trump and his stewardship of the pandemic, a game plan that polls generally suggest is working, including with traditionally Republican-leaning constituencies like seniors.

Now flush with cash, the Biden team is active on the airwaves, and on Wednesday announced it would spend more than $65 million on paid advertising in battleground states this week.

Asked if Mr. Biden has been visible enough in Hillsborough County home to Tampa, Fla., where he traveled on Tuesday Ione Townsend, the Democratic chair there, replied, No.

But I also dont want him to have the kind of events that Trump is having, because I think those are superspreader events, she said ahead of his trip. In these last few weeks he needs to do more of that kind of stuff that hes now doing.

In early May, Mr. Biden also held an event focused on a Tampa audience a virtual rally riddled with technical glitches. The campaign soon moved away from such efforts in favor of a series of policy rollout speeches as well as online activities, and Mr. Biden devoted considerable time to receiving briefings on the virus and the economy.

Joe Biden is working to earn every vote with a groundbreaking campaign that meets this moment, said Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesman. And hes doing it in the way he would govern: by putting the well-being of the American families hed fight for every day in office first.

In a briefing with reporters earlier this month, Mr. Bidens campaign manager, Jennifer OMalley Dillon, said the team had more than 2,500 staff members who were supporting the organizing across our battleground states, and had made a $100 million investment in on-the-ground organizing.

Still, Mr. Biden has visited Wisconsin only once in 2020, for a one-day trip to Kenosha two weeks ago after the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Until last week, he had made no trips to Michigan since the primary election there in March. He has yet to travel this year to Arizona.

In New Hampshire, where Mr. Bidens wife, Jill Biden, campaigned on Wednesday, some Democrats have raised alarms as polls show a tightening race in a state Hillary Clinton barely won.

Ive been telling them they need to get their signs out, said State Senator Lou DAllesandro, a veteran New Hampshire Democrat and early Biden supporter. We need to be doing more in direct engagement. We are beginning to see that.

In Ohio, Danny OConnor, the county recorder in Franklin County, which includes Columbus, urged Mr. Bidens campaign to start hitting doors in order to make sure were getting as much turnout as we can, because the other sides out knocking.

A Zoom connect or whatever just doesnt replace standing on someones door and asking them to commit to vote and looking them in the eye and telling them why youre supporting someone for the most important position in the world, added Mr. OConnor, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2018.

Rogette Harris, the Democratic chair in Dauphin County, Pa., said the campaign had deployed six staff members about three weeks ago to the central part of the state and planned to open distribution centers in Harrisburg within the next week, where supporters could pick up campaign materials and yard signs.

But Ms. Harris said it was imperative that Mr. Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, campaign across Pennsylvania, and not just in the big cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

I do think the polls have tightened because of the lack of presence, she said.

Many party officials say they are confident that Mr. Bidens strategy is both sensible and effective. Local officials in Wisconsin say they are seeing great enthusiasm for Mr. Biden and expressed confidence that he would win the state in November.

Mary Arnold, the Democratic chair in rural Columbia County, said she heard many pleas for Mr. Biden to come to Wisconsin a few months ago. But recently, she said, people have been more accepting of Mr. Bidens strategy, including keeping his events small.

Im getting this much stronger sense that people respect him for that decision because he doesnt want to kill people, she said.

Many of Mr. Bidens allies said they were content to have Mr. Biden mostly remain at his house in the summer, not wanting to interrupt what they viewed as Mr. Trumps self-sabotage. Still, in late August, as Mr. Trump intensified his law and order message and painted Mr. Biden as a Trojan horse of the liberal left, demands among Democrats to see Mr. Biden traveling more and speaking to voters directly reached a fever pitch. Aides in early September previewed a fall strategy that included an escalated travel schedule, a promise the candidate has made good on the last two weeks.

Representative Andy Levin of Michigan had been especially vehement that Mr. Biden should visit Macomb County, a blue-collar region in southeast Michigan that twice voted for Barack Obama before turning to Mr. Trump in 2016 and last week, Mr. Biden did. Mr. Levin said in an interview this week that he wanted the former vice president to keep doing just what hes doing.

Every time he appears in public, he demonstrates that he will be the public health president that he takes the pandemic seriously, Mr. Levin said. People can get anxious, I guess, that Trump is holding all these big events and Biden isnt, and I say, keep on going. Keep on demonstrating that you will not advance your self-interest at the expense of the American people because that is the nub of who Donald Trump is.

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Does Biden Need a Higher Gear? Some Democrats Think So - The New York Times

The shift comes after a national legal campaign has successfully resulted in expanded access to mail-in voting in nearly every state -- prompting an unprecedented shift in the way millions of Americans will be able to vote due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But as voting is set to begin in more states in the coming weeks, Democrats have settled on a strategy of emphasizing that all voting options, including in-person early and Election Day voting, are safe amid the pandemic.

"We've got to vote early, in person if we can," Obama said, as she urged Democrats to cast their ballots ahead of an election in which she said democracy itself was at stake.

The former first lady also did not miss an opportunity to urge voters to request their mail-in ballots as soon as possible. But her message to "grab our comfortable shoes, put on our masks" and head to the polls was a notable change of emphasis compared to her party's laser-like focus on mail-in voting since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Just Monday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, cast their ballots in-person a day before Delaware's primary. Biden and his allies have routinely encouraged mail-in voting, and Delaware allows all registered voters to cast their ballots by mail.

Increasing anxiety

"Maybe 98% of the Black people I'm talking to are not trusting mail-in voting," said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. "I think there is a major consideration around voting in-person."

"We also share some of the concerns around mail-in voting, but we want to keep that an option. The sweet spot for us is to vote early," Brown said.

Brown said her organization and partner groups are securing thousands of cloth masks in anticipation of supporting in-person voting. She also expects that get-out-the-vote efforts, which have been modified due to Covid-19, will start treating the beginning of early voting in most states like the beginning of a series of Election Days in order to avoid a "disaster" on November 3.

Some Democrats have long expressed concerns that some of their own constituents could be most hurt by rejected ballots or other problems like late-arriving ballots that are more likely to occur during mail-in voting.

A shift in message and strategy

Democratic operatives in Senate campaigns in battleground states across the country say the messaging around voting has become more nuanced; they're avoiding the implication that in-person voting is not safe.

"The last thing we want to suggest to our voters is voting in person is necessarily a trade off with your health," said one senior Democrat on a Senate campaign. "The overarching message is however you want to vote, it is safe and secure."

"(President Trump) has succeeded in making people scared and distrustful of the post office," that operative told CNN. "There were large swaths of voters who already weren't sure about the post office, so people need to understand they have other options."

Recently, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who served as an adviser in the Obama administration, analyzed the relative risk of contracting coronavirus while voting and came to a simple conclusion.

"There's a lot of conversation about voting, but we looked at the data. It seems most like shopping at the grocery store. And that has some risk but it's pretty low risk," Emanuel said in an interview.

Emanuel said that conclusion is based on a better understanding of how the virus spreads, the widespread availability and use of facemasks and other precautions, as well as evidence suggesting that voting, like grocery shopping, has not led to any widespread outbreaks since the beginning of the pandemic.

"There are ways and reasons to vote in person," Emanuel said. "People should not fear for their lives by going out and voting. It's a hell of a lot safer than going to a restaurant."

In April and May, as the pandemic ravaged parts of the Midwest, the East and the West Coasts, Democrats had a clear message: Americans should not be forced to risk their lives to cast their ballots.

One by one, states postponed their presidential primaries and other elections scheduled for early summer, concerned that indoor polling places, sometimes located in poorly ventilated school gymnasiums, would be hotbeds for viral spread.

But as the November election approaches, states have shifted their strategies, opting for larger "voting centers" like sports arenas that allow for better air flow and require fewer poll workers. Some states have also expanded early voting in addition to expanded absentee voting.

That effort is being boosted by a multi-million dollar effort led by athletes, including basketball star LeBron James, to recruit poll workers for in-person voting sites in Black districts ahead of the November election.

The National Basketball Association and the NBA Players Association agreed to offer up arenas to serve as large polling locations that can more safely accommodate in-person voters.

All of this has led some public health experts like Emanuel to say that the risk inherent in in-person voting is not as significant as other activities.

"If the consequence of us not talking about it is that turnout is low, that's a bad thing," Emanuel said.

A partisan divide

Much of the resistance to voting by mail is due to Trump's repeated, false attacks on the practice. He has deemed it the "ballot hoax" and accused states that have moved to mostly mail-in voting of rigging the election.

Trump and White House aides have suggested that the results of the election must be known on election night, and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany left open the possibility that Trump's acceptance of the election results would depend on the results.

"The President has always said he'll see what happens and make a determination in the aftermath," McEnany said in a press briefing when asked about Trump's claim that the only way he would lose the election is if there were massive fraud.

That partisan divide has fueled new worries that the in-person vote on Election Day could differ dramatically from the mail-in vote.

Early in the pandemic, Pildes was among the experts pushing for expanded vote-by-mail options. He acknowledged that making the pivot to emphasizing in-person voting might be a challenge for Democrats now.

"I don't think it was wrong to want to open up options for people to vote by mail," Pildes said. "But I think it makes it difficult to pivot now and get the message out that while you should use that option if you feel like you are at particularly significant risk health-wise, it would actually be better for the election overall if more people voted in person."

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Democrats scramble to soothe voter fears about in-person voting ahead of November election - CNN

Having an event like West Wing or Princess Bride or Parks and Rec, theres always going to be folks who might not be picking up the phone or responding to messages or wanting to be involved in the political process, but maybe now theres this new entrance for them to come in because theyre seeing these folks put on events and do these events that sort of reach outside of politics in their own way but also give people this permission structure that its okay to be involved, Shulman said.

After the success of the Aug. 18 event, which featured a live, virtual taping of The West Wing Weekly episode recap podcast and drew 6,215 listeners, Shulman said the party saw it had an opportunity to engage people in a way that is incredibly unique to the moment.

The Princess Bride event came the following month, after a DPW official, through a friend, reached out to actor Cary Elwes (Westley) to make the ask, DPW head Ben Wikler relayed in a recent Twitter thread.

Elwes said in a statement following the announcement about the script reading that Democrats ability to win the White House is only possible if we win Wisconsin.

I am thrilled to be part of this very rare reunion of my colleagues from "The Princess Bride" as a way to increase awareness and garner resources for the state that will determine the fate of America, he added.

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Wisconsin Democrats high-profile fundraisers continue Thursday with stars of Parks and Rec - Madison.com

The Republican Party retaking the House of Representatives is not a far-off fantasy, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Ca., told The Ingraham Angle host Laura Ingraham.

Under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, notmany problems have been solved, McCarthy argued, andDemocratic representation is dwindling.

Do you know that there are fewer Democrats in the House since Nancy Pelosi held the gavel? he asked. We won every special election we played in, and that was in Democrats' seats that Democrats won by more than nine points. And it happened to be in California.

MODERATE DEMOCRATS PRESSURE PELOSI, HOUSE LEADERSHIP TO MOVE NEW CORONAVIRUS BILL: 'STOP THE STUPIDITY'

The real question is, what are the results of the Democrats? he continued. They should be embarrassed of how much they have embraced the socialists. Name me one problem this Democrat majority has solved. There isn't one.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi rips a copy of President Donald Trump's speech after he delivered the State of the Union address at the US Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 4, 2020. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

McCarthy argued that Republicans have been committed to America by growing the economy and adding jobs. On the other hand, he admitted he hasnt had a substantive conversation with Pelosi in more than a year.

Yesterday, we watched world peace happen for the Middle East on the steps inside the White House, he said. You know what Nancy Pelosi did? She turned down the invitation and she held votes in the floor of the House trying to make members not go there.

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According to a Politico report, McCarthy is being pressed to oust Pelosi from her seat, but he told Ingraham that he doesnt think its the best tactic prior to the election.

I think the best move is win 218 seats, and that defeats Nancy Pelosi, he said. But you know what else it defeats? [Jerry] Nadler. Maxine Waters. Adam Schiff and the others. That is our best play right now.

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Rep. McCarthy: What has Pelosi, Democrat majority solved in the House? - Fox News

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Letter to the editor: History lesson on Republicans vs. Democrats - TribLIVE

In more than a dozen interviews with Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, most members of Congress said they stand ready and willing to take any potential Food and Drug Administration-approved coronavirus vaccine. But Democrats insist that they will need more than a promise from Trump that it will work, and argue that the President does not have credibility on the issue at a time when his administration has stumbled to contain the pandemic and has made sweeping promises about the timeline for a vaccine and treatments.

"The person I trust is Dr. Fauci," Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii told CNN. "When people need to rely on the information we are getting from institutions that are supposed to be telling us the truth, and when they have to walk back certain things that they say, that does not help. The person I trust is Dr. Fauci."

Sen. Brian Schatz, another Hawaii Democrat, said that "if Anthony Fauci says it is safe to take, I will take it. If Donald Trump just announces a vaccine, I will want to understand what scientists say."

Some Democrats went as far as to say that FDA approval may not even be enough for them to know a vaccine works.

Asked specifically whether FDA approval was enough to know a vaccine was safe and effective, Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said, "I would like to say FDA approved and CDC recommended, but given how those two agencies have gotten screwed up by President Trump, there is an asterisk by that. Unfortunately, they aren't the gold standard any longer, so you need to take a slightly closer look."

"If something was the gold standard and you damage it for political purposes, which Trump has done, it creates a harm. I think to point that out is not the problem. To do the harm is the problem," Whitehouse said.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut also said that questions about whether there was political interference from the Trump administration over the FDA were important to ask when it came to a vaccine.

"Assuming the FDA process is free of FDA interference, that is a big assumption that should be unnecessary even to state, but I have confidence that thorough clinical testing combined with objective and independent assessment by the FDA will yield a vaccine that is safe and effective," Blumenthal said.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a news conference on Tuesday that "the American people have overwhelming doubts" about the Trump administration's ability to facilitate the development and distribution of coronavirus vaccines.

"If the President had any modicum of fidelity to science, no one would have any doubts," Schumer said. "The American people have overwhelming doubts. ... We just want science to govern. No political interference one way or the other."

The way Democrats are responding to the potential release of a Covid-19 vaccine with Trump in office has become a flashpoint on the campaign trail in the run-up to the November elections.

Cal Cunningham, a Democrat running for the seat of GOP US Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, made headlines this week for saying during a debate that he would be "hesitant" to get a vaccine approved this year.

The comments came after the moderator raised the possibility that the pace of vaccine development "could mean condensing timelines from years to months," as well as "compromises and risks." Cunningham clarified to reporters after the debate that he would take a vaccine approved by the FDA.

Republicans, including Tillis, have been quick to criticize the Democratic candidate. "I think that's irresponsible," Tillis said during the debate, adding, "That statement puts lives at risk and makes it more difficult to manage the crisis."

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, have also faced scrutiny over their approach to the issue.

Biden has said that if he could get a vaccine tomorrow, he'd take it, but he has expressed concern that the President has undermined public confidence, saying earlier this month, "I'm worried if we do have a really good vaccine, people will be reluctant to take it."

Trump, meanwhile, has lashed out at Biden and Harris, saying at a Labor Day news conference that they should "immediately apologize for the reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric."

To some extent, Democrats expressing reluctance may be responding to public sentiment on the issue.

Facing one of the most critical moments in its tenure since it was founded more than 100 years ago, officials inside the FDA have said the tension is palpable. A number of sources familiar with the internal workings have told CNN the responsibility feels immense and the environment is akin to that of a pressure cooker.

For the most part, Republicans said they had confidence in taking a vaccine.

"I have confidence that the FDA will evaluate the vaccine and its safety and efficacy in a way that has provided health to me over my lifetime," said Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah.

Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, said that "after the FDA has certified a vaccine is safe and effective," he will "of course" take it.

CNN's Jasmine Wright, Kevin Liptak, Shelby Lin Erdman and Alex Rogers contributed to this report.

See the article here:

Democrats say they need to hear from scientists, not Trump, that vaccine is safe - CNN

Healthcare is still a top policy issue in recent campaign advertising in key states, even as other issues loom large on voters' minds.

The Biden campaign, Democrats' Senate campaign arm, and a drug pricing-focused political action committee have in recent days come out with new ads attacking Republicans on supporting legislation that would have eliminated protections for people with preexisting conditions and for opposing bipartisan drug-pricing legislation. The latest push comes as new polling finds healthcare is the fifth-most important issue for registered voters.

Polling conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation from Aug. 28 to Sept. 3 found surveyed registered voters ranked healthcare as the fifth-most important issue for the presidential election behind the economy, the coronavirus outbreak, criminal justice and policing and race relations.

Healthcare is much more important for Democratic voters than Republicans, as 14% of Democrats chose it as their top issue compared with 4% of Republicans.

However, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson Stewart Boss said the poll may understate the importance of healthcare issues to voters by classifying the coronavirus pandemic response and healthcare separate issues.

The Biden campaign on Wednesday announced a $65 million broadcast and digital ad buy, including two ads focused on protections for preexisting conditions that will run in the battleground states of Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Florida and Nevada.

Democrats' Senate campaign arm recently launched ads attacking vulnerable GOP Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa, Martha McSally of Arizona, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina on their healthcare records.

The DSCC blasted Tillis for receiving more contributions from pharmaceutical companies than any other senator. Tillis is also facing attacks on his drug-pricing record from Patients for Affordable Drugs Action, a political action committee focused on drug-pricing issues, announced a seven-figure ad campaign against Tillis for not throwing support behind a bipartisan drug-pricing package that has since fizzled out.

Sitting GOP senators in tough re-election races have run their own advertisements claiming to support protections for patients with preexisting conditions, including Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado, McSally, David Perdue of Georgia and Steve Daines of Montana, despite votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act that created the protections in the first place.

Shortly after the election, the Supreme Court will hear a case that could invalidate the ACA in its entirety.

President Donald Trump has recently promised an executive order on preexisting condition protections. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said on Wednesday that some sort of healthcare plan with an executive order component is supposed to be released before the election, but declined to elaborate further on a timeline.

Georgetown University health law professor and Affordable Care Act expert Katie Keith in a recent Health Affairs article pointed out that not all policies to protect preexisting conditions are equally effective, and said complete policies include protections based on issuance of coverage, rating and benefit design.

"Given broad public support, politicians of all stripes and persuasions now pledge to protect those with health issues. But protecting people with preexisting conditions is easier said than done," Keith wrote.

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Democrats persist with healthcare ads as other issues loom - Modern Healthcare