The New York Times - USA (2020-06-25)

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALTHURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2020 N A

as well as Mr. Trump’s harsh
characterization of protesters:
Large majorities said they had a
positive overall assessment of
both the Black Lives Matter
movement and the police.
The picture of Mr. Biden that
emerges from the poll is one of a
broadly acceptable candidate
who inspires relatively few
strong feelings in either direction.
He is seen favorably by about half
of voters and unfavorably by 42
percent. Only a quarter said they
saw him very favorably, equaling
the share that sees him in very
negative terms.
Mr. Trump, by contrast, is seen
very favorably by 27 percent of
voters and very unfavorably by
50 percent.
Harry Hoyt, 72, of York County
in Southern Maine, said he has
sometimes voted for Republican
presidential candidates in the
past and cast a grudging vote for
Mrs. Clinton in 2016. He felt better
this time about his plan to vote for
Mr. Biden.
“Biden would be a better candi-
date than Trump, simply because
he’s a nice person,” Mr. Hoyt said.

“One of the most important

things to me is the character of

the man in charge of our country.”

Significantly, one group that

saw Mr. Biden as far more than

just acceptable was black voters.

Fifty-six percent of black re-

spondents in the poll said they

saw Mr. Biden very favorably, a

far more enthusiastic judgment

than from any other constituency.

The limited passion for Mr. Bi-

den among other Democratic

constituencies does not appear to

be affecting his position against

Mr. Trump. Though only 13 per-

cent of people under 30 said they

had a very favorable opinion of

the former vice president, that

group is backing Mr. Biden over

Mr. Trump by 34 percentage

points.

Nicholas Angelos, a 20-year-

old voter in Bloomington, Ind.,

who said he supported Senator

Bernie Sanders in the Democrat-

ic primaries, said he would vote

for Mr. Biden as the “lesser of two

evils.” He said he believed the for-

mer vice president would “try his

best,” in contrast to Mr. Trump,

whom he described as “an auto-

crat” and “anti-science.”

“We all have to compromise,”

said Mr. Angelos, who described

himself as very liberal. He added

of Mr. Biden, “I don’t think he’s

anything special.”

For the moment, voters also

appear unpersuaded by one of

the primary attack lines Mr.

Trump and his party have used

against Mr. Biden: the claim that,

at age 77, he is simply too old for

the presidency. Mr. Trump, 74,

has mocked Mr. Biden’s mental

acuity frequently over the last

few months and his campaign has

run television advertisements

that cast Mr. Biden as absent-

minded and inarticulate.

But whatever reservations vot-

ers may have about Mr. Biden’s

age, three in five said they dis-

agreed with the claim that he was

too old to be an effective presi-

dent. The percentage of voters

who agreed, 36 percent, exactly

matched Mr. Trump’s existing

support in the presidential race.

Lindsay Clark, 37, who lives in

the suburbs of Salt Lake City, was

among the voters who said she

would probably vote for Mr.

Trump because she was unsure

Mr. Biden was “physically and

mentally up to the task” of being

president. But Ms. Clark ex-

pressed little admiration for Mr.

Trump, whom she called unpresi-

dential.

Ms. Clark, who voted for a

third-party candidate in 2016,

said she was hard-pressed to

name something she really liked

about Mr. Trump, eventually set-

tling on the idea that he ex-

pressed himself bluntly.

“I was just trying to think if I

could think of something off the

top of my head that I was like,

‘Yes, I loved when you did that!’ ”

she said of Mr. Trump. “And I kind

of just can’t.” THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sample sizes may not add to the total because some demographic characteristics of respondents

are unknown. Based on a New York Times/Siena College poll of 1,337 registered voters from June

17 to June 22.

(n=1,337)

(88)

(100)

(150)

(85)

(89)

(156)

(305)

(320)

ALL REG. VOTERS

NONWHITE

WHITE

Voter impressions of ... Trump Biden

27% 50% 26% 27%

Very

favorable

Very

unfavorable

Very

favorable

Very

unfavorable

Age 18 to 29

Age 30 to 44

Age 45 to 64

Age 65 and older

Age 18 to 29

Age 30 to 44

Age 45 to 64

Age 65 and older

11%

15%

22%

13%

23%

17%

36%

42%

68%

61%

62%

70%

46%

58%

39%

38%

21%

29%

45%

60%

4%

20%

22%

27%

15%

14%

19%

16%

28%

22%

35%

38%

More voters feel strongly about Mr. Trump than they do

about Mr. Biden

latest, vivid preludes for the gen-
eral election: record numbers of
absentee ballots that are more la-
bor intensive to count; regula-
tions that delay the counting
process; fears about in-person
voting because of the virus; and
legal maneuvering around how
late people can vote, including al-
lowing ballots to be postmarked
all the way up to Election Day.
In November, a significant de-
lay would not just test the nation’s
resolve and patience, especially if
late-counted votes reverse the
early tally in a pivotal state, as has
often happened in statewide and
congressional contests. But a
holdup could play into the hands
of Mr. Trump, who has been on a
tear recently to undermine trust
in fairly conducted elections, such
as his baseless accusations that
mail-in ballots are somehow sys-
temically “rigged.”
While the virus is almost cer-
tain to make the November elec-
tion the most unusual since the
hanging chads of 2000, any
drawn-out or disputed vote count
could provide Mr. Trump with an
opening to fight results he did not
like and shake trust in American
democracy.
Matt Masterson, a senior advis-
er on election security for the De-
partment of Homeland Security,
said the greater number of mail-in
ballots this fall would make re-
sults take longer to tabulate than
in the past, but he was hesitant to
even use the word “delay.”
“That suggests something’s
wrong,” he said.
“The need to take a longer time
to process and count these ballots
is a sign of the process working,”
Mr. Masterson added. “It is in no
way an indication of anything ma-
licious.”
In the presidential race, the
vote margins in most places are
expected to be wide enough to al-
low media organizations, such as
The Associated Press, to project
winners of individual states even
before all the votes are tabulated.
But delays are widely expected in
at least some key states, which
could leave the country in mo-
mentary political limbo if neither
candidate has reached the 270
electoral votes required to win the
presidency.
David Scott, deputy managing
editor for The A.P., said how long it
takes to call the presidential race
in November will depend on the
closeness of the race and what-
ever rules states impose between
now and Election Day. The A.P.
will have to account for the huge
wave of mail-in votes, especially
after incorrectly declaring two
races in Georgia were headed to
runoffs this month.
In a sign of its cautious ap-
proach, the organization has not
yet declared that Representative
Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New
York, lost on Tuesday, even as he
trails his challenger, Jamaal Bow-
man, by nearly 27 percentage
points.
“I’ve been saying to anyone
who will listen that I do not think
we will know who won the presi-
dential election on Nov. 3,” said
Matthew Weil, director of the elec-
tions project at the Bipartisan Pol-
icy Center, a think tank.
Mr. Weil pointed to three states
in particular he expected to be hot
spots for slow counting trouble:
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wis-
consin. Those three states, which
were key to Mr. Trump’s victory in
2016, are seen by both the Trump
and Biden campaigns as linchpins
to the path to victory.
And all three of those states
have one rule in common: They do

not currently allow the tabulating

of mail-in ballots until the day of

the election, though election offi-

cials are pressing to relax those

restrictions.

In Pennsylvania, 2020 is also

the first presidential election in

which all voters will be allowed to

cast ballots by mail. That, com-

bined with the pandemic, drove

absentee ballot requests during

the June primary to 1.8 million —

17 times as many ballots as in

2016, according to the secretary of

state’s office. A winner in the

statewide contest for auditor was

not declared for more than a week.

“You physically have to remove

all those ballots from all those en-

velopes and scan them in. It’s a

time-consuming process,” said

Nick Custodio, a deputy city com-

missioner in Philadelphia, where

he said absentee ballot requests

soared from 5,742 in the 2016 pri-

mary to 225,231 in 2020.

Just the act of tabulating those

ballots would be further compli-

cated if there is a significant coro-

navirus outbreak in the fall — as

epidemiologists have warned

could happen — requiring social-

distancing and extensive sanita-

tion efforts.

In Michigan, local clerks and

the secretary of state, Jocelyn

Benson, a Democrat, have

pleaded with state legislators for

months to allow them to begin

processing absentee ballots be-

fore Election Day, given the ex-

pected surge of mail votes. A bill

carried by a Republican state sen-

ator who is the former secretary

of state has stalled because of op-

position from her own party.

At a hearing in Lansing on

Wednesday, Republican legisla-

tors criticized Ms. Benson for

sending all Michigan voters ab-

sentee ballot applications, echo-

ing a complaint Mr. Trump himself

has made, rather than addressing

the logistical challenges of count-

ing the vote in November.

Wisconsin had historically seen

6 percent of ballots sent by mail,

according to Reid Magney, a

spokesman for the Wisconsin

Election Commission. In the

state’s April primary, that figure

soared to 60 percent. Now the

state is readying a mailer with an

absentee ballot request form for

all 2.7 million voters who have not

already requested such a ballot

this fall.

“It’s hard to know exactly how

long it will take to process those,”

Mr. Magney said of the expected

glut of mail-in votes.

One ongoing legal battle is over

how late each state will accept bal-

lots. The most flexible states, such

as California, allow voters to post-

mark them on Election Day, which

can drag the ballot counting out

for weeks. In 2018, one California

Republican, Young Kim, traveled

to Washington and posed for the

House freshman class picture in

mid-November — only to end up

losing her race once all the votes

were counted.

On election night in 2018 after a

hard-fought Senate race in Ari-

zona, Martha McSally, the Repub-

lican candidate, had an initial lead

over Kyrsten Sinema, the Demo-

crat, but days of vote-counting ul-

timately delivered the victory to

Ms. Sinema. Along the way, Mr.

Trump lobbed charges of “elector-

al corruption” without evidence.

“Look, everything about the

way this president behaves when

it comes to voting causes me con-

cerns,” said Marc Elias, a top

Democratic elections lawyer. “I

can only imagine what he’ll be like

after Election Day.”

Bob Bauer, an attorney and sen-

ior Biden adviser who works on

the campaign’s voter protection

and election security programs,

urged Americans to vote “through

all available means” even if “some

states could take longer than usu-

al to report final official results.”

“If the people speak, they will

be heard, and there is nothing

Donald Trump can do about it,”

Mr. Bauer said.

Justin Clark, senior counsel to

the Trump campaign, cited con-

cerns with voting by mail, which

he said “leads to confusion, chaos,

and delayed results.”

Not every battleground state is

predicting a November slog.

“We fully expect to be reporting

our unofficial results on election

night, as we have in the past,” said

Karen Brinson Bell, the executive

director of the North Carolina

board of elections. Her state, un-

like some other battlegrounds, al-

lows election officials to open and

process ballots before Election

Day. State lawmakers just ex-

tended that processing period by

two weeks, she noted.

Brian Corley, the supervisor of

elections in Pasco County, one of

the quintessential swing counties

of Florida, said his state had simi-

larly expanded its period to

process mail-in ballots. But he

said exactly how long it would

take to declare a winner would de-

pend on how close the race ends

up being in a state that famously

decided the 2000 election by 537

votes after a recount and a United

States Supreme Court decision.

Mr. Corley said the 2020 wait

could be measured in days, not

hours.

“Elections are a lot like Thanks-

giving,” he said. “You’re finishing

the turkey but still have to dole out

the leftovers.”

Presidential Race Ends Nov. 3, Right? Don’t Bet on It

From Page A

Kathleen Gray contributed report-
ing from Lansing, Mich.

Primary voters on Tuesday in Kentucky, where incomplete results raised worries about November.

ERIK BRANCH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A polling station in Flatbush, Brooklyn. The Associated Press was cautious with New York results.

AMR ALFIKY/THE NEW YORK TIMES

A delay may play into

Trump’s hands and

test voters’ patience.

In Pennsylvania, 1.8 million voters requested absentee ballots.

The state will allow universal voting by mail in the fall.

MARK MAKELA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Times/Siena poll of 1,

registered voters was con-

ducted from June 17 to 22. The

margin of sampling error is

plus-or-minus three percent-

age points.

Methodology

Cameron Webb decisively won

a four-way Democratic primary in

Virginia on Tuesday, setting up a

potentially competitive race in the

state’s Fifth Congressional Dis-

trict, where the Republican in-

cumbent was recently ousted in a

drive-through convention.

If he wins in the Republican-

leaning district in November, Dr.

Webb, 37, will become the first

black physician to serve as a vot-

ing member of Congress. With 100

percent of precincts reporting late

Tuesday night, he had amassed

two-thirds of the vote.

Among the candidates he beat

out was Claire Russo, a combat

veteran who finished second in

the primary and had released a

poignant advertisement in which

she spoke candidly about her ex-

perience being sexually assaulted

by a Marine Corps superior.

“This is one of those moments

where Virginia is standing up and

speaking out, and we’re ready to

go in a different direction — one

focused on unity, inclusion and

making sure everyone has oppor-

tunities to succeed,” Dr. Webb said

in a telephone interview late Tues-

day night.

It was also not lost on Dr. Webb

that life has in recent months been

upended by a pair of crises with

which he is personally familiar: a

viral pandemic and nationwide

unrest over police brutality, sys-

temic racism and inequality.

“You can’t pick your moments,”

he said. “I’m glad to be in a spot

where I can do some good.”

Dr. Webb’s victory sets up a

general-election contest with Bob

Good, a Republican who toppled

the incumbent, Representative

Denver Riggleman, in a highly un-

usual and bitterly contested drive-

through convention this month.

Mr. Riggleman, a freshman Re-

publican, had come under a tor-

rent of criticism from conserva-

tive activists in the district after

he officiated the same-sex wed-

ding of two of his former cam-

paign volunteers.

Mr. Good, a former athletics of-

ficial at Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Liberty

University who describes himself

as a “biblical conservative,” con-

demned the move, casting it as a

betrayal of voters’ trust. He subse-

quently defeated Mr. Riggleman,

capturing about 58 percent of the

vote in a convention decided by

party delegates. Mr. Riggleman

denounced the convention as hav-

ing been weighted to favor Mr.

Good.

Democrats have long consid-

ered the Fifth District seat to be

potentially competitive and had

hoped that Mr. Good would pre-

vail against Mr. Riggleman, in

part because he has struggled to

raise funds. In addition, Mr. Good

failed to correctly file the paper-

work required to be on the No-

vember ballot, which could create

future headaches for the state Re-

publican Party as the fall nears.

The district, which runs from

the North Carolina border to the

outer reaches of the Northern Vir-

ginia suburbs, was last won by a

Democrat in 2008. President

Trump won the district by 11

points in 2016.

Dr. Webb, who grew up in Spot-

sylvania, Va., and whose wife is

also a doctor, challenged the no-

tion that the district was too red

for him to win, arguing that it was

full of residents whose views

“span the entire political spec-

trum.”

“I’m here to listen to people,” he

said. “As a doctor, that’s a skill I

use every day. You ask them

where it hurts, and they tell me.”

Black Doctor

Nears History

With Victory

In Virginia

By MATT STEVENS

Election