DNC Battleground Brief

This is the DNC’s Battleground Brief — a weekly wrap-up of Trump’s broken promises and everything you need to know across the path to 270. 

DEMOCRATS SLAM TRUMP AS HE TAKES AIM AT SOCIAL SECURITY. With his executive action threatening Social Security last weekend, Donald Trump openly continued his attacks on Americans’ retirement security and earned benefits. Democrats didn’t waste time telling battleground voters all about it:

The New York Times: Trump’s Push to Cut Payroll Taxes Opens a Democratic Line of Attack. “The president has given Democrats an opening to raise Social Security cuts as an issue in the final months of an election in which his support among older voters already appears to be shaky … the Democratic National Committee is planning efforts in battleground states to draw attention to the matter.”

Politico: Democrats seize on Trump’s payroll tax deferral as an attack on Social Security, Medicare. “‘One of [Trump’s] biggest broken promises was the assurance that he would defend Social Security and Medicare,’ said Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez Monday afternoon on a call with reporters. ‘We know now that that was another lie.’”

In Arizona:

  • AZ Dems: “Donald Trump’s disastrous pandemic response has been a raw deal for working families and older Americans in Arizona and across the country … Trump is cutting unemployment benefits by $200 a week and exploiting a public health crisis to gut Social Security funding — right when communities need help the most.”

In Florida: 

  • Palm Beach Post: In Florida, where Social Security is vital, Democrats blast Trump payroll tax pledge. “Florida Democrats immediately seized on the potential ramification of the pledge, which would deprive Social Security of its main funding source. ‘Amid yesterday’s train wreck of neglect, Trump still manages to needlessly imperil seniors’ Social Security and Medicare benefits,’ said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.”

  • Rep. Ted Deutch: “Donald Trump has been a disaster for our seniors. His chaotic response to the coronavirus pandemic has threatened our seniors’ lives — and now he’s using the pandemic to gut Social Security’s funding. Make no mistake: Donald Trump just unilaterally decided to cut Social Security’s funding source and, if he gets a second term, vowed to defund Social Security once and for all.”

In Georgia:

  • GA Dems: “Donald Trump has already broken promise after promise towards America’s seniors, but this betrayal might be one of the worst ones yet. More than one million Georgians depend on Social Security to make ends meet and plan for a safe retirement.”

In Michigan: 

  • MI Dems: “At a time when seniors in our state desperately need economic support and security, this president is inexplicably attacking Social Security and Medicare. We need a president who’s up to the task in confronting this virus and supporting Michiganders struggling to find their footing. Donald Trump continuously shows us he’s the opposite of that leader.”

In Nevada:

  • NV Dems: “Time and again, Donald Trump has thrown America’s seniors to the wolves, from undermining Medicare to letting the coronavirus rip through nursing homes. Now, as the coronavirus outbreak continues to hit older Nevadans hard, Trump is exploiting a public health crisis to drain funding from Social Security and leave seniors to fend for themselves.”

In New Hampshire:

In North Carolina: 

  • Rep. G.K. Butterfield:  “President Trump’s Executive Order will endanger the long-term stability of the Social Security Trust Fund. The fund was facing a revenue shortfall prior to the pandemic and now Trump’s actions will further deplete the fund.  It is foreseeable that the Social Security Trust Fund could run out of money within ten years which would reduce retirements payments by 31%.”

In Ohio:

  • OH Dems: “That makes it clear what’s at stake in 2020 — if Trump wins a second term, he will slash Medicare and Social Security. The president keeps making promises to the people of Ohio. Time and time again, he keeps breaking those promises, and everyday Ohioans — like the nearly 2.4 million Ohioans who rely on Social Security — are paying the price.”

In Virginia:

  • VA Dems: “Donald Trump’s war on our nation’s most cherished earned benefit is one where everyone loses. When he said that if re-elected, he plans to cripple the revenue for Social Security, he showed that financial security for the most vulnerable Virginians is the least of his concerns. We’re already dealing with Trump’s failed pandemic leadership; putting Social Security into doubt may be even more disastrous.”

In Wisconsin: 

“IT DID NOT HAVE TO BE THIS BAD:” BATTLEGROUND DEMOCRATS CALL OUT  TRUMP OVER DISASTROUS SCHOOL REOPENINGS. Trump and Betsy DeVos’ reckless push to reopen schools without necessary safeguards is continuing to wreak havoc across the country — and battleground Democrats are calling out their dangerous failures:

In Georgia:

  • Atlanta Journal Constitution: “State Rep. Beth Moore, who has been soliciting anonymous tips from students, parents and faculty, said Republicans have been ‘doubling down and making it worse’ … ‘The adults in the room where decisions are made aren’t taking this virus seriously — and the people who will suffer from this are our teachers, children and their families,’ said Moore, a Democrat from Peachtree Corners.”

  • Georgia Recorder: “State Democrats blamed Kemp and President Donald Trump for the schools’ troubles, saying their push to reopen businesses worsened the spread of COVID-19 in the state. ‘We know that it did not have to be this bad,’ said state Sen. Nikema Williams, who also chairs the Georgia Democratic Party. ‘Back when this pandemic started, Donald Trump and Brian Kemp were warned by public health experts and doctors that without serious action, we would lose safe, in-person schooling in the fall, but instead of reopening schools in August, Brian Kemp reopened bars and bowling alleys in May.’”

In New Hampshire: 

  • Manchester Ink Link: Uncertainty and fear: Educators Week looks a lot different than years before. “Right now, our teachers lack the leadership they deserve. Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal aid from schools that did not reopen schools … It should come as no surprise that the Sununu Administration’s school reopening plan was written by a consulting firm hired by President Trump’s U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos who does not support public education.”

  • Conway Daily Sun: Dems to host teacher-to-teacher grassroots event.“‘Chris Sununu, Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos have spent their days in office plotting new schemes to undermine public education by diverting taxpayer funds from public schools to wealthy private institutions. Now, educators are fired up and ready to kick Sununu, Trump and DeVos out of office for their flimsy school guidance that puts them, parents, and students at risk of COVID-19,’ said Ray Buckley, chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.”

HOLDING TRUMP ACCOUNTABLE. Wherever Trump and his cronies go, Democrats will be there to call out their broken promises. See for yourself:

In Arizona:

 

  • Arizona Mirror: DNC launches bilingual ads in Tucson during Pence’s visit to AZ. “The Democratic National Committee released two digital ads, one in English and one in Spanish, targeting Tucson voters during Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Arizona on Tuesday. The advertisements, which display the words, ‘This administration failed us,’ are running for a 24-hour period on the websites of the Arizona Daily Star and its sister Spanish-language publication, La Estrella de Tucsón. The ads mark the first digital bilingual advertisement the DNC is running in Arizona for the 2020 presidential race, the DNC said.”

  • KYMA: AZ Dems criticize VP Pence’s Arizona visit: “Ahead of the VP’s visit, the AZ Dems held a virtual press conference. The group called Pence’s visit a distraction from President Trump’s ‘reckless coronavirus response.’ … The National Co-Chair of the Latter-Day Saint Democrats of America, Rob Taber, says LDS does not support the president. Taber views President Trump as racially and religiously divisive, which he considers against the tenets of his faith … The party also discussed why they believe the President’s response to COVID-19 has hurt working families, communities of color, and senior citizens.”

  • KJZZ: Hundreds Of Mormons Object To ‘Latter-day Saints For Trump’ Rally. “More than 200 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have signed a letter denouncing President Trump. The letter served as a rebuttal following a rally hosted Tuesday in Mesa by a group calling themselves ‘Latter-day Saints for Trump.’ Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Arizona to speak at the event, where he touted the president as a defender of religious freedoms.”

  • Arizona Democrats on Univision Phoenix: “En una conferencia de prensa esta mañana también,  la coalición nacional de demócratas de la misma iglesia señalan la visita de Pence como imprudente y irresponsable y la forma de que Trump maneja su campaña en medio del coronavirus. Varios lideres exponen sus preocupaciones más importantes que estar visitando Arizona en estos momentos.”

In Florida:

  • Florida Politics: “U.S. Rep. Darren Soto led a chorus of Central Florida Democratic leaders Monday morning in denouncing the Trump Tour Bus stop in Kissimmee, the first of a nation-wide barnstorming tour in advance of the 2020 election … ‘Today the Trump campaign begins their Magical Mystery Tour where they pretend the coronavirus will just go away and leave voters guessing as to the President’s national testing plan, solutions to the recession and his do-nothing executive orders,’ said Soto via Zoom conference call.”

In Iowa: 

  • Des Moines Register: “‘There is substantial amount of damaged corn within miles of the state fairgrounds,’ Vilsack said in a call about three hours before Pence landed in Iowa. ‘So, the vice president ought to be focused more on the damage that was done by the storm and the damage has been done by the inappropriate reaction to the pandemic than he is celebrating this perceived support for farmers and ranchers in the state, at a time when they’re seeing bankruptcies going up, income coming down and exports evaporating.’”

  • Bloomberg: “‘It’s unfortunate, given the fact that we had a phenomenal storm that has destroyed 10 million acres of Iowa cropland, that the vice president would spend his time on a campaign event instead of touring damaged areas,’ former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, told reporters.”

In North Carolina:

  • WAVY: “‘Tonight, Donald Trump Jr. will hobnob with wealthy donors at a Manteo fundraiser, while hundreds of thousands of North Carolina residents who’ve lost their job during the pandemic wonder where their next paycheck will come from. Time and time again, Donald Trump and his allies have shown us they are utterly disconnected from the pain and suffering being felt in North Carolina and across the country, even dismissing the death toll by saying ‘it is what it is.’ We deserve so much better, and it’s why we must elect Joe Biden in November.’”

In Pennsylvania: 

  • KYW: “As the Women For Trump bus tour kicked-off in Montgomery County, the woman who represents that area — Madeleine Dean — says it’s Biden who will lift women up.”

  • Bucks County Courier-Times: “Democratic officials Monday called a bus tour in southeastern Pennsylvania for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign ‘foolish’ and a sign of ‘ongoing failures’ in his national pandemic response … Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, D-4 of Abington, and state Sen. Maria Collett, D-12, of Lower Gwynedd, said the events underscore a pattern of ignoring medical experts’ warnings against large gatherings that could spread the coronavirus.”

  • WCAU: “Several Pennsylvania lawmakers are criticizing today’s event. They say that the President’s response to COVID-19 is nothing to celebrate and his administration has done nothing but fail Pennsylvania women.”

In Wisconsin:

  • Urban Milwaukee: “Today, Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesperson Philip Shulman released the following statement in response to EPA Secretary Andrew Wheeler’s visit to Wisconsin: ‘Despite COVID-19 cases continuing to break records in Wisconsin, Trump continues to defy the guidance of public health experts by sending his cronies to our state … As a state with a proud outdoorsman tradition, Trump and Wheeler’s attacks on the environment will be met with a fierce backlash in November.’”

FIRED UP, READY TO GO: DEMOCRATIC ENERGY SURGES WITH 81 DAYS TO ELECTION DAY. While Trump continues herding his voters away from their own mail-in ballots, Democrats are surging on key field metrics, from voter registration to ballot requests to voter contacts.

The Hill: Trump, Biden tactical battle intensifies. “The Biden campaign says its quick pivot away from in-person contacts to a phone and virtual campaign, along with its relentless focus on mail voting, will push the former vice president over the top in an election defined by the coronavirus pandemic.”

  • “Democrats say this is paying off, helping them to open up a 500,000 vote-by-mail-enrollment advantage in both Florida and North Carolina. Democrats have also requested mail ballots at a far higher rate than Republicans in Pennsylvania.”

  • “‘Unlike the GOP, the Biden campaign and DNC successfully transitioned our field tactics months ago and that has allowed us to crush Republicans in key metrics, like vote by mail requests across the battlegrounds,’ the DNC’s [David] Bergstein said.”

In Arizona:

  • Arizona Republic: “Democratic registration grew 9 percent between the 2016 and 2018 primary elections. Ahead of this year’s primary, Democratic registration climbed 16 percent … The parties really separated on turnout this year, at least by mail-in balloting as tracked by the polling firm Data Orbital. Democratic turnout moved from 24 percent of registered voters in the 2016 primary to 29 percent in the 2018 primary to 38 percent this year.”

In North Carolina:

  • News & Observer: “Behind in the polls and facing a surge of people planning to vote by mail because of the pandemic, Trump claims that mail-in voting is ripe for massive fraud although there is no evidence of it, even in states that routinely conduct their elections mostly by mail.”

  • CNN: “While the NCDP is hard at work engaging voters and encouraging them to vote in the safest and most convenient way for them, the Trump campaign’s incoherent message on voting by mail is only hurting our democracy and his own party.”

In Texas: 

  • Newsweek: “As an election during a pandemic continues to unfold, Texas Democrats touted a new record Monday: Two million voter contacts this past weekend alone. Direct contact is the key to voter turnout.”

  • Houston Chronicle: “In the mail-in ballot initiative launching Monday, the party will target the five largest counties in Texas — Harris, Bexar, Tarrant, Dallas and Travis, spokesman Abhi Rahman said. In the Democratic primary runoff this May, more than 51,000 people in Harris County voted by mail, nearly twice as many as in the March primary.”

  • Fort Worth Star Telegram: “With the launch of a general election ‘Vote-by-Mail Fund’ the party aims to fully-fund its largest vote-by-mail program in its history. With August’s push, the party said it will have sent a record 1.7 million applications this cycle.”

MEANWHILE…

In Florida:

  • Palm Beach Post: Trump Voting: Florida’s Most Famous Mail-in Voter Will Do It Again: President Asks For Ballot. “For the second time as a Palm Beach County voter, President Donald Trump has requested a vote-by-mail ballot. And the president, who has just spent the past few weeks excoriating mail-in voting, has less than a week to cast it. … The next day, Trump told Fox Business Network that holding back money from the U.S. Postal Service, sought by Democrats in a relief package that is stuck in Congress, would hamper mail-in voting, which he advocates.”

TRUMP’S STILL GETTING PUMMELLED ON THE ECONOMY. From auto workers to farmers, working families are feeling the pain of Donald Trump’s economic meltdown. Take a look:

CALLING OUT INJUSTICE: DEMOCRATS RECOGNIZE BLACK WOMEN’S EQUAL PAY DAY.

  • GA Dems: “Black women are systematically underpaid and undervalued in every corner of our economy. Today, we take the time to look at that truth. Educate yourself about #BlackWomensEqualPayDay.”

  • Nevada State Assemblywoman Dina Neal: “In 2016, only two percent of Black women in Nevada voted for Trump. From the start, we knew Donald Trump would be terrible for Nevada and terrible for this country. Four years later, we have all the proof we need … This November, Black women will show up once again, working alongside Joe Biden to save this country from Trump’s devastation. We will elect a President who recognizes the value of Black women and our tireless work towards a better America.”

  • North Carolina Democratic Party African American Caucus President Felita Donnell: “On Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, all North Carolinians should stand together to recognize the work that remains to be done to eliminate the racial economic inequality that continues to plague our society. That Black women in America earn just 62 cents for every dollar a white man earns and 21 percent less than what white women earn isn’t just an economic failure, it’s a moral failure as well, and one that we must rectify together. […] Joe Biden and Kamala Harris understand the barriers Black women in this country face every day, and they’ll work tirelessly to close the pay gap and empower women of color in North Carolina and across our country.”

YOUR WEEKEND READING: NBC News: Voter registration surged during BLM protests, study finds. “TargetSmart, a Democratic political data firm, analyzed local election officials’ registration data against their voter file and found a surge of Democratic and unaffiliated voter registrations in June, amid the large Black Lives Matter protests across the country.”

  • New York Times: “In the first half of June, a month when, during an election year, voter registration normally suffers from a summer lull, more than 520,000 Democrats registered to vote. That’s a nearly 50 percent increase over the previous month’s total and a rate that outpaced Republicans in nearly every state during those two weeks.”

Make sure to follow the DNC’s War Room (@DNCWarRoom) to get real-time updates on Trump’s abuses of power and broken promises.

Happy Friday!

The DNC Comms Team