Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Trump's Rhetoric On Mail-In Voting Resonating With Base Despite Lack Of Evidence For Fraud
President Trump is stepping up his attacks on the integrity of the election system, sowing doubts about the November vote at a time when the pandemic has upended normal balloting and as polls show former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ahead by large margins. (Haberman, Dorasaniti and Qiu, 6/24)
The U.S. Postal Service鈥檚 famous motto 鈥 鈥淣either snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers鈥 鈥 is being tested like never before, by challenges that go well beyond the weather. ... Results were delayed this week in Kentucky and New York as both states were overwhelmed by huge increases in mail ballots. (Weissert, 6/25)
A Georgia House committee voted Wednesday to prohibit election officials from mailing absentee ballot request forms to voters, as Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger did before this month鈥檚 primary election to encourage voting from home. The legislation would prevent the kind of large-scale absentee voting effort undertaken during the coronavirus pandemic, when Raffensperger聽sent absentee ballot applications to 6.9 million Georgia voters. (Niesse, 6/24)
Kentucky and New York had primaries Tuesday, but the winners of the closest races probably won鈥檛 be known until next week. What鈥檚 going on? Get used to it. Slow vote counts and delayed results are a feature of elections during the pandemic and are likely to continue into the general election in November, when many election officials say that, absent a landslide, it won鈥檛 be clear who won the presidential election for several days. (Riccardi and Ohlemacher, 6/25)
Young black and gay candidates were heading for electoral breakthroughs this week, turning the public clamor for racial justice and equality into likely primary upsets in New York, Kentucky and Virginia. Those results have revealed a resurgent left, which has pivoted from defeat in the Democratic presidential primary to a focus on down-ballot races. In safe blue seats, and in places where the party has tended to nominate moderates, a coalition of white liberals and nonwhite voters is transferring energy from the past month鈥檚 protest movements into challenges of the party鈥檚 establishment. (Weigel and Kane, 6/24)