Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of Monday morning: 194,081.
Worldwide confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection now exceed 29 million, of which more than 6.5 million are tallied in the United States.
President Trump made a renewed pitch to woo Latino voters in Nevada on Sunday as part of a West Coast swing, criticizing former Vice President Joe Biden throughout as polling shows that he continues to trail his Democratic opponent with less than 50 days until Election Day.
Trump made a number of stops in Nevada over the weekend, including a “Latinos for Trump” event in Las Vegas as he made a pitch for the key constituency in a state his campaign continues to make a play for despite its leftward shift in past cycles. Throughout the weekend, Trump took aim at his general election opponent, deriding him as “shot” during a Saturday night rally, adding that Biden “doesn’t know what’s happening.”
“The Hispanics get it. And that’s why we’re leading with the Hispanic community. That’s because you had the lowest job numbers in the history of our country. … Every statistic was the best, and now we’re doing it again,” Trump told a jam-packed, indoor crowd of supporters in Henderson, Nev., that eschewed social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines. “Joe Biden would be a disaster for all communities, not just the Hispanic community. … He would hand your country over to the socialists.”
The Associated Press: In defiance of Nevada governor, Trump holds indoor rally.
The Hill: Trump campaign defends first all-indoor rally in months.
The Hill: Nevada governor: Trump ‘taking reckless and selfish actions’ in holding rally.
The president also tweeted that the former vice president has been “terrible to Hispanics” throughout his political career. The tweet underscored a problem the Biden campaign is facing: Lagging support among Latino voters, which the Biden campaign acknowledged on Sunday.
“We know that we have work to do,” campaign spokeswoman Symone Sanders told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday morning. “And we have said from the beginning — and Vice President Biden has been very clear about this, as has Sen. [Kamala] Harris [D-Calif.] — that we are really working to earn every single vote in this country, and we want to earn the votes of the Latino, Hispanic community.”
Sanders added that the Biden campaign is “doing the work” to earn Latino voters, pointing to Harris’s events in Florida and virtual events in Arizona last week, with Biden set to travel to the Sunshine State this week.
“We’re committed to doing the work,” she said.
A recent Quinnipiac University poll of Florida set off alarm bells among some Democrats, as it showed that Biden trails Trump among Hispanics in the key battleground state 45 percent to 43 percent. The Latino outreach firm Equis Research found that while Biden leads among Latino voters, he does so by smaller margins than Hillary Clinton did four years ago when she defeated Trump in Nevada by 5 points and won the Latino vote by 66 percent (The Hill).
However, new polls released on Sunday still show Biden with an advantage nationally. According to Fox News’s latest survey, Biden leads Trump by five points (51 percent to 46 percent) among likely voters, while a new CBS-YouGov poll shows Biden leading in Arizona by three points (47 percent to 44 percent) (The Hill).
The Associated Press: On Western swing, Trump aims to court pivotal Latino voters.
The New York Times: Trump to visit California after criticism over silence on wildfires.
The Washington Post: Trump holds Nevada rally, Biden gets $100 million boost from Michael Bloomberg in Florida.
The Washington Post: Latinos have a warning for Biden.
With just more than seven weeks until Election Day, the Trump campaign has ramped up its digital ad spending as it seeks to neutralize the former vice president’s massive advantage on the television airwaves and recent fundraising boon.
As The Hill’s Jonathan Easley reports, the Trump campaign has invested heavily in ads on Facebook and Google since the start of the year, surpassing the $170 million mark in the first week of September, compared with $90 million for Biden’s campaign. Biden was engaged in a competitive primary for the first three months of the year, with the former VP’s campaign gradually building up its investments in digital ads since July. Nevertheless, the Trump campaign still has a $40 million spending advantage in digital ads over the past two months.
Meanwhile, the Biden campaign is set to expand its presence on the airwaves with ads hitting the New Hampshire markets on Tuesday. The campaign also has massive buys set for early October in key states, including Georgia, Ohio and Texas (Medium Buying).
Amie Parnes, The Hill: Biden leans into COVID-19 to argue Trump mishandled economy.
The Hill: QAnon spreads across globe, shadowing COVID-19.
The New Yorker: How the Trump campaign’s mobile app is collecting massive amounts of voter data.
MarketWatch: Journalist Bob Woodward, appearing on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday, said Trump “failed” by not being honest with Americans about the pandemic at its early stage. The president told the author in August that “nothing more could have been done” about the coronavirus, according to Woodward. Program HERE.
The Hill: What are the consequences of voting twice in an election?
More news in politics: Republican Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio, who lost his seat in 2006 and won it back in 2010, faces a competitive race again this fall, according to polls (The Hill). … With farmers and biofuel producers in mind in the Midwest, Trump announced on Saturday via Twitter that the Environmental Protection Agency will allow higher ethanol gasoline to be sold at existing pumps (MarketWatch). … The Associated Press published a helpful interactive guide to advance voting this year in all 50 states.
The Hill roundup from the Sunday talk shows: Trump team defends coronavirus response.
