Trump and Biden campaigns shift focus to coronavirus as pandemic surges - The Washingto... - 0 views
www.washingtonpost.com/...a-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html
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The goal is to convince Americans that they can live with the virus — that schools should reopen, professional sports should return, a vaccine is likely to arrive by the end of the year and the economy will continue to improve.
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White House officials also hope Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day, according to three people familiar with the White House’s thinking, who requested anonymity to reveal internal deliberations. Americans will “live with the virus being a threat,” in the words of one of those people, a senior administration official
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“They’re of the belief that people will get over it or if we stop highlighting it, the base will move on and the public will learn to accept 50,000 to 100,000 new cases a day,” said a former administration official in touch with the campaign.
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Some close to Trump, including a range of Republican senators and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), have encouraged him to focus on blaming China for the pandemic and to emphasize the administration’s successes in the response, including preventing a widely feared ventilator shortage and increasing the country’s testing capacity to 500,000 tests a day.
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White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews said in a statement that “President Trump’s response has marshaled the power and might of the greatest mobilization since World War II” to combat the coronavirus, and that he “will rebuild the most inclusive economy in history.”
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In a Washington Post average of polls, Biden led Trump by 11 points in June, up from an eight-point lead in May and a six- to seven-point lead between February and April.
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A Gallup poll released on Thursday found a new high of 65 percent of Americans saying that the coronavirus situation is getting worse — up from 48 percent the week before.
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A key problem is that Trump himself has resisted focusing on the pandemic as deaths have climbed, saying that no matter what he does, it will not be a “good story” for him, one senior administration official said.