The Past 24 Hours or So – Presidential Campaign News

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• On Monday, Trump Tweeted: “Sorry to inform the Do Nothing Democrats, but I am getting VERY GOOD internal Polling Numbers. Just like 2016, the @nytimes Polls are Fake! The @FoxNews Polls are a JOKE! Do you think they will apologize to me & their subscribers AGAIN when I WIN? People want LAW, ORDER & SAFETY!”

• President Trump’s reelection campaign is suing Pennsylvania’s secretary of state and 67 county election boards in an effort to change how mail-in ballots are sent and counted.

• The Atlanta Hawks basketball team announced on Monday that its home venue, the State Farm Arena, will be transformed into the “largest-ever voting precinct” in the state of Georgia later this year.

“We are proud to partner with Fulton County to give all registered Fulton County residents the ability to vote early at our home,” the team tweeted on Monday afternoon.

• In a sweeping decision that took more than three years to come out, a panel of federal judges on Monday reinstated limits on early voting and a requirement that voters be Wisconsin residents for at least a month before an election.

The three judges also banned most voters from having absentee ballots emailed or faxed to them and told a lower court to continue to tweak the system the state uses to provide voting credentials to those who have the most difficulty getting photo IDs.

A lower court judge struck down many of Wisconsin’s election laws in 2016 because he found they disproportionately affected the ability of minorities to vote. But the appeals judges concluded GOP lawmakers wrote the laws to help their party, and not specifically to discriminate against anyone based on race.

• Joe Biden said Tuesday he will not hold presidential campaign rallies during the coronavirus pandemic, an extraordinary declaration that stands in stark contrast with Donald Trump who has already held large campaign gatherings.

• A measure requiring presidential campaigns to report any attempts by foreign entities interfering in U.S. elections was stripped by Senate Republicans as a condition of passing the National Defense Authorization Act. 

• Hundreds of former members of the George W. Bush administration have formed a super PAC to support former Vice President Joe Biden, saying they are alarmed by President Trump’s conduct in office.

The group, dubbed “43 Alumni for Joe Biden,” officially launched Wednesday.

• Joe Biden has added a handful of campaign aides who worked in the White House during the Obama administration.

The campaign brought on four former staffers who worked under Obama confidant Valerie Jarrett, Axios reported Tuesday. Three of the four joined the campaign in late May as senior advisers, while the other joined the former vice president’s transition team late this month.

All four new hires are people of color, underscoring the Biden campaign’s effort to inject more diversity into its upper ranks.

• Joe Biden and the Democratic Party outraised Trump and the Republicans for the second straight month in June, announcing a record haul of $141 million hours after Trump’s campaign trumpeted his own $131 million total.

• President Trump will hold an in-person fundraiser with wealthy donors in Florida next week to raise money for his campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC), according to an invitation obtained by The Washington Post.

Tickets for the event, which is being held in Hillsboro Beach, Fla., are reportedly listed at $580,600 per couple. Trump Campaign manager Brad Parscale and RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel are among the hosts listed on the event invitation.

• President Trump’s most prominent Silicon Valley supporter, billionaire Peter Thiel, has told friends and associates that he plans to sit out this year’s presidential campaign because he thinks reelection is increasingly a long-shot.

• United States president Donald Trump’s re-election bid will pick up speed this weekend with Trump 2020 the primary sponsor of Corey LaJoie’s car for NASCAR’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

• Joe Biden said on Wednesday that his party has assembled a group of 600 lawyers and thousands of other people to prepare for possible “chicanery” ahead of November’s election.

Sources:  ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post