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As Trump continues to wreak havoc with his baseless legal battle in hopes of overturning the results of the election, Vice President Mike Pence's advisers are urging caution as they move forward. According to The New York Times, Pence's team has two issues they would like him to focus on: leading the coronavirus task force amid the raging pandemic and working with the Republican Party to help two Republican senators win the Georgia runoff so the party can remain in control of the Senate.

Although the Republican Party would much rather focus on securing the Senate, Trump's legal ploy has taken time, attention and resources from the party's key issue.

As the votes were tallied after Election Night, Pence appeared to offer a tacit endorsement of Trump's push to overturn the election. "As the votes continue to be counted, we're going to remain vigilant, as the president said," Mr. Pence told a crowd of supporters. "We're going to protect the integrity of the vote."

There have also been whispers about the possibility of Pence running for president in 2024. However, given recent reports about the possibility of Trump also entering the 2024 presidential race, a 2024 Trump run would also leave Pence hanging in the balance.

With Election Day just one week away, polls signal that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will take the Oval Office. President Donald Trump's supporters are pointing to the outcome of the 2016 election in hopes that the president will defy the odds. Democratic voters are also on edge because they, too, vividly remember the upsetting outcome of that election.

Now, the polling guru who predicted Trump's 2016 win is admitting that he, too, is betting on a Biden win. During a recent interview, Dave Wasserman, a polling expert who analyzes Congressional races polls via the non-partisan Cook Political Report, has revealed just how difficult it will be for Trump to win the upcoming election.

According to Vanity Fair columnist Mark McKinnon, the takeaway was clear: the president will need an electoral sweep to beat Biden and it does not appear that will happen.

After talking with him I came away with the sense that Trump is not just toast, but burnt toast. To use a poker metaphor: In the last election, Trump won by pulling an inside straight. This time he'll need nothing short of a royal flush—by pulling an ace from his sleeve.

Wasserman outlined the differences between this election and the 2016 election that awarded Trump his first term.

"There are a couple of important differences," Wasserman said, adding, "At the district level, the polling that we're seeing is pretty consistent; it's in line with the national polls that suggest that Donald Trump is underperforming his 2016 margins [by] anywhere from 8 to 10 points, with few exceptions."

He also noted important differences between Biden and former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Wasserman added, "There are a couple of exceptions: One is in really heavily Hispanic districts. [These] are places where Donald Trump is approaching or even exceeding his 2016 performance. But we also are seeing in really wealthy suburbs or highly white-collar, professional suburbs—even in traditionally conservative metro areas—that Joe Biden is doing 10 or more points better than Hillary Clinton did."

The poll expert also explained how Biden's polls fair differently from Clinton's polling in 2016. Wasserman compared the 2016 polls to the erratic diagrams you see on an EKG. Unlike Clinton, who rarely maintained a consistent lead over Trump, Wasserman notes that "Joe Biden has never been behind; he's had a fairly stable lead that's ebbed around the margins."

So, what's the bottom line? Wasserman believes Trump needs to "win all of the states that are really close in the polls right now: Florida, Georgia, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina." and "he's gotta break through in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Arizona to have a pathway to replicating his success in 2016."

With all that has transpired, Wasserman is convinced that will not be an easy feat for the president because Biden appears to be "doing better in Arizona than in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania."

Although Trump managed to snag the 2016 election, Wasserman believes what the American public is witnessing now is "an incumbent self-destruct."

Judge Amy Coney Barrett is being accused of lying to a top Democratic Senator in an apparent attempt to hide her ties to and awareness of an anti-LGBTQ hate group that advocates for the re-criminalization of homosexuality and sterilization of transgender people.

Judge Barrett has been paid by and given speeches to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a law firm that appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups. ADF advances its agenda by finding and litigating cases involving Christians who say they are being discriminated against for their faith by LGBTQ people, often same-sex couples.

"The head of the Alliance Defending Freedom attended the announcement of Amy Coney Barrett's #SCOTUS nomination in the Rose Garden," former US Senator Al Franken tweeted Wednesday.

He posted a devastating video (below) of him questioning Barrett in her 2017 judicial confirmation hearing. The video then cuts to this week's confirmation hearing, with Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) asking her about the Alliance Defending Freedom.

"Were you aware of ADF's decades-long efforts to re-criminalize homosexuality?" Leahy asked Barrett on Tuesday.

"I am not aware of those efforts, no," Barrett firmly responded.

Amy Coney Barrett Lying About Her Knowledge of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)youtu.be

Franken adds, "I questioned her about this in 2017. She spoke to them 5 times, took money from them, and is very, very, very aware of what they do."

Norman Orenstein, a top political scientist and a resident scholar at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), says Barrett "lied."

Wilbur Ross, secretary of commerce in the Trump Administration, recently ordered the U.S. Census Bureau to end its field operations for the 2020 U.S. Census on October 5. But U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, in San José, California, had issued a preliminary injunction ordering the Census count to continue until the end of October. And according to Bloomberg News reporter Joel Rosenblatt, Koh has "initiated contempt of court proceedings" against Ross for violating her injunction.

Rosenblatt reports that Koh "said, during a hearing Tuesday, that Monday's announcement that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross is targeting October 5 to wrap up the once-a-decade population count 'is doing exactly' what she ordered the agency not to do last week. The judge said the proceeding could be identified by a more formal name but made clear she believes Ross violated the order."

According to Rosenblatt, "Ross' Monday announcement took Koh by surprise. It came days after she ordered Census data collection operations to continue through October 31 to get an accurate population count."

Axios Reporter Rebecca Falconer notes, "Koh's injunction suspended the Census Bureau's deadline for ending the once-in-a-decade count on September 30, reimposing an older Census Bureau proposal to end operations on Oct. 31."

Koh set a Friday, October 2 date for a hearing on possible contempt charges for Ross. The judge said, "You don't have to call it contempt. You can call it something else."

Democrats have been stressing that the 2020 U.S. Census count needs to be as thorough and as accurate as possible because it affects the number of seats that states will have in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Alison Gash, University of Oregon; Alexander Cohen, Clarkson University, and Rashawn Ray, University of Maryland

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden took part in a presidential debate Sept. 29 that exemplified the lack of civility in American politics. The president frequently interrupted and spoke over his challenger, Biden told Trump to “shut up," and few issues were discussed in enough depth to provide much information to undecided voters. We asked three scholars to discuss themes brought up by moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News, who struggled throughout the debate to keep control.

The Supreme Court

Alison Gash, University of Oregon

Wallace opened with a question on the minds of many voters: Who should fill the vacancy left by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death?

Democrats viewed Ginsburg as the last line of defense for abortion rights, voting rights, the Affordable Care Act and other traditionally liberal policies. Trump has nominated conservative jurist and scholar Amy Coney Barrett to fill Ginsburg's seat on the bench.

Trump has already exerted a significant influence over the federal bench. He has appointed more federal appellate judges than any president since Carter. If Barrett is appointed, he will have filled more Supreme Court vacancies than any president since Ronald Reagan and will have shaped the court in ways that could last generations.

Biden all but conceded the appointment as a lost cause, pivoting to one of the few areas where a Biden win could conceivably limit the conservative influence of the Roberts Court — by stalling potential litigation over the Affordable Care Act. The Trump administration has publicly and actively supported litigation to overturn the ACA. Judge Barrett, Biden reminded viewers, believes the ACA is unconstitutional. Even with Ginsburg on the bench, the ACA enjoyed only fragile court support. Biden intimated that continued litigation in an even more conservative Supreme Court could limit health care coverage for millions of Americans.

Biden mentioned Roe v. Wade — and Barrett's likely opposition — only as an afterthought. In response, Trump stated cryptically, “There's nothing happening there. And you don't know her view on Roe v. Wade."

On the whole, the debate did little to resolve questions about the future of the court — other than to shore up Supreme Court nominations as political bombs with volatile consequences.

Racism, Policing and Black Lives Matter Protests

Rashawn Ray, University of Maryland

“Why should voters trust you … to deal with the race issue facing this country?"

Wallace asked a straightforward question about the troubling state of race relations in America, but the two candidates answered it in very different ways. Biden highlighted the “systemic injustice in this country, in education, in work, and in law enforcement" that required an approach grounded in equity, equality, decency and the Constitution.

Trump pivoted quickly to “law and order" and brought up the Biden co-sponsored 1994 Crime Bill – legislation that has long been criticized for contributing to the disproportionate mass incarceration of Black Americans. But recent Trump advertisements have tried to suggest that violence will increase under a Biden presidency – paradoxically showing images of unrest under the current Trump administration. Trump seemingly wanted to attack this “tough on crime" Biden of the 1990s while simultaneously portraying his rival as being in league with what the president would like voters to believe is an unruly and violent left.

The reality is different. Despite over 90% of Black Lives Matter protests being nonviolent, much of the media's focus has been on the less than 10% of demonstrations that have turned violent. This debate did nothing to dispel that false narrative.

In fact, some of the violence of recent months has been committed by right-wing extremists. But when asked directly to condemn white supremacy, Trump hesitated and seemed to be searching for words. Instead, he sent a shoutout to the Proud Boys – a group deemed to be a hate organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Trump said, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left."

“He's the racist," said Biden during their exchanges.

Meanwhile, on policing policy, Biden proposed a 21st-century redo to bring various stakeholders to the table.

But eerily for Republicans and Democrats – and not at all in keeping with the debate itself – Trump and Biden seem to espouse similar views about the defunding police movement.

“I am totally opposed to defunding the police. They need more assistance," said Biden during the debate. Earlier Trump had stated, “There won't be dismantling of our police, and there's not going to be any disbanding of our police."

The integrity of the election

Alexander Cohen, Clarkson University

When asked about the integrity of mail-in ballots, Biden and Trump offered different answers. Biden projected faith in the mail-in system. Unsurprisingly, Trump continued to assault the integrity of an election using mail-in ballots. This echoes his mantra in 2016, when he argued that the popular vote count was incorrect and fraudulent – a notion that was widely debunked.

Likewise, the assertion that mail-in voting leads to voter fraud has been widely challenged. Most studies suggest that voting by mail does not benefit one party over the other and that voting by mail is not prone to manipulation.

However, such studies on voting by mail tend to examine scenarios where state and local governments were well prepared for ballot distribution. The increased demand for mail-in voting brought on by COVID-19 is creating at least some confusion among voters. It is plausible that not all states are ready to handle the flood of mail-in votes. This could complicate the voting process and prolong vote counts in some states.

Such delays could be incredibly significant. The last time a key state struggled to tally votes was 2000. Then, the Supreme Court intervened to halt a recount in Florida, handing the victory to Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore in a close presidential race.

If disputes over mail-in ballots linger beyond Election Day, the Supreme Court may again intervene. If President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is quickly confirmed, conservatives will enjoy a 6-3 majority on the Court. Three of these justices will have been appointed by Trump.

Trump has laid the groundwork for disputing the results of any close election. If neither candidate wins decisively, the nation should brace itself for a lengthy, and divisive, struggle.

Such a struggle could be dangerous to American democracy because it may undermine fundamental faith in the electoral process. While rule of law generally prevails when close elections are disputed, it does appear that the United States could be headed toward uncharted territory.

What question were you hoping to hear tonight that was left out in the midst of this chaotic debate?

Cohen: I would have liked to ask: “Do you think that there are consequences for the decreasing civility in American politics, as demonstrated in this debate?"

Gash: I would like to have seen a question about the role of the court in preserving checks and balances. This is, what I think, Wallace was trying to get at in his question about court-packing. But the question fell flat.

Ray: Black people are disproportionately more likely to experience police use of force, even when they are unarmed and not attacking. How do we reduce racial disparities in use of force – as with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor – and improve relations between Black communities and law enforcement?

Alison Gash, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Oregon; Alexander Cohen, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clarkson University, and Rashawn Ray, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Among the stream of authoritarian remarks President Donald Trump let loose during his disastrous performance at Tuesday night's presidential debate, one of the most alarming to voting rights advocates came at the tail-end of the 90-minute event, when the incumbent openly encouraged his supporters to "go into the polls and watch very carefully."

Though poll watching is authorized in states across the U.S., the activity is restricted by specific rules and guidelines aimed at preventing a candidate's backers from showing up at polling places and intimidating voters attempting to cast their ballots. The president's comments Tuesday night, observers warned, went well beyond a call for legally sanctioned and qualified election observers.

"He wasn't talking about poll watching. He was talking about voter intimidation," tweeted Nevada's Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford. "FYI—voter intimidation is illegal in Nevada. Believe me when I say it: You do it, and you will be prosecuted."

Asked by debate moderator Chris Wallace whether he would pledge to "not declare victory until the election has been independently certified," Trump ignored the question and repeated a lie he first spread on social media ahead of Tuesday night's event.

"As you know, today there was a big problem," the president said. "In Philadelphia, they went in to watch. They're called poll watchers, a very safe, very nice thing. They were thrown out. They weren't allowed to watch. You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia. Bad things. And I am urging my people—I hope it's going to be a fair election."

But as the Philadelphia Inquirerpointed out, "there were several reasons why elections staff did not allow members of the public to arbitrarily enter their offices."

"The Trump campaign has no poll watchers approved to work in Philadelphia at the moment," the Inquirer noted. "There are no actual polling places open in the city right now. And elections officials are following coronavirus safety regulations, such as those limiting the number of people indoors."

"Trump is brazenly demanding voter intimidation from his supporters," tweeted Sean Eldridge, founder and president of advocacy group Stand Up America.

In a joint statement following the debate, during which the president also repeated a number of falsehoods about mail-in voting, Eldridge and Indivisible co-executive director Leah Greenberg said that "the confusion and doubt that Donald Trump tried to sow about the election tonight is the behavior of a desperate man and a losing candidate."

"We are building a broad network of people who are working to make sure every vote is counted and preparing to mobilize if Trump attempts to undermine the valid results. The voters will have the last word," said Eldridge and Greenberg. "While we work to resoundingly defeat Donald Trump in this election, preparing to also protect the results of this election isn't just reasonable, it's necessary."

The Inquirer reported that on Tuesday afternoon, as early voting began in Pennsylvania, "a woman approached the supervisor at the entrance of the satellite office at Overbrook Elementary School" claiming that "she was there to monitor 'the integrity of the election'" and asking to be allowed inside the building.

"The woman did not present any sort of certificate of being an official poll watcher, but calmly stated that she had a right to be inside," according to the outlet. "The woman told the Inquirer she was 'hired by the Trump campaign to oversee the integrity of the election.' She said she was paid to monitor the West Philadelphia site. She would not provide her name or any further information, and she left the area shortly afterward."

On the second day of early voting in Virginia on September 19, Trump supporters heeded the campaign's repeated calls to show up at polling places en masse, offering a potential preview of the chaos the president is attempting to provoke across the country. As the New York Timesreported, a crowd of Trump supporters gathered near a polling location in Fairfax and formed "a line that voters had to walk around outside the site."

"County election officials eventually were forced to open up a larger portion of the Fairfax County Government Center to allow voters to wait inside away from the Trump enthusiasts," the Times noted.

Bryan Graham, the chairman of the Fairfax County Democrats, tweeted at the time that "Republicans are straight-up attempting to intimidate voters at the Government Center. Circling the parking lots with their Trump flags and horns blaring."