Editor’s Note: This is Part Two of today’s edition of News Items. It is devoted to coverage of political news.
1. The Washington Post:
The historic inflation that hit the United States and every other advanced nation over the past three years helps explain voters’ ire. But conditions in Erie — a bellwether county that voted in turn for Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden — show how long-term developments also are to blame.
The county has fewer jobs and residents today than it did in 2001. Though the 3.9 percent unemployment rate in June was lower than the national 4.1 percent mark, that’s in part because many people have dropped out of the labor force because of age or disability. The poverty rate is higher than the national average; a larger share of people rely on government assistance, including food stamps; and job opportunities for the young are scarce.
Almost 1 in 5 Americans live in a “left behind” county like this one, according to the Economic Innovation Group, a nonpartisan research outfit. These roughly 1,000 U.S. counties grew their population and household income less than half as fast as the nation did between 2000 and 2016.
“It seems like right now the whole country is looking for a change they’re not getting,” said Joe Sinnott, a Democrat who served three terms as Erie’s mayor and now heads the county’s economic development efforts. “They’re looking for a stability they don’t have and they’re trying these different ways to get it, to get back to the stability of the Clinton years or maybe even going back to the Reagan years.”
That persistent discontent is shaping the presidential contest. By a 2-to-1 margin, voters in a CNBC poll this month trusted Trump rather than Vice President Kamala Harris to deliver prosperity; 78 percent of those surveyed called the economy “fair” or “poor.” (Sources: washingtonpost.com, cnbc.com)
2. The latest AP/NORC survey:
Vice President Kamala Harris is entering the Democratic National Convention with increased excitement from Democrats and a steady rise in her favorability ratings among Americans as a whole.
About half of U.S. adults — 48% — have a very or somewhat favorable view of Harris, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That is up from 39% at the beginning of the summer, before President Joe Biden’s poor performance in his debate against former President Donald Trump ultimately led him to drop out of the presidential race.
That's not just an improvement for Harris but also from where President Joe Biden stood before he dropped out, when 38% said they had a favorable opinion of him. It's also somewhat better than the 41% of adults who say they have a favorable opinion of Trump.
The rise in favorability for Harris comes as more Americans overall have formed an opinion about her while the Harris and Trump campaigns rush to define her nascent candidacy. The share saying they don’t know enough about her to have an opinion has halved, from 12% in June to 6% now. (Source: apnews.com)
3. The Washington Post:
Vice President Kamala Harris holds a narrow lead over former president Donald Trump in the presidential election, a notable improvement for Democrats in a contest that a little more than a month ago showed President Joe Biden and Trump in a dead heat, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll.
As Democrats gather this weekend in Chicago for their upcoming national convention, Harris stands at 49 percent to Trump’s 45 percent among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup. When third-party candidates are included in the survey, Harris is at 47 percent and Trump at 44 percent, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 5 percent. In early July, Trump stood at 43 percent, Biden at 42 percent and Kennedy at 9 percent.
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