The Hill’s Campaign Report: Biden goes on offense

Welcome to The Hill’s Campaign Report, your daily rundown on all the latest news in the 2020 presidential, Senate and House races. Did someone forward this to you? Click here to subscribe.

We’re Julia Manchester, Max Greenwood and Jonathan Easley. Here’s what we’re watching today on the campaign trail:

LEADING THE DAY: 

Democratic nominee Joe Biden is going on offense with 43 days to go until the election.

Biden has built an astonishing $140 million cash advantage over President Trump for the final stretch to Nov. 3, and on Monday Biden’s campaign announced it would go up with new ads in Georgia and Iowa, two states Trump must win to have a path back to the White House.

Trump carried Iowa by 9 points in 2016, and he won Georgia by 5 points. The Hawkeye State is viewed as the more likely of the two to flip blue after going for President Obama in 2012. Georgia has not gone for the Democratic nominee since 1992.

The Biden campaign believes its cash advantage and polling strength have given it new opportunities to go on the offensive in the final weeks before the election.

As Biden eyes expansion opportunities, Trump is playing defense, campaigning across Ohio on Monday. Few election analysts viewed Ohio as a battleground when the cycle started but the Trump campaign has invested heavily there.

Trump has been playing offense too, traveling to states Hillary Clinton won in 2016, such as Minnesota, Nevada, Maine and New Hampshire.

But spending time in Ohio at this late stage says a lot about how the president’s campaign views his standing in a state that he is expected to win.

Biden was in Wisconsin on Monday hammering Trump over his response to the coronavirus. It’s Biden’s second visit to the Badger State as the Democratic nominee.

While Democrats are energized to see Biden expanding into Iowa and Georgia, most see his likeliest path to the White House as rebuilding the “blue wall” in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  

SUPREME COURT UPDATE:

Trump is expected to announce his nominee to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday or Saturday. He said on Monday he’s considering five women.

The politics are tricky for everyone.

Republicans are brushing back charges of hypocrisy after refusing to hold a hearing for Merrick Garland, who was President Obama’s pick to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016. 

Vulnerable Republican senators, including Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Susan Collins (Maine), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Martha McSally (Ariz.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), David Perdue (Ga.) and Kelly Loeffler (Ga.) will be asked about this countless times in the weeks ahead.

Their Democratic challengers will have to be careful in how aggressively they attack Trump’s female nominee after the frenzy around the confirmation process of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

For Trump and Biden, the politics are fairly easy. Still, the Democratic nominee has a few questions to answer, including whether he’ll release a list of his proposed Supreme Court nominees and whether he supports packing the courts if Republicans successfully push through a replacement for Ginsburg this year.  

POLLING ROUNDUP 

A new survey from the Boston Globe and Suffolk University shows Democrat Sara Gideon with a 5-point advantage over Sen. Susan Collins (R) in Maine, adding to the list of polls that show Collins in serious trouble. In a match-up that also included independents Max Linn and Lisa Savage, Gideon led Collins 46-41 percent, the poll showed.

Julia has more on the Maine Senate poll here.

Speaking of the Maine Senate race…Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the election handicapper at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, shifted its rating of the race in Gideon’s favor, moving it into its “lean Democratic” column from the “toss-up” column. Max has more on that move here. 

Biden holds a 2:1 advantage over Trump among young Black voters, according to a new survey from the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. The poll found Biden leading Trump 60-27 percent with Black voters under the age of 30. But there may be a silver lining for Trump. Forty-four percent of the president’s supporters ages 18-39 said they were enthusiastic about voting, while 30 percent of the young Biden supporters said the same. 

More on that here. 

HISTORY MADE 

Ginsburg will lay in repose this week at the Supreme Court before she lies in state at the U.S. Capitol in National Statuary Hall on Friday. 

This means that Ginsburg is continuing to make history after her death, becoming the first woman to lie in state in the nation’s Capitol. Thirty-four men have lain in state in the U.S. Capitol since 1852. Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks was lain in honor at the U.S. Capitol after her death in 2005. 

The last person to have lain in state was the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) in July.