The Hill’s Campaign Report: Candidates, lawmakers mark Juneteenth

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: JUNETEENTH 

Political candidates and lawmakers marked Juneteenth on Friday with calls to make the day, which commemorates the ending of slavery in the U.S., a national holiday. 

“Making Juneteenth a national holiday would help force that desperately needed reckoning with our past—a day to confront the legacy of slavery and white supremacy in the United States,” New York congressional candidate Jamaal Bowman wrote in The Nation. 

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate are slated to introduce legislation making it a national holiday. 

The holiday, which is recognized in all but three states, marks the day in 1865 when Union Gen. Gordon Granger announced in Galveston, Texas, that all slaves in the state were free. Texas was the last state where the Emancipation Proclamation, signed after the Civil War, was enforced. 

Juneteenth has received more attention this year amid the nationwide protests and discussions over racial injustices in the U.S. 

President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden both acknowledged the significance of the day on Friday. 

“Today, we join America in honoring Juneteenth, the day reserved for recognizing the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said in a statement. “While even today our nation continues to work towards healing from this legacy of the past, we look ahead with optimism that there is far more that unites us in America than divides us.” 

Biden marked the holiday with an op-ed on Essence.com, drawing on the protests stemming from the killing of unarmed black Americans including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. 

“Their deaths call us to come face to face not only with overt acts of violence, but with subtler realities that strike at the dignity of Black Americans every day,” Biden wrote, referencing racial disparities in housing, credit, and health care. 

“Black Americans carry this weight. But all Americans have the responsibility to act. I believe that the moral obligation of our time is to rebuild America in a way that finally delivers the full share of equality, opportunity, and dignity due to every American,” he continued. 

Juneteenth comes just one day before Trump is set to hold his first rally since the coronavirus pandemic in Tulsa, Okla. The president changed the date of the rally to fall on June 20 instead of June 19 after he received backlash for holding it on Juneteenth in Tulsa — the site of one of the most deadly incidents of anti-black violence in 1921. 

Trump warned on Friday that protesters and looters at the event would be treated harshly. 

“Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis,” Trump tweeted Friday. “It will be a much different scene!”

–Julia Manchester 

 

READ MORE: 

Christian Cooper, bird watcher who had the police called on him, endorses Biden, by: The Hill’s Tal Axelrod

Biden leads Trump by 11 points nationally: poll by: The Hill’s Marty Johnson

Jamaal Bowman calls for Juneteenth to be made a holiday by: Julia

Biden says rooting out systemic racism is ‘moral obligation of our time’ by: Julia 

FROM THE TRAIL:

Joe Biden hasn’t held a press conference in 77 days, but Democrats aren’t feeling much pressure to put their presumptive presidential nominee front and center at the moment.

Biden has, for the most part, kept a low profile throughout the coronavirus pandemic and weeks of demonstrations for racial justice across the country. Over that time, Biden has built up a healthy lead in the polls and has emerged as the heavy favorite for now to be the next president. The Hill’s Jonathan Easley and Amie Parnes report.

Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) is coming under intense scrutiny from progressives over her record as Orlando police chief a decade ago, posing a potential hurdle to her prospects of becoming Joe Biden‘s running mate. Julia reports from Orlando, along with The Hill’s Scot Wong in Washington.

Meanwhile, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has taken herself out of the running to be Biden’s running mate, saying that it is important for him in this moment to pick a woman of color.

Looking ahead to the fall debates — the Biden campaign is rejecting the Trump campaign’s sudden push for more presidential debates, saying they will not “ride the roller coaster of the ever-changing Trump campaign position on debates.” The Hill’s Zach Budryk reports.

 

PERSPECTIVES:

Ronald Brownstein: The rage unifying Boomers and Gen Z.

Erick Erickson: Break up Google.

Matt Taibbi: Why policing is broken.

 

CONGRESS & STATES:

Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat seeking to unseat Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R), is hoping his background as a pastor and civil rights activist will appeal to voters in a time of mass uncertainty and unrest over a historic pandemic, systemic racism and police brutality. Tal reports.

 

POLL WATCH:

DEMOCRACY FUND + UCLA NATIONSCAPE PROJECT – PRESIDENTIAL

Biden: 50%

Trump: 39%

SAINT ANSELM COLLEGE – NEW HAMPSHIRE PRESIDENTIAL

Biden: 49%

Trump: 42%

MARK YOUR CALENDARS:

June 23:

Kentucky primaries

New York primaries

Virginia primaries

Mississippi primary runoffs

North Carolina primary runoffs

South Carolina primary runoffs

 

June 30:

Colorado primaries

Oklahoma primaries

Utah primaries

 

July 7:

New Jersey primaries

Delaware primaries

 

July 11:

Louisiana primaries

 

July 14:

Alabama primary runoffs

Texas primary runoffs

Maine primaries

 

Aug. 4:

Arizona primaries

Kansas primaries

Michigan primaries

Missouri primaries

Washington primaries

 

Aug. 11:

Connecticut primaries

Minnesota primaries

Vermont primaries

Wisconsin primaries

Georgia primary runoffs

 

Aug. 18:

Alaska primaries

Florida primaries

Wyoming primaries

 

Aug. 17-20:

Democratic National Convention

 

Aug. 24-27:

Republican National Convention

 

Sept. 1:

Massachusetts primaries

 

Sept. 8:

New Hampshire primaries

Rhode Island primaries

 

Sept. 15:

Delaware primaries

 

Sept. 29:

First presidential debate

 

Oct. 7:

Vice presidential debate

 

Oct. 15:

Second presidential debate

 

Oct. 22:

Third presidential debate