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The 2020 election is both very different and very familiar when it comes to the politics of global warming and the stakes of the outcome.

What's new: Democratic voters are more concerned than in prior presidential cycles, polling shows.

  • “It became one of the top priorities for the base of one of our two parties,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, a Yale analyst of public views on climate. “For the first time, there was a real climate vote in the primaries.”
  • In addition, the devastating West Coast wildfires are putting fresh focus on global warming's contribution to extreme weather as the race enters the homestretch.

Why it matters: The policy gap has never been wider.

  • Joe Biden's platform is more aggressive than Hillary Clinton's four years ago, and goes far beyond anything floated or implemented under former President Obama.
  • President Trump rejects consensus climate science and is unwinding Obama-era policies.

Yes, but: Here's the familiar part. Polling shows an extremely durable partisan divide.

  • For instance, Pew Research Center polling this year showed that 78% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said climate should be a top government priority, up from 46% in 2015.
  • "In contrast, only 21% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents said this year that climate change should be a top priority — a virtually identical share as in 2015 (19%)," they note.

The intrigue: Contrary to conventional wisdom that candidates run toward the center in the general election, Biden's platform has moved closer to what left activists want since he won the nomination.

  • This indicates that one of Biden's key priorities is motivating his base voters, not just appealing to a vanishing pool of undecideds, Leiserowitz said.
  • “He knows how important it is to mobilize and motivate young voters, Latino voters, suburban women voters — all of whom have identified climate change as one of their top priorities," he said.
  • Still, Biden's plan doesn't attack fossil fuels as much as some activists have called for. He recently emphasized in Pennsylvania, a big gas producing state, that he's not proposing a fracking ban.

What we're watching: Whether the fires and other extreme weather prompt lots of questions about climate in the upcoming debates. If so, it would be a break from past cycles.

The bottom line: Climate change is never close to the biggest political focus in presidential campaigns, and that's still true. But its profile is rising as the stakes get higher.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.