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Tim Kaine says he's seen "dramatic uptick" in Dem-friendly early voting

09 October 2020
 Dan Ackermann

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said that Virginia and other states around the country have seen a "dramatic uptick" in early voting among those most likely to support Vice President Joe Biden during an Axios News Shapers event on Friday.

Why it matters: Early voting has taken on increased importance and use nationwide amid the coronavirus pandemic with as many as 80 million people expected to cast their ballots before Election Day, whether by mail or in person.

What he's saying: "When people vote early, the parties get the information about whose ballots have been returned. Obviously, they don't get information about how the ballots have been cast, but we know whose ballots have been returned," Kaine told Axios' Mike Allen.

  • "And what parties do in Virginia and elsewhere is we give everybody a score statewide as to how likely they are to be a Democratic or a Republican voter."
  • "What we've seen in Virginia and elsewhere is just a dramatic uptick in votes for people who we would think would be, frankly, on the Democratic side, and that just is a suggestion of energy."
  • "We always look at who's voting early to give us an indication of energy, and that's usually a pretty solid bit of evidence to use to make a prediction about the outcome."

The big picture: Virginia already saw a huge jump in voting by mail during its municipal elections in May. Forty-two times as many mail-in ballots were cast in that election than in 2016.

  • In 20 Virginia towns and nine cities, more than half the votes cast in the municipal election were absentee.
  • And some people waited in line for four hours on the state's first day of early voting for the general election in September.

The other side: President Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that increased mail-in voting spurred by the pandemic will lead to widespread voter fraud.

  • That has spurred consternation among some top Republicans. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has privately encouraged voting by mail and warned Trump the party could be "screwed" by his fight against mail-in voting.

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.