Sketch summary from the First debate of the 2020 Presidential Election.
These were the moments that defined President Trump’s first presidential debate against Joe Biden.
Joe Biden faced a barrage of attacks from President Trump, but he fired back several times in ways that drifted outside expectations.
A full display of sketches drawn during the 2020 campaign can be viewed in Special Features.
Click for detailed images
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 27, 2020
The 2020 general election campaign has already become a slugfest—and it’s only just beginning.
March 6, 2020
President Trump on Tuesday shared a video on social media showing his opponent Joe Biden’s campaign logo on a coffin.
The video was meant to telegraph the Trump campaign’s sentiment that Biden’s campaign is dead after he said last week that black voters who can’t choose between himself and the president “ain’t black.”
It follows a weekend on insults from Trump to Biden.
Asked to talk about Biden’s strength as a competitor, Trump came up empty and added an insult about Biden’s mental acumen.
“Well, I would have said experience but he doesn’t really have experience because I don’t think he remembers what he did yesterday,” the president told Sharyl Attkisson on her show “Full Measure” before adding, “he was never known as a smart person.”
May 12, 2020
He also shared a tweet from Fox News commentator Brit Hume that appeared to mock Biden for wearing a mask in public during a visit he made to Delaware’s War Memorial Plaza on Memorial Day. Health experts have recommended the wearing of masks in public settings, though White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Tuesday said Biden didn’t need to do so since he was social distancing during the visit.
Biden has been no shrinking violet when it comes to Trump.
Team Biden in a 30-second ad on Sunday that blasted Trump for playing golf during a pandemic that has killed nearly 100,000 Americans.
The back-and-forth underscores how negative the 2020 race is likely to be.
“This is going to make 2016 seem like ice cream in the park,” said one former aide on Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. “It’s already so much nastier than even I anticipated.”
August 16, 2016
The Clinton-Trump contest was itself a battle of insults and negativity.
During that cycle, voters witnessed Trump call on Russia to hack into Clinton’s emails. He also led crowds in cheers of “lock her up.”
After the “Access Hollywood” tape of Trump talking about grabbing women by the genitals was released, Trump invited women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct to a presidential debate against Hillary Clinton.
Trump and his campaign have made it clear it will be a gloves off contest, and strategists say the fact that Trump is behind in polls is only likely to make him go more negative.
Asked about the negativity, Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign said “every election is a choice.”
“Voters may know of Joe Biden but they really don’t know much about him. When we finish defining Biden, the choice will be obvious for voters and President Trump wins again,” he said.
The Real Clear Politics national average of polls shows Biden ahead of Trump 48 percent to 43 percent.
“Trump is going to drag this into the mud because he’s losing,” said Democratic strategist Joel Payne. “Joe Biden is the more likable and more trusted candidate and the only way Trump can win is slash and burn. So it’s not surprising that this has already gotten nasty.”
Democrats — including Biden allies — say they’re preparing for an onslaught of not just cheap shots and insults but all-time-lows. (The Hill)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday March 6, 2020
March 3, 2020
Super Tuesday was not so super for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. He lost most of the states up for grabs, and it’s quite possible that he’ll end up with fewer delegates on the evening than chief rival former Vice President Joe Biden.
Sanders’ struggles reflect an inability to connect with older voters, while at the same time failing to generate large youth turnout.
We saw a very familiar age gap across the Super Tuesday states. Sanders crushed it with younger voters. Looking across all the contests with an exit poll, Sanders won an astounding 61% to Biden’s 17% among voters under 30 years old. He even beat Biden by 20 points (43% to 23%) among those between 30 years old and 44 years old.
January 20, 2016
Sanders, however, struggled mightily with older voters. Biden won by 22 points (42% to 20%) with voters 45 years old to 64 years old. With senior citizens (those 65 years and older), Sanders managed to come in third with 15% (behind Biden’s 48% and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s 19%).
Now you might be tempted to look at those numbers and see that Sanders won those under 45 years old by more than he lost those 45 years and older.
The problem for Sanders is the under 45 group make up a smaller piece of the pie. In no Super Tuesday state with an exit poll did those under 45 years old make up more than 42% of voters. Those under 45 years old were just 35% of the electorate in the median state.
The lack of younger voters in the electorate is, of course, usually the case. Those under 45 years old make up the minority of Democratic primary voters in 2016 as well. Sanders’ theory of the case, though, is his that candidacy can generate youth turnout.
A look at the results on Tuesday night suggests that he failed to do so.
The lack of strong youth turnout didn’t stop Sanders from his big win Nevada earlier this month. Unfortunately for Sanders, he did 4 points, 6 points and 7 points worse on Super Tuesday compared to Nevada among those 18-29 years old, 30-44 years old and 45-64 years old respectively. He actually did 3 points better among seniors on Super Tuesday than in Nevada, but Biden more than compensated for that by doing 19 points better with those 65 years and older.
Indeed, Biden did better in every age category on Tuesday compared to Nevada as he became the clear alternative to Sanders.
Going forward, the math is simple enough for Sanders. He’s either gotta win more votes from those voters who regularly turn out, or he’ll need to bring more young people to the polls. Failure to do so will result in a Biden nomination. (CNN)
The challenges of getting a caricature right. Below, shown using an iPad, captures the struggle I had drawing Bernie Sanders for the March 6, 2020 editorial cartoon. It’s maybe the 6th or 7th time I’ve ever drawn him, and despite he may have reached the final chapter of his political life (post Super Tuesday 2020), I think it’s my best drawing of him.
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 3, 2020
Sketch from the CBS News Democratic Party Candidates Debate, Charleston, South Carolina, February 25, 2020.
Michael Bloomberg, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer
The contests on Tuesday may be the single most important day on the primary calendar, with the potential to elevate one candidate as a decisive front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
If one Democrat — most likely Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — builds a wide lead of several hundred delegates over the rest of the field, it could become exceedingly difficult for other candidates to catch up over the remaining three months of primary elections.
But it is by no means certain that Mr. Sanders or anyone else will establish a controlling advantage on Super Tuesday, and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is hopeful that a late surge of momentum will keep the final margin close.
The vast diversity of the country and the internal divisions of the Democratic Party will be on display across a landscape of elections that covers the swollen suburbs of the Mid-Atlantic and the Sun Belt; traditional Democratic strongholds in New England and the Upper Midwest; the booming cities of the upper South and the interior West, and large rural stretches across both regions.
For any one candidate to dominate that map would be an extraordinary show of strength.
Super Tuesday 2012
It is the closest we will get, in this long campaign season, to a national day of voting in the nomination race. But the balance of influence on Super Tuesday is weighted toward the West, represented by huge states like California and Texas. Other big population centers in the country — electoral prizes like Florida, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois — are still weeks from voting.
Mr. Sanders is highly likely to come out of Super Tuesday with a lead in the delegate count. But the size of that lead is a big question mark, and so is the number of states Mr. Sanders might win outright.
July 31, 2019
There are few states out of reach for Mr. Sanders. In theory, he could win virtually everywhere on Super Tuesday, except perhaps Alabama, where moderate African-Americans who lean toward Mr. Biden make up a huge share of the primary electorate.
The Vermont senator has even been showing strength in Massachusetts, the home state of his rival, Senator Elizabeth Warren. He also has a chance of capturing Minnesota, which is now up for grabs after Senator Amy Klobuchar decided to exit the race on Monday. Mr. Sanders won the state in 2016.
February 11, 2020
The race began to take a dramatic turn on Sunday after former Mayor Pete Buttigieg dropped out, clearing the way for moderate voters to coalesce around candidates who may be better positioned to stop Mr. Sanders. The exits of both Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Klobuchar could lift Mr. Biden’s political fortunes on Tuesday, but might also benefit Ms. Warren and Michael R. Bloomberg.
Mr. Biden received the big victory in South Carolina that he was looking for, but it remains to be seen how much of a lift he will get heading into Super Tuesday. One problem: Until this past weekend, he had not campaigned in a Super Tuesday state in over a month, aside from fund-raising.
May 11, 2012
After his fourth-place finish in Iowa and his fifth-place finish in New Hampshire, Mr. Biden planted himself in Nevada and then in South Carolina — and he achieved the results he was looking for in those two states. But that came at the cost of campaigning elsewhere. He visited North Carolina, Alabama and Virginia this past weekend, and he is campaigning in Texas on Monday before heading to California.
Mr. Biden’s team is focusing on congressional districts that play to his strengths, such as those with large numbers of black voters.
Mr. Biden’s operation on the ground across the Super Tuesday states is also conspicuously thin. He has only a single office in California and four in Texas. By comparison, Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign says it has 24 offices in California and 19 in Texas.
February 6, 2008
Still, Mr. Biden has some significant advantages heading into Tuesday’s contests. He emerged triumphant from the South Carolina primary, which provided him with a burst of positive attention, and the endorsements from Ms. Klobuchar and Mr. Buttigieg offered a signal to moderate voters to embrace his candidacy. Mr. Biden already had a long roster of prominent endorsers in Super Tuesday states, which has grown even larger in recent days.
He is also relying on his status as a household name and the goodwill that remains among Democrats from his time serving as President Barack Obama’s vice president. (NYTimes)