2020 Daily Trail Markers: Governors face challenges in addressing coronavirus

State budgets, testing capabilities and protests against stay-at-home orders. That’s the terrain for the nation’s governors as they deal with the coronavirus, and their own timelines to reopen their states, says CBS News political unit broadcast associate Aaron Navarro. Both New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on Monday stressed the need for funding for state and local governments. 

Murphy said at his press conference on Monday that he called President Trump about direct cash assistance, and was told that it would be in the next stimulus package. Cuomo specifically called for “hazard pay” for New York’s frontline workers, which he said would translate into a 50% bonus.  

“Thanks is nice, but recognition of their efforts and their sacrifice is appropriate,” Cuomo said. “The federal government has said from day one, ‘Don’t worry, we’re going to provide funding to the states.’ But I’m worried because I’ve heard this over and over again.”

In Maryland, Governor Larry Hogan got a huge boost in testing capabilities, announcing the state has received 500,000 testing kits from a South Korean company, LabGenomics. Hogan said Maryland First Lady Yumi Hogan has been helping facilitate the $9 million deal since the end of March. “Each part of this international collaboration was unprecedented,” Hogan said at his Monday presser. “It literally will help save the lives of thousands of Marylanders.” This comes as other governors clash with the president about testing capabilities, after Mr. Trump has put most of the responsibility on the states. “States, not the Federal Government, should be doing the Testing – But we will work with the Governors and get it done,” the president tweeted. 

While some states are starting to lay out the timeline of reopening their state, protests in several states continued to pop up over the weekend. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat whose state was the subject of a Trump “LIBERATE” tweet that seemed to support the protests, said he recently had a productive call with the president. Walz said after the chat, he believed his state’s actions were still in line with all the guidance from the White House. 

“I left that conversation Saturday night believing that we are aligned, we are getting this right,” Walz said. “I understand the frustrations, but I did express to the president, I’m not really sure that that’s helpful at this point of time. And if there’s anything he needs me to do, it would be better to just call,” Walz added. “It’s just not healthy to play it out in a public setting when there’s really not a real back-and-forth.”

FROM THE CANDIDATES

JOE BIDEN

The formal process of selecting Joe Biden’s running mate is expected to begin in the coming week, multiple people familiar with the plans tell CBS News; 2020 campaign reporter Bo Erickson reports that Biden is expected to name a team of lawyers and close advisers to serve as his vetting committee. In March Biden told “The View” that his shortlist hovered around 11 women. But sources familiar with the “pre-vetting” process told CBS News last week that serious consideration has already winnowed to a list of five to eight candidates. One of the candidates mused to be on the short list is Senator Amy Klobuchar, who joined Biden today on his campaign’s podcast. Toward the end of the episode Biden told the senator he “wouldn’t be the nominee” if she had not endorsed him and helped him win her state of Minnesota against former rival Bernie Sanders. Biden, who served in the Senate for more than three decades, also complimented Klobuchar’s bipartisan record on Capitol Hill.

PRESIDENT TRUMP

The Trump campaign made a direct appeal Sunday night to Bernie Sanders’ supporters who have seen their candidate lose out for the nomination twice now, reports CBS News political unit associate producer Eleanor Watson. After spending many months warning voters that a vote for a Democrat anywhere on the ballot is a vote for Bernie Sanders’ socialist agenda, the campaign is now welcoming Sanders’ supporters into its camp. 

“There is a significant number of Bernie Sanders supporters who liked Bernie Sanders’ populist message and his outsider message, and there is no reason in the world they can’t find a new home with President Trump because he has a lot of those same approaches – very populist message and someone who is a disrupter who will turn Washington upside its head,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said during a live stream of “War Room Weekly!” Sunday night. 

One survey found that in 2016 about 12 percent of Sanders’ primary election supporters ended up voting for Mr. Trump in the general election. This is comparable to previous election years, but because Hillary Clinton lost to Trump by a thin margin, those Bernie-Trump converts have become a focus of political strategists and journalists.

VEEPSTAKES

GRETCHEN WHITMER

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer conveyed to Vice President Mike Pence in a phone call with other governors for the Trump administration that governors wanted him to “echo” at a national level the need for people to stay at home and practice social distancing, says CBS News campaign reporter Jack Turman. “I acknowledge that we have a wonderful tradition in this country of being able to dissent, and freedom of speech and being able to demonstrate,” Whitmer said at a briefing Monday afternoon. “But we know that the stay-home orders across the country are working, and it would — my request was that at the national level, they echo that call to stay home, and he conveyed that that was something that they would do.”

BY THE NUMBERS

ON THE $$$

ActBlue, the platform used by Democrats and progressive groups for fundraising announced it had a record-breaking first quarter of 2020, raising $533 million from January through March. Compared to Q1 2018, CBS News political unit associate producer Sarah Ewall-Wice says contributions to house candidates increased 50% and contributions to senate candidates increased 100%. The platform has also been working to raise money for nonprofits helping with the coronavirus. They raised nearly $13 million for groups helping with relief. The Republican equivalent WinRed raised nearly $130 million in the first quarter, but it is important to remember their platform is less than a year old. 

PAC ATTACK

Priorities USA Action, which ranks as one of the top-spending groups in the 2020 campaign, announced Monday it planned to reserve some $64.7 million in television ads supporting Joe Biden in six states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Reportedly the super PAC favored by the former vice president’s campaign, Priorities USA says it also has already reserved some $17 million in digital ads for the fall. CBS News campaign reporter Alex Tin says the group has invested in litigation too, touting an expanded budget for court challenges to “ensure Americans can exercise their right to vote.” 

But in Wisconsin, the group is on the defense after President Trump’s campaign sued a local television station for airing an ad by Priorities USA they claimed was “defamatory” and “dangerous.” Responding to the suit last week, the group’s chairman Guy Cecil said in a statement, “We will never stop airing the facts and holding the president accountable for his actions.”

STATE-BY-STATE

FLORIDA

On a video conference call Monday, Florida Democratic Party chair Terrie Rizzo joined top Democrats in the state to call for more COVID-19 testing before the state moves to relax social distancing measures. CBS News campaign reporter LaCrai Mitchell reports that this call comes days after Governor Ron DeSantis allowed for local governments such as Duval County to reopen beaches over the weekend. “Health experts are warning that the crisis will continue to get worse before the pandemic hits its expected peak in Florida,” said Rizzo during the video call Monday. “President Donald Trump and Governor Ron DeSantis are already turning their attention to relaxing the social distancing measures that continue to be critical to limiting the spread of COVID-19.” According to the Florida Department of Health, there are nearly 26,000 positive COVID-19 cases confirmed in the state to date. More than 88% of these cases were tested in private labs. “Absent widespread accessible and accurate diagnostic and antibody testing in Florida, reopening our state and relaxing social distancing will jeopardize the health and safety of our residents, which is our paramount concern,” said Florida Senator Lori Berman on the call Monday. “If Florida fails to rise above the dangerous passions of this president’s politics and doesn’t adhere strictly to those educated, we risk a second, more deadly wave right here in our state.”

NEVADA

After appearing to cheer on calls in other states for Democratic governors to relax their stay-at-home orders, Mr. Trump declined over the weekend to wade into a similar fight over another potential swing state. “They shut one of my hotels down too,” the president said Sunday at his daily COVID-19 briefing when asked about Nevada’s Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak shuttering Las Vegas hotels and casinos. Trump’s southern Nevada property disclosed earlier this month that it had furloughed more than 500 employees following the shutdown order. “It’s a very severe step he took. I’m okay with it,” Mr. Trump added later. CBS News campaign reporter Alex Tin notes the president’s comments came as his party was aggressively criticizing Sisolak over his response to the pandemic, purchasing days-long ads to “takeover” the home pages of Nevada’s newspapers.

CONGRESSIONAL COVERAGE

CAMPAIGN MESSAGING

The topic of China is appearing more and more in ads by the Trump and Biden campaigns, and down ballot Republicans are taking the cue, reports CBS News political unit broadcast associate Aaron Navarro. Senator Martha McSally of Arizona, who is up for a tough re-election, was one of the first to call on the World Health Organization director to step down, saying they helped cover up China’s underreported COVID-19 case numbers. In Indiana’s 5th district, Republican candidate Carl Brizzi wrote in an email to supporters last week, “I am convinced the Chinese government and their allies on the left will attempt to exploit this coronavirus crisis to upturn the existing global order.” On Capitol Hill, Congressman Lance Gooden of Texas and Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee introduced a bill on Monday looking to “hold China accountable for unleashing the COVID-19 infection on our country.” “The bill would open up a set of legal tools that will enable Americans to sue and seek compensation if they have suffered harm resulting from China’s role in spreading this virus,” an op-ed by the two read. The larger anti-China rhetoric comes as hate incidents against Asian-Americans have risen amid the coronavirus outbreak. In the last month, there have been about 1,500 incidents of verbal harassment or physical assault against Asian-Americans according to a tracker by the Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council and the Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) organization. Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote executive director Christine Chen cautioned that while campaigns and politicians can criticize the Chinese government, “we have to be careful in terms of how we frame it and not imply that this is actually attached to a whole generation of people.”

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM

PARTY PLANNING

The Republican National Committee’s chair Ronna McDaniel told reporters Monday morning the committee is “full steam ahead” with planning for its in-person convention in August, reports CBS News political unit associate producer Eleanor Watson. She said she does not think the committee needs to switch to an alternative plan at this time but is monitoring circumstances and will adjust accordingly. “To be fair, we don’t build out our convention until July,” McDaniel said, “So I think we have at least until the end of June or early July to make a decision if we have to switch from a traditional convention to something scaled back, but we will have to have an in-person convention.” McDaniel said the bylaws of the RNC require an in-person convention so alternative plans would address the scale of the convention, not whether people gather. “But currently going forward, we are planning a full-scale convention,” McDaniel said.