The Weekender (3/27/20)
Welcome to the Democratic Governors Association’s Friday newsletter, The Weekender.
Let’s get started.
Montana: On Wednesday, reporting revealed that the Montana GOP was behind the effort to qualify the Green Party for Montana’s 2020 elections. Establishment Republicans in Montana are so terrified that their likely nominee, Greg Gianforte, will lose in November that they’ve resorted to election fraud.
West Virginia: Three Democratic gubernatorial candidate hopefuls participated in a debate on Tuesday. The candidates discussed the state’s opioid crisis and the need for job growth, among other things. The candidates also criticized current GOP Gov. Jim Justice for his shoddy leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Editorial Boards of Missouri’s Two Largest Papers Skewer Parson for Weeks of Inaction
This past weekend, as more states across the country took drastic measures to stem the spread of coronavirus, Missouri’s two largest papers delivered scathing criticism of Gov. Mike Parson’s previous decisions to sit on his hands.
Throughout the ever-growing crisis, Parson has refused to show decisive leadership, leaving Missouri to fall dangerously behind states across the country and right next door.
Now, patience and time are running out. After both business leaders and health care advocates begged him to take action last week, the editorial boards of the Kansas City Star and St. Louis Post-Dispatch are calling him out for weeks of inaction.
Gov. Roy Cooper Receives Record Approval Rating As His Steady Leadership Calms Fears During COVID-19 Outbreak
Gov. Roy Cooper has repeatedly taken decisive action to protect North Carolina from the threat of COVID-19. In the midst of this crisis, he has gone to great lengths to provide necessary resources from increasing access to child care and elder care to petitioning the federal government to make food and health care programs more accessible to North Carolinians.
In a new Civitas Institute poll taken between March 15-17, 62% of respondents approved of the job Gov. Cooper has been doing, reflecting his steady leadership during the crisis. 94% of respondents noted they had been following the coronavirus news closely. Similarly, a recent PPP poll showed Cooper with a rising approval rating, suggesting “voters are giving him good marks for the state’s handling of the coronavirus”.
Gov. Cooper has received praise from experts and Editorial Boards across the state for his handling of the crisis.
Meanwhile, Republican gubernatorial nominee Dan Forest has been roundly criticized for questioning Gov. Cooper’s decision to take swift action against COVID-19 and then hastily back-tracking when he realized public opinion was against him. The Charlotte Observer had just one word for him: Hush.
“Job one has to be save lives. That has to be the priority.”
- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at one of his now-famous morning press briefings on the choice of whether to re-open the economy at the expense of human life.
“Once you get it ― you remember 98% of the people that get it are going to get better. And we’re going to have the flu. And then you’re going to be immune to it.”
Who said it? Send your answer to press@dga.net and we’ll reveal the answer in the next Weekender!
If you guessed GOP West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice last week, you were right! Justice told his constituents to go out to restaurants in the midst of a global pandemic.