Campaign

The Hill’s Campaign Report: Biden comes to Washington to honor John Lewis

by Julia Manchester, Max Greenwood and Jonathan Easley - 07/27/20 5:32 PM ET

Welcome to The Hill’s Campaign Report, your daily rundown on all the latest news in the 2020 presidential, Senate and House races. Did someone forward this to you? Click here to subscribe.

We’re Julia Manchester, Max Greenwood and Jonathan Easley. Here’s what we’re watching today on the campaign trail.

LEADING THE DAY:

Former Vice President Joe Biden is slated to visit Washington, D.C., to pay his respects to the late civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who is lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda. Biden’s campaign made the announcement late Sunday evening.

Lewis endorsed Biden and actively supported the former vice president in the final days of his life.

“It is my belief that we need Joe Biden now more than ever before,” Lewis said in a call with reporters when he endorsed Biden in April. “We need his voice. We need his leadership now more than ever before,” he continued. “We need someone who is going to get our country on the right side of history and help save our planet.”

Lewis died on July 17 at the age of 80 after a battle with cancer.

The civil rights icon’s hearse traveled through the streets of the district en route to the Capitol on Monday, passing through Black Lives Matter Plaza.

Members of Congress gathered in the rotunda to honor Lewis’s memory after the hearse’s arrival. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) delivered remarks remembering Lewis before members of Congress surrounded his flag-draped coffin to pay respect.

Lewis made history on Monday, becoming the first Black lawmaker to lie in state in the rotunda. Late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) also made history last year when he became the first Black lawmaker to lie in state in Statuary Hall.

Vice President Pence is expected to pay his respects to Lewis at the Capitol later on Monday. President Trump told reporters before leaving the White House for a trip to North Carolina that he would not be making his way to the Capitol on Monday.

Lewis was a key figure in the U.S. civil rights movement, working with other icons like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. He was the youngest speaker during the March on Washington, which was led by King. He survived a brutal beating by Alabama state troopers in 1965 during the 1965 march from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery that has become known as “Bloody Sunday.”

The congressman voiced support for continuing the civil rights movement in the U.S. in the final weeks of his life.

–Julia Manchester

FROM THE TRAIL:

The first presidential debate in September has been moved from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. The move came after Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins announced Monday that the school would withdraw as host of the debate, saying the burdensome health precautions required to address the coronavirus would interfere with student education. Jonathan Easley reports.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) reportedly referred to her tense debate stage exchange with Biden over busing during the 2020 campaign as “just politics.” Politico reports that Harris made the remarks during an exchange with former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Ct.), who is on Biden’s vice presidential selection committee. Julia has more.

The Biden campaign went on the air in Nevada for the first time on Monday, rolling out a new ad slamming Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and appealing to senior voters who supported Trump at the ballot box in 2016. Jonathan reports.

The Lincoln Project released a new ad attacking Trump on Monday, featuring a former Navy SEAL who claims the president is not a real conservative. The Hill’s Rebecca Klar reports.

Less than 100 days out from Election Day, President Trump and former Vice President Biden’s supporters have expressed concerns over what could be a chaotic presidential contest, marked by disenfranchised voters, administration errors and mountains of litigation. The Hill’s Reid Wilson reports.

FROM CONGRESS AND THE STATES:

Trump’s executive order to exclude undocumented immigrants from the decennial reapportionment process could potentially cost the nation’s three largest states at least one seat for each in Congress. Reid reports on the analysis from the Pew Research Center.

MONEY WATCH:

The Texas Democratic Party says it will roll out a seven-figure digital ad buy closer to Election Day in an effort to turn the Lone Star State blue. The Hill’s Marty Johnson reports that the buy will materialize as we get closer to November. “Our basic theory is that the more voters that we register, the more likely the state is to turn blue,” Abhi Rahman, director of strategic communications for the Texas Democratic Party, told The Hill in an earlier interview. “We feel like for every Republican voter that’s unregistered, there’s three or four Democrats that are unregistered.”

POLL WATCH:

HARVARD CAPS/HARRIS- PRESIDENTIAL

Biden: 55%

Trump: 45%

CBS NEWS/YOUGOV- PRESIDENTIAL

Biden: 51%

Trump: 41%

NBC NEWS/MARIST – NORTH CAROLINA PRESIDENTIAL

Biden: 51%

Trump: 44%

PERSPECTIVES:

Bernard Goldberg: Today’s protests are a preview of our progressive future.