(NEW YORK) — Nicholas, now slamming Louisiana with heavy rain, is expected to stall over the state through Friday, bringing more destruction as residents still recover from deadly Hurricane Ida.
Six to 14 inches of rain has already inundated Texas and Louisiana, with more on the way. Flash flood watches have been issued in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
Four to 10 more inches of rain is expected over the next three days from southern Louisiana through New Orleans and into the Florida Panhandle. Flooding is possible including in New Orleans.
Slow-moving Nicholas does not bode well for Louisiana, which is still recovering from devastating storms in 2020 and 2021.
The heaviest rain is forecast for southeast Louisiana, which was the area most devastated by Hurricane Ida a few weeks ago, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said.
As of Tuesday, about 87,000 customers in Louisiana were still without power from Hurricane Ida, and the power restoration effort could be set back by Nicholas, he said.
Over 1,000 Louisiana residents remain at shelters in the wake of Ida, he said.
The governor requested an emergency federal declaration, which was granted by President Joe Biden.
In a tweet Tuesday, the governor thanked Biden and the Federal Emergency Management Agency “for their help as we respond to this storm while also recovering from Hurricanes #Laura, #Delta & #Ida.”
Before heading to Louisiana, Nicholas first struck the Houston area, shuttering schools.
In the Houston area, 460,000 customers were without power at the height of the storm early Tuesday, according to CenterPoint Energy. About 300,000 customers saw their power return by Tuesday evening.
(NEW ORLEANS) — As Hurricane Ida wreaked havoc in New Orleans, it swept away a historic jazz landmark that Louis Armstrong once considered a second home.
“The message that boosting might soon be needed, if not justified by robust data and analysis, could adversely affect confidence in vaccines and undermine messaging about the value of primary vaccination,” the officials wrote, backed by other worldwide organizations.
For their part, the Biden administration has emphasized that science will lead and federal regulators will have the final say — and that their call to push out booster shots is motivated by wanting to “stay ahead” of the virus.
“You don’t want to find yourself behind playing catch up,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said when announcing the plan. “Better stay ahead of it than chasing after it.”
The Karnofsky Tailor Shop and Residence, which was built in 1913, collapsed after water pooled on its roof. According to the National Park Service, a young Armstrong worked for the family who owned the shop and loaned the future jazz legend money to buy his first cornet — a brass instrument that resembles a small trumpet.
“That is another devastating blow to the community, so much history there [that] once again, a hurricane has come in and just kind of washed away,” Kia Robinson, the director of programs and marketing at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, told ABC News.
Ida destroyed homes and businesses, knocked out power to more than 1 million residents and left at least 82 people dead. It hit Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane on Aug. 29 — almost exactly 16 years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city that is known as the birthplace of jazz.
‘Insult to injury’
Before Ida, the jazz community was already reeling from the ongoing pandemic, which has shut down music venues, canceled shows and left many in the music community without an income or a lifeline.
“New Orleans is very much so a gig town, you know, people work performance to performance, gig to gig, so a lot of our musicians don’t have a safety net,” Robinson said.
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Robin Barnes Casey, known as the Songbird of New Orleans, lost all of her bookings, and all of her international tours as a cultural ambassador to the city were canceled.
At the time, she and her husband, musician Pat Casey, who perform as the duo LoveBirds, had just become new parents to baby Riley.
“All of a sudden, everything we could do financially [to support our family] was just stopped,” Barnes Casey said.
“It was definitely mentally, emotionally an exhausting time and then also being brand new parents, we had a challenge and a blessing,” she added.
As COVID-19 vaccines became widely available this spring, some musicians were able to book some gigs again. But amid a surge in cases in Louisiana and the emergence of the delta variant, the city again had to take a step back.
Gov. John Bel Edwards reinstated the mask mandate in August, and large gatherings like the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which was scheduled to run in October, were canceled again this year.
For New Orleans saxophonist Derek Douget, Ida has added “insult to injury.”
“COVID took away all the gigs, [and] then the hurricane comes in, not only taking the gigs or prospects of gigs away, but it’s destroyed your property,” Douget told ABC News as he helped his parents deal with hurricane damage to their home.
The Jazz Foundation of America deployed teams of volunteers to assess needs and provided financial assistance to thousands of musicians — from direct payments to fulfilling need-based requests, most recently providing those who lost power during Ida with generators and fuel tanks.
“We have a long history, a long and painful one, of working with musicians in Louisiana and throughout the South during these natural disasters,””Jazz Foundation of America executive director Joseph Petrucelli told ABC News.
The Jazz Foundation of America raised over $2 million for its COVID-19 relief fund, while the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation supported more than 2,500 in the Louisiana jazz community through grants.
“During 2020 we assisted more musicians and more families across the country than we did in any year previous,” Petrucelli said. “This was because we’re dealing with such widespread deprivation and devastation and loss of work that the need was really universal.”
‘We celebrate life’
When Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, Barnes Casey was 17, and as she left her home in New Orleans amid the destruction, she found hope in music.
“Music has always been my salvation and my therapy and my happiness,” she said. “I survived mentally through Katrina because I listened to music all the time.”
This is why, despite all of the roadblocks before them, the Caseys — along with thousands of other musicians — were determined to keep the music going, despite the pandemic and despite Ida, through uplifting virtual performances.
And according to Petrucelli, many were able to raise relief funds to support the music community through their efforts. “There’s just been so much, so much goodwill and kindness,” he said.
“It was such a blessing for us, because we were able to still do what we loved, we were able to still perform and make people happy,” Barnes Casey said. “[Music] can make people mentally check out and think about the beauty of the world and forget the sorrows of the world.”
And the sorrows for the jazz community amid the pandemic have been immense. The human toll of the virus touched every corner of the jazz world as dozens of jazz musicians and producers died of COVID-19, including New Orleans jazz legend Ellis Marsalis.
For Douget, Marsalis’ death in April 2020 was particularly painful.
Douget was a member of the Ellis Marsalis Quintet for 25 years and first met Marsalis when he was 17. He considered him a mentor and a friend.
“He was a true intellectual, just intellectually curious all the way to the end of his life. Losing him was devastating,” Douget said. “He was like a father figure to me and to a lot of the musicians, particularly the ones that played in his band.”
Just last week, prominent New Orleans musician Bennie Pete, a founding member of the Hot 8 Brass Band, became the latest member of the city’s jazz community to die of COVID-19.
Even amid great loss, Barnes Casey said the resilient spirit of New Orleans and its music community continues to uplift.
“Despite that’s all going on, [New Orleans] is such a unique place, because we celebrate life so much. We even, you know, we celebrate funerals, but it’s more about celebrating the life that we’re sending off,” she said.
And in that spirit, Douget continues to teach the next generation of musicians, carrying on the legacy of greats like Marsalis who dedicated their lives to jazz education.
“They had a profound influence on my life,” Douget said. “They showed me that, of course, learning your instrument and learning the craft, all that is important, but it’s just as important to pass it along to the next generation of young people. And that’s what their lives were about. That’s what they did. And I tried to basically model my life on theirs.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday released new data from Pfizer’s submitted application to approve booster doses of its Covid-19 vaccine. In it, Pfizer demonstrates what it sees as proof that third shot will be both safe and necessary for most Americans to take, arguing that immunity wanes over time — regardless of any new variant of concern.
It comes two days ahead of a critical juncture in the COVID-19 vaccine booster approval process: Friday, the Food and Drug Administration’s independent advisory committee (VRBPAC) is set to convene to review and discuss the latest data on potential booster doses of the Pfizer vaccine. The committee will be asked to vote on whether a booster dose is safe enough for widespread use — and whether it’s necessary and effective at improving protection levels.
In mid-August, the FDA authorized boosters of Moderna and Pfizer for the roughly 7 million immunocompromised Americans who didn’t get an optimal immune response to their initial vaccine doses.
Pfizer/BioNTech, which partnered to develop the nation’s first fully approved vaccine, has said it has early data suggesting a booster dose anywhere from six to 12 months after the second dose will help maintain a high level of protection; Pfizer asked the FDA to approve booster doses of its vaccine in late August by submitting an application and data. On Wednesday morning, the FDA made that data public.
While the independent members of the VRBPAC’s votes are not binding, the agency takes its recommendations under serious advisement in deciding whether to grant vaccines new authorization or approval. If and when a recommendation does come to green light booster shots, several additional steps must follow before it’s time for more Americans to role up their sleeves a third time.
First, the FDA would need to formally amend its current vaccine approval for Pfizer; then the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory committee (ACIP) will weigh to whom, and when, expanded booster shots should begin. Then, the CDC director must formally sign off on whether to recommend the vaccine to the public, including who it will be recommended for and at what time period. It’s expected to be authorized for anyone eight months after their second dose. Authorization for Moderna and Johnson & Johnson may not be far behind.
The new data — and proximate committee vote — also come days before the Sept. 20 date set by the White House as the target to begin deploying booster shots for a wider pool of Americans.
The question of whether America’s immunity is waning has become an urgent question in recent months with the rise of the delta variant and large pockets of the country still unvaccinated.
FDA acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky — both White House appointees — endorsed President Joe Biden’s Sept. 20 plan.
However, it has been getting some pushback, with health experts criticizing the Sept. 20 boosters-for-all timeline as premature and prior to any ruling from their advisory groups.
Two top FDA officials who are leaving the agency later this year publicly waded into the booster debate on Monday, splitting from the agency and arguing in a scientific journal that it was too soon to give booster shots to the general public since the vaccines still offer strong protection against serious disease.
One of them is scheduled to attend Friday’s VRBPAC discussion.
“The message that boosting might soon be needed, if not justified by robust data and analysis, could adversely affect confidence in vaccines and undermine messaging about the value of primary vaccination,” the officials wrote, backed by other worldwide organizations.
For their part, the Biden administration has emphasized that science will lead and federal regulators will have the final say — and that their call to push out booster shots is motivated by wanting to “stay ahead” of the virus.
“You don’t want to find yourself behind playing catch up,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said when announcing the plan. “Better stay ahead of it than chasing after it.”
(NEW YORK) — As companies continue to ramp up vaccine mandates to combat the contagious delta variant, some institutions are giving employees a chance to opt-out of getting the vaccine if they have a medical exemption.
However, medical experts who have been keeping track of COVID-19 vaccines and their effectiveness, say there are very few situations and conditions which would force a patient to put off getting vaccinated.
Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News that the large and growing data on the three coronavirus vaccines shows there are no immediate health issues or side effects for most people with pre-existing medical conditions.
“Other than age, there are no major exemptions that cover large groups of people,” he told ABC News.
The current guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the two-dose mRNA vaccines and the one dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine are safe for almost all patients.
The only major contraindication to the vaccines listed by the CDC is a severe allergic reaction to the first dose. In those cases, the person is advised to consult a physician and hold off on their second dose, according to Dowdy.
“We’re not talking about some people who had pain at the site of injection or a rash, we’re talking about anaphylactic shock,” he said.
Dowdy said the data so far shows this severe allergy is rare, and less than one in 1 million people experience it.
Dr. Jeff Linder, the chief of general internal medicine and geriatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told ABC News that research so far shows that those who have a severe allergic reaction are likely triggered by polyethylene glycol (PEG), a component in the vaccines.
“An allergy to that is pretty rare,” he told ABC News. “It would have to be documented, as a moderate or severe allergy, before I would consider giving a medical exemption.”
Overall, the COVID-19 vaccines are safe for people with “moderate to severe immune compromise,” underlying conditions, pregnant women, women trying to get pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, according to the CDC.
Linder said these populations are most vulnerable to severe illness and death from the coronavirus and it is important that they get their shot.
“Anyone who says, ‘I have a medical condition,’ that is more of a reason to get vaccinated,” he said.
The CDC has some extra precautions in place for people with certain medical conditions. For example, people with a history of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT), are advised to get an mRNA vaccine if they are within 90 days of illness, the CDC said. Women over 50 are also warned about a potential risk of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) if they chose the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, according to the CDC.
The agency currently advises holding off on immediately getting the vaccine under two circumstances.
If a person is currently diagnosed with COVID-19 or under quarantine for a suspected case, they are advised from getting their shots until the quarantine period is over, according to the agency’s guidelines. If a patient is receiving monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma for COVID-19 treatment, they are advised to hold off on their vaccine appointment for 90 days, the CDC said.
Dowdy said neither scenario should stop someone from getting any of the vaccines once they’re eligible.
“People ask, ‘If I’ve gotten COVID in the past can I get the vaccine?’ The answer is yes, getting the vaccine adds additional protection,” he said.
Dr. Jay Bhatt, an internal medicine physician, an instructor at the University of Illinois School of Public Health and an ABC News contributor, added that special care should be taken for patients who are awaiting an organ transplant, recently received an organ transplant or are receiving metastatic cancer treatment. Those patients should talk with their physicians and set up a timetable for the earliest and safest time to get their shots.
“It’s less about not being vaccinated, it’s more about when they want to do it,” he said. “If they’re in the midst of treatment…you want to make sure they’re situated appropriately.”
Researchers say it’s highly unlikely that that list of medical exemptions will change in the near future. Over 178 million Americans over 12 have been fully vaccinated since December and there have been no reports so far of any adverse effects to patients who have medical conditions, according to Linder.
“The idea that we’re missing something that’s even rare or severe seems very unlikely to me,” he said.
Linder recommended that anyone who is still hesitant about getting the vaccine over a medical issue should consult their doctor and review the data that has overwhelmingly shown the vaccines are safe.
“The risk for COVID is still high,” he said. “At the end of the day, we know the COVID vaccines are highly effective at preventing hospitalization and death.”
Anyone who needs help scheduling a free vaccine appointment can go to vaccines.gov.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korea fired two ballistic missiles toward the East Sea on Wednesday, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The missiles were launched from central North Korea and soared nearly 500 miles before landing in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. It’s the second time this week that the reclusive country has test-launched missiles.
“North Korea fired two unidentified ballistic missiles off its East Coast,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea told ABC News in a statement Wednesday. “South Korea and the U.S. intelligence are analyzing for details.”
The United States Indo-Pacific Command described the North Korean missile launch as “destabilizing” but said there was no “immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies.”
“We are aware of the missile launch and are consulting closely with our allies and partners,” the command said in a statement Wednesday. “While we have assessed that this event does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies, the missile launch highlights the destabilizing impact of the DPRK’s illicit weapons program. The U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan remains ironclad.”
Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga called the launch “simply outrageous,” condemning it as a “threat to the peace and security” of the region and a clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban North Korea from engaging in any ballistic missile activities.
“We will work closely with the U.S., South Korea and other concerned nations to resolutely protect the lives of our citizens and their peaceful lives,” Suga told reporters Wednesday.
The missile launch came just two days after Pyongyang announced that it had fired a newly developed cruise missile twice over the weekend, marking the country’s first weapons test in six months. North Korean state media on Monday described the long-range missile as a “strategic weapon of great significance.”
Analysts in Seoul saw the consecutive ballistic tests as a provocation on the heels of a strongly-worded statement released last month by Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. She criticized South Korea for taking part in an annual joint military drill with the United States and warned that “a dear price will be paid.”
Nevertheless, Koh Yu-hwan, president of the Korea Institute for National Unification, a government-funded think tank in Seoul, said the recent missile tests posed “no real threat to the U.S. mainland.”
“North Korea is walking a tightrope of crossing the promise Kim Jong Un made with former [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump at the Singapore summit to refrain from firing long-range missiles or conducting nuclear experiments,” Koh told ABC News on Wednesday.
Cha Du Hyeogn, a visiting research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, an independent, non-profit think tank in Seoul, said the provocative launches were “not surprising.”
“We could see this as a low-intensity provocation in a short interval to call for the U.S. attention,” Cha told ABC News on Wednesday. “The communist state is trying to show the world that they are keen on developing a weapons system, but at the same time is being careful not to break the nuclear moratorium.”
North Korea has maintained a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests since 2017, but the country’s leader said in 2020 that he will no longer be bound by such restrictions.
Pyongyang’s latest missile launch — the fifth this year — coincided with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Seoul, where he met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and other senior officials to discuss the stalled nuclear talks with the North. When asked by reporters for comment on the ballistic test, Wang emphasized the importance of resuming dialogue and bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula.
China is North Korea’s last major ally and biggest source of aid and trade.
(WASHINGTON) — After announcing their lawsuit last week, the U.S. Department of Justice Tuesday evening filed for an immediate injunction to halt Texas’ enforcement of their restrictive law banning most abortions in the state.
“The State of Texas adopted S.B. 8 to prevent women from exercising their constitutional rights,” the DOJ says in their motion. “This attempt to shield a plainly unconstitutional law from review cannot stand. The United States seeks a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction enjoining the enforcement of S.B. 8.”
Department officials wrote that the order “is necessary to protect the constitutional rights of women in Texas and the sovereign interest of the United States in ensuring that its States respect the terms of the national compact,” adding that “it is also necessary to protect federal agencies, employees, and contractors whose lawful actions S.B. 8 purports to prohibit.”
“The United States has the authority and responsibility to ensure that Texas cannot insulate itself from judicial review for its constitutional violations and to protect the important federal interests that S.B. 8 impair,” the DOJ’s motion says.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced last week that the Justice Department had filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas, challenging its abortion law. The move set up a high-stakes legal battle after the Supreme Court allowed the law to go into effect earlier this month. Garland also said at the time that the DOJ was seeking an immediate court order preventing the enforcement of SB8 in Texas.
The lawsuit accuses Texas lawmakers of enacting the law — which bans physicians from providing abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, or as soon as six weeks into a pregnancy, and does not contain exceptions for cases of rape or incest — “in open defiance of the Constitution.”
And in a press conference, Garland said Texas Republicans are crafting a “statutory scheme” through the law “to nullify the Constitution of the United States.”
It’s unclear when the judge might rule on the DOJ’s emergency request.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 663,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.6 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 63% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Sep 15, 3:22 am
Alaska’s largest hospital begins rationing care amid COVID-19 surge
The largest hospital in Alaska is beginning to ration care as COVID-19 patients flood the facility.
“While we are doing our utmost, we are no longer able to provide the standard of care to each and every patient who needs our help,” Dr. Kristen Solana Walkinshaw, chief of staff at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday by The Anchorage Daily News. “The acuity and number of patients now exceeds our resources and our ability to staff beds with skilled caregivers, like nurses and respiratory therapists. We have been forced within our hospital to implement crisis standards of care.”
“What does this mean? In short, we are faced with a situation in which we must prioritize scarce resources and treatments to those patients who have the potential to benefit most,” she continued. “We have been required to develop and enact policies and procedures to ration medical care and treatments, including dialysis and specialized ventilatory support.”
Walkinshaw explained how what happens at Providence Alaska Medical Center and other hospitals in Alaska’s biggest city “impacts our entire state” because “many specialty cares can only be provided in Anchorage.”
“People from all around Alaska depend on Providence to provide medical care for people statewide. Unfortunately, we are unable to continue to meet this need; we no longer have the staff, the space or the beds,” she wrote. “Due to this scarcity, we are unable to provide lifesaving care to everyone who needs it. Our emergency room is overflowing; patients wait in their cars for hours to see a physician for emergency care. On a daily basis, our transfer center is unable to accept patients who sit in emergency rooms and hospitals across the state, people who need care their current facility is unable to provide. If you or your loved one need specialty care at Providence, such as a cardiologist, trauma surgeon or a neurosurgeon, we sadly may not have room now. There are no more staffed beds left.”
Walkinshaw urged people to wear face masks, even if they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and to get the vaccine if they are eligible and have not done so yet.
“We ask that you help us to open our beds again so that we may continue to care for all Alaskans,” she wrote.
Sep 14, 7:07 pm
Regeneron lands $2.94B deal with US government for more monoclonal antibodies
Regeneron has reached a $2.94 billion agreement with the federal government to supply more doses of its monoclonal antibody cocktail to treat COVID-19.
Under the new agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense, Regeneron will furnish another 1.4 million doses of the treatment by the end of January 2022.
The one-dose therapy will be made available to any member of the American public who is eligible to receive it. It currently is authorized to treat COVID-19 patients ages 12 and up who have mild to moderate symptoms and are at high risk of severe illness.
The deal comes as orders of monoclonal antibodies from states have gone up 1,200% in recent weeks during the delta surge, ABC News reported last month.
Last week, the White House outlined plans to boost the average pace of weekly shipments of the treatment by 50%, as part of a new six-part strategy to combat the delta variant.
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — California has voted not to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to a projection from ABC News based on exit polls and an analysis of votes.
With 65% of the expected vote reported so far, 66% of electors in Tuesday’s special election are against recalling the Democratic governor.
“I’m humbled and grateful to the millions and millions of Californians that exercise their fundamental right to vote, and express themselves so overwhelmingly by rejecting the division by rejecting the cynicism,” Newsom said late Tuesday night in his victory speech. “By rejecting, so much of the negativity that’s defined our politics in this country over the course of so many years.”
Californians were faced with a two-part question — if they would like to recall Newsom and who they would like to replace him with if he was recalled. Newsom needed more than 50% of voters to vote against recalling him to keep his job as the top executive of the most populous state.
Forty-six candidates were competing to replace him, and while the question is moot, nationally syndicated conservative radio host Larry Elder — the frontrunner going into the election — leads that pack with 44% of the vote currently.
In post-election remarks, Elder conceded the recall was unsuccessful.
“Let’s be gracious in defeat,” Elder said, after he was met with boos when he referenced Newsom by name. “We may have lost the battle, but we are going to win the war.”
This is the fourth time in the nation’s history that voters have had an election to recall their governor, and only one governor has been recalled in the last century. In 2003, Democratic California Gov. Gray Davis, facing extremely low approval ratings, was recalled and replaced with former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
This time, Republicans have a crowded primary field and, before nationally syndicated conservative radio host Larry Elder’s entrance into the race, the field was without a clear leader.
Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer was once thought to be the front-runner and is seen as the moderate in the race. Businessman John Cox, who was the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee in 2018, campaigned across the state with a live bear and an 8-foot ball of trash.
Reality star and Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner entered the recall field, although she spent some time out of the country in Australia, reportedly filming a celebrity edition of a reality show.
Going into the election, numbers appeared to be in the incumbent’s favor, but Newsom still recruited some of the biggest Democratic heavy-hitters to stump for him, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. President Joe Biden hit the trail with Newsom to close out his campaign in Long Beach, California, on Monday night.
“This is not hyperbole. The eyes of the nation are on California because the decision you’re about to make isn’t just going to have a huge impact on California, it’s going to reverberate around the nation, and quite frankly not a joke around the world,” Biden said Monday.
According to preliminary exit polls, 55% of voters participating in this election approved of how Newsom is handling his job as governor. In 2003, exit polls showed Davis’ approval rating at 26% — a stark difference from how the voters perceive the current governor.
Historically, gubernatorial recalls produce similar vote margins for the governor holding office as they had in their last election, according to recall expert and senior fellow at Wagner College, Joshua Spivak. Gray Davis got 47% of the vote in 2002, and 44% in 2003 when he was recalled. In Wisconsin in 2010, Scott Walker was elected with 52.2% of the vote, and defeated his recall with 53.1%.
In 2018, Newsom won the state with 61.9% of the vote to GOP nominee John Cox’s 38.1%. In 2020, Biden carried with a similar margin, 63.5% of the vote to Trump’s 34.3%.
Democratic voter registration in the Golden State largely outpaces that of both Republicans and independents, putting Newsom at an advantage. So far, Democrats are leading both groups combined when it comes to returning their ballots: Democrats have returned nearly 4.1 million compared to the 3.8 million Republican and independent ballots that have been returned, according Monday data from Political Data Inc.
Democrats have attempted to nationalize the race to increase enthusiasm, warning of lawmaking similar to that of Republican-led states.
Harris, a native of the Bay Area, rallied with Newsom on Thursday and warned of the national consequences the recall could have if it was successful, referencing the recent change in abortion laws in Texas, among other things.
“What’s happening in Texas, what’s happening in Georgia, what’s happening around our country with these policies that are about attacking women’s rights, reproductive rights, voting rights, workers rights, they think if they can win in California they can do this anywhere, but we’re gonna show them they can’t,” Harris said.
In preliminary exit polls, a plurality (31%) of voters said the pandemic was the most important issue facing the Golden State, and Newsom spent the campaign warning voters about potential policy changes surrounding the coronavirus if the recall passed. His team released an ad painting the election as “life or death,” and the governor singled out Elder’s promises that he would immediately end mask mandates and testing for state employees.
Preliminary exit polls also showed support for Newsom’s coronavirus policies. Only about 3 in 10 voters feel that mitigation measures put in place by the governor are too strict, and 7 in 10 support the state requiring students wear masks in schools Additionally, the vast majority of voters feel the pandemic is either getting better (39%) or staying the same (31%), rather than getting worse (24%).
Ahead of the election, Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, were already baselessly raising the alarm about the potential for voter fraud, based on conspiracies about the 2020 election. Trump claimed that the election was “totally rigged,” even though the state has been reliably Democratic for decades, voting against Republican presidential candidates in every election since 1992.
Elder warned of “shenanigans” last week — though he told ABC News Saturday, “So many people are going to vote to have it recalled, I’m not worried about fraud.”
Elder previously said he believed Biden won the 2020 election “fairly and squarely.” But he was encouraging his supporters to call a hotline to report issues of voter fraud for litigation purposes in the recall, saying he fears there will be integrity issues similar to those of the 2020 election — despite there being no widespread evidence of voter fraud in November.
Even before results were released, Elder had a link on his website — which has seemingly since been removed — asking visitors to sign a petition “demanding a special session of the California legislature to investigate and ameliorate the twisted results of this 2021 Recall Election of Governor Gavin Newsom.”
(LOS ANGELES) — As Californians head to the polls to decide on whether they want to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, and if so, who to replace him with, preliminary data is showing positives for the incumbent.
Just 3 in 10 California voters say Newsom’s pandemic control measures are too strict, countering a key argument in the recall drive against him. And 6 in 10 in preliminary exit poll results rate the Republican Party unfavorably — a challenge for those seeking to unseat the incumbent Democrat.
Still, other preliminary results in the recall election exit poll are less incumbent-friendly: Six in 10 voters call the cost of living in their area “unmanageable,” and the electorate divides evenly in rating the state’s economy positively or negatively, 49-48%.
Helpfully for Newsom — if it holds in later data — 54% of voters in preliminary results say he’s in touch with their concerns. More, 69%, support the state’s student mask mandate. And 63% side with Newsom in seeing vaccination as more of a public health responsibility than a personal choice.
More call the pandemic the state’s top issue than pick any of four other issues offered in the exit poll. Notably, just 24% say the pandemic is getting worse in the state; a plurality of voters, 39%, say it’s improving, with the rest saying it’s staying the same.
While economic discontent can be challenging for incumbents, it’s far from a replay of the recall of Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. Then, a vast 83% rated the state’s economy negatively; accordingly, 71% disapproved of Davis’ performance as governor, clearing the way for Arnold Schwarzenegger to take his seat.
A further difference — to the extent it holds in subsequent data — may be most crucial of all: Democrats outnumber Republicans in these preliminary results by 17 percentage points, 43-26% (with the rest independents and others.) That looks more like the electorate in Newsom’s 2018 election as governor, 46-23%, Democrat-Republican, and less like 2003, a virtually even 39-38%.
In another measure of partisan preferences, more voters see the Democratic Party favorably rather than unfavorably, by 52-43%. While an underwhelming expression of support in itself, that compares with a broadly negative view of the Republican Party, 32-63%, favorable-unfavorable.
In part reflecting those views of the parties, 55% of voters in these preliminary data say they’d be “concerned” or “scared” if Newsom were removed, dividing about evenly between those two options. Fewer, 40%, would be “excited” or “optimistic.”
Approvals
The exit poll asks Newsom’s job approval rating, a result that’s embargoed for release until after the polls close tonight at 8 p.m. Pacific time. In available data, a recent pre-election poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 53% of likely voters approved of his work in office. While only mildly positive, that’s a far cry from Davis’ approval in the 2003 recall, a dismal 27%.
For his part, President Joe Biden — who campaigned with Newsom on Monday — has a 56% approval rating in these preliminary results. Biden won the state in 2020 with 63% support, versus 34% for former President Donald Trump. In results so far, 55% say they voted for Biden a year ago, and 32% for Trump.
By contrast, 34% express a favorable opinion of Newsom’s leading challenger, Republican Larry Elder, while 49% see him unfavorably. That makes Elder less of a draw than Schwarzenegger 18 years ago; he had a 50-45% favorable-unfavorable rating.
The California recall election exit poll is being conducted with a mix of telephone interviews with early and absentee voters and in-person interviews with Election Day voters at a sample of polling places today. Results so far, as noted, are preliminary, and can change as additional data come in throughout the night.
COVID-19 pandemic
While pandemic-related attitudes may boost Newsom, so does Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. California is third-lowest nationally in per-capita weekly COVID-19 cases, tied for the second-lowest death rate and one of only three states plus the District of Columbia to have less than a high level of community transmission. Eighty-four percent of adults in the state have received at least one dose of a vaccine, ranking it in the top-10 states nationally.
That said, the pandemic is hardly the only issue facing California. Preliminarily, 31% cite it as the most important issue among five offered, compared with homelessness, 22%; the economy, 16%; wildfires, 14%; and crime, 8%.
On an additional issue not included in the top-issue list, 60% call climate change a very serious problem for the state and 19% call it somewhat serious. Just 17% don’t think it’s serious.
Voting
Eighty percent of voters in these preliminary results cast their ballot in advance of Election Day, mostly by mail rather than at a drop-off location. Majorities in the preliminary exit poll results report voting by mail across partisan lines — 85% of Democrats, 72% of independents and 62% of Republicans.
If follows that late campaigning can’t have made much of a difference: Eighty-seven percent of voters say they made their choice more than two weeks ago; indeed, 7 in 10 say they decided before August.
Latinos
Notably among groups, Hispanic/Latino voters make up a quarter of the turnout in these early results. That compares with 31% in the 2020 presidential election, but surpasses this group’s share of the electorate in previous midterms in data since 1994 and in the 2003 recall contest alike.
(NEW YORK) — The arrests of more than a dozen purported mobsters Tuesday in New York and New Jersey show “the underbelly of the crime families in New York City is alive and well,” according to the FBI.
Colombo crime family boss Andrew “Mush” Russo, underboss Benji Castellazzo and consigliere Ralph DiMatteo were among 14 purported mobsters charged Tuesday with labor racketeering, extortion and money laundering. Ten members of the Colombo crime family and one member of the Bonanno crime family were arrested, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Most of the alleged mobsters were arrested in New York and New Jersey on Tuesday, while Colombo captain Vincent Ricciardo was arrested in North Carolina. DiMatteo, 66, remains at large.
Russo and Castellazzo are allegedly long-time members of the family, at 87 and 83 years old, respectively.
The charges describe what federal prosecutors in Brooklyn called “a long-standing, ruthless pattern” of exerting control over a labor union by threatening to harm its leaders unless they selected vendors for contracts who were on the take.
The defendants also tried to force the union and its affiliated health care fund to divert more than $10,000 per month to the Colombo family, prosecutors said.
The indictment quoted Ricciardo threatening to kill someone labeled John Doe #1 if he did not comply.
In a June 21 recording, Ricciardo allegedly explained that John Doe #1 knows, “I’ll put him in the ground right in front of his wife and kids, right in front of his f—— house, you laugh all you want pal, I’m not afraid to go to jail, let me tell you something, to prove a point? I would f—— shoot him right in front of his wife and kids, call the police, f— it, let me go, how long you think I’m gonna last anyway?”
Ricciardo and his cousin had allegedly been collecting part of John Doe’s salary since 2001 before broadening extortion efforts in 2019, according to the DOJ.
The 75-year-old Ricciardo, known as Vinny Unions, is already a convicted felon and was shot in the back in November 1992 when masked men ambushed a car he was riding in on the way to a wake, according to The New York Times. One of the other people in the car was killed, and another survived after being shot eight times.
“Everything we allege in this investigation proves history does indeed repeat itself. The underbelly of the crime families in New York City is alive and well. These soldiers, consiglieres, under bosses, and bosses are obviously not students of history, and don’t seem to comprehend that we’re going to catch them,” FBI Assistant Director Michael Driscoll said in a statement.
One of those arrested, Teddy Persico Jr., was on federal supervised release from a previous racketeering conviction, authorities said.
Also arrested was purported Bonanno organized crime family soldier John Ragano, who allegedly falsified paperwork at safety training schools saying workers had completed Occupational Safety and Health Administration classes when they had not. Ragano’s schools were actually fronts for meetings of the La Cosa Nostra crime family and used to store illegal drugs and fireworks, according to the indictment.
Ragano, 59, was allegedly known by the nickname “Maniac.”
The defendants could each face up to 20 years in jail, according to the DOJ.
