ANXIETY MOUNTS WITH RACE AT A BITTER END
1
U(DF463D)X+[!,!?!$!" ANXIETY MOUNTS WITH RACE AT A BITTER END CLEVELAND Joseph R. Biden Jr. focusing on Ohio on Monday. ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES PITTSBURGH Mr. Biden hopes to flip Pennsylvania this year. ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. President Trump in the battleground state. DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES TRAVERSE CITY, MICH. The president aims to hold Michigan. DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES adopt statewide. And everywhere, in a year that has seen record levels of early vot- ing and a huge surge in use of vot- ing by mail, Republicans are gear- ing up to challenge ballots with missing signatures or unclear postmarks. In his last days of campaigning, Mr. Trump has essentially admit- ted that he does not expect to win without going to court. “As soon as that election is over,” he told re- porters over the weekend, “we’re going in with our lawyers.” Trailing consistently in the polls, Mr. Trump in that moment said out loud what other Republi- cans have preferred to say quietly, which is that his best chance of holding onto power at this point may rest in a scorched-earth cam- paign to disqualify as many votes as possible for his Democratic op- ponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr. If there is a clear-cut outcome on Tuesday night that could not plausibly be challenged via legal action, all of the planning on both sides could become moot. But if there is no decisive result, the fol- lowing days would likely see an in- tensifying multifront battle fought in a variety of states. After months of claiming that any election outcome other than a victory for him would have to have been “rigged,” the president used his final days on the campaign trail to cast doubt on the very process of tabulating the count, suggesting without any evidence that any votes counted after Tues- day, no matter how legal, must be suspect. Both sides expect Mr. Trump and his allies to try again to dis- qualify late-arriving ballots in the emerging center of the legal fight, Pennsylvania, after the state’s high court rejected a previous at- tempt and the Supreme Court re- With the election coming to a close, the Trump and Biden cam- paigns, voting rights organiza- tions and conservative groups are raising money and dispatching ar- mies of lawyers for what could be- come a state-by-state, county-by- county legal battle over which bal- lots will ultimately be counted. The deployments — involving hundreds of lawyers on both sides — go well beyond what has be- come normal since the disputed outcome in 2000, and are the re- sult of the open efforts of Presi- dent Trump and the Republicans to disqualify votes on technicali- ties and baseless charges of fraud at the end of a campaign in which the voting system has been se- verely tested by the pandemic. In the most aggressive moves to knock out registered votes in modern memory, Republicans have already sought to nullify bal- lots before they are counted in several states that could tip the balance of the Electoral College. In an early test of one effort, a federal judge in Texas on Monday ruled against local Republicans who wanted to compel state offi- cials to throw out more than 127,000 ballots cast at newly creat- ed drive-through polling places in the Houston area. The ruling, which Republicans said they would appeal, came after a state court also ruled against them. In key counties in Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Re- publicans are seeking, with mixed results so far, to force election board offices to give their election observers more open access so they can more effectively chal- lenge absentee ballots as they are processed, a tactic Republicans in North Carolina are seeking to As Americans Surge to Polls, Trump Contests Some Ballots, Setting Up Fight Over Which Ones Count This article is by Jim Rutenberg, Michael S. Schmidt, Nick Corasani- ti and Peter Baker. Continued on Page A22 GENEVA — On a cold weekend in mid-February, when the world still harbored false hope that the new coronavirus could be con- tained, a World Health Organiza- tion team arrived in Beijing to study the outbreak and investi- gate a critical question: How did the virus jump from animals to hu- mans? At that point, there were only three confirmed deaths from Covid-19 outside China, and scien- tists hoped that finding an animal source for the coronavirus would unlock clues about how to stop it, treat it and prevent similar out- breaks. “If we don’t know the source then we’re equally vulnerable in the future to a similar outbreak,” Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization’s emergency direc- tor, had said that week in Geneva. “Understanding that source is a very important next step.” What the team members did not know was that they would not be allowed to investigate the source at all. Despite Dr. Ryan’s pro- nouncements, and over the advice of its emergency committee, the organization’s leadership had qui- etly negotiated terms that side- lined its own experts. They would not question China’s initial re- sponse or even visit the live-ani- mal market in the city of Wuhan where the outbreak seemed to have originated. Nine months and more than 1.1 million deaths later, there is still no transparent, independent investigation into the source of the virus. Notoriously allergic to out- side scrutiny, China has impeded the effort, while leaders of the W.H.O. Ceded Control to China In Murky Hunt for Virus Origin This article is by Selam Gebreki- dan, Matt Apuzzo, Amy Qin and Javier C. Hernández. Continued on Page A8 A man collapsed and died in Wuhan, China, as the crisis began. HECTOR RETAMAL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES SCRANTON, PA. The president made Pennsylvania a priority. DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES MONACA, PA. Mr. Biden visited a community college on Monday. ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES PLANO, Texas — Facing the toughest race of his Senate career, John Cornyn warned a small crowd of supporters from the sec- ond floor of his campaign bus last week that his party’s long-held dominance in this historically ruby-red state was at risk. But while the three-term Texas senator demonized Democrats at length, he did not spend much time talking up the obvious alter- native: President Trump, the leader of his party, the man at the top of his ticket on Tuesday. Asked whether Mr. Trump, the man who redefined Republican- ism, was an asset to Mr. Cornyn’s re-election effort, the senator was suddenly short on words. “Absolutely,” he said, stone- faced. Mr. Cornyn’s gentle distancing from Mr. Trump foreshadows a far less genteel battle to come. This year’s election seems likely to plunge Republicans and Demo- crats into a period of disarray no matter who wins the White House. With moderates and progressives poised to battle each other on the left, and an array of forces looking to chart a post-Trump future on the right (be it in 2021 or in four years), both parties appear des- tined for an ideological wilderness in the months ahead as each tries to sort out its identities and priori- ties. The questions facing partisans on both sides are sweeping, and remain largely unresolved despite For the Next Battle, Two Parties Will Be Taking On Themselves By LISA LERER Continued on Page A15 Challenge to Reconcile Competing Visions President Trump arrives at Election Day on Tuesday tog- gling between confidence and exasperation, bravado and griev- ance, and marinat- ing in frustration that he is trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr., whom he con- siders an unworthy opponent. “Man, it’s going to be embar- rassing if I lose to this guy,” Mr. Trump has told advisers, a la- ment he has aired publicly as well. But in the off-camera ver- sion, Mr. Trump frequently ex- claims, “This guy!” in reference to Mr. Biden, with a salty adjec- tive separating the words. Trailing in most polls, Mr. Trump has careened through a marathon series of rallies in the last week, trying to tear down Mr. Biden and energize his sup- porters, but also fixated on crowd size and targeting per- ceived enemies like the news media and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s infec- tious disease expert whom he suggested on Sunday he might try to dismiss after the election. At every turn, the president has railed that the voting system is rigged against him and has threatened to sue when the elec- tion is over, in an obvious bid to undermine an electoral process strained by the coronavirus pandemic. It is not clear, howev- er, precisely what legal instru- President, in His Own Bubble, Makes Mad Dash to the Finish This article is by Maggie Ha- berman, Alexander Burns and Jon- athan Martin. Chafing Over His Foes but Acting Upbeat POLITICAL MEMO Continued on Page A21 NEW HOPE, Pa. — Voters on both sides of the nation’s widening political divide prepared on Mon- day to render a verdict on Presi- dent Trump’s four tumultuous years in the White House and, in particular, his management of the coronavirus pandemic that has upended American life for the past eight months. As Mr. Trump and Joseph R. Bi- den Jr. raced across the most im- portant battleground states in a frenzied final push for votes, the 2020 election was unfolding in a country with urgent problems: an uncontrolled public health crisis, a battered economy, deep ideolog- ical divisions, a national reckon- ing on race and uncertainty about whether the outcome of the vote will be disputed. Undeterred by the pandemic, Americans have already dis- played an uncommon determina- tion to have their voices and votes heard this year. Nearly 100 million cast their ballots in advance of Election Day, shattering records as they endured long lines at early voting sites or sent in their ballots by mail. Much of the country felt on edge, as if the often-predicted “most important election of a life- time” had finally arrived. Ahead of the polls opening on Tuesday, businesses in cities from Denver to Detroit to Washington, D.C., were boarding up their windows with plywood as they readied for the possibility of civil unrest. Some governors were readying the National Guard. “Everyone is starting to panic,” Fernando Salas, a construction worker, said as he pounded nails into a plywood frame at a store- front in a trendy shopping district near Los Angeles. Election administrators braced themselves to pull off the twin challenges of holding an election during a pandemic and fending off Pandemic Shadows the Final Appeals From Trump and Biden By SHANE GOLDMACHER A Country in Turmoil Sees a Stark Display of Differences Continued on Page A19 Twenty years after three astronauts reported for duty at the International Space Station, we’ve compiled a history of our home in the heavens. PAGE D1 SCIENCE TIMES D1-8 Lots of Life in Space The photographer Priscilla Rattazzi brings to life the amazing Hoodoo rock sculptures of southern Utah. PAGE C5 ARTS C1-6 A Fantasia in Stone At least two people were killed and 15 wounded after men with rifles opened fire in the heart of the city. PAGE A11 INTERNATIONAL A10-12 Terrorists Strike in Vienna HBO’s “How To With John Wilson” managed to make a mundane subject hilarious and topical all at once. PAGE C1 The Best Scaffolding Jokes Ever Protests calling for more constitutional oversight of the monarchy resurrect talk of a military coup. PAGE A10 A Familiar Refrain in Thailand Prime Minister Boris Johnson is caught between fellow party members who oppose his national lockdown and oppo- nents who say it’s not enough. PAGE A4 TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-9 Revolt on Limits in Britain Members of the Atlanta Falcons are working with local high school students to support voter participation on Elec- tion Day. PAGE B5 SPORTSTUESDAY B5-7 Recruiting Future Voters If symptomatic, they were more likely to develop complications and die than other women with symptoms. PAGE A6 Risks for Pregnant Women Amy Coney Barrett asked assured and probing questions in a Freedom of Information Act case. PAGE A29 NATIONAL A13-29 Justice Hears First Argument How Facebook, Twitter and YouTube planned to handle the communication and information challenges facing them before, on and after Tuesday. PAGE B1 BUSINESS B1-4 Social Media on Election Day Harry Belafonte PAGE A31 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A30-31 VOL. CLXX . . . No. 58,866 © 2020 The New York Times Company TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2020 Printed in Chicago $3.00 Sunshine. Warmer. Breezy near the lake. Highs upper 50s to middle 60s. Clear skies and breezy tonight. Lows 40s. Partly cloudy tomorrow. Weather map appears on Page B10. National Edition
Transcript of ANXIETY MOUNTS WITH RACE AT A BITTER END
C M Y K Yxxx,2020-11-03,A,001,Bs-4C,E2
U(DF463D)X+[!,!?!$!"
ANXIETY MOUNTS WITH RACE AT A BITTER END
CLEVELAND Joseph R. Biden Jr. focusing on Ohio on Monday.ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES
PITTSBURGH Mr. Biden hopes to flip Pennsylvania this year.ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. President Trump in the battleground state.DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
TRAVERSE CITY, MICH. The president aims to hold Michigan.DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
adopt statewide.And everywhere, in a year that
has seen record levels of early vot-ing and a huge surge in use of vot-ing by mail, Republicans are gear-ing up to challenge ballots withmissing signatures or unclearpostmarks.
In his last days of campaigning,Mr. Trump has essentially admit-ted that he does not expect to winwithout going to court. “As soon asthat election is over,” he told re-porters over the weekend, “we’regoing in with our lawyers.”
Trailing consistently in thepolls, Mr. Trump in that momentsaid out loud what other Republi-cans have preferred to say quietly,which is that his best chance ofholding onto power at this pointmay rest in a scorched-earth cam-paign to disqualify as many votesas possible for his Democratic op-ponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
If there is a clear-cut outcomeon Tuesday night that could notplausibly be challenged via legalaction, all of the planning on bothsides could become moot. But ifthere is no decisive result, the fol-lowing days would likely see an in-tensifying multifront battle foughtin a variety of states.
After months of claiming thatany election outcome other than avictory for him would have to havebeen “rigged,” the president usedhis final days on the campaigntrail to cast doubt on the veryprocess of tabulating the count,suggesting without any evidencethat any votes counted after Tues-day, no matter how legal, must besuspect.
Both sides expect Mr. Trumpand his allies to try again to dis-qualify late-arriving ballots in theemerging center of the legal fight,Pennsylvania, after the state’shigh court rejected a previous at-tempt and the Supreme Court re-
With the election coming to aclose, the Trump and Biden cam-paigns, voting rights organiza-tions and conservative groups areraising money and dispatching ar-mies of lawyers for what could be-come a state-by-state, county-by-county legal battle over which bal-lots will ultimately be counted.
The deployments — involvinghundreds of lawyers on both sides— go well beyond what has be-come normal since the disputedoutcome in 2000, and are the re-sult of the open efforts of Presi-dent Trump and the Republicansto disqualify votes on technicali-ties and baseless charges of fraudat the end of a campaign in whichthe voting system has been se-verely tested by the pandemic.
In the most aggressive movesto knock out registered votes inmodern memory, Republicanshave already sought to nullify bal-lots before they are counted inseveral states that could tip thebalance of the Electoral College.
In an early test of one effort, afederal judge in Texas on Mondayruled against local Republicanswho wanted to compel state offi-cials to throw out more than127,000 ballots cast at newly creat-ed drive-through polling places inthe Houston area. The ruling,which Republicans said theywould appeal, came after a statecourt also ruled against them.
In key counties in Nevada,Michigan and Pennsylvania, Re-publicans are seeking, with mixedresults so far, to force electionboard offices to give their electionobservers more open access sothey can more effectively chal-lenge absentee ballots as they areprocessed, a tactic Republicans inNorth Carolina are seeking to
As Americans Surge to Polls, Trump Contests Some Ballots, Setting Up
Fight Over Which Ones Count
This article is by Jim Rutenberg,Michael S. Schmidt, Nick Corasani-ti and Peter Baker.
Continued on Page A22
GENEVA — On a cold weekendin mid-February, when the worldstill harbored false hope that thenew coronavirus could be con-tained, a World Health Organiza-tion team arrived in Beijing tostudy the outbreak and investi-gate a critical question: How didthe virus jump from animals to hu-mans?
At that point, there were onlythree confirmed deaths fromCovid-19 outside China, and scien-tists hoped that finding an animalsource for the coronavirus wouldunlock clues about how to stop it,treat it and prevent similar out-breaks.
“If we don’t know the sourcethen we’re equally vulnerable inthe future to a similar outbreak,”Michael Ryan, the World Health
Organization’s emergency direc-tor, had said that week in Geneva.“Understanding that source is avery important next step.”
What the team members did notknow was that they would not beallowed to investigate the sourceat all. Despite Dr. Ryan’s pro-nouncements, and over the adviceof its emergency committee, theorganization’s leadership had qui-etly negotiated terms that side-lined its own experts. They wouldnot question China’s initial re-sponse or even visit the live-ani-mal market in the city of Wuhanwhere the outbreak seemed tohave originated.
Nine months and more than1.1 million deaths later, there isstill no transparent, independentinvestigation into the source of thevirus. Notoriously allergic to out-side scrutiny, China has impededthe effort, while leaders of the
W.H.O. Ceded Control to China In Murky Hunt for Virus Origin
This article is by Selam Gebreki-dan, Matt Apuzzo, Amy Qin andJavier C. Hernández.
Continued on Page A8
A man collapsed and died in Wuhan, China, as the crisis began.HECTOR RETAMAL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
SCRANTON, PA. The president made Pennsylvania a priority.DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
MONACA, PA. Mr. Biden visited a community college on Monday.ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES
PLANO, Texas — Facing thetoughest race of his Senate career,John Cornyn warned a smallcrowd of supporters from the sec-ond floor of his campaign bus lastweek that his party’s long-helddominance in this historicallyruby-red state was at risk.
But while the three-term Texassenator demonized Democrats atlength, he did not spend muchtime talking up the obvious alter-native: President Trump, theleader of his party, the man at thetop of his ticket on Tuesday.
Asked whether Mr. Trump, theman who redefined Republican-ism, was an asset to Mr. Cornyn’sre-election effort, the senator wassuddenly short on words.
“Absolutely,” he said, stone-faced.
Mr. Cornyn’s gentle distancingfrom Mr. Trump foreshadows a far
less genteel battle to come. Thisyear’s election seems likely toplunge Republicans and Demo-crats into a period of disarray nomatter who wins the White House.With moderates and progressivespoised to battle each other on theleft, and an array of forces lookingto chart a post-Trump future onthe right (be it in 2021 or in fouryears), both parties appear des-tined for an ideological wildernessin the months ahead as each triesto sort out its identities and priori-ties.
The questions facing partisanson both sides are sweeping, andremain largely unresolved despite
For the Next Battle, Two PartiesWill Be Taking On Themselves
By LISA LERER
Continued on Page A15
Challenge to ReconcileCompeting Visions
President Trump arrives atElection Day on Tuesday tog-gling between confidence andexasperation, bravado and griev-
ance, and marinat-ing in frustrationthat he is trailingJoseph R. BidenJr., whom he con-
siders an unworthy opponent.“Man, it’s going to be embar-
rassing if I lose to this guy,” Mr.Trump has told advisers, a la-ment he has aired publicly aswell. But in the off-camera ver-sion, Mr. Trump frequently ex-claims, “This guy!” in referenceto Mr. Biden, with a salty adjec-tive separating the words.
Trailing in most polls, Mr.Trump has careened through amarathon series of rallies in the
last week, trying to tear downMr. Biden and energize his sup-porters, but also fixated oncrowd size and targeting per-ceived enemies like the newsmedia and Dr. Anthony Fauci,the federal government’s infec-tious disease expert whom hesuggested on Sunday he mighttry to dismiss after the election.
At every turn, the presidenthas railed that the voting systemis rigged against him and hasthreatened to sue when the elec-tion is over, in an obvious bid toundermine an electoral processstrained by the coronaviruspandemic. It is not clear, howev-er, precisely what legal instru-
President, in His Own Bubble, Makes Mad Dash to the FinishThis article is by Maggie Ha-
berman, Alexander Burns and Jon-athan Martin.
Chafing Over His Foesbut Acting Upbeat
POLITICALMEMO
Continued on Page A21
NEW HOPE, Pa. — Voters onboth sides of the nation’s wideningpolitical divide prepared on Mon-day to render a verdict on Presi-dent Trump’s four tumultuousyears in the White House and, inparticular, his management of thecoronavirus pandemic that hasupended American life for thepast eight months.
As Mr. Trump and Joseph R. Bi-den Jr. raced across the most im-portant battleground states in afrenzied final push for votes, the
2020 election was unfolding in acountry with urgent problems: anuncontrolled public health crisis, abattered economy, deep ideolog-ical divisions, a national reckon-ing on race and uncertainty aboutwhether the outcome of the votewill be disputed.
Undeterred by the pandemic,Americans have already dis-played an uncommon determina-tion to have their voices and votesheard this year. Nearly 100 millioncast their ballots in advance ofElection Day, shattering recordsas they endured long lines at earlyvoting sites or sent in their ballots
by mail.Much of the country felt on
edge, as if the often-predicted“most important election of a life-time” had finally arrived. Aheadof the polls opening on Tuesday,businesses in cities from Denverto Detroit to Washington, D.C.,
were boarding up their windowswith plywood as they readied forthe possibility of civil unrest.Some governors were readyingthe National Guard.
“Everyone is starting to panic,”Fernando Salas, a constructionworker, said as he pounded nailsinto a plywood frame at a store-front in a trendy shopping districtnear Los Angeles.
Election administrators bracedthemselves to pull off the twinchallenges of holding an electionduring a pandemic and fending off
Pandemic Shadows the Final Appeals From Trump and BidenBy SHANE GOLDMACHER A Country in Turmoil
Sees a Stark Displayof Differences
Continued on Page A19
Twenty years after three astronautsreported for duty at the InternationalSpace Station, we’ve compiled a historyof our home in the heavens. PAGE D1
SCIENCE TIMES D1-8
Lots of Life in SpaceThe photographer Priscilla Rattazzibrings to life the amazing Hoodoo rocksculptures of southern Utah. PAGE C5
ARTS C1-6
A Fantasia in StoneAt least two people were killed and 15wounded after men with rifles openedfire in the heart of the city. PAGE A11
INTERNATIONAL A10-12
Terrorists Strike in Vienna
HBO’s “How To With John Wilson”managed to make a mundane subjecthilarious and topical all at once. PAGE C1
The Best Scaffolding Jokes EverProtests calling for more constitutionaloversight of the monarchy resurrecttalk of a military coup. PAGE A10
A Familiar Refrain in Thailand
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is caughtbetween fellow party members whooppose his national lockdown and oppo-nents who say it’s not enough. PAGE A4
TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-9
Revolt on Limits in BritainMembers of the Atlanta Falcons areworking with local high school studentsto support voter participation on Elec-tion Day. PAGE B5
SPORTSTUESDAY B5-7
Recruiting Future Voters
If symptomatic, they were more likelyto develop complications and die thanother women with symptoms. PAGE A6
Risks for Pregnant Women
Amy Coney Barrett asked assured andprobing questions in a Freedom ofInformation Act case. PAGE A29
NATIONAL A13-29
Justice Hears First Argument
How Facebook, Twitter and YouTubeplanned to handle the communicationand information challenges facing thembefore, on and after Tuesday. PAGE B1
BUSINESS B1-4
Social Media on Election Day
Harry Belafonte PAGE A31
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A30-31
VOL. CLXX . . . No. 58,866 © 2020 The New York Times Company TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2020 Printed in Chicago $3.00
Sunshine. Warmer. Breezy near thelake. Highs upper 50s to middle 60s.Clear skies and breezy tonight.Lows 40s. Partly cloudy tomorrow.Weather map appears on Page B10.
National Edition
