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But a few dozen protesters took it further, gathering on the Capitol steps to defy the state's social distancing orders. They gave speeches. They held up signs — “Recall Whitmer,” “Heil Witmer” (sic), “Stop the Tyranny,” and “Trump/Pence.” For a few seconds, they broke into a chant of “lock her up!”

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The Michigan protest wasn't the first rally against pandemic restrictions. There were protests in Ohio on April 9 and 13, a protest in Raleigh organized by ReOpenNC, and more rallies planned in New Hampshire and Virginia. Republican politicians, while not in attendance in the rallies, have begun talking more openly about letting people return to work even if the coronavirus spreads further.

Uncertainty and fear over the economic impact of stay-at-home orders is fueling a sort of culture war between conservatives, whose political strength now comes from rural America, right now less affected by the virus, and liberals, whose urban strongholds have been most affected by it.

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“I feel that most of America feels the way that we do right now,” said Garrett Soldano, the founder of the Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine Facebook group, on a Wednesday live stream for its 350,000 members. “Keeping healthy people at home is tyranny.” (According to polling, the vast majority of Americans remain nervous about reopening businesses if there is a threat of spreading infection.)

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Resistance to the stay-at-home orders has grown fastest in Michigan, for two reasons: Whitmer has issued especially strict limits on movement and commerce, and she is increasingly being discussed as a running mate for Joe Biden. One week ago, the governor restricted in-person shopping at outdoor supply stores, the use of motorboats for recreation, and most recreational travel inside the state. The state had absorbed some of the highest infection numbers and the highest job-loss numbers; all of a sudden, it had the toughest regulations on how residents could behave.

Whitmer called the restrictions “absolutely necessary with the path that we are on” and continued to defend them as groups such as Soldano's planned civil disobedience. On Wednesday, after the rally wound down, Whitmer gave her regular update on the crisis in front of a chart of infection patterns for the 1918 flu pandemic. Lifting restrictions too early, she warned, would risk another wave of infections, and another lockdown.

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“I understand the frustration that people are feeling. I’m frustrated, too,” Whitmer said. “As tough as this is right now, we know we don’t want to go through this again.”

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But the buzz around Whitmer's political future heightened the tension. An image of American flags in the closed-off section of a store fueled the rumor that Whitmer had banned Michiganders from buying flags. (The restrictions require some products to be sold at curbside, or online, not banned altogether.) It was just a taste of what was coming for Whitmer, as conservatives used their media platforms to decry her as a political climber and would-be autocrat.

In multiple segments this week, Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested Whitmer's “authoritarian” orders were designed to help her in the veepstakes. During an online “Women for Trump” event, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, who previously ran the party in Michigan, claimed that Whitmer had “turned this crisis into a platform to run for vice president.” At Wednesday's protest, conservatives who spoke took as given that Whitmer was angling for a bigger job and that it would backfire.

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“I think her approval ratings today are about 10 percent, maybe lower,” conservative radio host Steve Gruber on the live stream. “Gretchen Whitmer is putting Michigan back in Donald Trump’s win column for 2020.”

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Whitmer's approval rating actually had surged since the start of the pandemic, with two-thirds of Michiganders approving of how she was doing her job, though no poll had been released since she ordered the new restrictions. North Carolina's Roy Cooper and Ohio's Mike DeWine, a Democrat and a Republican, had also seen big boosts to their personal popularity, right before facing protests outside their offices this week. Even less draconian stay-at-home advisories were leading to business closures and layoffs, sparking a backlash from people who thought politicians were sacrificing the economy to tackle a waning threat.

“We’re to the point where the state is restricting every move we make,” said Ashley Smith, a co-founder of ReOpenNC and a participant in this week's protest in Raleigh, which was held in person outside of the building where Cooper was meeting with advisers. “We need to consider how we’ve behaved in every other viral outbreak. These decisions have been based on models, not actual data.”

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The president himself, while critical of some Democratic governors, did not comment on the first waves of protests. But uncertainty over the White House's plans, from an abandoned idea to waive restrictions by Easter to a confusing set of business advisory groups, has led to greater uncertainty about when it would be safe to work and shop again. That uncertainty has mobilized conservatives and Republicans in the states. Like the tea party protests of 2009, the “reopen” protests were heavily touted on conservative radio and Fox News, which helped fuel turnout, which then became part of the story.

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“They want to keep us away from churches and synagogues. They want to make sure we don't go back to work,” Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro said on Wednesday. “What happened in Lansing today, God bless them: It's going to happen all over the country.”

Some of the same people and organizations that mobilized around the tea party have celebrated the protests — the drive-by actions, if not the in-person rallies. (“I support their First Amendment rights,” said Evan Oudekirk, one of the protesters in a car, “but that was a foolish decision.”) According to Adam Brandon, the president of the conservative grass-roots group FreedomWorks, a poll of 70,000 members found that 19 percent had been laid off since the start of the pandemic and 20 percent had seen their hours reduced, and some of them had been mobilizing in protest.

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“It's really similar to the DNA of the tea party movement,” Brandon said. “No one I know is saying this is a sham, that the virus is fake. But I do hear small-business owners say, hey, I was forced to shut down, but my business doesn't even require me to get close to customers. And the whole idea that you can have ‘essential’ and ‘nonessential’ businesses is funny to me. Every business is essential, or else it wouldn’t exist.”

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And while states have begun putting together plans to reopen businesses, some Republican elected officials have also started freelancing, asking whether places with few or no reports of the coronavirus could return to normal. Some it echoes the refrain from last month, when conservatives such as Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick argued that at-risk people might be willing to risk infection if it meant their children and grandchildren could open the economy more quickly. Some of it's more speculative, asking whether some businesses could return in limited capacities, enough to stave off layoffs and despair.

“It may be that when people go back to work that they wear a mask and gloves for some period of time, to limit the spread of disease,” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said yesterday.

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The protests have been less measured. On his Wednesday live stream, Soldano talked to one quarantine skeptic who warned that the restrictions on Michigan's housing supply and gardening stores were in sync with Agenda21, a U.N. plan for sustainable development that for years has been seen on the right as a plot to restrict freedom. (The caller warned of “moving people from rural settings into urban settings, and the government taking over food supplies.”) Soldano suggested that if restrictions lifted, protesters could enter “phase two” of their plan, holding rallies and campaigning to “strip not only the Michigan governor, but other governors, of the right to do this again.” There was even a push to recall Whitmer, which would require more than 1 million valid signatures collected over 60 days.

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Democratic governors, already facing anger that their orders have shut down religious gatherings and businesses, have highlighted the most extreme forms of opposition. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis became emotional this week when a reporter asked about protesters comparing his restrictions to Nazi policies.

“As a Jewish American who lost family in the Holocaust, I’m offended by any comparison to Nazism,” he said. “We act to save lives — the exact opposite of the slaughter of 6 million Jews and many Gypsies and Catholics and gays and lesbians and Russians and so many others.”

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In Michigan, Democrats pointed to the more jarring sights at Wednesday's rally to stoke skepticism about the protesters' demands. At least two protesters — one with the “Heil Witmer” sign, one with a Nazi-saluting dummy made up to look like the governor — compared the governor to a fascist. And the multitude of Trump campaign flags, signs and merchandise led to Whitmer criticizing the rally, as a distraction from the issue it was designed to highlight: when to reopen Michigan.

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“It wasn’t really about the stay-at-home order at all,” Whitmer said on MSNBC on Wednesday night. “It was essentially a political rally, a political statement that flies in the face of all of the science."

Reading list

“Democratic lawsuit challenging Arizona absentee ballot deadline cites Supreme Court ruling on Wisconsin primary,” by Elise Viebeck

How this month's battle over mail voting could have helped Democrats.

“False prophet,” by McKay Coppins

Inside the effort to rewrite the president's coronavirus response.

“Democrats eye tantalizing Senate prize in Georgia but face doubts about seizing it,” by Mike DeBonis

Why a would-be swing state with a scandal-plagued incumbent still looks good for Republicans.

“The tyranny of decorum,” by David Sirota

Thoughts on why Bernie Sanders lost from one of his key staffers.

“Sen. Elizabeth Warren endorses former vice president Joe Biden as allies ponder her future role,” by Annie Linskey

How the last woman standing in the primary wants to shape the general.

“Progressive movement wary of Warren for VP,” by Alex Thompson and Holly Otterbein

Battle scars from the Sanders-Warren wars.

Money watch

April 15 was the deadline for most federal campaigns to reveal their financials for the first quarter of 2020 — what they raised, what they spent and how. An upcoming edition of The Trailer will get deeper into these findings, but a few hauls and trends jumped out.

First: With just one exception, Republicans in key Senate races were outraised by Democrats. The exception was Michigan, where John James, who has never held elective office but impressed Republicans in his 2018 Senate bid, put up $4.8 million, while Sen. Gary Peters (D) raised $4 million. It's the second time James has outraised Peters but the third time he has outrun a challenger for the quarter: He caught fire with conservative activists late in 2018 and raised more money in the final stretch of that campaign than Sen. Debbie Stabenow, to whom he eventually lost by six points.

But outside the James-Peters race, Democrats thrived and Republicans held even or struggled. In Arizona, Democrat Mark Kelly raised $11 million to Sen. Martha McSally's $6.3 million. In Colorado, former governor John Hickenlooper raised $4 million to Sen. Cory Gardner's $2.5 million. In Maine, Democrat Sara Gideon raised $7.1 million to Sen. Susan Collins's $2.4 million. Even as they emptied their wallets for Democratic presidential candidates, Democratic donors were continuing the cash surge that helped the party compete in 2018.

Second: House Democrats continued to build a cash lead over Republican challengers. As Roll Call's Bridget Bowman reported, just three incumbent House Democrats were outraised by Republicans, while 12 incumbent Republicans were outraised by Democrats.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's party stretched its map to the limit in 2018 and is playing more defense than offense — a trend visible in California's 25th District, where Republican Mike Garcia was outraised by Democrat Christy Smith but still came close to a seven-figure haul. But some of the Democrats' 2018 victors, such as California Rep. Katie Porter and Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan, have built massive war chests and face opponents who have struggled to raise money.

Ad watch

Christy Smith for Congress, “America is Hurting.” The Democrat in California's upcoming special election has been attacked by Republicans for not chairing a meeting of the state's emergency committee. Her own messaging has presented her as a community member with deep ties who'll be around to help the recovery. There's a catch: The ad shows her working alongside and shaking hands with first responders, images that now need a disclaimer about being filmed before the crisis.

Nancy Mace for Congress, “Extraordinary.” The best-known Republican candidate in the race for South Carolina's 1st District, Mace's commercial starts with her key life story (the first female graduate of The Citadel) and then emphasizes how she “helped elect President Trump.” The district, narrowly won in 2018 by Democrat Joe Cunningham, is one of the most Trump-friendly places on the GOP's target list.

Valerie Plame for Congress, “Obstacle Course.” The former CIA operative who became famous during the 2005 leak investigation has been held at arm's length by Democrats, wary of her tweets about Israel. But she has been able to introduce herself to voters as a tough, experienced woman who served her country, similar to a lot of the party's 2018 victors.

You are reading The Trailer, the newsletter that brings the campaign trail to your inbox.



Poll watch

Presidential election in Virginia (VCU, 812 adults)

Joe Biden: 51%

Donald Trump: 41%

Republicans have not written off this state, which went for the party handily for decades then flipped in 2008. There is not much reason for GOP optimism in this poll, which finds Biden more popular than Trump, a boost of popularity for Gov. Ralph Northam, and no real problem for Democrats in holding onto Bernie Sanders's voters.

Presidential election in Arizona (OH Predictive Insights, 600 likely voters)

Joe Biden: 52%

Donald Trump: 43%

This is the worst result for the president yet in a poll that has taken six snapshots of Arizona, a relatively new swing state. (Bill Clinton won it in 1996, thanks to Ross Perot's campaign. No Democrat has carried it with a majority of the vote since 1948.) The president enjoys a 10-point lead in supporters' enthusiasm, and while a negligible number of Trump voters say they're not at all enthused about President Trump, nine percent of Biden supporters say that about their candidate. But the enthusiasm gap can cut both ways; the president's support is more intense because it's not pulling in many swing voters.

In the states

The race for the Democratic nomination is over, though the ongoing delays of state primaries keep nudging back the date when Joe Biden will clinch. The latest delay: Louisiana, the first state to dramatically move its primary date, has pushed it from June 20 to July 11.

That's a change of more than three months from the state's initial primary date, April 4, and it puts the state far outside the DNC's calendar for delegates to be counted. That particular problem, which the party could solve at any point, has fallen far down the priority list with Biden facing no rival for the nomination.

Now, the fight in the state is over absentee ballots. While Republican Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin has wanted easier access to mail ballots, at least during the pandemic, Republicans in the state legislature have pushed back, citing unproved worries about voter fraud.

“This is a necessary, balanced and, most importantly, a temporary — and I stress temporary — approach in response to this crisis,” Ardoin told reporters this week. “I don’t want to be Wisconsin.”

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, Democrats' delight at their Supreme Court victory last week ground to a halt, as defeated Justice Dan Kelly signaled that he could rule in the ongoing lawsuits over an attempt to purge 200,000 names from the voter roles. Kelly had recused himself from a prior ruling, over concerns that he would affect who could and could not vote in his April 7 election. As a lame-duck justice, Kelly now says he could rule in the case.

“The 2020 spring general election is now complete, so it appears the reason for my recusal from considering any aspect of this matter no longer obtains,” Kelly wrote, as first reported by Molly Beck. “I issue this order to give the parties an opportunity to state their position on whether I should recuse myself from considering the pending petition for review and, potentially, the merits of these consolidated appeals, before I make a final decision on my participation."

Candidate tracker

The Joe Biden campaign finished up a 72-hour endorsement carnival on Wednesday, with the support of Elizabeth Warren. Not long after she released a video backing Biden, the candidate held another virtual fundraiser, telling supporters that he was still working to prevent the drop-off with former Bernie Sanders voters that hurt Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“Last time, you had I think it was either 14 or 17 percent of Bernie supporters voting for Trump, or not voting for her,” he said. “So what I have to do is make sure that I listen [and] I have to make sure you know I’m listening.”

Warren also used her email list, the second-largest of any active Democratic politician, to raise funds for Biden; Sanders has declined to do so.

President Trump continued focusing on the coronavirus pandemic and its surrounding politics, while America First, his preferred super PAC, debuted a new campaign against the Democrat: #BeijingBiden. That came days after the Trump campaign ran a spot that played back Biden's praise for Chinese growth, and a comment about how the Chinese are “not bad folks.” (Biden's tic of pronouncing his opponents “good people” or “not bad folks” could, ironically, come back to haunt him.)

Countdown