Battleground states, florida and North Carolina. If he stops to talk to reporters, we will let you know what he says. Also right now the Biden Campaign is leaning on president obama in d. C. The first look at a new video featuring obama and senator Kamala Harris. Yes, they talked about those signature biden aviator sunglasses, all this happening as were digging into a fascinating theme emerging in the 2020 polls. President trump still behind in most polls nationally, but people still think hell win the election. Well go to Steve Kornacki at the big board to help explain that phenomenon in just a moment. We want to start with nbcs Josh Lederman in jupiter, florida, and nbcs mike memoli is covering the Biden Campaign. Josh, ill start with you. Florida and North Carolina, two key states. His first stop in three weeks. Whats his focus today . Reporter good morning, craig. Youre right. Were in the final stretch between the Labor Day Holiday and election day, that final sprint for the candidates. Weve seen trump. Hes going to be coming here to the lighthouse behind me in jupiter, florida. Will he be focusing on what he sees as a positive environmental record in a state that carriesw grades and heading later in the afternoon to North Carolina, another state that the president won by just a few points four years ago. The polls in both states have been very close. Thats why its really do or die time here for trump to try to redefine his opponent, joe biden. We know the Trump Campaign wanted to do that over the summer. They wanted to have that already accomplished by now. We saw over the summer that the president tried to use several lines of attack against biden, none of them really seemed to stick. He went after joe biden for his mental acuity. That didnt really seem to work, shifted to this law and order message. We saw joe biden come back pretty hard with his own attacks on supposed lawlessness under President Trump right now. Now, over the weekend we saw trump come back to the theme of joe bidens mental acuity saying hes just stupid. But now we have this doordie time as the president is coming here to florida, a state where in three weeks mailin ballots will start going out. A quinnipiac poll last week found 93 of voters in florida, theyve already made up their minds. Mr. Memoli, joe biden heading to michigan on wednesday. Today President Trump back in action for the Biden Campaign. How is he getting involved . Whats he doing . Craig, well, of course, in this covid campaign, youre not seeing the usual barnstorming Campaign Travel from the campaign itself, their surrogates that youd typically see. Its forced the campaigns to try to get creative to reach voters. You saw joe biden on the campaign trail yesterday, physically in pennsylvania. You mentioned michigan on wednesday. Senator Kamala Harris on the campaign trail for her first solo road trip yesterday in wisconsin. Hell be in florida later this week. Dr. Jill biden doing some Virtual Education focused events, targeting florida voters today. Shell be in minnesota later this week. Then you have president obama getting back in the act. Remember last month we saw the virtual socially distant conversation between obama and joe biden. Then we saw a socially distant conversation between joe biden and Kamala Harris in the weeks after he named her to his ticket. Now were getting this look at president obama having a zoom conversation with senator harris. Senator harris asked the president for some advice on serving on a ticket with joe biden. Lets take a listen to that answer. He really does like those aviator glasses. He knows he looks good in them. Ma look, the main thing to know about joe is that joe has never lost his sense of why we do this. Folks want to be seen, and josies people, through those av aviator glasses and without them. He really does see people. A very special thing about him. Reporter you see those two chief validaters talking about biden, talking about his superpower, his empathy. The other point obama makes in that video is he and First Lady Michelle Obama will be doing everything they can on the campaign trail. Well be looking for that, of course, craig as we get back to some form of virtual campaign. Yes, campaigning in 2020. Josh lederman, mike memoli, a big thanks to both of you. This morning were keeping an eye on a new round of polls, both nationally and in key battleground states. A majority of those polls, joe biden holds an edge. But were also seeing an interesting phenomenon emerge. Biden is in the lead. Voters are increasingly saying they think President Trump will actually be the one to win in november. Nbcs Steve Kornacki is at his big board. Hes tracking this particular trend. Steve, is this because rewind four years ago, donald trump trailing in most polls, still pulls it out in the end. Is that why folks think hell do it again . Thats certainly one compelling theory. Take you through the numbers and show you, if you average all the polls out there together, biden leads nationally by seven points. If you look at the most recent polling thats out there on that question, not of who you want to win burks who you think will win the election, this is what you get. Trump by three points more as you say saying trump will win versus biden. At this same point four years ago in the National Polling average it was a closer race. At this point today biden leads by seven. At this same point four years ago clintons lead was three points. At that point when you ask the question clinton or trump, who do you think is going to win the election. It was overwhelmingly clinton by 25 points. So when you say is it possible that folks remember four years ago, remember she was winning and now say, well, trump is going to be stronger than it looks . Thats certainly a very good possibility here. One other thing we can show you, preference here, when you look at the polls right here, democrats support biden by an 89point margin. Republicans support trump by an 86point margin. Biden winning independents by six points. Thats how people say theyre going to vote. Now lets compare that again with how they think the election is going to turn out. You see among democrats by a 65point margin they think biden will win the election. Its not nearly as big as bidens support. Theres a gap. Biden over trump among democrats, they want to vote for him by the 89point margin. Who do you think will win the election . Less confidence there among democrats. Independents, it swaps. Biden winning the votes of more independents than trump, but again, more independents say they think trump will win the election than bide sudden. It really is a fascinating dynamic. It almost seems like, steve, that youve got a significant number of democrats who essentially are saying we like our guy, but we dont think in the end hes going to be able to pull it out. Thats one theory. Its democrats who are perhaps overconfident in 2016 compensating for that four years later given what happened and maybe being underconfident. Thats one interpretation of it. Another one thats been floated is perhaps those expectations in 2016 worked to Donald Trumps benefit where if voters overwhelmly thought he was going to lose, they figure, oh, if i vote maybe that changes the calculation in that way this time. Okay. Steve kornacki, thank you, sir. Well be spending lots of time together over the next 56 days. No matter what happens between now and november, coronavirus will be top of mind for most voters. Here are the latest facts on where things stand with the pandemic. We have now lost more than 190,000 americans. For some perspective, this time just three months ago, we reported surpassing 100,000 deaths. This morning West Virginia university has become the latest school to suspend inperson classes after a spike in cases on campus. School officials are pointing to parties that were held this past Holiday Weekend as the biggest cause for concern. While many colleges are closing their doors because of rising cases, many k12 students across the country are just starting their school year. In new york city teachers back in their classrooms for the First Time Since march to prepare for their hybrid, inperson and Virtual School year. Today the fight over reopening schools during this pandemic will come to a head in iowa. A judge there expected to release a decision on whether that states Largest School district can continue with remoteonly classes. The des moines public School District is defying and legally challenging republican governor kim reynolds order that students return. The judges order coincides with the first day of school in the hawkeye state. Nbcs Vaughn Hillyard has made his way to des moines and is following all this closely for us. Vaughn, what are you hearing from parents and administrators there . What are they telling you . Reporter craig, its much of what weve heard across the country, this tension between local School Districts and state governments on how to reopen. Today is the first day of school for des moines public schools, but against governor kim reynolds orders, theyre not starting in person, but all virtually. This is the campus. A few teachers are here on campus, but when you look at what weave seen here, we talked to the principal earlier and she said she wants to look out for the best interest of her students and faculty. I want to introduce you to one father here who is also a school board member. Rob baron, you got your son javy set up this morning. How did that work out . It doesnt how we thought second grade would start for him. Got him up, got him fed, got him in front of his computer at 8 00 and it was honestly smooth. He got to introduce himself to his class. They asked him to tell Something Special he did over the summer. He got to show a lego built that he built. The virtual in your household has worked. Weve seen a couple of kids with their parents who had technical issues coming in for help. Why take the stand against the governor here . Youre awaiting the junls ruling perhaps even today . The first thing i would say, were the Largest School district in my state, serve 33,000 kids. We have 5,000 staff. On a typical day you have 40,000 people coming in and out of my buildings. Relative to the rest of the district, this is a small state, but 300 School Districts in iowa. Were twice as big as the next largest district. We have buildings that are larger than some School District enrollments. So the waco individual works affects urban School Districts like ours much more dramatically than it does rural areas. And the governor basically, after we submitted our return to learn plan, started putting out guidance that was kind of onesizefitsall that we couldnt meet. So we spoke to her, we spoke to her staff, we did meetings. We filed a waiver. We jumped through every hoop they could put in front of us and they still denied our waiver and wanted to force us to bring kids back into the buildings. Thats just not safe. Rob, thank you very much. Well be talking to you throughout the day as we await the judges order. Again, craig, this is the tension were seeing from new york to california, here to iowa, local School Districts versus the states and how to proceed this fall. Craig. All right, Vaughn Hillyard there in des moines, vaughn, keep us posted as we await the judges decision. Thank you, sir. We are seeing something pretty rare in the race for a vaccine this morning. The ceos of nine pharmaceutical companies coming together with one shared message for the american people. Also, trapped in a wildfire. How crews are trying to rescue dozens of folks trapped in a National Forest thats been torched fast. Athletes and activism. Im spend time be nba hall of Famer Spencer Haywood as were learning 20 nba teams have big plans to help people vote on election day. Before money, people traded goods. Tools, cattle, grain, even shells represented value. Then currency came along. They made it out of copper, gold, silver, wampum. Soon people decided to put all that value into a piece of paper, then proceeded to wave goodbye to value, printing unlimited amounts of money as they passed the buck to the future. Thats why its time for Digital Currency and your investment in the grayscale funds. Go digital. Go grayscale. Another day, another chance tlets do this. Rd. By making internet speeds fast and reliable. So you can keep up with your customers. By ensuring those speeds have wireless internet backup. So if the power goes down, your connection doesnt. And by covering all your connected devices with serious security. So we can handle this. And this. While you get on with this. And this. Be fast, be secure. Bounce forward. With comcast business. Get started with a powerful internet and voice solution for just 64. 90 a month. Call or go online today. Some breaks news this morning in the race for a vaccine. Nine Major Drug Companies including pfizer have issued a joint pledge that they would not put out a vaccine until it had been fully vetted. Earlier on today, pfizers ceo gave us an idea of the kind of timeline theyre working with. Our model, our best case predicts we will have an answer by the end of october. Of course, this is only a prediction. It is 60 our chances in the base case well have an answer by the end of october. I want to bring in dr. Dara cass, an Emergency Room Physician at Columbia University medical center. Dr. Cass, always good to have you. First of all, what do you make of this news from the ceo of pfizer . I think its very important and very encouraging. What were seeing is responsible leadership from the manufacturers of the vaccine saying theyre not going to apply for either an eua or full fda clearance until they know their vaccine candidate is safe and effective. Remember, the timeline of october just is on the signals of the data, of whether or not its safe and effective. That really has nothing to do with whether or not the vaccine itself will be in production or available to anybody to take in their arm. Eua of course being the emergency use authorization. Over the weekend, dr. Kass, new yorks Governor Andrew Cuomo announcing that his states infection rate has been below 1 for 30 straight days. How significant is that . What can other states learn from that . So i think its a really big deal, remembering new york is doing between 60 and 100,000 tests per day to show an infection rate of less than 1 on average for the state. Also we are having outbreaks, especially in our college towns. One county that has an infection rate of 5 . What it means is if you mask up and test and trace, you can get yourself out of this pandemic without a vaccine. Its very encouraging. As a parent of new York City School system children, im really encouraged to be able to send my children back to school. This holiday, we saw a lot of clouds on beaches and boardwalks across the country. How real is the worry that theres going to be a spike in cases from the Holiday Weekend that were wrapping up . Actually the beaches dont worry as much as the back yard barbecues. I think it has to do with the idea that when youre outside at a beach youre usually not that engaged with the people you dont know. Its the restaurants, the drinking, the partying that worry us. Were seeing twice as many cases as when we had memorial day activities. Were worried about a spike in cases and hopefully we can isolate the patients and keep this pandemic under control as best we can. Dr. Kass, good luck to you with those kiddos going back to school. Thank you. Potential for election day violence. My colleague katy tur spent some time with the president s supporters, and she also talked to Election Security officials. Why those experts are worried of violent reaction to novembers Election Results is a real possibility. I served, took an oath to defend my country to the best of my abilities, and i will do it. Would you take up arms . If thats what it comes to, yeah. [ action music throughout ] every box has a mission to protect everything inside from everything outside. When whats inside matters, count on boxes. [ doorbell rings ] paper and packaging. How life unfolds. A lot goes through your mind. With fidelity wealth management, your dedicated adviser can give you straightforward advice and tailored recommendations. Thats the clarity you get with fidelity wealth management. Come on in, were open. All we do is hand you the bag. Simple. Done. We adapt and we change. You know, you just figure it out. Weve just been finding a way to keep on pushing. 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