Election Watch: How long can Trump ride ‘law and order’? And more to know this week in politics

Presidential politics move fast. What we’re watching heading into a new week on the 2020 campaign:

Days to general election: 55

Days to first debate: 21

The narrative

President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are stepping up their campaign travel this week as the process of voting in the 2020 general election season accelerates. North Carolina began sending out absentee ballots last Friday and a handful of other battleground states — including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Virginia — are days away from offering early voting.

As this critical phase begins, Trump desperately wants to keep the focus on protest-related violence — and away from the pandemic. Even as coronavirus-related deaths continue to mount under his watch, with little national strategy, his team believes last week was one of the best of the year for his political prospects as he helped guide the nation’s attention toward violent protests in Wisconsin and elsewhere that could boost his standing among white, suburban voters.

While Biden is maintaining his lead in many polls, the race remains competitive in the states that matter most this fall. Biden’s allies in places like the Minneapolis suburbs and western Pennsylvania are calling on him to ramp up his on-the-ground presence.

With Election Day in sight, the bright glare of the presidential race intensifies the national focus — and makes the candidates’ mistakes more dangerous — as each day passes.

The final thought

With the early voting phase getting underway, it’s a good time to remind everybody just how close this election still is.

Biden’s national lead may be as stable, but U.S. elections aren’t decided by the national popular vote. Looking at the few recent battleground state polls that meet our standards, Biden has been statistically tied with Trump in Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. He has an advantage in Wisconsin, but in Michigan, where much of the political world has written off Trump, there hasn’t been a public poll that’s met our standards in a month.

Let’s not forget the lessons of 2016: Nobody knows how this thing will shake out.

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2020 Watch provides a look at the week ahead in the 2020 election.

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Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and President Donald Trump spent Monday diminishing each other’s credentials on the economy and understanding of the American worker as the presidential campaign entered its final, post-Labor Day stretch. View photos from the weekend.