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(Reuters) - The head of the Republican National Committee accused North Carolinas Democratic governor on Friday of delaying issuing guidelines for the partys national convention in Charlotte, and warned that organizers are prepared to choose another location soon.

FILE PHOTO: Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, U.S., February 28, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

The comments by RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on a popular North Carolina radio show came a day after her letter to Governor Roy Cooper setting a June 3 deadline to approve safety and logistical measures - such as how many people can gather together - to prevent the spread of the coronavirus during the August convention.

Coopers office responded by asking the RNC to spell out how many people will attend each night and how they will adhere to social distancing and other protocols, such as mask coverings.

North Carolina will continue working with the RNC to ensure the convention can be held safely, said Coopers spokesperson, Sadie Weiner.

The governors office also pointed to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions guidelines, which suggest postponing large gatherings of more than 250 people.

President Donald Trump has pressured Democratic leaders in the state to let him hold a traditional convention, but state officials are asking the party to submit detailed plans before they make a determination.

Republicans want Cooper to provide ground rules for the convention, setting him up as a potential villain if they choose another location.

Its starting to feel like they are dragging their feet and they dont want to give us their guidelines, McDaniel told former state Governor Pat McCrory on his radio show. We are hoping to make it work but we are not going to wait indefinitely.

Coopers office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

McDaniel suggested the delay is purposeful in an effort to leave the party with no other option. Republicans have agreed to several safety measures, such as health questionnaires and thermal scans for fever, she said.

The party entered a contract two years ago with officials in North Carolina to hold the convention, a huge gathering that would bring thousands of delegates, alternates, journalists and other attendees to the states hotels and restaurants over a four-day period.

Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Tom Brown

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North Carolina Democrats 'dragging their feet' on convention rules, RNC chief says - Reuters

The 2020 electoral environment currently looks pretty good for Democrats.

As of Sunday evening, Democrats lead Republicans by roughly 8 percentage points in FiveThirtyEights generic ballot tracker, just a point less than their lead on Election Day 2018.

We know that early generic ballot polling has predictive value in both midterm and presidential cycles. These surveys, which ask voters which party they plan to support in the next congressional election, correctly foreshadowed big Democratic gains in the 2018 midterm elections as early as June 2017. They also have trended close to the final national popular vote for president.

But how confident should Democrats be that this lead will hold? We took a look at the movement in generic ballot polling in presidential cycles from 1996 to 2016. In the last six months of a cycle, the polls often shifted by meaningful amounts: There was, on average, a 4-point range between the largest and smallest generic ballot margins.

The average generic-ballot polling margin at different points in the last six months of a presidential election cycle, since 1996

For the average margin at six, four, and two months from Election Day, we included all polls fielded around the relevant time point (180 days out, 120 days out, 60 days out). We also calculated an average for each pollster in a given period so a pollster wasnt overrepresented, then averaged those averages. Figures are rounded.

Source: Polls

Four points may not sound like a lot, but that sort of shift in voter preferences could make or break the election for candidates in the closely fought seats that will determine control of the House. Whats more, there appears to be a tendency for the margin to narrow by Election Day, so Democrats should probably expect their lead to shrink in the coming months. In four of the six cycles we analyzed, the difference between the two parties shrank from 6 months out to 10 days before the election. Only in 2000 and 2012 was there little change in the overall electoral environment.

Of course, theres no guarantee the generic ballot will move much this time around, but its still worth thinking about how a change in the national environment could make the 2020 House race more of a toss-up. Take 2016: Republicans went from trailing by 6 points in the generic ballot four months before the election to trailing by just 1 point in the final 10 days. Notably, they ended up narrowly winning the House popular vote, too 48 percent to 47 percent. This speaks to the consequential shifts generic ballot polls can experience between now and November.

Currently, FiveThirtyEights tracker puts Democrats up by about 8 points. If that were to dwindle to a little less than 4 points by November, that might still be a sufficient lead for Democrats to retain control of the House. But it could also give Republicans a better shot at winning some Democratic-held House seats that dont look especially vulnerable right now. There are some sizable GOP pickup opportunities, as Democrats are defending 30 districts that President Trump carried in 2016 (Republicans just need to win 18 seats to retake the House).

Moreover, because the generic ballot also says something about the overall electoral environment, a narrow Democratic lead could signal that Trump has a better chance of winning reelection. In 2016, Trump lost the national popular vote by 2.1 points to Hillary Clinton, but he won in the Electoral College because he performed better in key swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In fact, Wisconsin was the tipping-point state in 2016 and Trump won it by 0.8 points, meaning that the decisive contest in the Electoral College was about 3 points more Republican than the country as a whole. So if Trump once again has an advantage in the Electoral College, a smaller Democratic lead in the generic ballot could point to a more competitive presidential election.

The generic ballot average has been relatively stable in 2020, but recent history suggests it could still move and make for a competitive battle for control of the House as well as the White House. In other words, Democrats still have reasons to be optimistic about November, but a small swing in the electoral environment could be the difference between Democrats maintaining their House majority and Republicans capturing one.

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Democrats Lead The Race For Congress But The National Environment Will Probably Change - FiveThirtyEight

It was a shocking margin of victory in what was expected to be a close race: an 11-point blowout by a liberal judge over a conservative incumbent for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Now Wisconsin Democrats are working to export their template for success intense digital outreach and a well-coordinated vote-by-mail operation to other states in the hope that it will improve the partys chances in local and statewide elections and in the quest to unseat President Trump in November.

Their top officials have gone on a virtual nationwide tour, extolling the virtues of their digital campaign efforts in hopes Democrats and liberal activists elsewhere can replicate their victory, when Jill Karofsky, a liberal judge, ousted State Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly.

The first chance comes Tuesday in a special election for a Republican-heavy House district that covers the northern third of the state. It is the nations first partisan contest since Wisconsins April 7 election, and it will provide more evidence as to whether Democratic vote-by-mail success in that race is repeatable.

State party officials have spoken regularly with counterparts in other states, addressed a national virtual gathering of union activists and wrote a public memo with Stacey Abramss Fair Fight organization detailing lessons learned that can be applied elsewhere.

You do get to learn from these things, said Ramsey Reid, the battleground states director for the Democratic National Committee, who has facilitated calls between Wisconsin officials and their counterparts in other states. You get to train more volunteers, you get to build habits around voters and apply lessons learned to states that have challenges.

While officials are publicly bragging about tactics like video calls with voters who need hand-holding to navigate often-cumbersome absentee ballot request forms, theyve been more circumspect about efforts theyve employed in the event of a narrow defeat.

In Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania and other states with upcoming June primary elections, state parties, along with Ms. Abramss organization, are collecting hundreds of legal affidavits from Democratic voters who have trouble acquiring and casting a ballot. The documents are intended to be used for court battles ahead of the November general election and in Wisconsin that tactic would have been employed to challenge the results of the Supreme Court race had the conservative candidate prevailed.

Like in Wisconsin, Democrats in other battleground states with virtually no history of mail voting have for now shifted overnight to an all-mail get-out-the-vote effort. President Trump, on the other hand, has repeatedly attacked mail voting, and Republicans have said they would push ahead with plans to limit its expansion in Michigan, Minnesota and other key states.

Mr. Trump has frequently attacked the Postal Service, usually in his long-running onslaught against Amazon, and last week had one of his top financial backers installed as postmaster general. Democrats and voting rights advocates have expressed concern the USPS could become politicized ahead of Novembers general election.

In Georgia, more than 1.2 million people have requested absentee ballots for the states June 9 primary compared to just 36,200 requests for the 2016 presidential primary. Nearly as many Georgians have applied to vote by mail in the Democratic primary as cast ballots in the partys 2016 contest, when there were still competitive races for both parties nominations.

New Hampshire has no history of significant numbers of voting by mail. The state has no online portal to request an absentee ballot some municipal clerks accept requests via email while others do not. Democratic Party officials have been warned by their Wisconsin counterparts that, if hundreds of thousands of voters seek to vote by mail, local clerks will quickly become overwhelmed by the volume.

The New Hampshire Democratic Party has always run a voter protection hotline on Election Day and the few days before, but we are going to need to have that running for a much longer period of time, said Liz Wester, the director of the New Hampshire Democrats coordinated campaign, who has spoken extensively with officials in Wisconsin since April 7. It will be for months.

And Pennsylvania Democrats have found themselves struggling to convince wary voters that sending ballots through the mail is safe.

There is something about voting on Election Day, said Sincer Harris, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. Its something theyve known, theyre comfortable doing it, especially in the African-American community, you can count on it. Theres a little hesitancy when it comes to the mail system.

Last month in Wisconsin, a New York Times analysis found that Ms. Karofsky, the liberal candidate in the states nonpartisan Supreme Court race, performed about 10 percentage points better in mail voting than she did at the polls, suggesting Democratic voters were more likely than Republicans to request and return absentee ballots.

Republicans who control the state legislature have refused to allow all-mail elections, despite the pandemic. Health officials in Milwaukee said this week that 26 voters may have contracted the coronavirus while voting in April though the study said it was unclear precisely how they became infected.

The first test of whether Wisconsin Democrats April 7 methods can be repeated comes Tuesday, in the special House election that pits the Democrat Tricia Zunker, a school board president from Wausau who is an associate justice on the Ho-Chunk Nation Supreme Court, against Tom Tiffany, a two-term Republican state senator who has campaigned as a supporter of President Trump.

Officials say the contest is less about which candidate will hold the seat for eight months the two candidates are expected to face off again in November for a full two-year term than it is an exercise in training volunteers and voters in how to vote by mail. Each of the 110,000 voters who requested an absentee ballot for the Tuesday election had the chance to opt in to receive a mail ballot for the November general election. Its not known how many Wisconsin voters have already requested ballots for November, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Elections Commission said.

Our county only had four cases of Covid-19 and I think they are recovered by now, said Jim Kurz, the Democratic Party chairman in Rusk County. Most other counties in this district also had few cases, so I dont think fear of disease will keep voter turnout down.

Neither party considers the Wisconsin congressional election to be one Democrats have much chance of winning both Democratic and Republican internal polling shows Mr. Tiffany with a double-digit advantage but the margin between the two candidates could serve as an indicator of the state of the two parties enthusiasm.

In 2016, President Trump carried the district by 20 percentage points. But in last months Supreme Court race, the conservative candidate won the district by just 6 points while losing statewide by 11, according to an analysis by the University of Virginias Center for Politics.

Like the April 7 election, Tuesdays special election will take place with polling places open across the districts 700 municipalities in 26 counties. The Wisconsin National Guard will once again dispatch its members to help communities staff poll sites.

Mr. Tiffany, a two-term state senator who works as a dam tender on the Willow Flowage in northern Wisconsin, served as a poll worker during the April 7 election and said voters across the congressional district are less afraid of contracting and spreading the coronavirus than their counterparts in the states urban centers to the south.

People in the cities and suburban areas tend to vote more absentee, he said. With this being a more rural district, youll probably see fewer absentees than you did in the April 7 election.

Ms. Zunker had put thousands of miles on her car driving across the 26-county district before travel and public gatherings were restricted. Her campaign manager only moved to Wausau three days before Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin implemented the states Safer at Home ordinance that effectively ended all in-person campaigning.

She painted her race Tuesday as the first step toward former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. carrying Wisconsin in November.

When we put this seat back to blue, the state is blue again. The pathway to winning the presidential race starts on May 12, Ms. Zunker said in an interview last week.

Anything less than a double-digit victory for Mr. Tiffany will be seen as yet another indicator of Democratic momentum in what is certain to be among the most contested states on the presidential map.

The district is loaded with people who became tired of being looked down upon by urban people and so that has been exploitable by the Republican candidates in the past three elections or so, said David R. Obey, a Democrat who represented northern Wisconsin in Congress for 42 years before retiring after the 2010 election. Trump, he turns the dial a little bit, and I just dont know how much.

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Democrats Vote-by-Mail Effort Won in Wisconsin: Will It Work Elsewhere? - The New York Times

Job Creators Network founder and Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus discusses the government's allocation of Paycheck Protection Program funding.

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A Democratic-led House committee sent a letter to five companies Thursday requesting that they return their PaycheckProtection Program (PPP) loans.

The five include transportation operatorEVO Transportation & Energy Services, Inc; construction service provider Gulf Island Fabrication, Inc;therapeutic biologics company MiMedx Group, Inc; technology solutions company Quantum Corporation; and steel products makerUniversal Stainless & Alloy Products, Inc. MiMedx is the only company that has agreed to return its loan.

Congress and theTrumpadministration haveallocated nearly $670 billioninfunding for the PPP,designed to incentivize small businesses with 500 or feweremployees to retain workers duringthecoronaviruspandemic, but some small-business owners feel left out by the program.

(AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File)

As millions of mom-and-pop shops were left out of luck after funding ran dry, 387 publicly traded companies have tappedthe government-backed program and received about $1 billionin coronavirus aid,according to Washington D.C.-based data analytics firmFactSquared. Nearly 50 companies have returned $350 million in PPP loans.

The committee selected these five companies because they are all publicly traded, have market capitalization of more than $25 million, have 600 employees or more and received$10 million loans, according to a press release.

SBA EXTENDS CORONAVIRUS PPP LOAN RETURN WINDOW: WHAT TO KNOW

"Since your company is a public entity with a substantial investor base and access to the capital markets, we ask that you return these funds immediately,"members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis wrote in a statement.

The committeechaired by Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C.,added that returning funds "will allow truly small businesseswhich do not have access to alternative sources of capitalto obtain the emergency loans they need to avoid layoffs, stay in business, and weather the economic disruption caused by the coronavirus crisis."

PPP CORONAVIRUS LOANS: FORGIVENESS MAY NOT BE AS SIMPLE AS BUSINESS OWNERS THINK

MiMedx announced in a Thursday press releasethat the company would be returning its $10 million loan.

"MiMedx Group, Inc. ...today announced that it is repaying the [PPP]Loan received through its application to the Federal relief effort. As announced previously, the funds enabled the Company to maintain full employment during a time of widespread uncertainty, producing skin-graft products for patients with serious wounds and burns," the company wrote.

CORONAVIRUS TAX RELIEF DEDUCTION DENIAL: IS YOUR PPP LOAN WORTH LESS?

The company added that like other businesses, MiMedx has been negatively impacted by the pandemic and has"experienced softened sales due to restricted access, both for patients and our field personnel, and the cancellation of elective surgeries." MiMedx "implemented numerous cost-containment measures, including a temporary gradated reduction in compensation for all salaried employees in order to avoid layoffs."

None of the other companies responded to inquiries from FOX Business regarding the committee's letters.

Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., criticized theHouse Democrats' "harassing" letters in a Thursday tweet, saying, "Dems spend more time shaming and investigating American workers and job creators than they do China. Telling."

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise speaks at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Sept. 19, 2019. (Alex Edelman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

He added that the Treasury Department is "reviewing loans received through the successful [PPP]," and the subcommittee's letters are"nothing more than reckless intimidation that could cause layoffs," and lawmakers should be more focused on helping U.S. families return to work and holding China accountable.

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Treasury SecretarySteven Mnuchinthreatened legal action against companies last week during an interviewwith FOX Business.

"Anybody that took the money that shouldnt have taken the money, one, it wont be forgiven, and two, they may be subject tocriminalliability, which is a big deal,"Mnuchin said.

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced its firstfraud chargesagainst two New England men in connection with the program.

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Coronavirus small business money to these 5 companies should be returned: Democrats - Fox Business

Their battle plan: Hope for the best next week, then try again in six months in the rematch, when Democrats expect their voters will show up with the presidential election on the ballot.

We dont underestimate how much of a Republican-leaning district this could be in May, but that will be a different electorate in November, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said, noting that the winner will serve only a limited time in Congress. We dont get in this to lose a race, but I do think that in November, Christy will be successful.

Yet a victory by Republican Mike Garcia, a 44-year-old former Naval aviator and defense contractor, would provide a jolt of energy to the GOPs efforts to reclaim some of its lost suburban territory even as the partys chances of recapturing the House majority appear to be dwindling.

The close race is remarkable, in part, because voters in the district, which spans the northern Los Angeles suburbs, backed Hillary Clinton by 7 points two years prior. And President Donald Trump is still highly unpopular there; one Democratic survey found his favorability ratings underwater by double digits. Those same conditions could be present in several key seats that Republicans hope to flip back.

State Assemblywoman Christy Smith. | Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo

It is not a unique district. It is similar to many of the districts that we won in the fall, said one Democratic consultant who works on House races. This was an anti-Trump response district, and if were ebbing in those districts we need to find out why. We cant just brush it off.

Trump gave Garcia his "complete & total endorsement" in a series of tweets Saturday.

Because of the coronavirus outbreak, the election will be conducted almost entirely by mail, and ballot return tallies thus far ballots must be postmarked by Tuesday and received by Friday in order to be counted have only contributed to Democrats fears.

The electorate so far is older, less diverse and more likely to favor the GOP. Of more than 118,000 returned ballots counted as of Friday, 44 percent are from registered Republicans, and just 36 percent are from Democrats, according to Paul Mitchell, the vice president of Political Data Inc., a bipartisan company that analyzes voter data.

Look at the age breakdown, Mitchell said in an interview, pointing to turnout rates that showed that 15 percent of voters under 35 years old have returned their ballots thus far, compared to 49 percent of those 65 and older. "Thats a big deal. The Latino population is pretty significant here," he added, "but theyre turning out at half the rate of white voters.

Privately, Democrats are pessimistic about their odds. The DCCC has spent over $1 million on TV ads boosting Smith after the March 3 primary, but the cavalry of outside groups that typically drop millions in special elections has largely sat out the race.

Both House Majority PAC and EMILYs List, which endorsed Smith, concluded the May electorate skewed too heavily toward Republicans and the cost of running ads in the pricey Los Angeles market was too high to justify a major investment when the winner would serve for only a few months before facing voters again, according to sources with knowledge of their spending decisions.

Democrats maintain that the GOP advantage will evaporate in November, when turnout will return to normal levels. Democrats have a voter registration advantage of nearly 30,000 in the district.

I think thats why a lot of groups are kind of pushing the pause button, said Aguilar, who co-chairs the DCCCs program for top offensive targets. And I think its a realization that the dynamics in this race in November are going to just be very different and lean our way significantly.

Yet some worry a Republican victory in the suburbs could set a concerning narrative, spur a surge in donations and energy in other Clinton-won districts that the GOP needs if they have any chance of taking back the House. Plus, Garcia could get a boost from his win, offering him a limited power of incumbency and a solid fundraising perch.

I mean, it wouldnt be good, Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) said of a potential loss on Tuesday. This is the only election, and this is a seat we won. So any time you lose a seat thats concerning. You dont take that for granted.

But Bass said she believes Smith will win and predicted that polls trying to gauge an all-mail election during a global crisis were portraying the race to be closer than it is.

Your guide to the permanent campaign weekday mornings, in your inbox.

In an interview, Smith, a 50-year-old former school board member who flipped a red state Assembly seat in 2018, said she understood the need to allocate resources wisely and conceded her path to victory would be easier in November. But she also framed this election in dire terms.

The reason Im running is because my constituents cant afford to wait, especially in this Covid recovery moment, she said. We need a seat at the table for all of these decisions that are going to be made and someone who is there stridently fighting for what our community needs.

The race will be the first substantive test of how the pandemic affects federal elections. Both Smith and Garcia have been forced to wage largely virtual campaigns from their homes.

Garcia is running heavily on his bio as a former Naval aviator who returned to the district to work for Raytheon, a defense contractor.

He landed a Twitter endorsement from Trump but is also hoping to pick up independents turned off by the president. He has avoided many recent requests for media interviews, including for this story. And Democrats complain that has allowed him to avoid taking positions on key issues, including the administrations Covid-19 response.

Democrats dominate the congressional delegation in California, holding 46 of the state's 53 seats after netting 7 seats in 2018, including the 25th District. Republicans haven't flipped a House seat in California since 1998, when the GOP won two open seats that were held by Democrats.

After Hill resigned from the seat last fall, former Rep. Steve Knight (R-Calif.) announced a comeback bid. The DCCC and HMP, eager to face a foe they had easily dispatched, spent over $1 million to try and knock him into the runoff with Smith. But Knight (17 percent) finished a distant third place behind Smith (36 percent) and Garcia (25 percent) in the all-party election.

Privately, some Democrats have questioned the efficacy of expending precious resources trying to choose Smiths opponent in the runoff.

Republicans have hammered Smith as a Sacramento politician with a weak track record on education. And they seized on a gaffe she made on a livestream in which she appeared to mock Garcias time in the Navy. (She has since apologized.)

Christy Smith is a horribly flawed candidate who spit in the face of Mike Garcias military service and the public school teachers she voted to fire, NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said in a statement. These issues are going to sink her campaign next Tuesday, and they will keep her sunk in November.

Democratic strategists believe the fall election will be more of a referendum on the president, and that the shadow of Hills resignation will have subsided. Private Democratic polling from December found Hill's unfavorable rating exceeded her favorable rating by double digits, according to a source familiar with the survey.

Hill waded into the race in April with her new PAC, cutting a direct-to-camera TV ad aimed at juicing Democratic turnout. Her $200,000 expenditure caught the DCCC by surprise, according to a source familiar with spending in the race.

In an interview late last month, Hill said she believed she was still popular with Democrats in the district and hoped her familiar face would boost turnout among her partys low-propensity voters.

I was hoping that the race would be much easier to win, right? she said. And we want to be smart about how we spend the money. Do you spend it now, or do you spend it in November?

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Democrats are on verge of the unthinkable: Losing a swing district in California - POLITICO