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This afternoon, Barack Obama stopped by Philadelphia, the largest city in that crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, to urge people to elect his former vice president, Joe Biden, to the highest office in the land.

At the roundtable of community leaders, Anthony Phillips, the executive director of a youth civic engagement organization in Philadelphia, asked the president, Given our political and social atmosphere, why should young Black men care to be engaged in the political process?

Obama didnt mince words. What I consistently try to communicate during this year, particularly when Im talking to young brothers who may be cynical about what can happen, is to acknowledge to them that government and voting alone isnt gonna change anything, he said. Young people are sophisticated, so theres no point in overhyping what happens.

Obama admitted that his presidency had not solved all the nations issues. But he likes to think he left the country a little bit better. Criminal justice reform under Attorney General Eric Holder meant that many Black men convicted of nonviolent drug crimes faced more lenient sentences than they may have under previous administrations. The Affordable Care Act insured more than 20 million Americans, saving countless lives.

The answer for young people when I talk to them is not that voting makes everything perfect, he said. Its that it makes things better.

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Barack Obama Doesn't Think Voting Will Make the Country Perfect. He Wants You to Do It Anyway. - Mother Jones

Former NFL quarterback Michael Vick opened up about his road to redemption following his 21-month prison sentence in 2007 for his involvement in a dogfighting ring during a panel about empowering g the next generation of Black men at BLACK ENTERPRISEs4th annualBlack Men XCELsummit.

When I came home from prison, I felt the pressure. I felt like I was living in a bubble, admitted the FOX Sports analyst and activist at the virtual conference on Thursday about the notorious incident which overshadowed his football career.

However, rather than succumbing to the pressure he felt, Vick says he used the tools he developed behind bars to help him persevere.

I set goals while I was in prison. I accomplished almost everything that I wanted to accomplish and then some. That right there was the ultimate confirmation that I could do anything that I wanted to do in my life.

Vick added that now he uses the adversity hes overcome as a teachable moment for younger Black men and women.

I preach a hard message when talking to the youth in terms of responsibility, character, your beliefs, values, and morals, said the NFL legend. I try to explain to young men and women the hurt and the anguish that Ive experienced to grow stronger and to get to where I am today. I want my message to be, at all cost, youre not going to go through life perfect, there are going to be some ups and downs, but its all in how you persevere.

He went on to talk about leaning on faith, saying, let God lead you from there.

At another point, the former Atlanta Falcons player talked about the need to provide Black athletes with guidance, mentorship, and father figures.

Young athletes today straddle the fence in terms of what I should do [versus] what shouldnt I do. It can be very complicated. A lot of them come up from backgrounds where theyre not taught, not educated, and they dont have that guidance in order to prepare themselves for what theyre going to be facing, he said.

Were all put in high positions for a reason. Ive been thought a lot and I look back and I say I want to help the younger generation not make the mistakes that Ive made, he added.

Sponsored by FedEx Express, Black Men XCEL (BMX) was designed to provide Black men with the tools, resources, and training needed to advance in their respective careers and industries as well as acquire generational wealth and maintain mental wellness. The two-day summit featured a variety of sessions, workshops, coaching, and virtual activities. BMX also gave participants access to some of todays most successful business and executive influencers. Furthermore, the summit, which was also facilitated in partnership with presenting sponsors AT&T and JPMorgan Chase, provided attendees with the opportunity to conduct live chats with speakers, experts, mentors, and fellow attendees.

The motto for this years BMX is celebrating the best of who we are, said BLACK ENTERPRISE President and CEO Earl Butch Graves Jr. in his opening remarks. It is a celebration of Black mens collective achievement, resolve, and resilience during one of the most challenging periods of our history. We meet under the cloud of COVID-19 and a crippled economy. We are nearing the end of a divisive, racially charged election, and Black men are under assault at all levels.

Speakers included Walker Co. & Brands founder and CEO Tristan Walker, BCT Partners Chairman & CEO Randal Pinkett, AT&T Chief Development & Diversity Officer Corey Anthony, TV Host and Daddy Duty 365 Founder Shannon Lanier, former NFL Player Tiki Barber, PayPal Head of Global Financial Compliance Investigations Art Taylor, CNN contributor, attorney, and author Bakari Sellers, and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

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Exclusive: Michael Vick on Prison and Succeeding Through The Fire - Black Enterprise

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Its easy to reduce the stakes for any Election Day to the White House race. It feeds a billion-dollar campaign industry, draws the biggest headlines and turns even the most benign of venues, such as front lawns, into public squares for political signalling and thats during normal times without this years urgencies of pandemic, recession and racial reckoning.

But the vast majority of contests underway right now are at the state and local level. And thats actually where most Americans day-to-day interaction with government takes place. Want your towns bridge repaired? Thats probably your county engineer. Need your school district to better use learn-from-home technology? See your school board. Utility rates, transit schedules, senior-center hours? Probably more the purview of your local leaders than anything President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden will be yammering about tonight at their final debate. The person in the White House has the nuclear launch codes, but your zoning board determines if that deck you want to build next spring passes code.

State races are also pivotal to determining the future composition of Congress. Thats why the two major parties are spending tens of millions of dollars in key races there right now. In state legislature races, one Democratic super PAC this week announced it was doubling its investment to $12 million just to flip just the Texas statehouse. A swing of just nine seats in Texas 150-person chamber could put Democrats in control in a state that has been tantalizingly close for Democrats in every election in recent memory. More broadly, the Democrats main election arm for state legislatures has invested $50 million this cycle to help down-ballot lawmakers.

Their Republican counterparts arent publicly announcing their budgets, but in the third fiscal quarter alone, they raised an eye-popping $23 million for state legislative races and have no plans on keeping any of it as a nest-egg for 2022.Theres been at least $100 million in what we can see from national liberal groups on state legislative races, says David Abrams, the deputy executive director at the Republican State Leadership Committee, citing the organizations own tracking and publicly available information. While we have far out-paced our direct counterparts, were up against a huge galaxy of liberal groups that for the first time committed money down the ballot.

I can see you rolling your eyes at these massive sums of cash on what are largely seen as small-ball jobs. With a few exceptions, the pay for state legislators is lousy and the work is part-time. (New Mexicos lawmakers work for free, New Hampshires are paid $100 a year, Montana and Kansas pay about $90 per day the legislature is meeting.)

Their power, though, is far-reaching. In more than half of the states, the legislatures draw the U.S. House district lines. As I wrote last year, the battle for the battleground actually unfolds in statehouse races. Thats why big names like former Attorney General Eric Holder and former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are leading their respective parties efforts to have control over House districts borders by securing partisan power in the state legislatures. If you want to take a marker to the borders of your states congressional districts, first you have to convince voters to hand your party the Sharpie.

This is the Democrats first shot since 2000 to have redistricting and a White House race coincide, says Jessica Post, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. District borders are pegged to the Census, which counts how many people live where and typically forces officials to tinker with boundaries as some areas gain neighbors and others shed populations. The goal, in the ideal, is to have every district have an equal number of people so that every member of Congress has the same number of constituents. The next time well have time this opportunity is in 2040, Post tells me by phone. Across the aisle, Republicans also acknowledge the stakes. If the Republican Party wants any chance of winning a congressional majority in the next 10 years, we have to win in some of these races, Abrams tells me, also by phone.

Both campaign committees recognize that local state legislative races could end up literally determining who the House Speaker is in Washington after 2022. Because so many states let their local lawmakers draw the maps, partisans can orchestrate idiot-proof districts that can protect their allies. In recent years, that has worked in Republicans favor. Democrats took their eyes off the ball for state races in recent decades and, as a result, were relegated to impossible-to-win maps. In 2010, Democrats lost almost 700 state legislative seats and gave Republicans the power to draw lopsided maps that gave the GOP a disproportionate number of U.S. House seats in 2012, 2014 and 2016. Only a blue-wave election of 2018 gave Democrats the opportunity to break Republicans smartly drawn firewalls in House races.

Republicans still control 59 out of the 99 state legislative chambers in the country and can still scrawl partisan battle lines on maps next year. (Nebraskas unicameral legislature is the lone that lacks a state house and state senate. Its state capitol also is one of my favorites and worth a visit if ever you find yourself in Lincoln.) If Democrats can net 48 seats in this election of the 600 races theyre watching they can flip 10 chambers and take back some measure of power.

Still, the Republicans have for years had the upper hand when it comes to state legislative races. Its how they dominated most of the 2010s. The state legislative races are relatively cheap and feed the pipeline of future talent. Democrats are playing catch-up. But with Trump in the White House and Biden pulling ahead in polls, theres a reason why Democrats are feeling better than they have in years. Then again, its 2020, and who knows whats going to happen?

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Write to Philip Elliott at philip.elliott@time.com.

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The Presidential Race Dominates Headlines. Heres Why National Parties Are Dumping Tens of Millions Into State Races - TIME

COLUMBUS (AP) Influential Republican strategist Karl Rove is soliciting donations for an Ohio Supreme Court candidates reelection bid, signaling the high stakes involved in controlling the battleground states high court when congressional maps are redrawn next year.

Roves fundraising plea focused on not wanting Republicans to yield power over redistricting to Democrats, whose own line-drawing effort has been joined by former President Barack Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder.

A letter obtained by The Associated Press shows Rove, who served as President George W. Bushs chief political strategist, pleading with wealthy donors and various Ohio law firms to donate to Republican Justice Judith Frenchs campaign as the courts conservative majority is up for grabs on Nov. 3.

I dont often lend my name to statewide races, but Judi Frenchs race is too important, Rove writes.

The letter is the latest indication that local and state races, sometimes overlooked in a general election season, are seen as instrumental for both political parties this year.

The former Bush adviser lays out what he calls the high-stakes race between French and Democratic state appeals court Judge Jennifer Brunner, a one-time U.S. Senate contender and former Ohio secretary of state.

Rove tells potential donors well-funded left-wing interest groups from outside Ohio are vying to unseat French in order to redraw the lines of state legislative and congressional districts to benefit Democrats.

In an email, Rove said his pleas for donations to French are unrelated to his work for the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national group whose board he joined in April. The group, which focuses on electing Republicans in state-level races, has also taken an interest in Ohios Supreme Court races.

The group recently aired a TV campaign against Brunner, saying reckless judges like her risk our childrens safety, in reference to a February case she ruled on that involved a teacher convicted of voyeurism for recording videos of girls undressing.

The state Democratic Party defended Brunner, saying she followed the law in a difficult case, and called for French to disavow the ad and demand the RSLC take it down.

Records show the committee has been funneling donations to its two initiatives, the Right Lines Initiative and the Judicial Fairness Initiative, ahead of the 2020 election season, in an effort to dominate the legislatures and high courts in major battleground states like Ohio. Right Lines 2020 is a project intended to produce district maps that will help the GOP party over the next decade.

In his letter, Rove notes the more than $50 million the National Democratic Redistricting Committee has pledged to spend this election cycle, and he urges Republicans to fight back. The Democratic initiative, led by Holder and backed by Obama, has endorsed 200-plus state candidates and invested about $2 million into the contests.

This is a real threat to Ohio, and if Judi is defeated for reelection, it will have national ramifications, Rove writes.

On the other side of the aisle, the RSLCs Judicial Fairness Initiative is the project funding campaigns like Frenchs Supreme Court race, with at least $1.2 million funneled into the project in 2019 alone, according to the groups filings.

Other major funders of the initiative include the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who gave the RSLC around $950,000 between 2015 and 2017. The political group also got more than $250,000 from the for-profit tech education company K12 Inc., whose investors have included DeVos and Michael Milken, the convicted junk-bond king pardoned by President Donald Trump earlier this year.

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GOP's Rove asks donors to help French retain court seat - The Tribune - Ironton Tribune

On Wednesday, during a Collins campaign event in Elijay, House Speaker David Ralston sprinkled some gasoline on the fire.

I know Doug, said Ralston. I really dont know his opponent. I know shes got a lot of money. I know she married well. I know theyve got three or four jets. She was supposed to be getting the votes of suburban moms, but the ones I talk to say, She aint like me. Were still working on our first jet at our house.

The backlash has been bipartisan. Speaking up for Loeffler so far has been 14th District congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.

Loeffler is a strong conservative woman, and unfortunately because of that, shes no stranger to sexist comments like this. Especially, from career politicians, Blackburn wrote on Twitter.

Mara Davis, a prominent local Democratic activist, compared Ralstons remarks to senators who asked U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett who does the laundry or pretending you cant pronounce Kamala Harriss name.

And Loefflers campaign called Ralstons remarks sexist trash.

Pretty clear theyre terrified of losing to a strong conservative woman whos earned everything shes ever gotten, said her spokesman, Stephen Lawson.

***

If any of your friends wonder why Georgia is still in play with less than two weeks left in the 2020 presidential campaign, our AJC colleague Mark Niesse has your water cooler no, strike that Zoom ammunition.

According to the newspapers analysis of Georgias voter registration rolls, which closed earlier this month, 1 million new voters have been added since 2016, making the states electorate younger and more racially diverse.

Almost half of those new voters are under 35, and nearly two-thirds are people of color. White voters now make up 53% of all registered voters in Georgia.

The white electorate was 57% in 2016, and 59% in 2012.

***

To hold Georgias Seventh Congressional District, Republicans need to appeal to the moderate and independent voters in Gwinnett County, an increasingly diverse, immigrant-heavy part of suburban Atlanta.

Rich McCormick, an emergency room doctor and former Marine with a degree from the Morehouse School of Medicine, appeared to fit the bill. Hes the GOP nominee.

But new support from north Georgia could complicate McCormicks efforts to build a broader coalition. On Tuesday, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-supporting Republican running unopposed in the 14th District and known for posting racist and offensive videos on social media, endorsed McCormick.

She helpfully attached a picture of the two side-hugging at a recent GOP event in her Twitter post:

Rich McCormick is a Marine, ER doctor, husband, father, and has a huge heart for ALL people!, Greene wrote. Hes running against a radical communist college professor @Carolyn4GA7 shes horrible & has never accomplished anything.

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That college professor is Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux, McCormicks opponent, who pounced immediately. As weve said all along, Rich McCormicks political views are aligned with the racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of the far right, her campaign said.

CNN recently rated the Seventh District as the mostly likely U.S. House seat in the nation to flip in November. U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall, R-Lawrenceville, currently holds it.

Whats interesting is that McCormick isnt exactly celebrating the Greene endorsement. It wasnt retweeted onto his timeline or highlighted in a press release. But he isnt running from it, either.

Marjorie and Rich certainly dont agree on everything and he has condemned some of her comments, McCormick spokesman John Simpson said. The only thing to take from this picture is Rich and Marjorie both agree that he is the best candidate to represent GA 7 in Congress.

Simpson reminded us that McCormick condemned Greene in August after she falsely accused George Soros of assisting Nazis as a child. McCormick, who himself had criticized Soross support of Democratic causes, said Greene should apologize and accused her of spreading an anti-Semitic conspiracy.

McCormicks campaign is now hoping to shift the narrative by promoting a new ad that accuses Bourdeaux of extremist ties and supporting defunding the police. Her campaign says it is a deflection and full of inaccurate claims about her platform.

A new attack ad from Rich McCormick leans on racist tropes in a desperate, last-ditch scramble to save his flailing campaign, her campaign said this morning.

***

The latest TV attack on U.S. Senate candidate Doug Collins by Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler serves up an image of her GOP rival as the perfect picture of a Washington career politician.

And who is pictured embracing Collins? Stacey Abrams.

The ad, airing on Fox News, comes as Collins batters his Republican rival over a portrait of former Chinese dictator Mao Zedong in her foyer. It also marks a return to the Abrams-bashing that both Republican candidates have engaged in throughout the grueling special election fight.

***

President Trump and his advisers have repeatedly contemplated the firing of former Atlanta attorney and current FBI Director Chris Wray after Election Day out of Trumps frustration that federal law enforcement has not delivered his campaign the kind of last-minute boost provided by the FBI four years ago, according to the Washington Post.

***

The Newnan Times-Herald tells us that theres a move afoot to have the city of Chattahoochee Hills remove itself from Fulton County and become part of Coweta County. The action would require a two-thirds vote by a grand jury in each county -- a process that has been tried in Georgia but never yet succeeded.

***

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar was at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday, apparently for morale boosting purposes. Azar was asked about widespread reports that the Trump administration had improperly interfered with the publicly issued reports and recommendations by the CDC during the pandemic.

I think some of the people who comment are not having actually lived in or led this organization during this type of a crisis, fail to appreciate that, Azar said.

For the record, James Curran, the dean of Emory Universitys Rollins School of Public Health and former head of the CDC said this just last week, according to our AJC colleague Ariel Hart:

I was there with the Reagan administration, and Ronald Reagan didnt say the word (AIDS) in public for six years after the first cases were reported, Curran said. But CDC was never prevented from saying what we thought needed to be said. And we were never kept away from the press the way the CDC now is with COVID. With COVID, theres interference. Which is even worse than neglect in many ways. The money is flowing. But the thing that isnt flowing is the expertise and access to expertise.

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***

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumers super PAC is pumping another $3.4 million to help Democrat Jon Ossoff oust U.S. Sen. David Perdue as the challengers campaign rumbles about an outright win in November.

Ossoff released a memo this week with polling that showed him -- no surprise, given it was conducted by his campaign -- with a lead over the Republican and within striking distance of a majority-vote needed to avoid a runoff. Ossoff and other Democratic outlets have attacked Perdue on his stock trades during the pandemic, and on Republican efforts to have the Affordable Care Act declared unconstitutional. So these lines in the memo stood out:

Senator Perdue was recently forced to start running defensive ads to attempt to explain his position on both of these. He has even been forced to spend millions running ads bragging that the authorities have not yet indicted him.

By mocking Senator Kamala Harris' heritage at a Trump rally over the weekend, Perdue further undermined his standing with suburban women and minority voters already disgusted by the divisive and juvenile antics of Donald Trumps GOP.

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***

Our AJC colleague Eric Sturgis has a report on the potential impact young voters could have this year -- if they show up:

A key factor in this election cycle is whether young Georgians will vote in large numbers. About one in five active Georgia voters are younger than 29. Recent history shows that if they vote, they can decide elections.

Traditionally, 18 to 29-year-olds vote at lower percentages than any age group. More than 150,000 young Georgians have cast ballots thus far, state data shows.

-

***

In endorsement news: Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is backing Democrat Jon Ossoffs bid to unseat Republican David Perdue.

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The Jolt: On the GOP side of a Senate race, a gender fight breaks into the open - Atlanta Journal Constitution