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With the balloon drop scrapped and the cheering crowds banished, Democratic convention planners faced the grim prospect this summer of throwing Joe Biden a party in a pandemic without any apparent celebration. “At a regular convention, audience reaction is a huge part of the speeches,” Andrew Binns, the event’s chief operating officer, explained. “We needed a way to do that technologically and virtually.” (Scherer, 8/16)

In a year of canceled plans, with vacations, graduations and sports seasons upended by the coronavirus crisis, the stretch of downtown Milwaukee where Democrats were supposed to hold their nominating convention this week was quiet and sparsely populated — another reminder of a summer lost. Instead of thousands of Democrats preparing to gather at the newly built Fiserv Forum, there was just one street blocked off this weekend near the smaller Wisconsin Center, which will host the last few parts of the Democratic National Convention — including speeches by Wisconsin politicians — that will still take place in this city. There was no signage near the venue marking the occasion. Hotels were closed, restaurants were empty and the bars of America’s most beer-loving city were eerily barren. (Herndon and Epstein, 8/16)

More than 100 Democrats affiliated with the anti-abortion group Democrats for Life have signed a letter urging the party to change its abortion stance in this year's platform. Signatories include Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, Rep. Collin Peterson (Minn.) and Rep. Dan Lipinski (Ill.), who lost his March primary to a progressive. Fifty-six state legislators also signed the letter addressed to the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee. (Birenbaum, 8/14)

A battle within the Democratic Party is looming on health care if presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wins and the Senate flips. In the primary earlier this year, Biden’s plan for a government-run public option for health insurance was seen as the moderate choice, compared with Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) “Medicare for All.” But once the arena shifts away from the campaign trail to Congress, where the proposal would have to pass via a narrow margin in the Senate and despite fierce opposition from well-funded industry groups, Biden’s plan would become a daunting challenge to enact. (Sullivan, 8/15)

The coronavirus pandemic will loom large over this week’s Democratic convention — and will be the key part of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s messaging. Biden’s path to the White House is tied to the pandemic in that he argues President Trump’s complete mishandling of the crisis is the final reason voters should end his presidency at one term. (Parnes, 8/16)

A coalition of major health care industry groups unveiled new ads on Friday against a public option for health insurance, an idea backed by presumptive nominee Joe Biden, that will run during the coming party conventions and into the fall. The ads do not mention Biden by name, but they take aim at his signature health policy proposal, a government-run option for health insurance, as the health care industry looks to build opposition ahead of a possible Democratic takeover of Washington next year. (Sullivan, 8/14)

Former President Obama said in a podcast released Friday that President Trump made “terrible decisions” that have worsened the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Speaking of the selection of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as the vice presidential nominee, Obama said: “She is somebody who I think will be able to share the stage with Mike Pence, or whoever else, and dissect some of the terrible decisions that have been made over the last four years that have helped create worse problems than were necessary in the midst of this pandemic.” (Sullivan, 8/14)