Gazette Daily News Briefing, November 26
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Thursday, November 26th.
Happy Thanksgiving!
The weather will be fairly pleasant for your holiday Thursday, if a little chilly. According to the National Weather Service there will be a high of 47 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area with cloudy skies gradually becoming sunny. A 5-10 mph wind will calm down even further during the day, and the low will settle in at 29 degrees.
Iowa’s new cases of COVID-19 continue to hover at a new elevated normal, but the state has seen an unusual amount of deaths from the disease the past few days. On Tuesday the state reported 42 people died of the novel coronavirus, the highest single day death total in Iowa since the pandemic began. On Wednesday, 41 more deaths were reported, bringing the state’s total to 2,312.
To put this in perspective, when the first inklings of this current spike in cases started in late September, about 1,300 deaths had already occurred in Iowa since the virus first was reported in the state in March. In the two months that followed, 1,000 more people have died.
The state reported 3,345 new COVID-19 cases during the 24-hour period ending 11;00 a.m. Wednesday, with a positivity rate of 39.11 percent. About 1,300 people remain hospitalized with the disease.
New unemployment claims in Iowa jumped by 3,466 last week, to 9,458, marking the largest single-week increase in new unemployment claims since the week of April 4.
This matched a national trend, where the United State Labor Department said on Wednesday the number of Americans applying for unemployment rose for the second straight week, to a total of 778,000. Before the virus struck hard in mid-March, weekly claims typically amounted to only about 225,000 nationally, according to department statistics.
And now for an update from Iowa’s second congressional district race that gets closer by the day in votes, but not necessarily closer to a resolution. Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks, as of late Wednesday afternoon, had 196,880 votes to Democrat Rita Hart’s 196,845, according to unofficial results from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office. This new 35 vote margin could drop to single digits if other unofficial results hold true, but the most likely destination this race may be heading is to court, as the two campaigns continue to clash over recounting rules. According to Nathaniel Rakich of 538, there have only been 3 federal elections in the last 100 years to be decided by fewer than 20 votes: a New Hampshire senate race, 2 votes apart, in 1974; an Indiana congressional race in 1984, 4 votes apart; and a New York congressional race in 1924, where the winning margin was 10 votes.
According to Iowa law, in the event of a tie, the two candidates will have sheets of paper placed with their names on them in a receptacle, such as a hat or a bowl, before the winner is pulled at random.
I have to admit my bias, I not only hope that the winner’s name is pulled from a receptacle, I hope that Iowans get the opportunity to vote on what the receptacle is, and this receptacle is played for in the Iowa versus Iowa State football trophy game henceforth into perpetuity.
And on that note, if you’re still listening to me, I think it’s time for your holiday break now.
