Weekend (Pre-Debate) Highlights:
The Final Stretch Has Begun With a Bang-Including with Jimmy Kimmel Back Live on ABC.
Feel free to check the entire blog archives from “Political Pulse” & “Salzillo Report” on the 2024 primary cycle, rural outreach, redistricting litigation, base dynamics, campaign organization, the current media landscape, the issues at stake, Project 2025, Build Back Better, the progressive movement, the true story about former 2024 VP contender Gina Raimondo, and much more.
It has been a busy week (check the recent Monday blog editions if you don’t believe me). The final stretch has begun with the end of the Labor Day weekend. And it is packing fast.
We’ve talked about so many key races up and down the ballot this cycle (interesting report on such note that while there is a lot of enthusiasm for Harris-Walz, it is not fully rejuvenating down ballot finance efforts just yet).
But here’s one that will get your attention. Montana might very well decide who controls both the Senate, & the House. There is a highly competitive House race featuring an upstart Democratic challenger, Monica Tranel, running against former Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke (yes, this Ryan Zinke).
Even more consequential, by far, is the matchup between incumbent Jon Tester & Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy. Sounds like a normal matchup for once. While Sheehy had shown a slight edge, the polls remain very tight.
But in what could change that race, new audio is released showing Tim Sheehy in a not so good light. Sheehy can be heard touting his great relationship with the Crow Reservation, one of the indigenous tribes in Montana, through his roping and branding “while they’re drunk at 8 AM.” Not a one timer either where Sheehy proclaims native tribes have a preference for Coors Light beer. Hard to imagine that will assist the Montana GOP hoping to make inroads with Native American tribes who have strongly supported Senator Tester in all of his tight statewide campaigns (in which tribal peoples represent about 6% of the state’s population).
The feds are also seeking an investigation into a loan given to Sheehy’s business as it currently heads for bankruptcy.
Meanwhile in North Carolina, controversy just cannot escape GOP gubernatorial hopeful Mark Robinson, who was just named a regular attendee of porn shops in the 1990s and 2000s.
Speaking of polls, here are some takes for Democrats, and even Republicans, to consider. We cannot ignore the 2016 and 2020 undercounts of “hidden Trump voters,” and while that seems more unlikely due to the nature of the 2024 campaign with Trump as a well-known commodity one way or another, it cannot be dismissed just yet, even for the vulnerabilities pundits discuss heavily with Trump-Vance.
And still, it is not out of the equation that there are “Hidden Harris voters” out there that are not being represented either. The unusual energy around the Harris-Walz ticket is one that hasn’t been seen in a while, though it is way too early to say it will match the magic of the Obama-Biden wave of 2008 by any stretch. However, such an undercount could still matter very much, as it did in the 2022 midterms.
Indeed, the 2022 midterms defied expectations on the energy, mainly fear, following the Dobbs decision, as well as the gun violence crisis, and even more so, the issue of democracy. The potency of these issues were not detected in pre-Election Day polls, which made the position of the Democratic Party generically weaker and the Republican Party stronger in the data. Of course we now know that even with the margin of error in place, we did not know until Election Night itself that these issues were decisive to the nature of the 2022 midterms overall.
All those issues back then, and others previously covered here, are still relevant. Even more so, the momentum present should it remain in place, could turn out even more voters in a presidential cycle that naturally will have higher turnout on both sides anyways. And if the presidential ticket personalities reinforce that, the fresh hope & joy of Harris-Walz, vs. the same, stale doom-and-gloom prophecy of Trump-Vance, history could repeat itself one more time in 2024.
At the same time, it is worth cautioning against complacency to this type of common wisdom. On the other side of the coin, back in 2022, there were indeed junk polls unrepresentative of the actual political environment that derailed other potential surprises that could have occurred if not for infecting the psyche of political insiders (like it did most notably in the Wisconsin Senate race between Republican Ron Johnson & Democrat Mandela Barnes decided by almost exactly 1 percentage point, or the fears about Dr. Mehmet Oz coming back from behind against John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, or the supposed scares in a number of New Hampshire, New Mexico, Colorado, Maine, Connecticut, and Washington statewide races).
So for those looking at each and every poll, don’t be too focused. In fact, keeping a list of pollsters not to factor or take into account might not be a bad idea (starting with RealClearPolitics & Trafalgar Group based on their reputations last cycle).
Here is my advice to Democrats, if it is worth much. If you are running in a difficult political terrain (Trump Country), do your best and ignore the pundit noise. Challenge the Republicans on their home turf and be relentless in keeping the heat on them however possible on the issues. Try to win, but make it a close fight if nothing else. Outmatch them at their own game.
Democrats in the 2024 election battlegrounds, regardless of polling position, need to run like the underdogs. Forget what the polls say (“Damn the Polls”). Forget the DC chatter. Focus on the goal. Run and keep campaigning like your very lives depend on it. Work it off like you are 5 points behind. The long distance prep is over, and the sprint to the finish line starts now.
And Democrats in Harris Territory, don’t relent. You may be in good shape, but people down ballot might need your coattails, as they will the coattails of the presidential tickets. Comes down to simple math.
Go to on-the-ground gut instincts, not minute-by-minute polling and punditry.
Additionally, in the spirit of the midterm cycle, and the recent Harris-Walz bus tour through Southern Georgia, remember this saying: “Every County, Every Vote.”
Not to mention, the elections are closer than they appear. The first mail ballots are going out all around the country this month. Means time is short to convince voters before they start deciding the fate of this nation for decades to come, and to know all the new election rules & voting laws.
We also cannot discount election litigation bubbling up in several states already (including in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and even Nebraska).
Finally, the debate on September 10th is coming up fast. Here are my quick thoughts on that:
Trump will do his thing. He will likely not stay on message about the issues. Instead, he will ramble and lie and engage in personal smear attacks against Harris (to the chagrin of GOP strategists like David Urban and Shermichael Singleton). It all reflects a tired, stale act and a tired, stale, old candidate. His frequent slurring & mumbling the past several weeks only reinforces the point. Harris should, by all means, let Trump speak. This will only force the media to cover Trump’s age, his gaffes, and the possible signs of his cognitive decline. It is only fair, isn’t it?
We can only hope the ABC moderators will ask tough questions of Trump. Given Trump’s comments about ABC, that seems to be precisely what he is worried about. ABC, unlike what happened at the CNN debate, must ask Trump the tough questions. If they are going to ask Harris about her positions on issues, they absolutely must confront Trump on his Project 2025 connections, his earlier vows to “terminate” the Constitution, his support of pardoning J6 insurrectionists, his 34 felony convictions, and many other issues. There must be tough questions and follow-ups, so that Trump will not wiggle his way out of accountability. People deserve to get a full picture of Trump’s “policy” platform.
Of course, the Vice President will be asked tough questions. When it comes to the most potent Trump issues—inflation, crime & immigration—Harris should try to present strong on a Democratic populist agenda and strong on border security and sensible immigration reform. While she will have to carve out her own identity out of Biden's Build Back Better agenda, she should vow to expand on Biden’s progress in unique ways.
If she is asked about flip-flopping, she should sight the almost-obvious change in perspective that will come from being second-in-line to a highly successful presidential administration. When you are on the national stage like that, it gives you a much greater sense of the many competing interests you have to balance to make good policy. Why run away from that? Embrace it. You are someone trying to transform this country, but you are a pragmatist. You work to do what you can get done. Just like President Biden did with a divided Congress and deeply polarized nation.
On abortion, the Vice President will have Trump cornered. His insane rate of flip-flopping tells you how tightly between a rock and a hard place he is on abortion. Yet, for undecided voters, here are the facts: Trump brags about having his judges overturn Roe v. Wade. That has caused the chaos we have seen at the state level surrounding abortion access today. It is a simple argument to make, with many horrid state abortion law stories to draw from.
For the Vice President, first of all, her job is to goad Trump to be his own worst enemy. Voters have been tired of his antics for a while, and even for some within his base, his act has gotten stale. She should not get in the way of that. Second, she needs to pin Trump down on the worst of his record: January 6, election denialism, the rights rollback, his historically botched response to the coronavirus pandemic, his COVID-era economic crash (where he lost more jobs than any president since the onset of the Great Depression), his love of dictators, his false predictions of a Biden stock market crash after the election, his failed economic policies which bloated the deficit and supported the Elon “Union Buster” Musks of the world, and Project 2025. In short, make people remember Trump for Trump.
The Vice President does not have time to fact-check Trump’s claims one-by-one (beyond perhaps regularly encouraging voters to double check on the web or elsewhere for consistency). She does need to clarify the general realities and themes of the progress of the Biden Presidency vs. the failings of the Trump Presidency that the Republican nominee will once again attempt to whitewash as the pathological liar he is regarded as even by most of the public.
We have finally made it here, and boy will there be a dramatic finish in November.