By all accounts, the 2024 Democratic National Pep Rally was a rousing success. It wraps up what’s been one heck of a summer for Democrats, who have progressed over the past three months from feelings of resignation to abject dread and panic to relief to Oprah-giving-everyone-a-car levels of ecstasy. And while it’s still too early in the race and too soon after the convention to make this an official assessment (and fully aware I have a habit of underestimating Trump’s political resilience) my gut tells me Kamala Harris is on track to win this election. With perhaps the exception of 1948 (when Harry Truman came from behind to knock off Thomas Dewey) a party hasn’t had as dramatic a turnaround as Democrats experienced this summer since word reached the North that Sherman was razing Atlanta.
The Democrats’ sudden surge has rattled Donald Trump, who figured he had this election in the bag at the conclusion of the Republican National Convention. He doesn’t seem to know how to go after Harris. He can’t convincingly attack her as a member of the establishment. His fellow Republicans are urging him to focus on policy, but my guess is Trump knows the people he needs to get to the polls are less interested in white papers than they are in red meat. His insults, however, are tired and stale, and the realization that he’ll need to spend the next two months actually working to win the presidency rather than dunking on his opponent has left him in a sour mood. Trump’s the old candidate now, leading an unabashedly retrograde party that refused to listen to the American people and do what the Democrats did over the summer, which is ditch their unpopular presidential nominee and find someone new.
Democrats can’t assume however that Trump’s campaign is doomed. They’ll need to work their tails off between now and Election Day to make sure they capitalize on their newfound momentum. But Democrats—and all Americans, for that matter—also need to be prepared for what Trump has in store for this country should he lose the election.
We know what happened the last time Trump lost: He falsely claimed the vote was rigged against him and set in motion a bad faith effort to overturn the election, all of which culminated in an attack on Congress perpetrated by a mob Trump had summoned to Washington to disrupt the counting of the electoral votes. Trump is already sowing the seeds for a repeat performance. This time, though, he and his strategists have a better sense for where democracy’s pressure points are located. If Trump doesn’t come out on top in November, he’s bound to push those points hard as a way to force the country to accept a rotten deal: Either make him president, or try living in a democracy that’s been delegitimized in the eyes of tens of millions of outraged and potentially violent Americans.
Trump has long claimed—without evidence—that his political opponents rig elections in their favor. He first made this claim in 2016 following his loss to Ted Cruz in the Iowa Republican Caucus, the first election Trump ever participated in as a candidate. Two days after the caucus, Trump claimed Cruz didn’t win Iowa but “illegally stole” it (is there any other way to steal something?) while threatening litigation. That episode is important to remember, as it shows Democrats are not the only ones on the receiving end of this charge; instead, Trump levels it against anyone who runs against him.
Why does Trump make this accusation? Back in 2016, it was because Trump was trying to maintain his brand as a successful businessman who turns everything he touches to gold. As we now know, Trump was more in the business of self-promotion than actual, you know, business, so the image of success has always been more important than the reality of success. As a “winner,” he couldn’t be seen as a “loser,” so he needed a reason to explain why he lost. Additionally, Trump probably didn’t enter the 2016 election to win the Republican nomination, let alone the presidency. In all likelihood, Trump was just looking for some publicity that could turn him into a conservative media star. (It worked!) He may have always anticipated leaving the race at some point by claiming it was rigged against him, which dovetailed nicely with his conspiratorial, anti-establishment rhetoric. Trump laid the groundwork for that move throughout 2016, but he just happened to keep winning. Finally, telling the world the election was stolen from him helped soothe his fragile ego.
By 2020, the accusations of a rigged election acquired a more sinister purpose: To undermine faith in the electoral process and set into motion a scheme to cling to power in the event Trump lost. Today, Trump hopes the accusation of a rigged election can help him regain power. How so? If Trump can sow enough doubt about the validity of the election within the electorate, get a few Republican state officials or election boards to play along, and cow Republicans in Washington into adopting his talking points, Trump could precipitate a constitutional crisis that he could manipulate to his own advantage.
A major difference between 2020 and 2024 is that this time around, Trump is not making up his plan to undermine the election on the fly. Instead, Trump and the GOP have already put that plan into motion. This past April, the Trump campaign and the RNC launched an ambitious initiative to deploy 100,000 lawyers and volunteers to swing states to serve as election monitors in the name of “election integrity.” While both parties ordinarily have armies of poll watchers and lawyers at work on Election Day to monitor the proceedings, lend transparency to the process, and address any problems that arise, the concern is that Trump and the RNC are priming their volunteers to expect fraud (which studies have shown is practically non-existent) and lodge frivolous complaints. This scheme is designed to cast doubt on the integrity of the process and fabricate the evidence Trump and the RNC need to make their post-election claims of election fraud appear legitimate.
This is no half-baked undertaking, either, as the GOP has apparently committed significant resources to it. Some Republicans are even beginning to complain Trump is investing more in poll watchers than in a ground game aimed at getting out the vote. Maybe TrumpWorld’s ineptitude will ultimately undermine their efforts (although we’re constantly reminded the Trump campaign is a more competent operation this time around) but there is no doubt this so-called “election integrity” scheme is a top Trump campaign priority. As Trump said at a rally last week, “Our primary focus is not to get out the vote. It’s to make sure they don’t cheat. Because we have all the votes we need.” Trump is not only already claiming victory, but he’s also setting up the idea that the only way he can lose is if the election is stolen from him.
Trump is also taking time to tell his supporters and anyone else who may be listening that it is entirely plausible that Democrats will steal the election. That’s a complete fantasy—it’s impossible for any organization to operate at the scale necessary to tip a national election one way or the other without being caught—but it’s a narrative Trump is selling.
That narrative has two main components. The first is that Democrats are nefarious enough to steal an election. That’s why Trump talks so much about how Democrats mistreated Biden by “deposing” or “overthrowing” the president in a “coup.” It’s not just that Trump would prefer to run against Biden. It’s that he wants Americans to believe the Democratic powers-that-be steamrolled their own voters by booting Biden from the ballot (Democratic leaders were actually responding to their own voters’ concerns about Biden’s viability, a message that ultimately got through to Biden himself) and that Democrats are prepared to ruthlessly rob Trump of a victory in November as well.
The second component of that narrative is that Democrats and the elite are generating fake evidence to suggest Harris is surging in popularity. For example, Trump recently claimed an authentic photograph of a large crowd gathered inside an airport hanger for a Harris rally was an AI-generated image. (Maybe Trump isn’t the best judge of what’s real when it comes to AI, as he shared AI-generated images of Trump-supporting Taylor Swift fans on social media last week.) J.D. Vance told FOX News when questioned about Harris’ rising poll numbers that “the media uses fake polls[.]” Trump also suggested that routine revisions to economic data are proof that the government manipulates statistics to make the economy appear better under Biden (which is weird, because those newer, more accurate numbers he was complaining about actually revealed fewer jobs had been created in the U.S. this past spring than first reported. Not sure why the Deep State didn’t keep the lid on that one.)
You can begin to parse out where Trump is taking this narrative. Trump is bound to claim he was on-track to win this election in a landslide even as Democrats worked furiously to steal it from him. Their plans fell apart, though, when Biden bombed during the debate. At that point, Democrats knew it wouldn’t be possible come November to convince Americans the incumbent president somehow won the election. Therefore, Democrats swapped out Biden for Harris and created a bunch of fake news, fake polls, and fake photos that made it seem like Harris was suddenly enormously popular and ahead of Trump. The “truth,” however, is that Trump never relinquished his lead, meaning Democrats were once again stealing the election from him.
When Trump combines that narrative with the so-called “proof” his “election integrity” operation generates on Election Day, he will have given his supporters plenty of reason to doubt the legitimacy of the election. To regain power, though, he’ll need a state election board to believe that as well. Trump may have that in Georgia, where a takeover of the state election board by right-wing election deniers has watchdogs worried. The board recently issued a rule that grants local officials the power to conduct inquiries before certifying the results to assess for themselves whether “the results are a true and accurate accounting of all votes cast in that election.” (Such determinations are typically made by courts or during recounts.)
It’s easy to imagine a situation in which Republican-led county election boards investigate potential cases of “fraud” flagged by Republican poll watchers while the Trump campaign pressures Democratic-led county election boards to follow suit. If the Democratic-led boards resist by pointing out the accusations made by the poll watchers are frivolous, Trump could claim that as proof Democrats are covering up their supposed scam. Georgia’s right-wing state election board may then claim they can’t vouch for the validity of the election and refuse to certify the results without further investigation. It wouldn’t matter if Trump won or lost Georgia in this scenario so long as he lost the election overall; all he needs is an official state election board making the accusation.
Thankfully, Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp—who resisted attempts by Trump to interfere in Georgia’s election in 2020—may be looking into whether he can replace members of the state election board. We’ll have to see what comes of that. But if Georgia did refuse to certify its election results by citing potential fraud, that could put pressure on other states to investigate, and again, if Democratic-led states refused to play along, Trump would cite that as evidence the election was rigged. There are signs Republican officials in other states may be ready to assist Trump in this endeavor. This summer, a Washoe County Board commissioner in Nevada went along with two other Republican commissioners and refused to certify the results of an election she won after questions were raised by conspiracy theorists about the legitimacy of the results. And this week, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claimed Democrats in the state’s largest cities are trying to steal the 2024 election.
With Republican state officials throughout the country claiming they don’t trust the results of their own state elections, millions of Americans would soon doubt the validity of the outcome. When it came time for Congress to officially count the electoral votes, a Republican congressional majority might balk by claiming there are too many questions surrounding the legitimacy of the election. (And let’s not pretend congressional Republicans haven’t done this before, even hours after their chambers were stormed by an angry mob.) That would give Congress an excuse to set aside the will of the people.
Yet we would still need a president. In the event no candidate emerges from an election with a majority of electoral votes, it would fall to the House of Representatives to pick the next president. But according to the Constitution, it wouldn’t take a majority of House members to elect a president, but rather a majority of state delegations in the House, with every state getting one vote. These numbers could change following this fall’s election, but currently, twenty-six House state delegations are controlled by Republicans, twenty-two by Democrats, and two are tied. If members of Congress voted along party lines and Republicans failed to listen to consciences, that’s enough to put Trump back in the White House.
It should be noted Congress passed a bill at the end of 2022 making it more difficult for members to object to the counting of electoral votes by narrowing the grounds upon which those objections can be made. Perhaps that’s enough to save the day. But after all we’ve been through over the past decade, I’m not convinced those guardrails will hold during a close, contentious election with an inflamed Republican Party and enough bad faith actors in critical positions of power to make a difference. Even if Trump fails to subvert the election, I worry his effort to do so may convince Republicans the democratic process is not worth saving. Trump has the mindset of a Mafia boss, and he may effectively be making America an offer it can’t refuse in this election: Either let me be president, or I rile up my supporters and unleash chaos upon this land.
So what can we do to stop this from happening? Three things come to mind. The first is to make sure Kamala Harris doesn’t just win this election, but that she wins big so that there is no doubt she came out on top. That means running up the score in blue states, expanding on Biden’s 2020 margin of victory in the battleground states, narrowing Trump’s margins in red states, and maybe even picking off North Carolina (+1.35% for Trump in 2020), Florida (+3.36%), and Texas (+5.58%).1 That means campaigning hard through Election Day so that Trump doesn’t benefit from any last minute shift in momentum, as he did in the last two elections. And that means convincing Republicans who dislike Trump but support him out of party loyalty to send a message to their party by refusing once and for all to vote for the loser. If the ground falls out from under Trump, he won’t be able to claim he won the election and he won’t be able to subvert our democracy. If you can, volunteer with your local Democratic Party to help boost turnout.
Second, support down-ballot Democrats running for Congress. Don’t let the election get entangled in legislative mischief, as it did in 2020. But also, if this election does end up in Congress, let’s make sure there are Democratic majorities running both chambers to make sure Republicans have a hard time hijacking the process. That’s important because if the election has to be decided by the House of Representatives, it would be very difficult for Democrats to win control of enough state delegations to prevail.2
Finally, make sure people know what Trump is up to. Democrats don’t want to be in a position where they can only react to Trump’s plan once it is up and running. Voters should know about it now so they understand what Trump has up his sleeve and can spot signs of election subversion as it happens. Trump and the RNC have basically written a playbook for how they intend to cheat America out of this election. The way to counter that is by showing the people the playbook. To that end, feel free to share this article with others. Thanks for reading.
Signals and Noise
The 2024 Democratic National Convention
By Molly Ball of the Wall Street Journal: “Kamala Harris Defines the Democrats’ New Normal” (“Harris’s banner address to the nation at the conclusion of this week’s Democratic convention was a bracingly normal, workmanlike political speech, one intended to communicate not shattering emotion but earthly gravitas. There were notes of optimism and paeans to the middle class, invocations of timeless ordeals and attacks on extremism.”)
By Sam Stein and Marc A. Caputo of Politico: “Kamala-Jitsu: Democrats Turn Trump Into the Incumbent”
You miss them, too, don’t you?
“Who’s going to tell [Trump] that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?”—Michelle Obama, not exactly going high.
A quick word about Tim Walz: I preferred him as a VP pick over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro based on experience, gravitas, and a gut instinct that he could connect with on-the-fence voters in the Blue Wall states than Shapiro. I had no idea he was this good on the stump. He’s a major asset. It also suggests Harris has good political instincts and a sense for what plays in so-called “middle America.”
Yair Rosenberg of The Atlantic writes about the political transformation of Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who gave a well-received speech at the DNC and has morphed from an insurgent progressive into a Democratic Party spokeswoman.
Arash Azizi of The Atlantic looks at the Uncommitted National Movement, a group of delegates organized around the Palestinian movement that attempted to get a speaking slot at the DNC.
She’s a villain in the Biden camp, but Democratic delegates in Chicago (nearly all of whom are Biden delegates) greeted Nancy Pelosi as a hero.
If you’ve been wondering how the DJ picked the songs to accompany the state-by-state roll call during the DNC, the New York Times has the playlist and an explainer. (Note to Iowa: Find a cool pop song that can be associated with your state. Maybe the live 1975 version of “Rock and Roll All Nite” by Kiss from Alive? It was recorded in Davenport.)
Where did that rumor about Beyoncé showing up at the final night of the Democratic National Convention come from? Brandon Friedman tracked it down.
The 2024 Election: Policy
Tyler Austin Harper of The Atlantic writes about how Kamala Harris is embracing the policies of a populist, making her an Obama-style Democrat with a Bidenesque platform. MORE: “Kamala Harris Settles the Biggest Fight in the Democratic Party” by Franklin Foer of The Atlantic
By Rogé Karma of The Atlantic: “Bidenomics Without Biden” (“Even as Harris’s message implied a decisive break from the past—from her boss—her actual proposed solutions were taken straight from Biden’s economic playbook.”)
Benjamin Guggenheim and Bernie Becker of Politico compare Harris and Trump’s tax plans, writing, “Traditionally, taxes haven’t been a winning issue for Democrats. Republicans claimed the mantle of the party of tax cuts in the 1980s and put their opponents on the defensive. But Democrats have been emboldened by polling that shows the Trump tax cuts were never really that popular and believe they have a winning argument in targeting high earners and corporations for higher taxes, which polls well.”
Kamala Harris proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28%. Don Trump and a Republican Congress lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% in 2017 and has stated he would like to lower it further.
Harris proposed a $6000 child tax credit during the first year of a child’s life. She also outlined a plan to address the nation’s housing shortage.
Eleanor Mueller of Politico looks at the prominence both Democrats and Republicans are placing on so-called “care programs” (i.e., paid family- and medical-leave, increasing the child tax credit, etc.) this election cycle.
Republicans want Trump to focus more on policy, but Trump is having none of that and keeps turning to personal attacks on Kamala Harris. As Trump told a North Carolina rally, “You know, they always say, ‘Sir, please stick to policy, don’t get personal.’ And yet they’re getting personal all night long, these people. Do I still have to stick to policy?”
“This is just the way I am. I hate my opponent. I hate my opponents.”—Trump to a confidant who urged him to stop making personal attacks, as reported by Marc A. Caputo.
Ben T.N. Mause of NOTUS writes about how Project 2025 has become a massive liability for the Trump campaign. A British news outlet secretly recorded an architect of Project 2025 discussing his group’s preparations for a second Trump term.
Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico reports Trump has once again irritated anti-abortion activists by stating he would not use the Comstock Act to ban mail delivery of abortion pills. J.D. Vance said Trump would “absolutely” veto a bill establishing a national abortion ban. Maggie Haberman and Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times note how Trump is trying to rebrand himself as a supporter of—his words—“reproductive rights.”
In an interview with NBC News about undocumented immigration, Trump refused to rule out restarting his family separation policy.
When asked during a call-in to FOX News about crime in Chicago, Trump called for the reinstatement of stop and frisk in order to confiscate guns.
Trump said he’d offer Elon Musk a spot in his Cabinet. (BTW: Alexander Saeedy and Dana Mattioli of the Wall Street Journal report Musk’s Twitter takeover is the worst buyout for banks since the Great Recession.) Trump has also expressed interest in bringing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., into his administration.
Jonathan V. Last of The Bulwark argues that while Republicans want Trump to focus more on policy, that’s not actually a path to victory for him, as his “low information” voters aren’t focused on the details of policy. RELATED: “Policy Isn’t Going to Win This Election” by Tom Nichols of The Atlantic. (“One of the great myths of American politics is that detailed policy positions are crucial to winning elections. Yes, policy matters in broad strokes: Candidates take general positions on issues such as taxes, abortion, and foreign policy. Rather than study white papers or ponder reports from think tanks, however, most voters count on parties and candidates to signal broad directions and then work out the details later. In the 2024 election, policy details matter even less than they usually do. Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, seem to have figured this out….Policy proposals are supposed to differentiate the candidates, but drawing policy distinctions with Trump is hard when he presents almost nothing beyond ‘I will fix it.’ [What’s the counterargument to that? ‘No, you won’t’?]”)
Alexander Kustov and James Dennison have a good explainer at Good Authority on how voters’ policy preferences shape voter behavior.
The 2024 Election: The Campaign Trail
Katie Glueck of the New York Times writes about how Democrats have embraced a rhetoric of liberty typically associated with Republicans.
By Matt K. Lewis for The Hill: “Harris vs. Trump, Joy vs. Fear” (“I’m not sure who figured out that there was a latent, bottled-up hunger for a happy warrior — or that this ‘joy’ strategy, rather than finger-wagging moral outrage, was the best way to fight a would-be authoritarian. But it was a profound discovery.”)
Elena Schneider and Holly Otterbein of Politico note Harris, who would become the United States’ first female president, is not emphasizing the historic nature of her campaign.
Bloomberg did the math and found more people donated to Kamala Harris during the first 11 days of her campaign than donated to Joe Biden since he launched his re-election campaign.
The Washington Post profiles the 50 megadonors who have together contributed $1.5 billion to political committees and other groups this cycle.
Megan Messerly and Myah Ward of Politico write about how the issue of age, which dogged Joe Biden, has rebounded back against Trump.
Is Trump getting cold feet about the debate? Trump took to social media to say he might back out of the September 10 debate in response to ABC News’ tough interview with Republican Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. But the Harris camp says the campaigns can’t agree on the terms of the debate, most notably on whether the microphones will be muted when the other candidate is speaking. The Trump campaign wants them muted, presumably so their principal doesn’t come across as a total asshole on national television.
Charles Sykes writes for The Atlantic about the Trump campaign’s latest racist attacks. For instance:
And right on cue, Trump has started to paint Harris as a foreigner (“I wonder if they knew where she comes from, where she came from, what her ideology is.”)
Don Trump said those who receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom get a “better” award than the military’s top honor, the Medal of Honor, because those who receive the latter are often deceased or injured. The VFW called Trump’s comments “asinine.”
Marc A. Caputo of The Bulwark reports Trump brought former campaign guy Corey Lewandowski back onto the campaign, although no one—including Lewandowski and Trump (“He’ll be, you know, uh, personal envoy. Or he’ll be at some level”)—know what he’s supposed to do.
Trump’s financial disclosure describes Trump’s broad range of assets, including $300,000 he’s made selling Bibles.
“I am much better looking than her. I’m a better-looking person than Kamala.”—Don Trump. He also said an illustration on the cover of Time magazine made Harris look like Sophia Loren or Elizabeth Taylor. (He had earlier said it made Harris “look like the most beautiful actress to ever live” and “very much like our great First Lady Melania.”)
This Week in “WTF is Wrong With J.D. Vance?”
Clare Olson of WCPT 820AM Chicago got ahold of a podcast from 2020 in which J.D. Vance agreed with the podcaster’s assertion that “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female in theory” is to help raise children. Vance then added his own mother-in-law, who worked as a biology professor, took a year-long sabbatical and moved in with his family following the birth of one of his children, calling it a “weird, unadvertised feature of marrying an Indian woman.” (Anyone who has read Vance’s autobiography knows his grandparents played a prominent role in his upbringing.)
In an audio recording from three years ago, Vance said he was “disorient[ed] and really disturb[ed]” by childless left-wing advocates.
Vance told FOX News’ Laura Ingraham that abortion is not a “normal” thing most suburban women care about.
By Tressie McMillan Cottom of the New York Times: “On Cat Ladies, Mama Bears and ‘Momala’” (“The idea of a childless cat lady is an uninspired dog whistle among others — old maid, crone, witch — that are designed to reduce a woman’s social value to her ability and willingness to reproduce. When Vance says that Harris is one of many childless cat ladies who are miserable and trying to make the rest of the world miserable, he is calling on a set of sexist, racist ideas about which women are even allowed to count as real women. Namely, married mothers are real women, and the rest of us are horrible divergences from the social contract. Vance’s commentary hints at a decades-old idea, popular in overlapping antidemocratic circles, that this country has a demographic crisis, couched in the notion that declining birthrates are destabilizing the economy. That idea is rife with xenophobic fears that white Americans are not having enough children and immigration is an undesirable way to bolster demographic growth. Fears about population decline like this typically end up really being racist fears about this country’s declining white majority.”)
Cameron Joseph of the Christian Science Monitor found a speech Vance gave in 2021 arguing that Amazon supported the Black Lives Matter movement as a way to eliminate their small business competition, implying that racial justice protesters will inevitability burn down local businesses and force consumers to begin shopping online.
Vance’s favorable/unfavorable rating is now lower than that of Sarah Palin’s during her time running for vice president in 2008.
The 2024 Election: Polling
Maya King and Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times write about Democrats’ prospects in North Carolina, which Trump won by 1.35% in 2020 but that state Democrats think is primed to swing to the left in this cycle.
Asawin Suebsaeng of Rolling Stone reports Republican pollsters have seen a softening of support for Trump in red states. While those pollsters still expect Trump to win those states, it is a sign that electoral fortunes are shifting in Democrats’ favor.
David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report finds Harris has narrowed Trump’s lead among among low/mid-engagement voters in battleground states from 10 to 3 points. She leads among high-engagement voters by 4 points.
By Nate Cohn of the New York Times: “Where Harris Has Gained and Lost Support Compared With Biden” (“The top of the list, however, is led by an entirely different group: those with a ‘somewhat’ unfavorable view of Mr. Trump. In an extraordinary measure of Mr. Biden’s weakness, Mr. Trump actually led voters who had a somewhat unfavorable view of him back in May. Now, Ms. Harris has a wide lead among this group — at least for the moment. And there’s one group that reveals Ms. Harris’s distinctive mark on the race: women. She didn’t simply make gains among young and nonwhite voters; she made outsize gains among young women.” MORE: Harris’ only significant decline in support was among “somewhat conservative” voters [down 10%]; she also didn’t gain much with non-white voters over 45, although she is already winning over 70% of those voters. She has not made inroads among white men, and lost support among white men over 65.)
The Cook Political Report finds Democratic senatorial candidates in swing states continue to run strong and ahead of the Democratic presidential ticket. Since Biden has dropped out, Democratic leads in those states have only widened. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post has more on other polls, which include an enthusiasm bump (and edge) for Democrats, how double-haters are swinging to Democrats, and narrowing margins in Florida.
RFK Jr. dropped his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Trump. Charlie Mahtesian of Politico wonders how that might change the race. (My thoughts: When a guy who stashed a dead bear cub in Central Park as a prank and once rushed to a beach on Cape Cod to chainsaw the head off a dead whale before strapping it to the roof of his van to drive it back to New York endorses your campaign, you may turn off more people than you pick up, especially when that reminds voters you’ve already associated yourself with lowlifes like Kanye West, Nick Fuentes, and Elon Musk.)
David Weigel of Semafor looks at the fading fortunes of this election’s third party candidates, a turn of events that appears to have been precipitated by the switch-up at the top of the Democratic Party’s ticket.
A KFF survey found nearly 3 out of every 4 women oppose leaving abortion policy up to the states.
Democracy Watch
This is a real thing (“J6” means January 6). There’s a video, too, which you can find embedded in this article:
Joshua Kaplan of ProPublica acquired internal messages exchanged between members of the militia group American Patriots Three Percent and found the group is forging ties with local law enforcement and debating whether the political situation in the country calls for violent action. Kaplan notes it is hard to tell in these messages where bluster ends and intent begins.
Tim Miller of The Bulwark wonders why more anti-Trump Republicans haven’t yet endorsed Harris.
Law and Politics
Special counsel Jack Smith filed an updated indictment of Donald Trump in his election fraud case. The new charges work around the Supreme Court ruling granting presidents broad immunity.
The first person to breach the Capitol on 1/6 was sentenced to 53 months in prison.
Former Republican New York Rep. “George Santos” pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft.
House Republicans released a lengthy report accusing President Biden of corruption without showing any evidence that he broke the law, engaged in a quid pro quo, or used his influence to help his family. Instead, they argued the bar for impeachment is so low that anything that appears shady can justify impeachment.
In a sad yet predictable move, the House Oversight Committee led by Republican James Comer has opened an investigation into Tim Walz’s ties to China, which include teaching there in 1989, coordinating study abroad trips for students, and over 30 visits. They do this without making any accusation of wrong-doing.
A federal judge blocked a Biden administration’s program to grant citizenship to undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens. The program would have granted citizenship to 500,000 people.
Political Beefs
Allan Smith of NBC News digs into the rift between two Pennsylvania Democrats: Governor Josh Shapiro and Senator John Fetterman.
Juliegrace Brufke of Axios chronicles how Kevin McCarthy’s effort to seek retribution against those Republicans who ousted him from the Speakership have flopped. Only one Republican—Virginia Rep. Bob Good—was defeated, but his opponent was endorsed by Trump.
State Politics
Laura Strickler and Didi Martinez of NBC News report Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s initiative to bus migrants to northern Democratic-controlled cities has slowed down significantly due to the decrease in the number of people crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. (He sent no busses in July, something he said he would stop doing once the border was secure.) Meanwhile, border arrests have dropped to their lowest level since September 2020, which was the first year of the pandemic.
Steven Walker of the Sarasota Herald Tribune reports the New College of Florida, a public liberal arts college whose board of trustees was recently overhauled by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis (resulting the appointments of numerous conservative activists to the board) purged a dumpster-full of books from its library, including many on LGBTQ+ and religious studies topics.
However…eleven of the twenty-three Florida school board candidates endorsed by DeSantis lost their elections. In 2022, only five of the thirty candidates he endorsed lost.
Juan Perez Jr. and Andrew Atterbury of Politico look at the losses Republicans have taken recently in the culture wars.
The Republican Party of Colorado has ousted its confrontational, hard-right chairman.
The Economy
International News
The New York Times reports American officials believe Israel has achieved all it can militarily in Gaza.
Israel and Hezbollah exchanged major attacks across the Israeli-Lebanese border but appeared to back down before escalating to an all-out war.
As Ukraine looks to solidify its hold on Russian territory, it is also losing territory within Ukraine. The Washington Post explores the tradeoff.
Joshua Keating of Vox wonders if Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk proves Putin has no red lines to cross (and if that means the West can provide all the support to Ukraine that it needs to win the war.)
President Biden joined the leaders of Brazil and Colombia in calling for new elections in Venezuela, which appear to have been rigged in the favor of President Nicolás Maduro. A top Venezuelan election official told Julie Turkewitz of the New York Times that there is no evidence Maduro won the election.
The Taliban in Afghanistan have banned the sound of women’s voices singing, reading, or reciting in public.
It’s been a wild summer! Here’s hoping for a subdued, stress-free election season, although I’ll also take a gloriously delightful and ecstatic one as well. Thanks for bearing with me infrequent summer publication schedule. I’m taking Labor Day weekend off but will return to the regular weekly posts on September 8. Until then, enjoy the end-of-summer jam in the Exit Music below.
Exit Music: “Right Here (Human Nature Remix)” by SWV (1993)
I know Democrats are reluctant to dream big when it comes to adding states to their electoral column, but it’s worth remembering states can make big swings from election to election. Consider:
COLORADO: George W. Bush won Colorado in 2000 by 8 points. In 2008, Barack Obama won it by nearly 9 points.
OHIO: In 2008, Barack Obama won Ohio by about 4.5 points. In 2016, Donald Trump won it by a little over 8 points.
IOWA: In 2008, Barack Obama won Iowa by roughly 9.5 points. In 2016, Donald Trump won it by about 9.5 points.
VIRGINIA: George W. Bush won Virginia by 8 points in 2000. Barack Obama won it by close to 6.5 points in 2008.
WEST VIRGINIA: In 1980, West Virginia was one of only seven states/districts to vote for Jimmy Carter over Ronald Reagan. In 2000, West Virginia was a toss-up state. Today, it is the second-most Republican state in the country.
As it currently stands, for Democrats to gain a majority of state delegations, they would need to flip four state delegations. The easiest way to do that (in addition to defending all their current majorities) would be some combination of the following:
a.) ARIZONA (Currently 6-3 Republican): Flip two seats (ranging from +2 points more Republican than the national average to +3 points more Republican than the national average).
b.) FLORIDA (Currently 20-8 Republican): Flip seven seats (ranging from Even to +7 R).
c.) IOWA (Currently 4-0 Republican): Flip three seats (ranging from +3 R to +4 R).
d.) MINNESOTA (Currently tied 4-4): Flip Tim Walz’s old seat (+7 R).
e.) OHIO (Currently 10-5 Republican): Flip three seats (ranging from +4 R to +7 R).
Not impossible, but doing so would require a very good night for Democrats. It would also probably mean Trump got crushed in the popular vote, meaning his claims of election fraud wouldn’t appear credible at all.