washington, dc

The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

J.P. Green

Political Strategy Notes

In “The October Surprise May Be Arriving Shortly: History suggests the decisive moment is still to come,” Jeff Greenfield provides a mini-history of recent October surprises at Politico. These include a Democratic president’s failure to win release of hostages held in Iran in 1980, or put differently, Reagan’s backdoor diplomacy success in negotiating a hostage release deal that would benefit him on election day. For the 1992  elections, there was the Iran-Contra affair, which hurt then President George H.W. Bush, followed by the 2000 revelation of his son’s drunk driving arrest 24 years after it happened – not much of a surprise or game-changer, as was the 2004 revelation by Osama bin Laden, claiming responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. –  Democrat John Kerry blamed it for his ’04 loss. That was followed by a huge October surprise, the tanking of the U.S. financial system in 2008, which benefited Obama. Arguably, the nastiest most deliberate, October Surprise was in 2016 when James Comey made a big deal about the F. B. I. reopening the weaponized investigation of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Greenfield sees no clear October Surprise for 2020. But you could argue that energetic activism brewed one behind the scenes, resulting in Georgia giving its electoral votes to Biden and picking up two Democratic U.S. senate seats in 2020-21. We can hope at least that Georgia’s enormous early voting opening may herald a similar October Surprise for 2024. October surprise or no, campaigns don’t win without being otherwise prepared.

Trump’s “Let’s listen to my cool playlist” town hall rally in Oaks, PA is probably not going to be an ‘October surprise.’ But for a display of raw Trump weirdness, Democrats couldn’t ask for much more. James Bickerton reports it this way at Newsweek: “Some attendees at a Donald Trump town hall event on Monday reportedly began leaving early after the Republican presidential nominee decided to stop taking questions from the audience and instead played music for 39 minutes….The former president attended the town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania, moderated by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.” What, you might understandably wonder, was Kristi Noem doing there – other than  firming up the dog-lover vote for Harris? “Proceedings were paused while two attendees received medical attention, at which point Trump jokingly asked whether “anybody else would like to faint?” He then said: “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?”….The incident took place after Kamala Harris questioned Trump’s mental cognizance at a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday, branding her White House rival “unstable” and “unhinged.” In July, President Joe Biden announced he was stepping down from the 2024 presidential contest amid concern about his age and mental capabilities….According to The Washington Post, “some in the crowd began to leave” after Trump said he wouldn’t be taking any more questions at the town hall, and instead told his team to play a succession of nine songs as he at times danced on stage….”Ron Filipkowski, who edits self-styled “pro-democracy” media outlet MeidasTouch, added: “This is absolutely insane. Trump just froze up answering questions, said he wouldn’t take anymore questions, then stood on stage for the next 30 minutes while music played. Will media cover this as something other than a seriously bizarre cognitive episode???”

When a former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff calls the president he served under a “fascist,” that is news that merits further discussion, and it is getting plenty of buzz. As Steve Benen reports at MSNBC, “When Gen. Mark Milley retired last year, following more than four decades of military service to the United States, he delivered a retirement speech that included some language that did not go unnoticed. “We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, to a tyrant or dictator — or wannabe dictator,” the retiring general saidMany assumed, of course, that he was referring to Donald Trump, but the phrasing was at least somewhat subtle, and the four-star Army general did not elaborate. At least, he didn’t elaborate publicly at the time….As The Washington Post reported, Milley apparently put subtlety aside when speaking to Bob Woodward for the longtime journalist’s new book.

Retired Gen. Mark A. Milley warned that former president Donald Trump is a “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country” in new comments voicing his mounting alarm at the prospect of the Republican nominee’s election to another term, according to a forthcoming book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.”

Benen continues, “Milley’s assessment of the Republican candidate is rooted in first-hand experience: Trump handpicked Milley to serve as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the general worked alongside the then-president for more than a year….“No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump,” the general told Woodward. “Now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.”….Milley went on to note that he feared a possible court martial in a second Trump term — despite the fact that he’s now a civilian — and those concerns are well grounded. After all, according to Trump’s former Defense secretary, Mark Esper, Trump set out to have two highly decorated retired military leaders — Stanley McChrystal and William McRaven — court-martialed for saying things about the former president that he didn’t like.” Bennen adds, “As for the larger context, as Trump’s former joint chiefs chair describes Trump as a “fascist to the core,” Milley isn’t alone. Trump’s former secretary of state referred to him as a “moron.” Trump’s former White House chief of staff has also accused Trump of “poisoning” people’s minds, having “serious character issues,” not being “a real man,” and abusing his office without regard for the law….Trump’s former defense secretary has described him as a “threat to democracy,” while Trump’s former director of national intelligence said he “doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.” Trump’s former director of national intelligence also said he suspected that Russia had leverage over Trump — because nothing else could explain the Republican’s behavior.” With a little creativity, Democratic ad-makers could craft such comments into a viral video.


Despite Huge Early Voting Turnout, Presidential Race Still Close

Amid reports of huge early voting turnouts in metro and suburban Georgia, Kyle Kondik of Sabato’s Crystal Ball strikes a cautionary note, which should stem excessive  exuberance about Democratic prospects:

We still think Michigan is likeliest to be Harris’s best state out of this group, as it was for Biden in 2020, and it generally has been the most Democratic of these seven states over the past couple of decades. We have made these points about Michigan in the past (see the links for more thoughts on the particulars in Michigan).

Meanwhile, North Carolina is the one state among the seven that Biden did not carry in 2020, and we remain somewhat skeptical of Harris’s ability to actually win it.

One thing that is preventing us from being confident enough to move it to Leans Republican is the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina, which could have impacts on turnout in what is on balance a Republican-leaning area. In 2020, the 25 counties that FEMA currently considers to be the disaster zone favored Trump by 25 percentage points while Biden carried the rest of the state by 3.5 points. The state has taken efforts to keep early voting on track in western North Carolina; giving voters additional opportunity to make their voices heard in the midst of an unforeseen disaster is probably the best argument there is for offering robust absentee and early voting options.

Trump has generally, although not always, led polling in Arizona and Georgia, the two typically Republican-leaning states that fell out of his grasp in 2020. Forced to choose, one might also be inclined to tilt those states to Trump. It seems possible that a critical mass of “softer” Republican voters in those states who dislike Trump personally are expressing some buyer’s remorse after they took a chance on Biden in 2020. It wouldn’t take all that many of them to flip Arizona and Georgia back to Republicans after Biden won each by less than half a percentage point.

That said, there may be other things afoot—David Plouffe, a senior adviser to Harris’s campaign and an Obama campaign alum, recently argued that Harris could show strength with Republicans and/or Republican-leaning independents, a group that Harris is clearly trying to reach. This is important particularly in Arizona, a party registration state where the GOP edge in registration is a bit better now than it was in 2020 (although there are lots of people not registered with a party, and we are generally leery of using party registration trends as a predictive tool). This possible dynamic is illustrated by comparing a couple of recent polls: the New York Times/Siena College recently showed Trump up 5 points in Arizona, while a Wall Street Journal poll from a bipartisan polling duo showed Harris up 2. Why the disparity? Part of it was that the New York Times found Trump and Harris with similar levels of party unity in the state, while the Wall Street Journal found Harris achieving markedly better party unity and more crossover support from Republicans. If Plouffe is right, the Wall Street Journal poll may be closer to the mark. However, the New York Times poll shows Trump with a bit more loyalty among his 2020 voters than Harris has with Biden voters, perhaps an indication that the state is shifting enough back to its GOP roots to allow Trump to win it.

While Pennsylvania and Wisconsin remain total Toss-ups in our view, we do think there has been a little overhyping of the former over the latter. It’s become common to see the argument that Pennsylvania is clearly the most important state and that the winner of Pennsylvania will win the election. It is of course true that Pennsylvania is tremendously important and that, with 19 electoral votes, it has more electoral votes than any of the other true battlegrounds. But we actually think the state is slightly more important to Harris, because we could see Trump winning the election without Pennsylvania—perhaps losing the state by a hair while winning Wisconsin and the Arizona-Georgia-North Carolina trio by a hair, which would give him victory assuming no other changes from 2020 —whereas we don’t think Harris has a real path without the Keystone State. Mathematically, Harris could do it by holding Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin as well as winning one of Georgia or North Carolina, but that would involve Pennsylvania voting to the right of the other “Blue Wall” states as well as at least two of the Sun Belt states. That does not really pass the smell test for us, although of course the individual states are so close in polling that we cannot totally rule it out.

Moving toward his conclusion, Kondik notes “We’d be cautious when making direct advance voting comparisons between 2020 and 2024, because of course there was a pandemic going on in the former year that changed people’s voting habits.” Read the whole article for a more nuanced analysis.


Political Strategy Notes

“A new Jacobin / Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP) / YouGov poll conducted between September 24 and October 2 finds 46.8% of registered voters in Pennsylvania support Vice President Kamala Harris while 44.7% support former president Donald Trump for president in 2024,” Jacobin editors write. “Another 5.5% remain undecided, and 3.0% support another candidate. In a head-to-head matchup, 51.3% of voters prefer Harris, while 48.7% prefer Trump….“We have found results consistent with other polls showing a very tight race,” Jared Abbott, executive director of CWCP, said. “Kamala Harris is showing a razor-thin lead over Donald Trump, but there are enough undecided voters to tip the election, and in Pennsylvania that could prove pivotal to the entire race.” The survey also included a range of questions to determine the state of the race among working-class voters in Pennsylvania….Among the lowest-income voters, those making less than $30k a year, Harris holds a commanding lead with 53.3% to Trump’s 38.3% support. Among lower-middle-income ($30k–$60k) and middle-income voters ($60k–$100k), Trump leads by a margin of 0.6% and 4.6%, respectively. Among upper-middle-income voters ($100k–$200k), Harris leads with 47.6% to Trump’s 45.6%. And among the highest-income voters (>$200k), Trump has a lead with 51.7% compared to only 48.3% for Harris. Overall, voters with a household income below the median favor Harris (47%) over Trump (44%), while voters earning above the median are split between the candidates at 47% support for each….

Jacobin editors continue, “Among manual workers, 55.9% prefer Trump and only 36.2% prefer Harris. Among service and clerical workers, Harris has the edge with 47.7% support to Trump’s 42%. Among professionals, Harris leads with 47.3% support to Trump’s 44.9% support. The candidates are in a dead heat among managers and business owners: Harris has 46.4%, Trump has 46.4%….Among voters with a four-year college degree or more, Harris commands a sizable lead (51.1%) over Trump (40.4%). Voters with some college education, an associate degree, or vocational education also prefer Harris (49.6%) over Trump (42.3%). However, voters with a high school diploma or less prefer Trump (49.6%) over Harris (41.8%)….Among current and former union members, Trump leads with 47.1% support compared to Harris’s 43.2%, while Harris has the advantage among nonunionized Pennsylvanians, with 48.2% of the vote compared to Trump’s 43.2%….Interestingly, among workers who report having recently “experienced a job loss due to unfair firing,” 52.6% support Trump and only 37.4% support Harris, while 47.1% of workers who have not reported such a job loss prefer Harris and 45.3% prefer Trump. Among workers who report working a “very or somewhat insecure job,” 58.3% prefer Trump while only 32.6% prefer Harris. Those who work a “very or somewhat secure job,” however, prefer Harris (47.5%) to Trump (44.5%)….Among urban and suburban voters, 52.8% prefer Harris and 39.9% prefer Trump. Among rural and small-town voters, 52.4% prefer Trump and 37.4% prefer Harris. Among white, non-Hispanic voters, 51.5% prefer Trump and 42% prefer Harris. And among non-white voters, 68.2% prefer Harris and 14.5% prefer Trump….The results demonstrate that, while Harris has a strong lead among lower-income voters, she is struggling to win middle-income blue-collar voters without a college degree, and especially those voters who have recently experienced a job loss or who report job insecurity. “The bottom line is Harris needs to win more working-class voters. That’s the key to this election,” said Dustin Guastella, a researcher with the CWCP. “Blue-collar voters could decide the race in Pennsylvania.”

In “Harris’ mission critical in final push: Wipe out Trump’s advantage on the economy,” Sahil Kapur writes at nbcnews.com: “Kamala Harris is zeroing in on a monumental task that could make or break her prospects in the final month before Election Day: wiping out Donald Trump’s persisting advantage among voters on whom they trust to handle the economy….While Harris has gained ground on stewardship of the economy, Trump still leads in most surveys about the issue, which frequently ranks as the top concern for voters. The Harris campaign and Democratic allies believe she must erode that advantage and at least fight it to a draw….“With four weeks to go, we’re going to be laser-focused on this and be talking about this,” a Harris aide said….The aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy, said Harris and her team will spend the final stretch of the campaign presenting her as the candidate fighting for the middle class, citing her upbringing and agenda, while portraying Trump as caring more about cutting taxes for wealthy Americans like himself and hitting his plan for aggressive tariffs as a de facto middle-class tax hike….Her strategy is playing out through TV and digital campaign ads, a gradual stream of policy rollouts and speeches, and a new media blitz by Harris designed to connect her biography to her economic vision….Top Democrats are acutely focused on the economy after they were burned by the issue in recent elections….And exit polls showed Joe Biden underperforming the polls in 2020 amid a deficit against Trump on handling the economy. Now party strategists believe that among the narrow but crucial slice of swing voters in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada, the economy will carry the day.”

Kapur continues, “Still, Harris is performing better than Biden did on the economy against Trump. She has put proposals to lower costs front and center in a departure from Biden, who focused more on touting macroeconomic gains; that fell on deaf ears with many middle-class and lower-income voters, who still feel the pinch of higher prices more than low unemployment or record-high stocks….A recent NBC News poll found that Trump led Harris by 9 points on handling the economy — down from the 22-point lead he held over Biden earlier this year. A Cook Political Report swing state survey in late September found Harris pulling even with Trump on “getting inflation under control,” although Trump still led by 5 points on whom voters would rather see “deal with the economy.” A New York Times/Siena College national poll released Tuesday found that the economy is the No. 1 issue influencing likely voters, with abortion a distant second and immigration just behind that….As Harris ramps up her media appearances, a Democratic strategist said she would do well to deliver “tight and strong” answers about the economy at every opportunity. The aide, who spoke candidly about Harris on condition of anonymity, added: “She has this instinct to go to a word salad, and there’s no need for that.” Alyssa Cass, the chief strategist for Blueprint 2024 added, “A closing message very laser-focused on reducing prices by going after corporations and a middle-class tax cut, paired with a focus on protecting Social Security, Medicare and the [Affordable Care Act], allows her to close the gap on prices that currently exists….”


Political Strategy Notes

At 538, Monica Potts reports: “The American public has long been generally supportive of Israel, and was largely in favor of sending U.S. military aid to Israel at the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, but polling since then suggests that support has fallen as the war drags on — instead, many Americans are worried about the harshness of the Israeli government’s response to the attacks, and want the U.S. government to help broker a diplomatic end to the conflict….Last year, a 538 analysis found that sympathy for Israelis spiked soon after the attacks despite a longer-term trend of increasing sympathy for Palestinians, especially among Democrats and independents. In an average of polls at the time, a solid plurality of around half of Americans said they sympathized more with Israelis than they did with Palestinians (or with both/neither party)….Today, Americans are more split on who they sympathize with. In a AP-NORC/Pearson Institute poll from Sept. 12-16, 25 percent leaned more toward Israelis, while 15 percent said they sympathized more with Palestinians, 31 percent answered both equally, and 26 percent said neither…..A YouGov/The Economist poll fielded in late September found that 32 percent now think the Israeli government’s response has been too harsh, while 22 percent think it has been about right and 17 percent think it has been not harsh enough. Other polling suggests even more Americans disapprove of Israel’s actions, though the number may not have shifted drastically since last year: For example, 42 percent of Americans thought the Israeli military’s response had gone too far in the September AP-NORC/Pearson Institute poll, which was two points higher than the share in a similar AP-NORC poll from November of 2023….That’s all despite the fact that most Americans have consistently viewed Hamas, rather than Israel, as primarily responsible for the conflict.”

Potts adds, ” Nearly 60 percent said Hamas is the “main culprit” in the current conflict in an Atlas poll from Sept. 11-12, while 14 percent blamed Israel (and the rest said they didn’t know). But when given the option, Americans held other actors responsible as well: The September AP-NORC/Pearson Institute poll found that around three-quarters of Americans thought the Israeli government, Hamas and the Iranian government each bore at least some of the responsibility for the continuation of the Israel-Hamas conflict — though a larger share said Hamas bore “a lot” of the responsibility (52 percent, compared to 44 percent who said the same of the Israeli government)….The Israel-Hamas conflict has had more than a few effects on politics here at home, as different groups clashed over U.S. support for Israel — the United States has sent more than $12 billion in military aid to Israel since the attacks — in the face of a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Whether and how the U.S. should continue sending aid to Israel is a question that has proved a political minefield for American leaders….The public’s views on U.S. military aid to Israel have shifted over the course of the conflict. In YouGov/The Economist polling over the past year, the share of Americans who think the U.S. should increase its military aid to Israel has decreased over time, from 24 percent in November 2023 to 18 percent in September 2024. Over the same time period, the share who felt the U.S. should send more humanitarian aid to Palestinians has increased from 26 percent to 32 percent….In the September AP-NORC/Pearson Institute poll, 41 percent thought the U.S. was spending too much aiding Israel. Moreover, 38 percent think that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, according to the most recent YouGov/The Economist poll….However, Americans remain invested in the U.S. helping resolve the conflict in some manner, according to the September AP-NORC/Pearson Institute poll: While only 27 percent said it was extremely or very important that the U.S. aid Israel’s military against Hamas and 42 percent said the same of providing humanitarian aid in Gaza, 57 percent wanted the U.S. to play a role in recovering getting the remaining hostages held in Gaza by Hamas released, and 52 percent wanted the U.S. to help negotiate a permanent ceasefire. A Pew Research Center survey last month also found that 61 percent of Americans want the U.S. to play a “major” role in diplomatically resolving the conflict, up from 55 percent in February.”

Potts concludes, “When it comes to the upcoming U.S. presidential election, Trump had an advantage on the issue of handling the Israel-Hamas war, with 52 percent in a late September Fox News poll saying they trusted him more, compared to 45 percent who picked Harris. In the September YouGov/The Economist poll, 31 percent said Trump’s stance in the conflict was “about right,” compared to only 22 percent who said the same of Harris….That said, both Trump and Harris may actually have some room for persuasion here: Many Americans were unclear about both candidates’ approaches to the current conflict — 37 percent in the same poll said they were “not sure” whether Harris had been too supportive of Israel, not supportive enough or about right, and 38 percent said the same of Trump….Overall, Trump’s advantage over Harris could be a reflection on the fact that Trump is out of office and not currently making decisions regarding the conflict, or the fact that he has repeatedly claimed to be the most pro-Israel president in history, appealing to the pro-Israel stance shared by most of his base. In contrast, Harris faces pressure from both wings of her own party, and her role in the current administration could pose a challenge to her campaign if the conflict continues to escalate and the U.S. struggles to respond.” Despite other polls showing voters in general are more concerned about issues like inflation and immigration, in a close election, the U.S. role in the war between Israel and its Arab neighbors could be a significant issue in Michigan and other states.

J. Miles Coleman shares some observations about the battle for Georgia’s electoral votes at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Since 2004, Democrats have flipped a half-dozen counties in the Atlanta metro area. While Biden didn’t add any new counties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 coalition in 2020—he simply expanded on her margins—the county that seems next in line to flip is Fayette, which is immediately south of Atlanta’s Fulton County. In 2020, Trump carried it 53%-46%, down from his 57%-38% win from 2016….Republicans can still sweep the precincts in southern and western Fayette County, where the population center is Peachtree City. But the northern part of the county, which is anchored by Fayetteville, has grown at a faster rate over the past few decades and is voting more in line with nearby Henry County—which is to say, quickly in the blue direction….In 2022, Secretary of State (and new Center for Politics scholar) Brad Raffensperger led the Republican ticket statewide. Raffensperger’s 56%-41% vote in Fayette County was impressive by Trump-era standards, but it was not the 30-point spread that Obama-era Republicans could routinely get. Map 2 compares Raffensperger’s showing to Romney’s from a decade earlier. Map 2 also includes Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D-GA) result in Fayette County from his 2022 runoff. Warnock took 49.5% there, which was still a loss, but it was an improvement from the 46.4% he took in the 2021 runoff election. On the 2012 map, about one-third (13 of 37) of the precincts are colored the deepest shade of red—in the Senate runoff map, only two are….Outside of the Atlanta metro, we are also watching a county that is about two hours south of Fayetteville—one of this county’s residents made news last week for a historic milestone. Jimmy Carter’s home of Plains is located in Sumter County, GA. Though it has less than half the population, it has voted roughly in line with Wilson County, NC: both counties have strong Democratic heritage but, with their rural character, have become more marginal over the longer term….A few decades ago, Republicans could usually only carry Sumter County in landslides: in both his runs, George W. Bush carried it by a single point as he easily won the state. While Biden’s 5-point margin there was an improvement over Clinton’s showing, Warnock was the only statewide Democrat who carried it in 2022 (he did so in both the general election and runoff)…Assuming Georgia remains highly competitive, we’d expect Fayette County to move towards Harris and Sumter County towards Trump, while a “maximum realignment” scenario could involve both counties changing sides….We would also note generally that, while none of our selected counties came from the impacted regions in either state, Hurricane Helene’s aftermath may add an extra layer of uncertainty in parts of both Georgia and North Carolina.”


Political Strategy Notes

Chilling excerpts from “Why the ‘Brooks Brothers riot’ of 2000 inspired Trump’s campaign operative in 2020” by Zachary B. Wolf at CNN Politics: “For the Trump campaign four years ago in 2020, according to [Jack] Smith’s filing, disruption was the aim. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and said the legal cases against him are all part of a “witch hunt.” He won’t get a chance to present a defense against Smith’s allegations before Election Day, but that’s because his strategy of delaying the case has been very effective….It’s worth focusing in on the Brooks Brothers riot of 2000 and comparing it with the request for a Detroit riot in 2020. Smith’s allegation could be as much a warning as a history lesson if, as many expect, counting and recounting ballots in the election next month stretches well past Election Day. Republicans have made no secret of their plans to deploy 100,000 supporters to keep a close eye on the counting of ballots in swing states….The Princeton University presidential historian Julian Zelizer wrote for CNN just before the 2020 election that the Brooks Brothers riot was a key early example of the GOP “weaponizing outrage,” and he predicted Trump and his allies would go to great lengths to dispute the election outcome. That wasn’t exactly an outlier prediction since Trump had been alleging, falsely, that the 2020 election was being rigged against him….“This moment builds on two to three decades of an increasingly radicalized party,” Zelizer told me by email. “We saw with the Brooks Brothers riot how media-attention grabbing theatrical chaos was an essential part of the strategy, shift attention away from damaging issues while also creating the impression that things are out of control – with the underlying argument that the GOP is needed to bring those things back together.”….As CNN’s Supreme Court expert Joan Biskupic has noted, the current Supreme Court includes three justices – John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – who, while they weren’t among the shouting lawyers in Miami, worked on behalf of the Bush campaign in Florida during the recounts that year.”

From “135.9 Million Reasons Why the Working Class Is So Angry: Workers know that when a private equity firm buys up the company at which they work or a stock buyback is announced, they are likely about to get kicked in the face” by Les Leopold at Common Dreams: “Since 1993, 60.2 million workers who had been on the job for at least three years have been laid off, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another 75.7 million with less than three years tenure have also been let go….In total, that’s 135.9 million workers who know all too well the pain and suffering of a major disruption to their employment….Working people understand that the periodic ups and downs of the economy can legitimately lead to job loss. But they also know that in many cases the reason they lost their job was not mismatches in supply and demand. Rather, their jobs were sacrificed to satisfy out and out corporate greed….A stock buyback, which was essentially illegal until 1982, is a form of stock manipulation. A company uses its funds, or borrows money, to go into the market place and buy up its own shares of stock. By doing so, the number of shares in circulation goes down, while the earnings per share goes up. The stock price rises even though no new value was added to the company. The rise in the share price rewards company executives, who are mostly paid with stock incentives, and moves corporate wealth into the pockets of Wall Street investors….In 2025, Goldman Sachs estimates that corporations will conduct more than $1 trillion in stock buybacks. Tens of millions of jobs will be sacrificed to shift all that money to the richest of the rich….Reducing the use of mass layoffs to provide financing for corporate and executive looting would be a big win for working people. Alas, we all know deep down that politicians are not about to bite the Wall Street hands that feed them. In the meantime, millions of workers will continue to be sacrificed on the alter of corporate greed.” Read the article for Leopold’s proposed solutions to the problem.

At The American Prospect, Paul Starr mulls over a question on the minds of many a Democratic strategist, “What Should Democrats Say to Young Men? Young men appear to be drifting right. Ignoring them means trouble,”and comes up with a few provocative insights, including: “Signs have been mounting that, for the first time in recent decades, Democrats may lose majority support from young men in 2024. The risk to Democrats is that this is not just a one-time fluke but an indication of growing trouble with men in coming elections. Democrats can celebrate the support they are getting from young women, but they also need to take the disaffection of young men seriously, engage them directly, and respond to the visions of manhood and masculinity that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are offering….Although men overall have moved toward the Republicans over the past half-century, the youth vote has given Democrats grounds for hope that the losses among men have been transitional, a reflection of an older generation’s difficulties in adjusting to more equal gender relations and a changed economy. Young men’s support for Democrats reached a high point in Barack Obama’s victories. According to exit polls in 2008, Obama won 62 percent of 18-to-29-year-old men as well as 69 percent of women that age. By 2020, the gender gap among young voters had widened, but Joe Biden still received the votes of 52 percent of young men along with 67 percent of young women. As recently as the 2022 midterms, Democrats won 54 percent of young men as well as 72 percent of young women….Democrats need to find ways both to uphold their commitments to gender equality and to bring young men around from Trump and Vance….ALTHOUGH DEMOCRATS DID NOT ADDRESS YOUNG MEN or issues of masculinity directly at their convention, they do have a potential messenger in vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz. As a football coach, teacher, and officer in the National Guard, he has had long experience in working with young men. He could take up the challenge of engaging Republicans directly on what a worthy life is for men today. By going on the podcasts and YouTube shows with male audiences, he could reach out to the young men who have heard from Trump and Vance but not from the Democrats.”

Starr continues, “In late July, two weeks before Harris asked him to run on the ticket, Walz changed the national conversation about Trump and Vance with five words, “These guys are just weird.” What Walz said immediately afterward connected that weirdness to Trump and Vance’s hypermasculinity: “They’re running for He-Man Women Haters Club or something, that’s what they go at. That’s not what people are interested in.” Together, those attention-catching lines have the kernel of what Democrats ought to be saying to young men—one part a counterattack against Trump and Vance; one part positive statement about the Democratic alternative and the genuine interests of young men….In making their case, Democrats do not have to be highly original, any more than Trump and Vance have been. They can rightly claim to be the ones who are talking sense about how men and women normally relate today, not as boss and underling but as members of a team, as “Coach Walz” might say….A major part of the message that Walz could carry to the online audiences of young men concerns the Democrats’ economic program, including their commitments to expand housing construction and aid for first-time homebuyers, forgiveness of student debt, child tax credits, and policies aimed at bringing back manufacturing jobs that pay well and don’t require a college degree. Democrats shouldn’t expect to win the competition for young men with policy proposals, but the odds are that young men haven’t heard about their proposals, which convey a message that Democrats want to make a practical difference in their lives. Democrats don’t have to pull back on abortion rights to win their support; there’s no evidence that young men have turned right on abortion—they just don’t vote on it….we need more men in K-12 teaching as well as more investment in vocational education and technical high schools to give young men who may not go to college the chance to make a decent living….Guys, we see you. We’re on your side as well.” And because Republicans “performatively” side with young men but don’t follow that up with policies, Democrats can gain an advantage by backing up rhetoric with substantive ideas that work for young men. It wouldn’t kill them to point out to young men that the infrastructure bill Biden passed is creating lots of good-paying jobs for them.”


Political Strategy Notes

Give it up for Jack Smith, who continues to bulldog-investigate Trump’s role in the Jan. 6th insurrection/riot.  Trump’s delaying tactics have weakened the issue as a potential influence on voters. But Smith does not cower in the shadows like some you could name when it comes to seeking justice.  Here’s how Katherine Faulders, Alexander Mallin, and Peter Charalambous explain it in their article, “Bombshell immunity filing details Trump’s alleged ‘increasingly desperate’ bid to overturn 2020 election” at abcnews.com: “Special counsel Jack Smith has outlined new details of former President Donald Trump and his allies’ sweeping and “increasingly desperate” efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, in a blockbuster court filing Wednesday aimed at defending Smith’s prosecution of Trump following the Supreme Court’s July immunity ruling….Trump intentionally lied to the public, state election officials, and his own vice president in an effort to cling to power after losing the election, while privately describing some of the claims of election fraud as “crazy,” prosecutors alleged in the 165-page filing….”When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office,” the filing said. “With private co-conspirators, the defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost….When Trump’s effort to overturn the election through lawsuits and fraudulent electors failed to change the outcome of the election, prosecutors allege that the former president fomented violence, with prosecutors describing Trump as directly responsible for “the tinderbox that he purposely ignited on January 6….The lengthy filing — which includes an 80-page summary of the evidence gathered by investigators — outlines multiple instances in which Trump allegedly heard from advisers who disproved his allegations, yet continued to spread his claims of outcome-determinative voter fraud, prosecutors said….”It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell,” Trump allegedly told members of his family following the 2020 election, the filing said.” Read more here.

In “New Harris ad previews Vance’s dangerous potential power if Trump wins,” Jessica Sutherland writes at Daily Kos: “If Donald Trump wins in November, there are various reasons why he might not be able to complete a second four-year term. That means Americans could suddenly find themselves with a President JD Vance—a very scary prospect. The risks of a Vance ascension are at the center of “A Heartbeat Away,” the latest ad from the Harris-Walz campaign…. For anyone familiar with Vance’s extremism—recently detailed by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow—it’s a stark reminder. For those who might not know much about the novelist-turned-first-term Ohio senator, who stumbled to a 2022 victory over former Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan thanks only to massive cash infusionsfrom Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vance’s mentor, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, it’s a warning….The ad paints a picture of Vance and his “ruthless” ideology, and couches it against the real risk that a reelected Trump won’t be in the White House when the end of his term comes around in January 2029—whether because he’s in prison, or because of health reasons.” It’s hard to imagine Trump giving up power to anyone. But for those old enough to remember Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon, it doesn’t seem like such a crazy scenario. Here’s the ad:

If you needed an extra reason to get involved in early GOTV in your swing state, consider that some current events beyond anyone’s control are likely to produce painful price hikes in the not too distant future. Gas prices are relatively moderate at the moment. But the war in the mid east could be a problem. Read, for example “Rising oil prices after Iran strike could increase US gas prices, experts say by Max Zahn at abcnews.com and “Will gas prices, supplies be affected by the port strike? What experts say: Fortunately for Americans, the strike at 36 East and Gulf coast ports isn’t expected to disrupt the oil and gas industry – at least not right away” by Eric Lagatta and Medora Lee at USA Today. As regards your family dinner, check out  “Helene just pummeled America’s chicken farming capital” by Kenny Torella at Vox, in which he writes: “Hurricane Helene, the Category 4 storm that slammed the American Southeast over the weekend, has killed more than 110 people — and likely millions of chickens….Almost half of the more than 9 billion chickens farmed for meat in the US, known as “broiler” chickens, are raised and slaughtered in the region. Georgia is the nation’s top chicken producer, processing 1.3 billion chickens annually. Over the weekend, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters that 107 poultry facilities in the state had been “damaged or totally destroyed by the storm.”Some of the nation’s largest poultry companies — including Aviagen, Pilgrim’s Pride and Wayne-Sanderson Farms — suspended operations at their local facilities due to power outages in recent days.” Never mind that, for health reasons, Americans should be eating more vegetables and less factory-farmed chicken and that President Biden has done a good job of improving the economy. Regardless of the real reasons for inflation, however, the party that holds the White House usually loses votes as a result of price hikes at the gas pump and supermarket. Hence, the more early votes banked in the next few weeks, the better for Democrats.


Did Veep Debate Have Any Strategic Value?

In the wake of the VP debate, the spinmeisters are working overtime crafting their take-away posts. In all likelihood, however, most impressions of the debate will be faded or forgotten in a month, if not sooner. Such is the power of myriad distractions in modern America. “Interesting Veep debate last night. Oh look, there’s a squirrel.”

Here’s one take from “Consider This” at npr.org:

In a race where so much of the polling is within the margin of error — it seems as though any one thing could affect the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.

But have Vice Presidential Debates made a difference in past races?

NPR’s senior White House Correspondent Tamara Keith dug into that existential… and political question.

Keith says that vice presidential debates are often forgettable, but the one in 1988 is seared in American popular culture.

Judy Woodruff of PBS did the introductions for Senator Dan Quayle, the Republican nominee, and Senator Lloyd Bentsen, the Democratic nominee.

Benson was in his late sixties while Quayle was only 41, and that dynamic led to one of the most iconic lines in debate history, as Quayle compared himself to John F. Kennedy, and Lloyd Bentsen replied:

“I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

It was a huge moment in the debate. But it ultimately had no real impact on the outcome of the race. Smackdown notwithstanding, Bentsen and his running mate, Michael Dukakis, lost in a wipe out.

One could could argue that, after all, both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris served as Vice President, as did Presidents Truman, LBJ, Bush (I) and Nixon during the last century. It’s a training school for future presidents. And the voting public undoubtedly likes to be reassured that the back-up is not crazy or lacking in basic intelligence.

The one call I got about the Walz-Vance debate applauded the civility of both candidates. That’s a subtextual knock on Trump, who is all about insults and threats, while Harris has kept a more dignified tone front and center. But my hunch is that Vance’s Cat Lady and other pre-debate gaffes will have more shelf-life than his debate performance, which included his refusal to admit the Jan. 6th riot was Trumps’ doing or that Biden won the 2020 election. His transparently-evasive comments on abortion probably offset any benefit he may have scored from his pre-packaged zingers blaming Harris for all of America’s immigration problems.

All in all, no one should be surprised that the veep debate will not be a game-changer. One revealing way to evaluate the importance of the veep debate is to ponder and answer the question, “Do I know of anyone who has changed their vote because of a vice presidential nominee’s debate performance?”


Political Strategy Notes

In “To win over seniors, Harris should highlight her support for Social Security” at The Hill,  top Social Security experts Nancy J. Altman and William J. Arnone write: “A formerly reliable segment of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition, voters aged 65 and older have leaned Republican since 2000. The Harris-Walz ticket has an excellent opportunity to bring these voters back. Even if the Democratic presidential ticket does not carry older voters, just reducing the margin of loss might well decide the election….We call older voters “always-voters,” because it is only a small exaggeration to say that they always vote. They have disproportionately high turnout rates, including in the seven battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin….In 2020, older voters had a turnout rate of 71.9 percent, compared to an overall turnout rate of 67 percent. In Arizona and Georgia, older voter rates were 20- and 17-percentage points higher, respectively….In 2020, voters aged 65 and older were 22 percent of the total electorate. Voters age 50 and older comprised over half of all voters….the Harris-Walz ticket is underperforming with older voters. The most recent polling indicates that the ticket is losing voters 65 and over by seven percentage points. Before withdrawing from the race, President Biden was winning this segment by three percentage points….The problem is that recent polling shows that the American people do not know where the parties stand. And the Harris-Walz campaign has yet to run ads making the contrast clear.”….Moreover, Trump’s record shows he is no protector of Social Security. As president, he proposed Social Security cuts in every single one of his budgets.”

From “This election, a struggle for the soul of American Christianity is key: That’s why battleground North Carolina will be ‘ground zero for a faith war’” by Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr.: “Religion has created a coalition management challenge for Democrats whose ranks include large majorities of Jewish and Muslim voters and an overwhelming share of voters — particularly among the young — who left organized religion altogether…..But political scientist David Campbell, co-author of “Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics,” argues that the party still has ample room for appeals to religious voters….“We don’t see any evidence that [secular voters] are hostile to Democrats who use religious language,” he told me. “It’s a myth that because they have a secular world view, they are hostile to religion. What they don’t like is the establishment of religion by government, government stepping over the line between church and state.”….Harris seems to take this view to heart. She speaks often about her Baptist faith, routinely dropping religious references into speeches and at times offering detailed accounts of its influence on her worldview. Faith, she said in a 2022 address to the National Baptist Convention, taught her “to believe in what is possible and what can be, unburdened by what has been.”….But there is a more basic reason that religion is unavoidable in this election. It has nothing to do with any “God Gap” or political calculation. Augustine is right: There is an ongoing struggle for the soul of American Christianity between brands of faith that embrace democratic inclusion and extreme forms — particularly white Christian nationalism — that promote exclusion. It’s an argument that North Carolina might be called upon to settle for the nation.”

Should Democrats fund and run more women candidates? Read “How the news media cover women in politics: 5 recent studies to know” by Clark Merrefield at Journalists Resource for a perceptive take. As Merrefield writes: “By 2023, 25% of U.S. senators, 29% of Congress, 33% of state legislators and 24% of governors were women….As women have occupied more positions of political power, so has news framing and language used in media coverage become more scrutinized….The “likability trap,” as it’s known, refers to women in positions of power having to be both highly qualified and broadly likable to colleagues and clients in the corporate world, and to voters in the political realm. It’s similar in concept to the “gender double bind,” in which women in leadership positions are expected to be both competent and warm, according to research out of the University of Michigan.” In 2016 we witnessed the first presidential election in which a woman presidential candidate received a healthy majority of the nation-wide popular vote. If Kamala Harris wins the presidency this year, expect a dramatic uptick of women candidates for elective offices throughout the U.S. And it seems reasonable to expect an significant improvement in the quality of news coverage about their campaigns.

Be not suckered by Speaker Mike Johnson’s low-key demeanor and bland persona. As Nicole Lafond writes in “Now Mike Johnson Is Hedging On Whether The Election Will Be Certified” at Talking Points Memo: “The speaker is leaving town after prevaricating on whether Congress should play its normal role in certifying the results of the election. When asked during a press conference on Tuesday if he’d “commit to observing regular order in the certification process of the 2024 election, even if Kamala Harris beats Donald Trump,” Johnson hedged….“Well of course — if we have a free, fair, and safe election, we’re going to follow the Constitution. Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely,” he said….That big “if” fits alongside the various other cryptic, intentionally vague lines that Trump and his allies have been employing for months as they dodge questions about accepting the results of the election. Trump has said repeatedly that he will only accept the results if the election is “fair.” In other words, Democrats should anticipate the certainty of Republican “leaders” doing Trumps’ bidding by challenging vote counts in swing states. Johnson is every inch a shameless Trump lapdog and a dictator-enabler, who clearly has no commitment to democracy in general, nor integrity in the  certification process in 2024 in particular.


Alter: Hopeful Signs and Obstacles for Harris in PA’s Tricky Terrain

At The Washington Monthly, Jonathan Alter, author of the forthcoming “American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial―and My Own,” writes that “the nightmare scenario—a Trump win—is still very real, especially if he carries Pennsylvania. So today, I’m paying special attention to polling in the Keystone State, though I’m told no one who lives in Pennsylvania calls it that.

The Pennsylvania electorate is about 25 percent Catholic, with fewer than 50 percent of its voters college-educated. In 2020, that helped Biden, who is Catholic and—before he became unpopular in the state—had some working-class appeal. Now, Trump leads among Pennsylvania Catholics by 18 points. Biden carried Lackawanna County—which contains Scranton, his hometown—by 8 points. (In 2016, Hillary won that area by three).

Unfortunately, Scranton is not Kamala Country, nor is Erie County in northwest Pennsylvania. And “Pennsyltucky”—all of the state’s rural areas—is overwhelmingly pro-Trump, despite hundreds of infrastructure projects underway there thanks to the Biden Administration.

That leaves the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia metro areas, where Harris must run up big majorities. Even if she does that, she has to cut into Trump’s huge margins in the rural counties at least a little to win.

The Post poll shows how deeply Trump’s lies have penetrated Pennsylvania. Surprisingly, the top issue there is not the economy, immigration, health care (the largest employer in the state), or abortion but “protecting democracy.” Good news, right? Not exactly. When asked which candidate is best equipped to protect democracy, 48 percent say Harris and 45 percent choose Trump, an insignificant gap. Nationally, about 40 percent believe the 2020 election was stolen. Those are Trump base voters, and there’s no changing their minds.

Like voters in other states, Pennsylvanians have a peculiar cognitive dissonance on the economy. While two-thirds think the national economy is “poor” or “not so good,” two-thirds are optimistic about their own financial condition. I figure these folks are in the 33 percent of the electorate who say they receive most of their news from social media and Fox News. (Only 7 percent say they get their news most often from “national print or online news organizations, like The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal”).

Harris has an advantage on abortion, with the Post poll showing 64 percent say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. However, among voters who think the economy and immigration are paramount, Trump has the backing of 65 percent and 80 percent, respectively.

While Trump’s 15-point margin among white Pennsylvania voters in 2020 exit polling has declined by a third, a good sign, he is doing surprisingly well in holding down Harris’s margins among Black voters—especially males. In 2020, Biden won 92 percent of the Black vote; Harris is currently winning 78 percent, according to the Post poll. This may be because Black voters in Pennsylvania have been bombarded with ads saying that Harris wrongly prosecuted young Black men as San Francisco’s district attorney. Last week, Roger Stone signaled that another is coming that will feature a Black San Francisco woman who was carted off to jail in handcuffs because her daughter, a sickle cell anemia patient, was truant due to illness.

Harris won’t likely respond specifically to the sickle cell case, but she may engage on this issue more broadly. While her anti-truancy policies led to sharp educational gains among Black third graders, it might look defensive and off-message to point that out.

In better news, Harris leads Trump by 12 percentage points among Pennsylvania voters in union households and a comparable margin among the rank-and-file themselves. In 2020, Trump and Biden were in a statistical tie for that vote. The enthusiastic endorsement of Shawn Fein of the UAW and several Teamsters locals may prove crucial for Harris.

The New York Times/Siena/Philadelphia Inquirer poll held some surprises. Respondents found Trump to be the more “extreme” candidate, 74 percent versus 46 percent. That only sounds good to the uninitiated. “Extreme” is apparently no longer a slur in a good chunk of America. In 1964, Barry Goldwater said in his acceptance speech at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.” This may have played well with the GOP base, but it helped doom Goldwater, who lost to Lyndon Johnson that fall in a landslide. Nowadays, among voters in the Times/Siena poll who say “extreme” described them at least “somewhat well,” Trump won by more than 50 percentage points. And he doesn’t seem to be paying a price for his extreme views among independents.

Harris is making strides in convincing voters that she’s not a San Francisco liberal. It helped when she told Oprah that she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot an intruder. Even so, far more voters see her as too liberal than view Trump as too conservative, though this doesn’t account for independents and Democrats (like me) who would not describe Trump as conservative—because he isn’t. What true conservative is a protectionist, a budget-buster, and an authoritarian?

Both candidates are much more popular in Pennsylvania than they were last year. Trump’s approval rating is up nine points to 46 percent, while Harris’s has reached 51 percent, an astonishing improvement since July. The cross-tabs on “leaners” are ambiguous but appear to favor Harris, which could be critical late in the game. The vice president’s most significant advantage may be her five-point edge on “caring about people like you.”


Political Strategy Notes

From Valerie Bauerlein’s “Mark Robinson Scandal in North Carolina Injects Chaos Into Presidential Race” at The Wall St. Journal: “North Carolina is the swing state that former President Donald Trump won the most narrowly in 2020. Now Trump sees his fate tied to Robinson, the starkest example yet of the standard-bearers the MAGA takeover has brought to the Republican Party, and how hard it is to contain them….The state has become a place where all of the forces of a polarized nation intersect, from the divide between rural and urban interests, to hardened opinions about abortion…. North Carolina’s direction, potentially decisive in the presidential race, could hinge on another deeply flawed Trump protégé burdening the party with extreme views….Several top Republicans, including Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, have withdrawn support for Robinson. And Robinson, previously lauded by Trump as “Martin Luther King on steroids,” was neither seen nor mentioned at Trump’s Wilmington, N.C., rally on Saturday….In an unusual situation, the reverse coattails of a statewide candidate, Robinson, threaten to drag down the top of the ticket. An Elon University poll released Tuesday, taken Sept. 4-13, before the CNN report, showed that Robinson was trailing the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Josh Stein, by 14 points, with Trump neck and neck against Vice President Kamala Harris. In recent months, Trump consistently polled ahead of her….Robinson exemplifies, more so than Georgia’s failed Senate candidate Herschel Walker or Arizona’s current Senate candidate Kari Lake, the no-apologies, right-wing purists who sail through primaries but stumble in general elections….Democrats are seizing the moment. The Harris campaign ran its first TV ad linking Trump and Robinson after CNN’s report….Rep. Jeff Jackson, North Carolina’s Democratic nominee for attorney general, said he is running ads reminding voters that his opponent, Rep. Dan Bishop, previously called himself Robinson’s “sidekick.”…. “Mark Robinson has been the most popular person for his party in our state for several years, so lots of major candidates have fallen over themselves to be pictured with him,” Jackson told supporters by email. “The blast radius is going to envelop lots of other candidates.” Democrats certainly hope so. The whole mess provides as good a test of the negative power of ‘reverse coattails’ in political campaigns as anyone could hope for. It also provides a fertile field for testing ads that emphasize the moral bankruptcy of the NC GOP.

Some nuggets from “Harris’ Georgia challenge: reassembling Biden’s diverse 2020 coalition” by John King at CNN Politics: “In 2020, voters of color made up 39% of the Georgia presidential electorate, and Biden won 81% support of that vote. That lopsided margin helped Biden win the state, by fewer than 12,000 votes, even though Trump won 69% among White voters….In a CNN poll released Tuesday, Harris was well ahead of Trump among Black (79% support) and Latino (59%) likely voters, but still trailed Biden’s winning percentages with those groups in 2020 – 87% and 65%, respectively….Statewide, Asians constitute about 4.5% of Georgia’s population. In the metro Atlanta area, the number of residents of Asian descent has more than doubled in the past two decades….Trump’s often toxic tone hurts him in the suburbs, but that is just part of the shift. Cobb and the other Atlanta suburbs are growing more diverse, and many big employers in metro Atlanta require at least four years of college – now the clearest dividing line in voting preference.” Unique factors that many pundits missed about the Georgia 2020-21 political upsets include that the state not only has Black voters comprising a third of the electorate; it probably has the most well-trained and most dedicated Black voter activists anywhere in the U.S., along with Atlanta’s heavy concentration of HBCUs, predominantly-Black in-migration and expanding Black middle class. Persuasion of uncommitted voters (especially white working-class) is a paramount strategic consideration for all states. And yes, it helped in 2020-21 that the Georgia GOP was engulfed in internal infighting. But Georgia’s unique demographic profile still makes it the best state lab for testing the power of investments in Black voter turnout.

NYT opinion essayist Thomas B. Edsall addresses a question that seems to be on the minds of millions: “How is it possible that Donald Trump has a reasonable chance of winning the presidency despite all that voters now know about him?” He adds, “The litany of Trump’s liabilities is well known to the American electorate. His mendacity, duplicity, depravity, hypocrisy and venality are irrevocably imprinted on the psyches of American voters….Trump has made it clear that on a second term he will undermine the administration of justice, empower America’s adversaries, endanger the nation’s allies and exacerbate the nation’s racial and cultural rifts….Trump, from the start, was operating in a universe separate from the traditional politics of the Republican and Democratic parties; he was operating in a world rooted in his 25 years in pro wrestling, in which people put up good money to watch fake “fights” they know in their hearts were fixed.” Edsall notes further that “Based on eight surveys in the United States with a total of 10,921 respondents from February 2018 to February 2022, Petersen, Osmundsen and Arceneaux found that white men, a core Trump constituency, were unique in many respects: “White men react more aggressively than any other group to perceived status challenges. While white men do not feel highly status-challenged on average, they are more likely to seek chaos when they do.” Any demographic group will respond strongly and negatively to economic status reduction. it provokes more anger because the group has experienced a taste of the good life, followed by a take-away. That’s different from striving for status that has never been experienced. “The threat of marginalization,’ as Edsall terms it, is a time bomb that explodes in many elections. But it never seems to harm the beneficiaries of marginalization – the corrupt profiteers of anti-union policies and other divide-and-conquer strategies. Thus far, some, not all, Republicans have successfully redirected much of the rage of status anxiety toward low-income people of other races. Challenging this cynical strategy is a long-term project that will span several more elections.

It’s only one poll, so all the usual caveats apply. But one of our commenters has shared a report on a recent poll, which ought to encourage the Harris campaign to recalibrate its foreign policy image in the swing states. As Dave Lawler reports at Axios: ‘Voters in six key swing states think former President Trump is more likely than Vice President Harris to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, respond effectively to a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan, and advance U.S. interests internationally, according to new polling from the Institute for Global Affairs….By the numbers: Voters nationwide narrowly see Harris (52% to 48%) as better able to strongly defend U.S. interests, according to the poll. But Trump leads 56% to 44% in that category among voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin….

  • The gap is wider in favor of Trump (58% to 42%) in the swing states on the question of who is more likely to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. By the same 58% to 42% margin, swing state voters see Trump as more likely to respond effectively if China makes a move on Taiwan.
  • Trump also leads Harris (56% to 44%) in the swing states on his signature issue: immigration policy.
  • Harris narrowly leads Trump nationally on the questions of who would respond more effectively to a major global crisis (52% to 48%) or improve America’s reputation (53% to 47%). But once again those gaps are wiped out when you zoom in on the swing states.

Between the lines: Harris’ foreign policy vision is less well-defined for voters than Trump’s, particularly in the swing states Trump’s campaign has been bombarding with messaging for months, says Mark Hannah, a senior fellow at the Institute for Global Affairs.”….

  • “We’ve seen that independents in battleground states tend to prefer a less interventionist foreign policy. So the fact that voters see Trump as more likely to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza might strengthen his popularity,” Hannah notes.

Reality check: While foreign policy is arguably the area on which presidents have the most direct influence, it has not been a major issue for voters this cycle, with the exception of immigration.” Even though the notion that Trump’s foreign policy toward Gaza, Ukraine, Russia and China serves U.S. interests better is laughable to serious international affairs experts, the margins in this poll are large enough to indicate a problem as regards the opinions of swing state voters. The Harris campaign’s ad strategy should be tweaked accordingly, and soon, since people are voting already.