“A new report commissioned by a labor-backed group is examining a problem many Democrats might rather ignore: the exodus of working-class voters from the party they used to call home,” Alex Seitz-Wald explains in “Democrats have been losing working-class voters. Here’s one playbook to win them back” at nbcnews.com. “Republicans under former President Donald Trump have been making inroads in the working class, including among Black and Hispanic voters, while Democrats have been gaining suburban moderates and highly educated professionals that used to vote Republican,” Alex Seitz-Wald explains in “Democrats have been losing working-class voters. Here’s one playbook to win them back” ate nbcnews.com. “Some voices on the left have downplayed the significance or even denied the loss of working class voters, but the data is increasinglyclear and signs of realignment are everywhere….“I’ve watched as MAGA flags have encroached into my community, which used to be a solid deep-blue working-class suburb of New York made of ethnic whites and people of color,” said Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, a labor-backed group that aims to organize a multiracial working-class coalition. “Republicans are making inroads into the working class, and it’s not just white working class people.”….A nonprofit offshoot of Working Families embarked on an extensive research project last year to try to take an honest accounting of Democrats’ problems with working-class voters and find effective messages for the Democratic presidential campaign and others. The group shared its findings exclusively with NBC News….“We take the right wing and Republican Party seriously when they say they want to be the party of the working class,” Mitchell said. “And as much as Democrats are interested in organizing working-class people, and we don’t deny their sincerity, we wanted to start with a grounded place that provides the most accurate picture.”….The effort started with an attempt to better understand the working class of the 21st century by creating a more nuanced definition of the demographic and breaking it down into seven values-based typologies.

“Those categories,” Seitz-Wald continues, “were based on a battery of 40 questions put to more than 5,000 participants in surveys conducted with HIT Strategies, a Democratic research firm….The conclusions, laid out in a 60-page research report and accompanying 23-page political handbook, was shared for the first time this week in a virtual meeting with 160 representatives of left-leaning organizations and labor unions….The result is a novel approach to analyze the working class, which the report says represents about 63% of the electorate….“The working class represents a gigantic share of the electorate. Yet ideological differences within the working class are almost never explored in any systematic way,” the report states….The report sorted people into seven subtypes, each of roughly equal size, arranged on the ideological spectrum from “Next Gen Left” to “Core MAGA,” but the research is especially interested in the four groups in the middle that it says are “cross-pressured,” with values that are best represented in both parties….Those groups include “Tuned Out Persuadables,” “Anti Woke Traditionalists,” “Diverse Disaffected Conservatives” and “Secure Suburbans.”….The cohorts may look different demographically, but more importantly, they’re sorted by their feelings about economic, social and cultural issues. The key to reaching these cross-pressured sections of the working class, according to the report, is differentdepending on what messages resonate with each subgroup….For instance, the research found that populist economic messages about taking on corporations and “big money” in politics are generally popular across the working class, while less effective messages included focusing on the Biden-Harris administration’s work on climate and infrastructure or on Harris’ potential to make history as the first woman president….If nothing else, Mitchell hopes the research will push Democrats to take seriously the erosion with working class voters and to move beyond one-size-fits all stereotypes when thinking about how to talk to working-class voters.”

In “Harris can end the Trump-Vance culture wars. Here’s how,’ Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. writes: “Now that she has routed Donald Trump on the debate stage, Vice President Kamala Harris needs to take the next step and reinforce her campaign’s most powerful theme: That it’s time to end the cultural and ideological warfare — much of it phony, some of it rooted in prejudice — that keeps our nation from solving its most important problems….Despite her standing as the incumbent vice president, Harris has transformed herself into the candidate who represents change by speaking to a reality most Americans sense in their bones. Although Trump has been out of office for nearly four years, his angry and pessimistic spirit still dominates the country’s public life. As long as Trump lurks, every controversy will be turned into a culture war, elections will be defined around who hates whom, and actual problems will be left to fester….Fighting over gender, ideology, sexual identity or religion won’t change that. What would make a difference is uniting behind practical steps to achieve a better balance between work and family life, between the economy and community needs….The fight over abortion will not go away, but opponents of abortion ought to be sympathetic to more help for women who bring children into the world….What’s clear is that Americans across our divides agree we need to do more to help parents and kids. During the debate, Harris rightly but briefly mentioned the child tax credit and helping young families afford a home. I wish she had talked more about her agenda on leave, child care, elder care and adequate pay for those who work in the care economy….Doing so in the coming weeks will be a clear answer to critics who say she’s short on policy. She’s not (especially compared with Trump), but more detail on these and other ideas to strengthen the country’s families can only help her with the voters she needs.”

At The Washington Monthly, Robert J. Shapiro argues that “even though it’s already Labor Day, there’s still time for her campaign to pay attention to a major issue that concerns millions of voters and offer them a response that would underscore her pledge to chart a more prosperous future for middle-class Americans, what she calls “an opportunity economy…..The big issue is the fading prospect of upward mobility for Americans without college degrees. One way to help people raise their incomes is by offering free retraining for higher-paying jobs….The fading prospects for upward mobility have made millions of Americans feel aggrieved and resentful. Donald Trump has used his own sense of personal grievance and resentment to channel their disappointment—to his benefit….The Harris-Walz campaign can turn the tables on this vital issue by giving average Americans a reason to feel optimistic about their futures. The campaign has promised to mandate paid family leave and sick leave, limit price hikes by large corporations in certain circumstances, reduce medical debt and subsidize first-time home buyers….That’s fine as far as it goes. But people still have to live on what they earn. In this economy, the way most people increase their incomes is to become more productive….While few of them have time or money to go to college now, the government could easily afford to give them free access to evening and weekend retraining courses at public community colleges as a pathway to revive their prospects for upward mobility….Community colleges today charge about $450 per course, so retraining would cost about $4,050 for a would-be plumber, $3,150 for those aspiring to be entry-level computer programmers, and $3,600 for a student electricians program. Using these three examples, the average retraining program would cost about $3,600. A new nationwide retraining program could waive those costs since the point is to restore upward mobility for millions who couldn’t afford to lay out $3,600, regardless of the potential benefits….Those costs would be de minimis for taxpayers. If we assume that 500,000 low earners would sign on each year for two-year programs of evening and weekend classes, the government could cover annual tuition costs for 1 million people each year for $2 billion annually. That’s equivalent to two-tenths of 1 percent of all non-defense discretionary federal spending….That’s a very small price to create a new path to upward mobility for millions of aggrieved Americans and get millions of those voters to take a new look at Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

With Ed Kilgore’s cautionary flags about attaching too much importance to the election consequences of the Harris-Trump presidential debate in mind, there are a few more articles about it worth checking out. At The Hill, for example, Juliann Ventura writes, “Former GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie warned Vice President Harris against challenging former President Trump to another debate following Tuesday’s showdown….“Nothing great can happen for her in a second debate,” the former New Jersey governor said on The View Wednesday. “She’ll either do as well as she did this time… or he could do better.” However, Ventura explains that “The Harris campaign quickly challenged Trump to another debate after Tuesday night’s matchup wrapped up, as pundits largely agreed that she had the stronger performance….Trump has declined to accept the challenge, however, arguing that it’s Harris who lost, comparing her to a prize fighter demanding a rematch….“She needed to show those undecided voters that she belonged on that stage, and last night she showed that she belongs on the stage,” Christie said. “That’s why — look, I saw her campaign put out a challenge for a second debate right after the debate. Please stop. Don’t do it!” Withdrawing a challenge is a bad look. But Harris is now in position to set tough conditions.

If you want more numbers, Nathaniel Rakich has them in his caveat-rich article, “Early polls say Harris won the presidential debate“at abcnews.go.com, and writes: “As of 1 p.m. Eastern, 538 has collected three national polls and one swing-state poll that were conducted since the debate.* In all of them, more people who watched the debate said Harris won the debate than said Trump did. On average, 57 percent of debate watchers nationally said Harris turned in the better performance; only 34 percent said Trump did….CNN/SSRS also conducted a poll of the same respondents before the debate, allowing us to compare what they thought about the candidates before the event with what they thought about the candidates after it. And according to their poll, Harris’s net favorability rating among debate watchers rose from -11 percentage points (39 percent favorable, 50 percent unfavorable) before the debate to +1 point (45 percent favorable, 44 percent unfavorable) after it. Trump’s net favorability rating, however, barely changed (from -11 points to -12 points).” Rakich adds that, “even if Harris does rise in the polls after the debate, those gains could be fleeting. CNN polling also found that Americans thought former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned in the best performance in all three of her debates with Trump in 2016, and she rose in national polls after the first two of them (although other factors, such as the “Access Hollywood” tape, likely factored into that as well). But, of course, the race tightened in the final days and Clinton went on to lose that election.”

At Brookings, Elaine Kamarck and William A. Galston explain why “The presidential debate accomplished more for Harris than it did for Trump” and write: “Kamala Harris faced three key challenges. First, 37% to 42% of voters in some swing states knew virtually nothing about her except that she serves as Joe Biden’s vice president. Filling in this gap, or at least beginning to, was job one. From the very first minutes of the debate, it was clear that she knew she had to define herself and that she did—as a child of the middle class who, in contrast to Trump, was not given $400 million to start a business. In addition, she repeatedly came back to her experience as a prosecutor….Second, Harris has shifted her position on many important issues—health care (Medicare for All), climate change (fracking), and immigration (decriminalizing border crossings), among others—since she ran for the nomination in 2020. This left people wondering, what kind of Democrat is she—a classic California progressive or the next generation of the Clinton, Obama, and Biden-style center-left? She had to persuade voters that the new version of Kamala Harris is the one they will get if she is elected….Here her performance was more mixed. She explained her shift on fracking but didn’t give as clean and crisp an answer as she could have on other issues where Trump has accused her of flip-flopping. However, she defended the Biden administration and her participation in the bipartisan immigration legislation that Trump killed, she let the audience know that both she and Tim Walz are gun owners who have no intention of taking away people’s guns, and she pushed back against the charge that she was weak on crime by emphasizing her experience and record as a prosecutor who put criminals behind bars….   Third, as is the case with every candidate who hasn’t previously occupied the presidency, Harris had to convince swing voters that she has what it takes to serve effectively as the nation’s chief executive and commander-in-chief. Simply put, they needed to be able to see her as big enough to be president, a barrier that some previous candidates, such as Michael Dukakis in 1988, failed to cross….Harris passed this test easily. She never got flustered, she made her points concisely and quickly, and she spoke with confidence about traditionally “male” issues like war, defense, crime, and foreign policy.”

Nobody knows how long last night’s presidential debate impressions are going to last among the voting public, or even of there is going to be a second debate before election day. There is also the unanswered question about whether or not debates matter much, regardless of who ‘wins.’ So the importance of the debate as a determinant of the outcome of the election is unclear.

Harris is nonetheless getting plenty of good reviews for her ‘performance’ last night, while positive takes on Trump’s comments are scarce outside of right-wing media. Better that for Democrats that the opposite. Here are seven choice takes from commentators:

In “CNN Flash Poll: Majority of debate watchers say Harris outperformed Trump onstage,” Afriel Edwards-Levy writes that “Registered voters who watched Tuesday’s presidential debate broadly agree that Kamala Harris outperformed Donald Trump, according to a CNN poll of debate watchers conducted by SSRS. The vice president also outpaced both debate watchers’ expectations for her and Joe Biden’s onstage performance against the former president earlier this year, the poll found….Debate watchers said, 63% to 37%, that Harris turned in a better performance onstage in Philadelphia. Prior to the debate, the same voters were evenly split on which candidate would perform more strongly, with 50% saying Harris would do so and 50% that Trump would. And afterward, 96% of Harris supporters who tuned in said that their chosen candidate had done a better job, while a smaller 69% majority of Trump’s supporters credited him with having a better night.”

“Her pointed digs on the size of his rally crowds, his conduct during the Capitol riot, and on the officials who served in his administration who have since become outspoken critics of his campaign repeatedly left Trump on the back foot,” Anthony Zurcher writes at BBC.com. “The pattern for much of this debate was Harris goading her Republican rival into making extended defences of his past conduct and comments. He gladly obliged, raising his voice at times and shaking his head.”

Zac Anderson observes in “Who won the debate? Harris’ forceful performance rattles a defensive Trump” at USA Today: “Nervous Democrats saw a significantly stronger advocate than Biden, who repeatedly stumbled when he squared off against Trump on June 27 in Atlanta. In addition to delivering a much more fluid and coherent message, Harris often looked more poised than Trump as she calmly prosecuted the case against him, prompting a series of angry outbursts.”

Nandita Bose, Gram Slattery and Joseph Ax write in “Harris puts Trump on defensive in combative debate” at Reuters.com that “Democratic candidate Kamala Harris put her Republican rival Donald Trump on the defensive in a combative presidential debate on Tuesday with a stream of attacks on his fitness for office, his support of abortion restrictions and his myriad legal woes….A former prosecutor, Harris, 59, controlled the debate from the start, getting under her rival’s skin repeatedly and prompting a visibly angry Trump, 78, to deliver a series of falsehood-filled retorts.”

“Kamala Harris showed up — and then some….The vice president’s performance against Donald Trump, in which she repeatedly baited him and knocked him off balance, was a far cry from President Joe Biden’s disastrous June debate. And it gave Democrats the role reversal they had hoped for after their switch at the top of the ticket,” Politico’s staff writes in “Harris won the debate — and it wasn’t close.”

From “Democrats see attack ad gold mine in Trump’s debate comments” bye Andrew Solender at Axios: “Democratic lawmakers and strategists were elated at what they saw as an “unhinged” former President Trump repeatedly taking Vice President Harris‘ bait at Tuesday night’s debate….Why it matters: “Everything this dude says right now is an attack ad line,” said one Democratic strategist….Another told Axios during the debate that the ads are probably being produced “literally right now.”…What we’re hearing: Democrats in Congress cited multiple comments by Trump that they believe hurt the ex-president and his party….”

“The former president’s alternate reality conflicts with that of others, including his current and former GOP allies who said he blew it on stage Tuesday night against Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Even Elon Musk agreed that Harris “exceeded most people’s expectations.”….The conservative aggregation site, the Drudge Report, declared: “The End.” Republican spinmeisters in the debate spin room in Philadelphia couldn’t sugarcoat the situation.” From “Who Won the Debate? Even Republicans Agree it Was Kamala Harris” by Mary Ann Akers at The Daily Beast.

Republican spin doctors don’t have a lot to work with regarding last night’s presidential debate. But they can take some comfort in knowing that there are seven plus weeks left in the race.

Regarding the muted-mic, no-audience in the room presidential debate tonight (rules here), my sage advice for Vice President Harris is to look more presidential. Forget all that media-hyped stuff about provoking her opponent into saying something silly. If she does that, she runs the risk of appearing manipulative. All he has to do is not take the bait and he wins the night, plus a few days of positive media coverage. Besides, there is a very good chance he will look unhinged, no matter what she does. Why re-fight a battle she has already won? Because Harris is the debate favorite with her much-noted prosecutorial skill set, Trump is the debate underdog and he gets bonus points by doing “better than expected.” If he shocks everyone and appears surprisingly dignified, he wins big. Yes, the muted mic helps Trump in that regard. But them’s the rules. Harris’s job is not to manipulate Trump; It is to show that she is the ‘adult in the room,’ the one who can be trusted to make sober presidential decisions. Don’t assume everyone already knows that. Many voters like Trump; Many can’t stand him. People know him already. Her, not so much. She has to sell herself, not squander her credibility by trying to trap her opponent. Forget the Perry Mason theatrics. Just be smart, more relaxed and warm and likable, persona qualities she already has.  A little humor wouldn’t hurt. Sure, have a couple of zingers for the opponent, and attack when appropriate. But, think JFK vs. Nixon – the way the former revealed himself to an audience who already knew the latter. Let Trump be the angry, yammering fool. Don’t be too defensive or explain too much. Roll out an eloquent vision of a more hopeful, prosperous and united America.

On the eve of the presidential debate, the polls mostly indicate that, nationally, the presidential race is pretty close, with a trend in the right direction for Harris. But another numerical consideration is the numbers of the demographic change, and for Dems, the news from North Carolina is pretty good. As “the team at Carolina Forward” writes in an e-blast: “Since the 2020 election, North Carolina has added almost 400,000 new residents. With natural growths, deaths, comings-of-age and new neighbors, hundreds of thousands of new voters will be casting ballots for the very first time in our state this fall….In 2020, Trump won North Carolina by his slimmest margin of victory in the entire country: just 73,000 votes, or 1.3%. So the dynamic “churn” in our state’s electorate matters a whole lot. This week, we’re doing a deep-dive into what those population changes might mean politically. Further, “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, North Carolina has gained about 396,000 new residents since 2020. Nearly all (95%) of this growth has been from net in-migration – people moving to North Carolina. Contrary to popular misconceptions, the top state sending new residents to North Carolina is Florida, followed by New York, Virginia and South Carolina, in that order. According to the NC State Board of Elections, there are over 217,000 more registered voters in the state today than there were during the 2020 election, and many more than that are net-new– in other words, voters who were not registered here four years ago….In 2020, Donald Trump scraped out a narrow win in North Carolina by about 73,000 votes out of approximately 5.5 million cast….In 2024, Kamala Harris is quite likely to hit a 30-point margin in Wake county over Donald Trump. It’s entirely conceivable that she could hit an eye-watering 40-point margin in Mecklenburg county.”

In addition to demographic trends, the latest NC polls are also pretty decent for Dems. As TonyDem4life notes at Daily Kos, “A Survey USA poll that dropped today has Harris leading by 3 points….According to WRAL,, “Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are in a statistical tie in North Carolina, but Harris appears to have a slight edge, according to an exclusive WRAL News Poll of the 2024 presidential race….Harris leads Trump by 3 percentage points — a close result in this key battleground state, but one that represents a substantial improvement for Democratic hopes in North Carolina from the last WRAL poll, in March, that found Trump leading by 5 percentage points.”…..

• Harris is up in the suburbs 49% to 44%, a result that almost entirely matches the overall statewide result.
• Trump leads Harris among suburban men, 47% to 45%.
• Harris leads Trump among suburban women, 54% to 40%.

UPDATE:

ANOTHER POLL just dropped. New Quinnipiac poll finds Harris leading Trump in North Carolina by 49-46, same as Survey USA poll earlier today. ”

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Do Democrats need an actual landslide to win at all? The question arises from two disturbing possibilities.

1. The Trump campaign, likely in league with Putin, will surely try to steal the election. We have already seen a massive influx of GOP laws to gain control of the count put in place in various states. They have all but announced it. In addition, new evidence of Russian meddling in our election machinery has resurfaced, which is not exactly a shocker, but it does merit more attention.
2.  Even if Dems narrowly win the presidency, they could fail to win both houses of congress, rendering them all but impotent with respect to enacting anything substantial on their agenda. The best antidote for this outcome is a Democratic landslide – to win so big that Trump and the cat-lady hater are washed away in a cleansing blue tsunami. Easier said than done, but it could happen

Although most pundits are saying it’s a toss-up, Harris-Walz are scoring well in polls, so far dodging major screw-ups. They are the fresh faces in this race, while the GOP ticket marinates in their increasingly bitter take on America.  Harris’s youthful persona, Walz’s authentic middle class narrative and their ticket’s exuberant spirit have flipped the script; Growing numbers of likely voters see the GOP ticket as stale, tired and angry. Many of Trump’s own appointees have turned against him. Careerists RFK, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard add to the GOP ticket’s “It’s all about me” vibe. The Republican campaign now has an aging preppy’s bilious ‘get-off-my-lawn’ spirit. Not a good look.

Democrats should amp up messages like”Harris-Walz for a More Joyful America,” “Let’s Move On – Harris-Walz 2024,”  or “Trump Is So Yesterday.” Just underscore the glaring reality that only one party’s leaders are pointing the way forward to a more hopeful future for all Americans, while the other party’s leaders wallow in a whining personality cult. As a result, poll numbers show a trend away from Republicans, toward Democrats.  Democratic activist James Carville put it well in a recent NYT op-ed, “The most thunderous sound in politics is the boom of a single page as it turns from one chapter to the next.”

The current Republican Party is more concerned with stroking Trump’s fragile ego than representing conservative causes. The only fix leading to a healthier Republican Party is a Democratic landslide. Only then is there a chance that they will finally get the message they missed during almost two years of electoral defeats. A few Republican leaders, including former U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kitzinger have figured out that defeating Trump decisively is the only way they can save their party, and they have endorsed Harris-Walz.

Democratic campaigns should understand that policy voters have already chosen sides. From now on, it’s all about the image that each party communicates to swing voters. For now, at least, advantage Democrats. Above all, hold that edge.

In her Labor Day article, “Both Trump and Harris claim to support the working class: Where do they stand on labor?,” Kinsey Crowley writes at USA Today: “While Trump performed better than expected among Union workers in 2016, some of that support shifted back to President Joe Biden in 2020. Experts say that Biden’s popularity among union workers is likely to carry over to Harris. And unlike 2016, unions may be energized by the recent wins from several major strikes….”It suggests labor’s got some muscle and some fire in their tank,” Bob Bruno, director of the Labor Education Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told USA TODAY in an interview. “If you think you can win…you’re really gonna push a whole lot harder….The Harris campaign seems to tout Biden’s record as a pro-union president to justify the labor movement’s draw to Harris, and Celine McNicholas, policy director at nonpartisan research organization Economic Policy Institute Action, agrees….”There are parts of the Biden administration… (his) record on benefiting workers that I think Harris deserves unique credit on, because she was essentially the tie-breaking vote,” said McNicholas said….Harris also chaired the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment aimed at reducing barriers to unionization….The Harris campaign memo on working with unions detailed her pro-worker record dating back to her time as California Attorney General, when she addressed wage theft. While in office as a U.S. Senator, she walked picket lines in two strikes….if elected, Harris would pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. Known as the PRO Act, the bill would give workers more power to organize, and has passed the House multiple times but has not been signed into law.”

From an e-blast, “New GQR poll shows Americans want Increased Oversight on Corporate Greed”: “A recent GQR survey for More Perfect Union Foundation of 1,700 likely voters in seven battleground states—multimode survey in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (multimode survey taken August 9-15, 2024; margin of error +/- 2.38– demonstrates broad support for government action to break up corporate monopolies and stop the price gouging that has raised the cost of every from groceries to rent to prescription drugs.
Key findings include:

• Voters still struggle with costs and majorities struggle to afford groceries (56 percent) and health care costs like premiums, deductibles and copays (51 percent).
• However, they are more likely to blame corporate greed and price gouging (61 percent) than high costs (51 percent) for inflation and rising costs.
• An 81 percent majority are “concerned that big corporations and businesses are becoming too powerful.”
• Huge majorities of voters support Biden’s efforts to rein in corporations including “right to repair,” reducing costs of cancer drugs, investigating big oil and breaking up monopolies.  However, few voters know about these efforts.
• Voters respond better to an economic narrative that centers in controlling corporate concentration than a conservative nationalist argument.”

“The Latino vote has transformed over the last 15 years — and it’s now disproportionately younger than other groups, explains Mark Hugo Lopez from the Pew Research Center,” Adrian Carrasquillo writes at Politico. “Nationwide, 21 percent of young eligible voters in the U.S. are Latino. But in critical Southwest states, the numbers are even greater: Latinos comprise 39 percent of all 18 to 29 year old eligible voters in Arizona and 36 percent of those young voters in Nevada, according to Pew data from 2022….Today, of the roughly 4 million new Latino voters since 2020, about 3 million are U.S.-born Latinos who have come of age and are eligible to vote in 2024….Harris must now take a Hispanic voter engagement plan built for an 81-year-old white man and retrofit it on the fly for a lesser known, 59-year-old woman of color. Control of the White House could depend on that rebuild.” Carrasquillo cites “early data showing Harris far ahead of Biden with those [younger] voters. [Pollster] Barreto showed internal polling that had Harris’ net favorability advantage over Biden at 24 points with 18 to 24 year old Latinas, plus 17 with Latino men of the same age, plus 18 with Latinas aged 25 to 29, and plus 12 with Hispanic men 25 to 29….“This is extremely important,” Barreto later explained. “Younger Hispanic men looked problematic for Biden. They don’t look problematic for Harris. They start out pretty open-minded about her….In an expansive August 14 survey of 2,183 Hispanics, the polling firm found Harris leading Trump 56 percent to 37 percent across seven battleground states. Harris’ support among Latinos under 40 was especially robust — 17 points higher than Biden.”

In his article, “Kamala Harris Has Got a Game-Changing Plan for Labor in Her Hands. As vice president, she helped devise an ambitious blueprint to advance unions. Now she just needs to make it a bigger part of her campaign” Timothy Noah writes at The New Republic: “The biggest substantive change since candidate Joe Biden stepped aside in favor of candidate Kamala Harris, at least where domestic policy is concerned, is much less discussion of labor unions. As Labor Day approaches, Harris needs to shore up her bona fides. As it happens, Harris herself has already created a plausible blueprint for organized labor’s path forward. With the hard work done, all she needs to do now is talk about it….in her speechannouncing the plan Harris did allow that “you should be able to join a union if you choose”….Walz has a stunningly good labor record as governor, especially in passing last year of a sort of mini–PRO Act, S.F. 3035, which banned captive meetings by management during union drives; required a minimum of six paid sick days for full-time employees; and banned noncompete clauses in employment contracts….no Democrat has ever won the White House without a working-class majority, going back 100 years. There is one exception: Joe Biden in 2020. But that occurred under the unusual circumstance of his opponent visibly mismanaging a deadly epidemic (a fiasco that the voting public, sadly, no longer seems to remember). As I’ve further pointed out, unions are more popular today (with approval levels of 67 to 68 percent) than at any time since the 1960s. Even affluent suburban voters support a more leftist economic agendathan anything we’ve heard from Harris….Harris created a useful blueprint on labor issues. That was the February 2022 report of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment,….Harris should talk up the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on noncompete clauses in employment contracts, which a federal judge recently blocked. It’s a letter-perfect example of the Democrats’ new mantra that they, and not the GOP, are the party of freedom. Just as women should be free to decide whether to carry a pregnancy to term, men and women should be free to work wherever they choose….Madame Vice President: You’ve done a splendid job persuading Democrats not to be fearful of your opponent, but rather to embrace a more joyful (and less weird) vision of government. Please don’t let linger any fear of labor’s enemies among the donor class. You have a record on organized labor, and in large part the task force report is it. Don’t let that be a secret.” Read the whole article for more details.

As long as you are at The New Republic you might as well give a listen to Greg Sargent’s “the Daily Blast,” in which he interviews one of the sharpest Democratic strategists, James Carville, who shares his insights and hunches about the presidential election, which have a way of coming true. You can also listen to it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

It never ends with you know who, the convicted felon presidential candidate. Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein report in “Trump indicted again in election subversion case brought by Jack Smith” at Politico that “A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. has reindicted Donald Trump on four felony charges related to his effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election….The 36-page indictment, secured Tuesday by special counsel Jack Smith, is an attempt by prosecutors to streamline the case against Trump to address the Supreme Court’s ruling last month that concluded presidents enjoy sweeping immunity from prosecution for their official conduct….The new indictment removes some specific allegations against Trump but contains the same four criminal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. It’s a signal that Smith believes the high court’s immunity decision doesn’t pose a major impediment to convicting the former president.” However, “The development is unlikely to alter the reality that a trial in the case before the November election looks impossible. In fact, the new indictment could drag the case out further — defense attorneys often seek delays after prosecutors revise criminal allegations.” Further, “The new indictment seeks to rely on a distinction the Supreme Court drew between a president’s private actions (which can be the subject of criminal charges) and actions that stem from a president’s official powers (which now carry a large degree of immunity)….In addition to the election subversion case, Smith has also charged Trump in Florida with hoarding classified documents and obstructing justice. Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed that case last month — a decision that Smith is appealing….Trump also faces criminal charges in Georgia for interfering with the 2020 election results in that state. And in May, he was convicted in New York of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star.” If you are thinking that increasing numbers of America’s swing voters would like to put his mess behind them, you are not alone.

The Daily Kos staff has sharable post, “Trump bores his supporters, while Harris racks up Republican endorsements,” which includes, “The list of pro-Harris Republicans just got over 200 new names.”On Monday, a group of over 200 former Republican officials endorsed Kamala Harris for president. These officials—who worked for the late Sen. John McCain, Sen. Mitt Romney, former Vice President Mike Pence, and Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush—represent the last three Republican administrations and the two Republican presidential candidates before Trump… They all share a single message: “[R]e-electing President Trump would be a disaster for our nation.”….Despite the way some Republicans want to spin this, those endorsing Harris aren’t all junior clerks from some obscure agency. They are chiefs of staff, press secretaries, legislative directors, campaign chairs, and top advisors. They are high-ranking agency officials, U.S. attorneys, and a former director of the National Security Council…. These are people who worked closely with former Republican presidents and past candidates, all lining up to say that Trump isn’t worthy of the office.” According to their statement, “We’re heartfully calling on these friends, colleagues, neighbors, and family members to take a brave stand once more, to vote for leaders that will strive for consensus, not chaos; that will work to unite, not divide; that will make our country and our children proud. Those leaders are Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz.”….In the meantime, Trump cannot muster the endorsement of his former vice president, defense secretary, chief of staff, White House national security adviser, Homeland Security adviser, or White House communications director. These are people who worked directly with Trump. They saw how he behaved in office and know how he treated the responsibility of being behind the Resolute desk. They are not supporting his attempt to return to that office.”

From “Early Voting Set to Begin in the 2024 Election: What to Know” by Aneeta Mathur-Ashton and Julia Haines at U.S. News: “Election Day is less than 80 days away, but voters in more than a dozen states will be able to vote as early as next month….In Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, voters can cast their ballots as early as Sept. 16, less than 10 days after Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump face off for a debate, the first since she took over the Democratic ticket in July. The candidates are circling a second debate, reportedly in October, that could potentially occur after early voting has begun in some states….The landscape of the race has changed dramatically in the last few weeks and voters in these states will fill out their ballots well before millions of other Americans, with other states starting early voting later in October. Some offer early voting in person, while others offer the option by way of absentee ballots.” Here’s the skinny on three possible  swing states, which have early voting dates in September: “All elections in Arizona must support early voting, including ballot-by-mail voting and in-person early voting. Early voters receive a ballot at their voting location and must not take the ballot away from the location….Voters on the Active Early Voter List can request to receive a ballot by mail. The completed ballots can be dropped off at official ballot drop-off sites or voting locations throughout the county that issued them and have to be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 5….The last day to register to vote in the state is Oct. 7….Voters in Pennsylvania can cast a ballot as soon as Sept. 16. Voters can pick up their ballots at county election offices and have the option of filling them out there, mailing them in or dropping them off later. The last date to apply for a mail ballot in person is Oct. 29 at 5 p.m., and the last date to drop it off is 8 p.m. on Election Day….Matt Heckel, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of State, says the state handles early voting differently than other states….“Once a county’s ballots are finalized and printed, a registered voter can apply for their mail ballot in person at their county election office, complete it, then submit it all in one visit,” Heckel says….Voters in the [VA] commonwealth will have the chance to cast their ballots in person and by ballot drop-off as early as Sept. 20, according to Andrea M. Gaines, external affairs manager with the Virginia Department of Elections….Voters can apply to vote by mail and, after receiving a ballot, can return it by mail, in person to a local general registrar’s office by 7 p.m. on Election Day or to a drop-off location. If returning a ballot by mail, it must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by the office by noon on Nov. 8.”

Among the  numerous articles about the effects of RFK, Jr.’s endorsement of Trump, here’s what G. Elliott Morris and Mary Radcliffe write about it in “How much momentum will RFK Jr.’s endorsement give Trump?“at ABC News via 538: “Kennedy’s bid failed to garner enough support to contend in any state, and support for him in national polls fell by nearly half after President Joe Biden dropped out of the running to be the Democratic Party’s nominee….Our analysis of the polling data suggests Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump will have a minimal impact on the race. Kennedy, who has consistently polled around 5 percent since Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee, was drawing roughly equally from both Trump and Harris, with that support coming from both traditionally Democratic and traditionally Republican groups. His endorsement of Trump may marginally help the Republican among white, male, and older voters. But the effect of his departure on overall support for either candidate will be small.” Morris and Radcliffe deploy a couple of wonky methods to crunch available polling and demographic numbers to reaffirm their argument that the effect will be small. But sometimes small effects swing elections.

Nebraska is not considered a swing state at the moment. But it could be consequential in the presidential election, as Ed Kilgore recently noted. Meanwhile,  Margery A. Beck of Associated Press reports that “Nebraska voters will choose between two competing abortion measures to either expand abortion rights or limit them to the current 12-week ban — a development likely to drive more voters to the polls in a state that could see one of its five electoral votes up for grabs in the hotly contested presidential race….Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen announced Friday that the rival initiatives each gathered enough signatures to get on the November ballot, making Nebraska the first state to carry competing abortion amendments on the same ballot since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022….Nebraska also becomes the last of several states to put an abortion measure on the November ballot, including the swing states of Arizona and Nevada where abortion ballot measures could drive higher voter turnout. Others are Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana and South Dakota. New York has a measure that supporters say will effectively guarantee access, though it doesn’t mention abortion specifically….One of the initiatives, like measures on ballots elsewhere in the U.S., would enshrine in the state constitution the right to have an abortion until viability or later to protect the health of the pregnant woman. Organizers said they submitted more than 207,000 signatures….The other measure would write into the constitution the current 12-week ban, with exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the pregnant woman. Organizers said they submitted more than 205,000 signatures….It’s possible voters could end up approving both measures, but because they’re competing and therefore cannot both be enshrined in the constitution, the one that gets the most “for” votes will be the one adopted, Evnen said.”

At The American Prospect David Dayen addresses an important, but largely ignored question of consequence , “Will the Senate Take Off the Handcuffs?” As Dayen writes, “In the Democratic National Convention hall, in side events in hotel ballrooms and conference centers, and on the campaign trail, lawmakers and candidates are promising big change. They have promised to codify Roe v. Wade and end the assault on reproductive rights. They have promised to end gerrymandering and voter suppression in a pair of consequential voting rights bills, the For the People Act and the John Lewis Freedom to Vote Act. They want to address affordable housing, and child care, and paid family and medical leave, and child poverty; they want to transform the tax code; and so on….To accomplish all of this, or at least to make it unencumbered by artificial constraints and rules and processes, they need to end the circumstance whereby a minority of members in the U.S. Senate get a veto over everything the chamber does. At the heart of the entire agenda that this convention’s pitch is predicated upon is the imperative to reform the filibuster….Republicans will not vote for abortion rights or voting rights; under a 60-vote Senate, those bills will fail. You could technically get tax reform and care economy investments done the way it was done in 2022 in the Inflation Reduction Act, by using budget reconciliation. But that carries with it complicated rules about spending limitations within the ten-year budget window….The only way to ensure the full agenda can be passed without constraints is by ending the filibuster….“The two folks who have been most opposed to filibuster reform are Manchin and Sinema, and both are retiring from the Senate,” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), at a pen and pad briefing on the sidelines of the DNC. The inference is that, with Manchin and Sinema out of the way, the Senate can get on with doing the people’s business….The filibuster has evolved into a constant block on progress. Democrats are promising to change the world, but will they change the Senate rules to make that happen?” All of which presupposes that Dems hold their Senate majority in November.

E, J, Dionne, Jr. explains how “Harris can seal the deal this week by being new, improved — and loyal” at The Washington Post: ““New and improved.” It’s one of marketing’s most hallowed slogans. The idea behind it is doing wonders for Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party. Hanging on to the benefits of offering a brand-spanking new choice to Americans while remaining loyal to President Joe Biden is one of Harris’s central challenges at her party’s convention this week. Getting it right will make her president….What’s remarkable is that switching candidates has also reduced Democratic vulnerabilities on issues that were working for Trump. In a poll from the Financial Times and University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business released last week, 42 percent of voters said they trusted Harris more to handle the economy, compared with 41 percent for Trump. That’s a seven-point improvement over Biden’s July numbers….So, on one of most vexing issues facing Democrats, Harris has room to level the playing field or tilt it in her favor. She’s trying to do this by offering fresh policies and emphasizing issues that had slipped from the top of Biden’s agenda — notably family leave, child care and elder care.”

Kyle Kondik reports that “North Carolina Moves to Toss-up, Setting Up November Battle for Magnificent Seven Swing States” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “The polling bolsters the case for North Carolina to be a Toss-up, given that the race there is basically a tie right now, and its polling is broadly in line with the other 7 states (although there is, of course, variation). The familiar 2000-2020 electoral pattern of Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina being redder than Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin is also present in the polls. It is perhaps a little surprising to see Nevada polling among the redder group (at least in the “average of averages”), although Harris is actually slightly ahead in 2 of the 3 averages in Nevada. Regardless, Nevada is the one state on this list where we have a fair amount of experience with polls understating Democrats. On the flip side, Democratic margins were routinely and often heavily overestimated in Wisconsin polls in both 2016 and 2020, so it being the second-bluest state in these averages merits a little skepticism too….We do think Michigan is still the best candidate to be the bluest state among these in 2024 again, and North Carolina the best candidate to be the reddest, but it wouldn’t take much to change this alignment in some way. It’s not a stretch to imagine Arizona moving to the left of Nevada, given that the latter is more working-class and thus perhaps more amenable to the current GOP than historically Republican but more suburban-focused Arizona. We addressed the differences between Georgia and North Carolina above. Again, we’re skeptical North Carolina will be more Democratic than Georgia, but there’s also not a ton of daylight between the pair, currently. And all 7 of these states are close enough that we think they should be grouped together in our ratings, at least at the moment….Now that the election is getting closer and we are almost past the conventions, the polls probably should carry more weight, imperfect instruments though they are. We’ll be watching to see if Harris can maintain or build upon these polling numbers after the Democratic National Convention concludes. If so, it may be that one or more of these “Magnificent Seven,” to borrow the famous movie title, won’t be Toss-ups anymore.”

 In “The New Silent Majority that will deliver a Blue Wave” J. Nash Bowie writes at Daily Kos: “Yes, polling shows a close race. I think the polls are wrong (in terms of percentages—the trends are probably more accurate). I think there is a new Silent Majority in this country who are ready to move beyond the chaos, hostility, and division. They are young adults who don’t answer pollsters. They are suburban and rural wives who don’t want to make waves by coming out in support of Democrats but who know how important it is to elect them. It is Black and Latino voters who had tuned out over the last couple of years but who will come home in big numbers. It is disaffected Republicans who can’t stand Trump (a lot of whom voted for Nikki Haley in the primary) and who recognize the dangers of Project 2025. I strongly suspect that polling is not capturing these voters….This is not just wishful thinking or naive “unskewing”. Over the last two years, we’ve seen polling consistently miss outcomes that favor Democrats and liberalism. The last example is just a few days ago in Wisconsin when the GOP tried to slip in two constitutional amendments to disempower the Democratic governor in a petty act of revenge—polling had those amendments passing by 3-10 points and they ended up going down to defeat, one 57-43 and the other 58-42. There are dozens of examples like this, and almost none going the other way….I know that predicting a Democratic win evokes the horror of 2016 and the hand-wringing mantra, “Don’t get complacent!” (nevermind that 2024 is almost nothing like 2016). The win I’m predicting is based entirely on the expectation of hard work, a large volunteer army, smart strategy, flush campaign coffers, and high energy. And so far, this expectation is bearing out in ways far beyond my wildest dreams. As far as I can see, Democrats are the polar opposite of complacent right now.”

As a admirer of RFK and his brothers, this report, “RFK Jr. expected to drop out of race by end of week, plans to endorse Trump: Sources” at abcnews.com and many others like it at various news outlets, felt like a gut punch. The extended Kennedy family, which includes Sargent Shriver, who ran as a vice presidential candidate on McGovern’s ticket, played such a storied role in the modern Democratic Party. JFK brought a rare spirit of hope to the nation before he was assassinated. His brother and campaign manager, RFK, enhanced the party’s commitment to compassion and eloquence before he was assassinated. Teddy Kennedy was a tireless Democratic senator who led his party’s opposition under Republican presidents. All were strong, no-nonsense Democrats, leaders of vision who built bridges of hope, not walls of division. Along comes RFK, Jr. to pervert this great legacy. If he endorses Trump it will be a sad, twisted conclusion to his family’s remarkable role in history. I remember thinking as recently as a few weeks ago, ‘surely he will drop out and endorse the Democratic ticket.’  I hope he reconsiders his endorsement.

Some signs that Georgia is already confounding Trump’s electoral college strategy from “1 big thing: Trump’s devil-in-Georgia problem” by Jim Vandehei and  Mike Allen: “Polling released yesterday by the N.Y. Times and Siena College showed Harris opening up a Sun Belt route through the fast-growing, diverse states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. That gives her an alternative to the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which were President Biden’s only plausible path….Harris had narrowed Trump’s lead among likely voters in Georgia to 4 points (50% to 46%, with a margin of error of ±4.4 points). In the Times-Siena poll in May, Trump enjoyed a 9-point Georgia lead….Between the lines: Harris’ rise in the state is partly, but not entirely, due to Black voters, who make up one-third of the state’s electorate….Harris is a more effective messenger on reproductive rights in a state with a controversial ban on abortions after about six weeks….A top Democratic operative told us Harris “is just a much better fit than Biden for the Georgia electorate, which has younger and more Black voters. Much easier to see Stacey Abrams and [Sen. Raphael] Warnock firing up the pews” for Harris than for Biden….As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, Trump’s campaign and biggest aligned super PAC spent four times as much on TV ads in the Peach State in the two weeks after Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee than in the rest of 2024 combined….Of the $37 million in ad buys the Trump campaign has placed over the next week or so, almost $24 million (65%) are in Georgia, Democratic campaign strategist Doug Sosnik points outin The New York Times….The growing urgency of Georgia can also be seen in the Trump campaign’s long-range ad buys. The Trump campaign’s share of TV spending planned in Georgia doubled from 21% in August to 43% in September and 46% in October, according to calculations for Axios by the ad-tracking firm AdImpact….Trump has placed advance ad buys for this fall in only two states. Wait for it … Pennsylvania and Georgia.”

At The New Republic Greg Sargent reports that a “Brutal New Poll for J.D. Vance Reveals a Big Trump-MAGA Weakness,” and observes regarding Vance ”

• He is viewed favorably by only 24 percent of independents, versus 39 percent unfavorably.
• He is viewed favorably by only 23 percent of self-described moderates, versus 41 percent unfavorably.
• He is viewed favorably by only 22 percent of 18- to 39-year-olds, versus 44 percent unfavorably.
• He is viewed favorably by only 32 percent of women, versus 40 percent unfavorably (interestingly, Vance fares a tad worse among men).
• He is viewed favorably by only 28 percent of Hispanics, versus 39 percent unfavorably.
• He is viewed favorably by only 9 percent of Blacks, versus 50 percent unfavorably.
• He is viewed favorably by only 32 percent of suburbanites, versus 42 percent unfavorably.
• He is viewed favorably by only 33 percent of college-educated whites, versus a striking 55 percent unfavorably.

Unsurprisingly, Vance is viewed positively by non-college whites (+9 points), rural voters (+13 points), and white evangelicals (+37 points)….To be fair, Vance has more time to improve his image, as large percentages of voters still have no opinion of him.”

Here’s an encouraging graph:

“Kamala Harris, as widely previewed, gave her first major economic address today,” Robert Kuttner writes at The American Prospect. “Two key themes were cutting housing costs and resisting corporate price-gouging of consumers. She also proposed restoring the refundable Child Tax Credit and topping it up to $6,000 a year for new parents in the first year, as a baby bonus. Take that, J.D. Vance….The toughest of these policy areas is housing. Unless the federal government spends massive sums to increase the supply of affordable housing, the cost of both rental and owner-occupied homes will continue to outstrip incomes….In the absence of a supply strategy, Harris’s proposal of a $25,000 subsidy for first-time homebuyers, though beneficial, will bid up prices. Her commitment to build three million new affordable units over four years, using a mix of tax incentives and grants to local governments for innovative approaches, is a decent start, but only a start. Two other good housing ideas that chime with her attack on predatory corporations are measures to remove the tax advantage from Wall Street speculators in housing and stopping predatory AI tactics for raising rents….Harris’s general emphasis on price-gouging is a policy area where government can make a huge constructive difference without spending large sums. It is good economics and smart politics on several counts….First, it vividly connects with the issue of inflation where ordinary people feel it. Grocery store prices have increased only slightly over the past year, but consumers remember exactly what a quart of milk or a dozen eggs cost before the supply shocks of the pandemic. In addition, supermarket profits are notably higher than before the pandemic, which means that prices should have moderated more….Second, the plan reframes the issue from whether Biden or Trump was better at containing an abstraction known as inflation to how corporate concentration opportunistically drives price hikes. The right remedy for that ill is not slowing the economy generally, as the Federal Reserve has done, but going after the root cause. This is also a useful shot across the Fed’s bow…Third, the approach recasts the struggle as ordinary people vs. predatory corporations rather than impersonal forces, with Harris in the role of champion of beleaguered consumers….There has been a lot of chatter about whether Harris is positioning herself to the left of President Biden and whether that is a good idea. Supposedly, by moving left, Harris risks alienating swing voters. But swing voters also buy groceries. The only voters whom Harris risks alienating by championing consumers are large corporations and their allies. They have few votes.”