Caitlin Jewitt and Geoffrey Skelley address a question of interest, “Will Harris’s late start help or hurt her in the general election?” at 538/abcnews.com, and write that “there is also a school of thought that long, competitive nomination contests like the 2008 Democratic primary can energize the party base, generate excitement and enthusiasm, and help the eventual candidate create campaign infrastructure across the states….Harris’s campaign, with its unusual circumstances, may still feature aspects of both a short and long nomination fight. Not unlike past nominees who secured their spots after lengthy primary campaigns, Harris has had to quickly pivot to a general election campaign relatively late in the election calendar. Yet the 2024 cycle for Democrats actually had many trappings of a short nomination battle, exemplified by the party’s efforts to rally to Biden and a lack of serious opposition to him in the primaries and even the fact that Democrats were already looking to speed up the vote to confirm Biden as the nominee when his candidacy began to come apart after his poor showing in the June 27 debate….Democrats’ moves to unify quickly behind Harris ensured that it did not result in the type of prolonged infighting sometimes characteristic of lengthier primary races. The party even set a new precedent to confirm Harris as quickly as possible — though the Democratic convention doesn’t begin until next week, Harris has already officially become the party’s nominee, by virtue of a virtual vote of delegates to nominate a candidate….This expedited timeline — prompted in part by concerns about ballot access laws in a few states, the time needed to vet a vice presidential candidate, and guarding against Republican legal challenges — also likely insulated Harris from other challengers materializing..”

Jewett and Skelley continue, “Harris’s situation differs in other key respects, too. For one thing, because she did not wage a primary campaign, she was not battered by attacks from party rivals in the ways Ford or Mondale were, which can give the other party fodder for attacks heading into the general election….She was able to raise record amounts of money in a short timeframe as her candidacy energized Democratic voters. Plus, she has been able to more easily utilize the already-existing Biden-Harris campaign infrastructure, unlike the alternative choices Democrats may have considered….Ultimately, it’s unclear if there’s a meaningful relationship between when a candidate becomes the presumptive nominee and their success in November: Out of the eight races that were settled in June or later (excluding the 2020 and 2024 races because they didn’t have protracted nomination fights), the nominee went on to win the general election in three.” I like the late winning of the nomination for a different, but related reason: Campaigns get stale. even I, a  partisan Democrat, simply got tired of hearing all about the ‘excruciating minutiae’ of campaigns. to cop a phrase from Seinfeld. There is more political news coverage now than ever before, and it is only a matter of time before your favored candidate chucks in a distracting gaffe, or some reporter magnifies a trifling incident, which has little or nothing to do with major issues and gets an insane amount of coverage (e. g. Hunter Biden). There is such a thing as too much political news, which is why a lot of voters don’t pay much attention until October. The truncated campaign also makes candidates seem fresher, while the years-long slog has the opposite effect. Democrats ought to re-design their process to take this phenomenon into consideration. Let the Republicans have long, constipated campaigns, while Democrats do quiet organizing and fund-raising behind the scenes, do localized videos instead so much travel and have our candidates lay comparatively low as much as possible until late Spring or Summer. It might also result in less wear and tear on our candidates.

The “no tax on tips” idea favored by both Trump and Harris sounds like a pro-worker idea on the surface. But is it really? Abdallah Fayyad argues against it at Vox: “….The policy doesn’t really hold up under any scrutiny. And that’s because at best, “no tax on tips” looks a lot less like a tax cut for low- and middle-income families, and a lot more like a subsidy for big businesses….“I’m not at all saying that workers won’t get anything,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute. “But I think that a meaningful share of the [federal] expenditures on a tax exemption like this will go to the employers of tipped workers.”….That might be why industry lobbyists have backed the proposal. “It’s not a surprise that the National Restaurant Association loves this,” Shierholz said, referring to the lobbying group that represents many of the country’s major restaurant chains….At worst, the tax policy might even put a downward pressure on service sector wages by allowing employers to keep their workers’ baseline pay low because the tax cut could instead raise the workers’ take-home pay….“I think there is no question that it would” weigh wages down, Shierholz said. The only question, she says, is just how much….So while “no tax on tips” might make for a good sound bite or campaign slogan, it doesn’t necessarily translate to wise policymaking.” That’s the nut of the strongest argument against it – that it would encourage employers to keep the hourly wages low, currently just $2.13, although a handful os states have abolished the subminimum wage for tipped workers.” (See also this WaPo editorial).  Who could fairly blame tipped workers for not reporting all their tipped income? Many people are also unaware that some foreign restaurant owners split tips with workers, a practice which is not uncommon among restaurants that hire servers from different countries. One of the political problems associated with the “no tax on tips” idea is that it may piss off other low-wage workers, like cashiers who gain nothing from the proposal. There are 3.6 million of them the U.S., one of America’s most common jobs, compared to about 2.7 million wait staff. The Democratic presidential nominee should not get distracted by Trump’s boutique ideas, and hold firm to raising the minimum wage and union membership as the best ways to improve the living standards of all American workers.

Courtenay Brown explains why the “Latest CPI report confirms inflation is easing” at Axios: “For more than two years, the economy’s big problem was inflation — it was the key irritant for policymakers, the White House and American consumers….Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index report confirms that is no longer the case: Prices are no longer rising rapidly, which means the battle to kill inflation appears all but over….Why it matters: Inflation looked to be coming down alongside a still-flourishing economy — until recently. The string of upbeat inflation data is all but certain to allow Fed officials to more comfortably shift their attention to the weakening labor market and lower interest rates….What they’re saying: “[T]he cumulative improvement in the overall inflation data over the past year now gives the Federal Reserve cover to move into risk management mode with the intent of protecting and preserving the soft landing,” Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at accounting firm RSM, wrote Wednesday….By the numbers: Overall CPI rose 2.9% in the 12 months ending in July, dropping below 3% for the first time since 2021.

• Core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 3.2% — the smallest increase in three years.
• By a different measure, inflation looks more benign. Over the last three months, core CPI rose 1.6% on an annualized basis, down from 2.1% in June….
• Grocery costs have been rising at a mild pace since February, including a 0.1% increase in July. Prices are up just 1% compared to the same time last year.
• Used vehicle costs fell 2.3% in July, a bigger drop than that seen the previous month. New vehicle prices fell 0.2%, the sixth-straight month of price decreases.

The intrigue: The bad news was in the housing sector, where prices have kept upward pressure on inflation….The shelter index is a huge component. It accounted for over 70% of core CPI’s 12-month increase through July, the government said….The sector is “solely responsible for core inflation remaining above the Fed’s 2% target,” Preston Caldwell, senior U.S. economist at Morningstar, wrote Wednesday….In the CPI report, the rent index rose 0.5%, up from 0.3%. Owner’s equivalent rent, which the government uses to account for inflation in homes that people own, rose 0.4% after slowing in June….”This is now a labor data-first Fed, not an inflation data-first Fed, and the incoming labor data will determine how aggressively the Fed pulls forward rate cuts,” economists at Evercore wrote in a note Wednesday morning.”….Yes,  many voters will continue to grumble about the high prices for meat, gas and housing. But Dems can at least be assured that they have done nearly all they can to contain inflation. They should now continue to inform the public about the good statistics under Biden-Harris and the price-gouging by agribiz and big oil through social media memes, articles and word of mouth. Those who hold fast to Trump’s doom and gloom preachments are not going to change – they are the die hard MAGA voters. Dems should focus their anti-inflation messaging on the persuadable voters in the swing counties and states. Meanwhile, pundits should give President Biden and the Democrats high marks for economic management and making the best of a tough situation.

In his syndicated column, “Harris is beating Trump by transcending him: The vice president and her running mate are achieving a radical shift in messaging,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes at The Washington Post: “The sudden and radical shift in the trajecto ry of the 2024 campaign owes to more than the replacement of President Joe Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate. To a degree that’s still not fully appreciated, Harris has embraced an entirely new strategy: She’s not just pushing back against Donald Trump’s politics of cultural division. She’s bidding to transcend it….Choosing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate reinforces the move away from clichés about “coastal politics” and “cultural elites.” Instead, she wants to fight on specific, practical measures government can take to improve lives, from family leave to expansions of health coverage. Both Harris and Walz are speaking a soothing and — to pick up on Democrats’ favorite virtue these days — joyful language of patriotism and national unity….You could tell the Trump campaign was thrown off by the Walz pick when the GOP’s vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, attacked the camo-wearing, gun-owning, small-town Midwestern schoolteacher as a “San Francisco-style liberal.”….Never mind that Vance lived in the Bay Area for about four years while Minnesota’s Walz visited the place for the first time only last month. The tired misfire speaks to how dependent the GOP is on stereotypes about who “liberals” are and what “liberalism” means.” Dionne concludes, “When Harris says, “We love our country,” pay attention to those words “we” and “our.” Harris and Walz are waging war on “inflammatory symbolic politics.” And, yes, it’s a joy to watch.”

Thom Hartmann reports that “A Tsunami of Right-Wing Dark Money Is Barreling Toward Harris and Walz” at The New Republic. No, Hartmann is not implying that the Democratic ticket is going to receive any of that ‘dark money; he is warning that they and down-ballot Democratic candidates are in danger of being crushed by it. As Hartmann writes, “Get ready: Massive pools of dark right-wing money are soon going to clobber us. Will Democracy survive this onslaught by the morbidly rich?….The official beginning of the election season is still almost a month away, and the big money pledged by right-wing and neofascist billionaires hasn’t even shown up yet….While over a hundred million pissed-off women and the widespread concern that Trump and the GOP are determined to destroy the American system of government seem like a powerful force, history tells us big dark money could overcome even those substantial tailwinds.” Hartmann notes that AIPAC political contributions have been used to primary and defeat incumbent Democratic House members, and adds, “But AIPAC is a piker compared to what’s going to be coming down the road as the tech, banking, insurance, and fossil fuel billionaires and their companies weigh in to the presidential race this fall….A previous campaign by the fossil fuel industry is instructive, particularly since that industry sees Harris and Walz as enemies; Harris signed off on the largest climate legislation in world history, and Walz has required the utilities in Minnesota to be 100 percent carbon-free by 2040, a mere 16 years from now.”

Noting another lavishly funded and successful effort to defeat a modest carbon tax in Washington state, Hartmann explains, “This is the brave new world Clarence Thomas’s tie-breaking vote brought America when the Supreme Court, in its 2010 Citizens United decision, legalized both political bribery and massive intervention in elections by corporations and billionaires….Prior to Thomas’s vote on that decision, Harlan Crow—who helped finance the original Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry in 2004—and other billionaires had lavished millions on Thomas and his family….Ever since Citizens United legalized literally unlimited contributions to the new category of political action committees it created (super PACs), just in the 15 months from January 2023 to April 2024, over $8.6 billion has been raised for this year’s federal campaigns with over 65 percent of that money—$5.6 billion—running through PACs. And, as noted, they’re just getting started….So get ready. It’s going to get ugly. There’s not a competitive House or Senate race anywhere in America that’s immune from massive dark money that’s been thrown together at the last minute to remain untraceable….As Senator Elizabeth Warren noted, echoing a position held by 72 percentof American voters, “Our democracy shouldn’t be bought and paid for by the wealthy and powerful.”….If Democrats survive the onslaught that’s coming and emerge victorious at the federal level, the first order of business next year must be to strip the cancer of dark money out of our body politic.” The bottom line for all Democratic candidates is that they are going to need more contributions to survive the GOP’s well-funded ad tsunami.

Here is the new Harris-Walz campaign ad re immigration.  I think Dems need an ad with stronger emphasis on the fact that Trump and Republicans killed a solid immigration reform bill. What do you think?

Let’s hear it for joyful older white guys. That’s one of the beneficial vibes MN Gov. Tim Walz brings to the new Democratic ticket, and a lot of Americans are feeling it after his electrifying introduction to the 2024 political campaign Tuesday night.  Steven Greenhouse points out in a recent tweet that Walz is also notable as the most pro-worker governor in America. Greenhouse links to an article he wrote about Walz more than a year ago at The Guardian, which noted: “Minnesota’s Democratic governor and legislature has enacted one of the most pro-worker packages of legislation that any US state has passed in decades which includes paid family and medical leave, prohibits non-compete clauses, bars employers from holding anti-union captive audience meetings, and strengthens protections for meatpacking workers and Amazon warehouse employees….Minnesota’s new legislation mandates paid sick days, allows teachers’ unions to bargain over educator-to-student ratios and creates a statewide council to improve conditions for nursing home workers…“Paid family and medical leave is extremely popular, not only in Minnesota, but nationally as well,” [state Rep. Ruth] Richardson said. “It’s one of those issues that are incredibly bipartisan. I believe that passing paid family and medical leave is possible in blue and red trifecta states and in everything in between…Minnesota’s commissioner of labor and industry, Nicole Blissenbach, said the new laws “truly make Minnesota the best state for workers and their families”.” It is estimated that there are at present about 3.8 million teachers working in the U.S., and their incomes are roughly analogous to that of skilled and semiskilled blue collar workers. Add to that number millions of retired teachers and all the voting family members from nuclear families of teachers and former teachers, and you have a sizable occupation-related group. Walz was an extraordinary, empathetic teacher by all reports, and is also married to a teacher. Ask friends if they were influenced in some positive way by a good teacher, and watch them light up. Walz and his ticket-mate Harris are in position to become the electoral beneficiaries of those feelings.

Timothy Noah emphatically concurs with the argument that Walz is a draw for working-class voters for the Democratic Ticket. As Noah writes in “Tim Walz Is a Dream Pick for the Labor Movement: He’ll help Kamala Harris make up for lost time courting the working class” at the New Republic: “Kamala Harris entered the presidential race with a worrisome deficit of working-class support. In an average of matchups after the June 27 presidential debate, Trump led Harris among voters who did not graduate from college by 11.6 percentage points, a slightly larger margin than the 11.2 percentage points by which Trump led Biden (whose conspicuously poor debate performance was the reason for doing such polls in the first place). For a brief while it looked as though Harris might worsen her standing among working-class voters by choosing Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, whose record on labor was not good. Instead, she chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who has strong working-class appeal….In 2020 President Joe Biden, with an excellent record as a friend of labor, won 56 percent of union households. Two years later, Walz, running for reelection as governor, won nearly 60 percent of union households. In 2020, Biden won 32 percent of the white working-class vote, defined conventionally as white people who lack a college degree. In 2022, Walz won 44 percent….In a July 29 letter urging Harris to choose Walz, 26 Minnesota labor leaders noted that Walz

enacted paid family and medical leave for all families, provided unemployment insurance to hourly school workers, expanded the collective bargaining rights of Minnesotans, provided free school meals to every Minnesota student, appointed a labor lawyer to lead the state Department of Labor and Industry, signed a tough law against wage theft by corporations and developers, and made it illegal for employers to force working people to attend anti-union meetings.

….Walz left Congress with a lifetime score from the AFL-CIO of 93 percent, compared to 90 percent for the average House Democrat. Harris left the Senate with a 98 percent lifetime score, which sounds better but matches the score for the average Democrat in the Senate, where labor bills get voted on less frequently.”

But after the sugar high from Tuesday night fades, there is the stark reality that Vice Presidents are more often ribbon-cutters and funeral-attenders, who occasionally cast an important tie-breaker vote in U.S. Senate deliberations. But they are also potential presidents in training, as is the case with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. In that context, LBJ and Harry Truman did well, when history called. The selection of vice presidential candidates also reflects on the quality of judgement of the presidential nominee. In that context, Harris looks a whole lot better than her Republican opponent, whose venture capitalist ticket-mate is most famous for condescending comments about childless women. For a metric of the success of the Harris-Walz ticket roll-out, consider that their campaign raised $36 million in contributions within 24 hours of the announcement. It is expected that they will keep raking it in during their tour of swing states, including WI, MI, NV and AZ on this leg. But no one should take reports of Democratic superiority in fund-raising over Republicans too seriously. Trump’s campaign reportedly pulled in $137 million in July. Through their network of SuperPacs and billionaire sugar-daddies, the Republicans will have enough to be competitive in ad-buys by the time early voting starts. Democrats are going to need more contributions all the way to Election Day, and donations can be made up and down the Democratic ticket right here.

At Sabato’s Crystal Ball, J. Miles Coleman notes some new electoral college rating changes, including: “….it appears that at least in the short term, Harris has reversed the slippage—or has at least been able to stop the bleeding—that Democrats have seen since the Biden-Trump debate in June. Looking nationally, Harris currently leads in all national polling aggregators….Before this week, one of the more recent changes we made to our Electoral College ratings was when we downgraded Democrats’ prospects in Walz’s Minnesota. Our reasoning was that the Gopher State was just not that much bluer than Michigan, a state we simultaneously moved in the Toss-up column. But some recent Fox News polling was telling: while Harris was tied with Trump in Michigan, her 52%-46% lead over Trump in Minnesota was close to what Biden carried the state by in 2020. Shortly after that Fox poll came out, a KSTP/SurveyUSA poll gave Harris an even more comfortable 50%-40% lead in Minnesota. So, from what we can tell, while Michigan (along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) remain on a knife’s edge, Minnesota is true to its usual form, as a state that typically leans a few points bluer than the nation as a whole….Though we wrote last week that vice presidential candidates, on average, deliver only marginal home state boosts, we feel that Walz’s placement on the Democratic ticket, combined with recent polling, provides more than enough justification to move the state into a firmer rating category. We are moving Minnesota from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic….Harris is somewhat unproven in the Midwest, one of the upsides of her candidacy, at least so far, is that she’s seemed to re-open Democrats’ Sun Belt path. While Biden had basically been stuck in the low-40s in Georgia for at least the last few months of his campaign, Harris’s numbers have typically been higher and she has run close to Trump in recent surveys. For his part, Trump has, at minimum, likely not helped his standing in Georgia by re-airing some of his long-running grievances against two of his favorite intraparty foils: Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), both of whom are broadly popular in the state. So, with all this, we feel that Georgia is more of a legitimately competitive state than it was prior to Biden’s departure—we are moving it back into the Toss-up column from Leans Republican. Here is the latest Crystal Ball map of the current electoral vote leanings:

I hope you tuned in to the Harris-Walz Rally in Philly, and saw the barn-burner speeches by Governor Shapiro, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. In the euphoric aftermath of the rally, however, please focus your attention on what the Republicans are up to, because it merits attention. The following article, “A red flashing light at the dumpster fire” by Tom Baxter cross-posted from  Saporta Report explains it well:

It can be hard to sort out what’s news in the middle of a dumpster fire.

There were a lot of storylines stemming from former President Donald Trump’s Atlanta rally Saturday, beginning with Trump’s bitter attack on Gov. Brian Kemp, his congratulating Vladimir Putin for last week’s prisoner swap, his swipes at Georgia State University, and somewhere in there, his shots at Vice President Kamala Harris.

But in the midst of all this clickbait, something really serious happened, and it hasn’t received the attention it deserves. Trump publicly recognized three members of the State Election Board, who were sitting right in front of the speaker’s podium.

“They’re on fire. They’re doing a great job,” Trump said to cheers from the audience. He said the three board members, Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares and Janelle King, were “all pitbulls, fighting for honesty, transparency and integrity.”

The first line in the election board’s code of conduct states that members “shall be honest, fair, and avoid any appearance of conflict and/or impropriety.” If sitting on the front row of a major rally basking in praise from a presidential candidate doesn’t look conflicted and improper for an election board member, what does?

Here is why this is a much, much more important story than the crowd size at a couple of rallies or a self-defeating spat over the last election.

Four years ago, the election board was chaired by Secretary Of State Brad Raffensperger. The legislature stripped that job from him because he wouldn’t contradict the outcome of three recounts and “find” the votes Trump asked him for. All five current members — appointed by the governor, the House, the Senate and the Democratic and Republican parties respectively — joined the board after the 2020 election.

That puts a majority of the board — Johnston, the Republican Party appointee; Jeffares, the Senate appointee; and King, the House appointee — in the hands of people who have questioned the thrice-recounted results of the last election, and implicitly Raffensperger’s conduct. Already, because of their votes, the election board has been warned by the attorney general’s office about running afoul of the open records law and sued by a citizen’s group, causing it to walk back a controversial action.

This doesn’t appear to be just a small part of Trump’s strategy for winning Georgia. On the contrary, after his speech Saturday it looks like most of it. For all the talk there’s been about the Trump campaign losing no time in defining Harris, the candidate didn’t seem too focused on that Saturday. He mispronounced “Fani” more than he did “Kamala,” which is one indication where his mind was wandering.

If Trump had been narrowly focused on getting the most votes in Georgia this November, he wouldn’t have veered into a lengthy attack on Kemp, who has what is hands-down the best voter turnout operation in the state.

A word, incidentally, about Trump’s seemingly gratuitous swipe at Marty Kemp. For a few months there’s been a rumor, not substantial enough to make much of, that the Kemp camp was taking a look at how the state’s first lady might fare if she rather than her husband challenged U.S. Sen. John Ossoff.

Could Trump have gotten wind of the same rumor? Anything’s possible, when you’re getting advice about Georgia politics from Bill White, the former New Yorker and current Floridian who headed the failed Buckhead City movement. According to Greg Bluestein of the AJC, White, who held sway briefly in Atlanta as a sort of Northside Nigel Farage, was among those who got Trump stirred up about Kemp before the speech.

In a statement published Monday, the Georgia League of Women Voters, not exactly a fiercely partisan group, voiced its frustrations with the board over the new rules it wants to impose.

“Our State Election Board, the very body empowered to back up that guarantee (of fair elections) with rules and procedures, now seems bent on undermining it. Over-complicating an already complicated process does nothing but introduce potential failure points. Making it harder does not make it better,” the statement said.

Also, two Republicans, former U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and former Gov. Nathan Deal, and two Democrats, former Gov. Roy Barnes and former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, have formed the Democracy Defense Project, part of a national effort to restore trust in the election process.

Saturday’s rally was a flashing light warning that these efforts haven’t come a minute too soon.

If there are similar improprieties going on in other swing states, now would be a good time for investigative reporters to expose them.

From “Trump seems to forget it’s not 2016 anymore. And he’s frustrated” by E. J. Dionne, Jr. at The Washington Post: “Enter Harris, 59, who instantly flipped the age issue against Trump. His often-disjointed screeds suddenly felt like the ravings of a grumpy old man, not entertaining breaks from politician-speak. Trump had always fed on the energy of his crowds. “Low energy” is a favorite Trump epithet against his foes. Now Harris has the energy, and her audiences seem positively rapturous….Harris was not afraid to put aside a decorousness that came naturally to Biden, first elected to the Senate in 1972. She has gone after Trump hard, thrilling her crowds even more. “I know Donald Trump’s type”became a T-shirt-worthy battle cry for Democrats weary of feeling like punching bags. Worst of all, from Trump’s point of view, Harris shoved him out of the lead spot in the campaign news. She was new, and her identity as a biracial woman excited many constituencies, especially younger voters who had been checking out of politics before her arrival….But here is why 2024 may be Trump’s undoing: We have been here for nine long years. When Trump went after Hillary Clinton in 2016, the media didn’t know what to do with him, and Democrats did not know how to respond. Journalists debated for years over whether Trump’s lies should, in fact, be called lies. (Pretty much all outlets finally decided a lie is a lie.) In 2016, Democrats underestimated Trump right to the end. There’s none of that now….Trump’s act has grown tired and often boring, as his Republican convention speech showed….Trump and the media will make a big mistake by fighting and covering the last war.”

Some nuggets from “Kamala Harris must lean in: The left doesn’t have to pick between woke and working class” by Michele Lamont at Salon: “Conservatives have already begun attacking Vice President Kamala Harris as an unqualified “DEI hire,” language that evokes the broader right-wing narrative that the left has become too “woke” and no longer represents the average American. With Harris’ ascension to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, many political commentators have expressed fear that voters may buy into the idea that liberals have, indeed, become too woke to connect with voters in the swing states needed to secure an Electoral College victory. But this election doesn’t have to be a clash of the “woke” versus the working class, and liberals don’t have to sacrifice one to win over the other….Americans without a college degree have steadily moved to the right in recent decades, resulting in a diploma divide where political views are largely split along educational lines. In 2021, progressive groups surveyed working-class voters in five swing states and concluded that “‘woke,’ activist-inspired rhetoric is a liability” to winning them over – a perspective echoed by other recent analyses….Our media praises entrepreneurs for disrupting the status quo and CEOs for creating jobs. For a fleeting moment during the Covid-19 pandemic, essential workers were celebrated, but that quickly faded. Working-class people were back to feeling invisible and undervalued….Unions have traditionally been the biggest source of working-class dignity. They’ve also been a reliable supply of left-leaning voters. With unions on the decline for decades in the U.S. (the rate of union membership among workers is half what it was in the 1980s), it is high time for the left to forcefully refocus on shared dignity as an electoral strategy….Liberals should use their movement-building magic – and the Gen Z passion for social justice – to build a movement that prioritizes the humanity of all people, including the working class.” Lamont goes on to discuss “four strategies hey can take from past successes,” and you can read about them right here. Lamont concludes, “Progressives know how to stand up for the dignity and respect of different groups and create a big tent where everyone feels valued. It’s time to do that for the working class.”

Wondering about the future of health care under the different presidential candidates? Then read “Obamacare is stronger than ever. Trump and Vance vow to kill it” by Joan McCarter at Daily Kos. As McCarter writes, “Republicans will never stop trying to destroy the legacy of our first Black president. Despite a decade of failure in repealing the Affordable Care Act, and the fact that the law is stronger than ever, gutting it still looms large in their aspirations. And this week, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, is banging the repeal-and-replace drum….“Well, I think we’re definitely gonna have to fix the health care problem in this country,” Vance told the news outlet NOTUS this week. “The problem with Obamacare is that for a lot of people, it just doesn’t provide high-quality health care, right? So you have a lot of people paying out the ass, paying very high prices for health care that isn’t high quality.”….As a matter of fact, premium costs for people with subsidized ACA plans have decreased 44%, or $705 per year, according to a recent analysis by KFF, a nonpartisan organization focused on health policy. That’s 21.4 million people with Obamacare plans who have enjoyed those lower costs thanks to President Joe Biden and the Democratic Congress that increased those subsidies….While Trump kept up the fiction that he was working on a plan to replace the ACA, that plan never materialized. On top of that, his Department of Justice was arguing before the Supreme Court, trying to get them to overturn the law—and yes, that included ripping coverage away from people with preexisting conditions….In this election cycle, Trump has regularly talked about getting rid of Obamacare, even though Republican lawmakers want him to stop talking about it. (Again, the law is popular.) While he might not find much congressional support to repeal the law, that doesn’t mean the ACA would be safe in Trump’s hands if he wins this November….When he couldn’t repeal it during his administration, he did everything he could to sabotage it through executive actions. Biden had to undo that damage, and it worked—there are more people enrolled in its plans than ever before. But that doesn’t mean it’s safe.” McCarter concludes, “There are still necessary improvements to the ACA, and to the health care system in general, but who would you trust to oversee that?”

By now, no one should be too surprised by the information contained in the headline “Half of Trump’s former Cabinet secretaries haven’t backed his 2024 bid: During Donald Trump’s term, 42 people served in his Cabinet. Nearly half of them haven’t endorsed his 2024 candidacy. There’s no precedent for this” by Steve Benen at MaddowBlog. As Benen explains, “Imagine you were an employer looking to hire someone for your workplace team. You’ve collected some résumé, but to help make a decision, you decide it’s best to check with applicants’ references. After all, to get a sense of how someone would perform on the job, it makes sense to ask those who’ve worked with him/her in the recent past….Then imagine you reach out to an applicant’s former colleagues, and when you ask whether they’d extend their support, nearly half of them hesitate. In fact, some are quite explicit in warning you not to hire the applicant….Would you hire the person anyway?” Probably not, is my guess. Benen adds, “By the Post’s count, 42 people, at some point between January 2017 and January 2021, served in Trump’s Cabinet. Based on the latest tally, 24 of them — roughly 57% — are publicly supporting their former boss’s ongoing candidacy.”….The rest either won’t take a position or have declared publicly that they won’t support the Republican Party’s 2024 nominee….this is an exceedingly tough dynamic for Republicans to defend. Indeed, one of the reasons I’ve been preoccupied with this angle for quite a while is because it simply has never happened before: Presidents have been known to clash from time to time with individual members of their administrations, but Trump is unique in facing so much opposition from his own team.”….As ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos recently summarized during an appearance on MSNBC, “His secretary of state called him a ‘moron.’ [Former Defense Secretary James] Mattis says he doesn’t even respect the Constitution. John Kelly says he’s the worst person he ever met. Think about that applying to any other president of the United States at any other time….“Their chief of staff, their defense secretary, their secretary of state, their national security adviser are the ones who had the most damning judgments of his competence and character. That is chilling.” Thoughtful swing voters, moderates and Independents ought to give this reality due consideration. This election is not only about defending democracy; it is also about avoiding global catastrophe.

Some insights from “‘He wants to take us back’: Democrats eye new strategy against Trump’s attacks on Harris: The former president’s attacks have proven to be effective in the past at sucking up the political oxygen” by Myah Ward and Megan Messerly at Politico:

It didn’t take long for former President Donald Trump to return to his well-worn playbook of resorting to attacks based on race and gender — familiar tactics he has used against political rivals, including in his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton.

But it’s not 2016 anymore, and Democrats assert that the lessons learned from Trump’s campaign eight years ago guide their strategy now: Respond aggressively, use his attacks to bolster the campaign’s message and don’t let them distract from the issues.

That thinking guided their response to Trump’s interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago on Wednesday, where he questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’ Black ancestry and suggested she was chosen for the job only as a “DEI hire.”

Harris was quick to counter: On Wednesday night, she dismissed Trump’s attacks as “divisiveness” and the “same old show,” in what Democrats and campaign allies pointed out was the new framework for the party’s strategy.

Harry Enten explains “How Kamala Harris can beat Donald Trump” at CNN Politics: “Kamala Harris seems to have more appeal among voters of color and younger voters than Joe Biden did before he got out of the presidential race. Still, the 2020 results show that Harris can make up even more ground with these groups in her expected matchup against Donald Trump….Take a look at our newly published CNN/SSRS poll. Harris leads Trump among Black voters 78% to 15%. Among these same voters (the poll recontacted the same respondents), Biden was ahead by a smaller 70% to 23% in CNN polling data from April and June….The same holds to a somewhat lesser degree among Hispanic voters. Harris comes in at 47% to Trump’s 45%, while it was 50% for Trump to 41% for Biden among these same respondents in the April and June data….Voters under the age of 35 demonstrate a similar shift. It’s Harris 47% to Trump’s 43% now. In April and June, these same voters put Trump up 49% to 42% over Biden….Despite the improvement, the results should leave much to be desired for Harris. She is doing at least 5 points worse than Biden did among these same groups in the final 2020 polls….Among Black voters, Biden led Trump 84% to 9% at the end of the 2020 campaign. Even more notable is that Biden led among Hispanic voters by a 58% to 32% spread….Finally, even as Harris has become a meme favorite among young voters, Biden’s 60% to 31% advantage over Trump at the end of the 2020 campaign is massively larger than where Harris is right now….This may seem like bad news for the Harris campaign, and, in one clear way, it is. Without improving among these groups, Harris likely cannot win against the former president….The good news for Harris, though, is that she’s showing that she can make up some ground with this group relative to how Biden was doing earlier this year….As Harris continues to define herself separately from being Biden’s vice president, there’s a real chance she could carve out her own political identity that may appeal more to voters of color and young voters….A big reason Biden struggled in those Sun Belt states is that each has a significant share of either Black or Hispanic voters. By doing better with those groups, Harris may reopen the possibility of more electoral paths….If, for instance, Harris won all four Sun Belt battlegrounds mentioned above, she wouldn’t need to carry Michigan, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin….Perhaps more likely, Harris could get to 270 electoral votes by winning some mixture of northern battlegrounds and Sun Belt swing states….Harris now has a bunch of paths toward victory, while Biden’s options seemed to be closing rather quickly.”

“Florida’s ballot initiative to protect abortion is winning and has more support among voters than either Vice President Harris or Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a new poll shows,” Nathaniel Weixel writes in “New poll shows Florida abortion amendment winning, outperforming Democrats” at the Hill. “According to the poll from University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab (PORL), 69 percent of respondents said they would vote for Amendment 4, which would prohibit laws from restricting or banning abortion until fetal viability. …Constitutional amendments in Florida need 60 percent of the vote to become law…. “We have yet to see campaigns on either side of this really get moving,” PORL faculty director and political science professor Michael Binder said in a statement. “Factor in the highly contested and contentious financial impact statement recently added to the ballot summary, and I would expect to see support for this amendment drop before November.”….The poll also showed an amendment to legalize recreational cannabis has enough support to pass, with 64 percent of respondents supporting it….If the presidential election were held today, 49 percent of respondents said they would vote for former President Trump, while 42 percent said Harris….Respondents were also asked about the Senate race between incumbent Sen. Rick Scott (R) and Mucarsel-Powell (D). The poll showed 47 percent said they would vote for Scott, and 43 percent said they’d support Mucarsel-Powell….The polling differences between candidates and the amendments show why abortion supporters have been trying to keep the issue separate from party politics out of fear it will sink their effort….Among backers of the abortion amendment, 53 percent identified as Republican, and 51 percent said they voted for Trump in 2020. There are almost 900,000 more registered Republican voters in Florida than Democrats.”

At Politico, Christopher Cadelago writes “Harris tripped herself up in 2019 by straying too far from what was then her political North Star: crafting an image as a tough-minded and empathetic prosecutor….In the run-up to the Democratic primaries, Harris allowed “Kamala is a cop” critiques from activists and members of her own party to get inside her head. While Harris was progressive by the standards of her era in law enforcement, she was nowhere near as permissive as today’s crop of liberal district attorneys. Still, she readily submitted to the left’s endless purity tests, and backtracked on key pieces of her record as a prosecutor and attorney general. In doing so, she undermined what Harris and her closest advisers viewed as one of her greatest strengths: her career-long commitment to pursuing justice through the legal system….The act of creating a policy platform on the fly while simultaneously trying to prove her ideological bona fides yanked her further left and outside her comfort zone. At different moments in the primary, you could almost see her calculating answers in real time during TV interviews, which had the effect of making her appear wishy-washy….Harris won’t need to worry about liberal carping about her prosecutorial background anymore. It may have been a liability in a Democratic presidential primary, but in a general election, it’s more likely to be an asset. And whereas she once struggled to articulate her views on broader issues like health care, she now can largely rely on the policy framework created under the Biden-Harris administration….One of the most serious flaws of Harris’ 2020 bid was the inability of the messenger to settle on a consistent, coherent and compelling message….Now that she’s about to be handed the Democratic nomination, Harris doesn’t need to compete for eyeballs against a massive field of serious competitors. She’s free to focus on a straightforward mission….It won’t be enough for Harris to just be the anti-Trump candidate. Her task will be laying waste to Trump while also articulating a forward-looking vision of a brighter future….Balancing those ideas and integrating them into a cohesive message won’t be easy. But Harris has already gotten started, showing a zeal for attack in her characterization of Trump as a fraudster and an abuser of women while wrapping her campaign around the theme of fighting for the middle class.”

From “Old and quite weird”: Democrats finally discover new effective attack — and Republicans hate it” by Charles R. Davis at Salon. The Democratic meme about Trump and Vance being just plain weird got a pretty good workout during the last week. As Davis explains, “President Joe Biden won in 2020 largely by promising to a return to normalcy and baseline competency. In 2024, Democrats are making a similar argument but more forcibly: They’re pointing, laughing and dismissing Trump and his circus as a total freak show to which we can’t return….“The fascists depend on fear,” as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz put it over the weekend. “The fascists depend on us going back. But we are not afraid of weird people. We’re a little bit creeped out, but we are not afraid.”….They’re strange guys with sick obsessions, as the two-term Democratic governor and former congressman put it on MSNBC last week….“You know there’s something wrong with people when they talk about freedom — freedom to be in your bedroom, freedom to be in your exam room, freedom to tell your kids what they can read,” Walz said. “That stuff is weird. They come across as weird. They seem obsessed with this.”….Republicans, including Fox News anchors, “will take a look at Donald Trump and say he’s perfectly fine, even though he seemed unable to tell the difference between Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi; even though he’s rambling about electrocuting sharks and Hannibal Lecter; even though he’s clearly older and stranger than he was when America got to know him,” Buttigieg said….The Harris campaign, if anything, is leaning into what works. In a press release over the weekend, addressing a “78-year-old criminal’s Fox News appearance,” the vice president’s staff noted Trump’s failed attempt to distance himself from his ally’s hard-right Project 2025 agenda. But there was also a fact that the campaign did not want reporters to miss: the man with 34 felony convictions to his name is also “old and quite weird.” They are weird and pretty creepy, especially to younger voters, who don’t appreciate neo-fascist meddling with their reproductive rights. Democrats should rock that meme.

Pass the political humility, please. Many people who live in conservative communities are hyper-sensitive to liberal arrogance. More rural conservatives than you would think share at least some liberal views. But you are probably not going to hear them say so because those who advocate liberal views frequently broadcast their political attitudes in a way that condescends to or disparages non-liberals. As a rank-and-file problem, this probably intensifies polarization between liberal and conservative voters. There is no quick fix for bridging this particular gap between ideological voting groups. That’s a long-term project. But there is a hard lesson that must be learned, and quickly, by Democratic political candidates. Leaders may not be able to do much to stop their supporters from condescending toward those who disagree with them on particular policies. A visit to any social media outlet will quickly confirm the reality of liberal to conservative disparagement at the rank-and-file level. What can and must be changed, however, is that candidates who want to win elections have to do better. They must become hyper-sensitive about not projecting liberal arrogance. It falls to Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting Kamala Harris to set the instructive example here. She must be ever on-guard against projecting liberal condescension, not only making comments about “deplorables” or bashing conservative cultural icons, but also a whole range of lesser blunders, like cutting people off in conversation, or anything that says “I don’t have time for your nonsense,” which former prosecutors often do. Presidents Obama and Biden both did a good job of avoiding such self-set booby traps, which are the surest road to defeat. Yes, it is true that conservatives, leaders as well as rank-and-file, also often disparage liberals in equally-arrogant ways. But that is their problem, not something Democrats can do anything about. Let them hurt their own cause. But our candidates need not serve their campaigns as clueless accomplices. The key behavioral consideration is to treat all adversaries with respect, humility and courtesy, no matter how abusive they may become. MLK was the Zen master of leveraging these values to build bridges of goodwill across chasms of division. Avoid at all costs the temptation to pander to rude supporters who do otherwise.

Yes, he went there….again. “In four years, you won’t have to vote again. we’ll have it fixed…”

Thomas B. Edsall has a scary essay about “What the Trump-Vance Alliance Means for the Republican Party” air the New York Times. He quotes scholar Ariel Malka, who notes, “A notable segment of the U.S. population combines a culturally based conservative identity with some degree of affinity for left-leaning and protectionist economic policy. Trump’s brand of populism — combining anti-immigrant nationalism with worker-oriented economic appeals within a framework denouncing left-wing and globalist elites — is attractive to these citizens.” Edsall continues, “I asked Malka what share of the electorate simultaneously holds culturally conservative and economically liberal views. He replied that when measured by specific policy preferences, “a substantial segment of the population reveals a culturally conservative and at least somewhat economically left-leaning attitude combination,” citing one study showing that over a quarter of voters fit this combination….Voters holding these views, Malka noted, “were a good deal more inclined to support the Republican than the Democratic Party.” Edsall adds, “Economic attitudes, according to Malka, are more complicated. Those “high in need for security and certainty tend to show a leaning toward left economic attitudes, when they are not highly exposed to political discourse that cultivates a right versus left attitude organization. When they are highly politically engaged, however, they have tended to move their economic attitudes to the right to match their culturally based conservative identity.”

Edsall continues, “For many years,” Elizabeth Suhay, a political scientist at American University, wrote by email, “the Republican Party managed to persuade many working-class whites to support their economic agenda not only by contrasting it with Democrats’ emphasis on racial equity but also by arguing that small government, economically conservative policy rewards hard work….The persuasiveness of this message waned, however, with increasing inequality, low income growth, rural job loss, etc., creating an opening for Trump. His 2016 campaign directly addressed working-class whites’ economic concerns, even if his policies in office generally did not….With the Vance pick, we are seeing an even greater rhetorical shift toward economic populism aimed directly at working-class and rural voters, and it is likely that a second Trump term would advance more populist policy than the first….It is certainly the case that the two parties’ recent agendas have put many working-class people in a bind: The Democratic Party’s economic agenda suits them, but the Democrats’ social agenda has been far more progressive than the modal working-class person. This is true regardless of race; however, Democrats’ emphasis on affirmative action (broadly construed) will be perceived as threatening by white working-class folks for both economic and cultural reasons.” Edsall concludes, “This year, each political coalition — left and right — is fraught with contradictions. In a situation in which the vote count threatens to be close, defections of any kind, especially if they’re concentrated in the wrong places, can be extraordinarily costly.”

Democratic candidates and their campaign workers have an article to read, “Class, race and the chances of outgrowing poverty in America” at The Economist. Some of the observations:

A new study by Raj Chetty, of Harvard University, and colleagues provides fresh data on how America’s landscape of opportunity has shifted sharply over the past decades. Although at the national level there have been only small declines in mobility, the places and groups that have become more (or less) likely to enable children to rise up have changed a lot. The most striking finding is that, compared with the past, a child’s race is now less relevant for predicting their future and their socioeconomic class more so.

The greatest drops in mobility have been not in the places evoked in song, but on the coasts and the Great Plains, which historically provided pathways up (see maps). “Fifteen years ago, the American Dream was alive and well for white children born to low-income parents in much of the North-east and West Coast,” says Benjamin Goldman of Cornell University, one of the co-authors. “Now those areas have outcomes on par with Appalachia, the rustbelt and parts of the South-east.”

The fact that white children have become more likely to remain in poverty than before, whereas for black children the reverse is true, raises many questions. The finding comes from tracing the trajectories of 57m children born in America between 1978 and 1992 and looking at their outcomes by the age of 27. “This is really the first look with modern big data into how opportunity can change within a place over time,” says Mr Goldman. For children born into high-income families, household income increased for all races between birth cohorts. Yet among those from low-income families, earnings rose for black children and fell for white children.

A black child born to poor parents in 1992 earned $1,400 a year more than one born in 1978. A similar white child earned $2,000 less than one born in 1978. But on average, a poor white child still earned $9,500 more than a poor black child.

Convergence, not equality

This pattern has played out in virtually every county, though with big regional differences. As a result, the earnings gap between rich and poor white children (the “class gap”) grew by 27%, whereas the earnings gap between poor white and poor black children (the “race gap”) fell by 28% (see chart). The class gap did not meaningfully change for non-white people. This convergence between poor white and poor black children is as much the result of improved mobility for black children as it is of decreased mobility for white ones.

The effects echo in other outcomes too. The gap in early-adulthood mortality between rich and poor white Americans more than doubled between the 1978 and 1992 birth cohorts, while the white-black race gap for the same metric fell by 77%. Other gaps between black and white Americans, from sat uptake and rates of graduation to rates of marriage and incarceration, have narrowed similarly.

None of this means that race is no longer relevant for Americans’ chances in life. Although the reversal of the direction of travel is striking, a young black American born in 1992 to poor parents was still four percentage points more likely to remain in poverty than a poor white peer, down from a 15 percentage-point gap for those born in 1978. And while the near doubling in rates of mortality among young, lower-income white Americans is deeply alarming, mortality rates for their black counterparts have increased too, and they are still (a bit) more likely to die young.

In polarised America, where race remains a divisive topic, some are bound to misappropriate the findings. Anti-woke conservatives will claim that the data show how “white privilege” is a myth and that programmes targeting poor black children should instead invest in poor white ones. Woke warriors will argue that race remains the most important factor holding children back from upward mobility, and so dismiss concerns about left-behind white kids. Both are wrong.

Convergence has not yet brought equality. Despite improvements across America for poor black children, there is still no county where their outcomes match those of poor white ones. Yet the decline of the white working class is steep, and bound to cause grief. Telling a young white man with lower life outcomes than previous generations that he is still doing better than the average black peer is about as useful as telling a young black man that he’s doing well “for a black man”.

Another possible misconception is that social mobility is a zero-sum game: that poor white children are doing worse because poor black children are doing better. The authors tackle this by showing how in places where black children have done well, white children’s outcomes have remained stable; and in places where white children have done particularly poorly, their black peers have also not thrived.

In his previous work Mr Chetty demonstrated just how much a child’s chances of outperforming their parents depended on their race and where they grew up. One of the questions the authors were left with was how “sticky” these effects would be over time: could opportunities for the next cohorts of children change within these same places, or were they fixed? The new study’s most hopeful finding is that, far from being fixed, opportunities within a place can change significantly and rapidly. Neither history nor place is destiny.

This offers clues for policymakers. Jobs, and their role in ensuring that communities flourish, are at the heart of understanding these big shifts. Children’s outcomes are tightly correlated with those of the communities in which they grow up. The narrowing of the race gap and widening of the white class gap, write the authors, “can be explained almost entirely by the sharp fall in employment rates for low-income white parents relative to low-income black and high-income white parents”. Growing up in a thriving community is crucial for children’s future outcomes—and which communities have been thriving over the past 15 years has changed in a way that relatively disadvantages poor white families. “In the past 15 years, we’ve seen a decline in conditions in low-income white communities relative to low-income black and high-income white communities,” concludes Mr Goldman.

So the gap between upward mobility stats for African Americans and low-income whites is shrinking a bit, and that’s good for Democratic candidates to consider, when reaching out to working-class voters. When it comes to  dealing with cheap shots regarding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, however, note also that less than 10 percent of Fortune 500 C.E.O.s  are women and about 1.6 percent  are African Americans, with 3.2 percent of S & P 500 C.E.O.s  identifying as Latinos. A good question for D.E.I. critics is, “So, how would you improve these statistics, or do you think it’s O.K. the way it is?”

In “Harris’ big test: reclaiming swing states for Dems,” Erin Doherty writes at Axios: “Early national polls suggest Harris’ entry has given Democrats a bump in a tight race, but the presidential election is a state-by-state contest.

• Harris appears to be energizing many young and minority voters. A big question is whether she also can maintain Biden’s recent success among older voters — and stem Democrats’ losses among groups such as Latino men and whites who didn’t go to college.
• In a strategy memo released early Wednesday, Harris’ campaign argues she can. She aims to do so partly by focusing on women’s reproductive rights and contrasting Trump’s legal problems with her history as a prosecutor.
• Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020 was aided by his gains among whites who didn’t attend college, a group that helped Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center.

Driving the news: Larry Ceisler, a Pennsylvania-based public affairs executive, said he doesn’t expect Harris to match Biden’s numbers in rural parts of the state.

• But, he said, Harris “is going to boost turnout and support from African American voters, diverse voters and younger voters.”
• “It could be a net positive for the ticket,” Ceisler said.
• Another thing that might help in must-win Pennsylvania: Harris is considering Josh Shapiro, the state’s popular Democratic governor, as her running mate. Putting him on the ticket could alter the calculus there.

Doherty continues, “What they’re saying: In its memo, Harris’ campaign argues that she’s positioned to expand Biden’s winning coalition from 2020.

• “Her net favorability is 19 points higher than Trump’s among white, college-educated voters, and 18 points higher than Trump’s among voters over 65,” the Harris campaign writes.
• It also claims that the roughly 7% of voters who remain undecided are “disproportionately Black, Latino and under 30” — voting populations more likely to favor Harris.

By the numbers: Few polls have been released since Biden left the race Sunday and Harris jumped in.

• Reuters released a national poll Tuesday showing Harris with a 2-point lead over Trump, (44%-42%).
• The same poll the previous week had Trump with a 2-point lead, suggesting that the Democrats’ candidate switch led Trump to lose ground instead of picking up a post-convention bump.
• A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll indicates that Harris’ entry reset the race, which the poll says is statistically tied.

Swing-state polls are done less frequently, and don’t yet reflect the historic twists and turns of the past two weeks. The latest batch showed Trump ahead in most of the six states likely to decide the election — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

• In a New York Times/Siena College poll — taken before Biden dropped out and the assassination attempt against Trump — Harris fared better than Biden, and was essentially tied with Trump in Pennsylvania.
• Harris also polled stronger than Biden with Black voters and younger voters.
• In Michigan, Real Clear Politics found that Trump led by about 2 points from an average of Trump-Harris polls.

Doherty quotes Ceisler on Harris again, “She’s going to have to introduce herself to the electorate — and she can’t let herself be painted as some far-left ‘woke’ activist from San Francisco, because she’s not.”

Sahil Kapur and Scott Wong share some observations regarding how “Harris’ candidacy reshapes strategies for key House and Senate races” at nbcnews.com: “For Democrats, candidates in battleground races are still planning to localize their races as much as possible. But lawmakers and party operatives are now hoping they can benefit from the wave of enthusiasm provided by Harris’ campaign in down-ballot races….Republican strategists said their priority is to craft and drive a negative portrait of Harris in the minds of voters, using some of the same issues they attacked Biden on, such as immigration, crime and inflation….“What is going to be critical important for Republicans as a whole is to quickly define Kamala Harris,” said one GOP strategist, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, adding that the party is already evaluating new messages in the field. “We have a very short runway to take the four or five most unpopular positions she has and brand her as a supporter of those.”….Democratic strategists say their candidates will continue to run state-specific Senate campaigns and district-specific House campaigns. Many of those candidates had been overperforming Biden for months before he dropped out, and party operatives expect that to continue with Harris, whose favorability ratings are also under water in recent surveys….They’re also continuing to run against what they’re portraying as Republican extremism and out-of-touch candidates after successfully using that approach in 2022….”‘Despicable Me 4’ was a big hit this summer and the problem in the Republican Party is they’ve got a bucket full of minions running for the U.S. Senate,” said JB Poersch, the president of Senate Majority PAC, a deep-pocketed Democratic super-PAC. “Republican candidates are trapped well behind where Trump is.”

Harold Meyerson opines on “Kamala’s Strengths and Weaknesses: Today on TAP: And how she can talk to working-class voters” at The American Prospect: “….there’s not much in Harris’s history to suggest she’s the cure for the Democrats’ growing weakness among working-class voters—most particularly, the white working-class voters who’ve been trending Republican for a very long time….How, though, can she reach out to the working-class men who build buildings, drive trucks, and operate assembly lines (all alongside women, but it’s the men who’ve been moving en masse into Republican ranks)? Chris Hannan, who heads the California Building Trades Council (which represents virtually every union of construction workers in the state)….was clear on how unions like those represented in his council would campaign against Trump and, now, for Harris. “Trump had an ‘infrastructure week’ every year, which led to no increase in infrastructure construction, every year. Under Biden and Harris, we’re building more roads and bridges and rail lines, and electric car factories and semiconductor factories, with union members and union-scale wages, in California, in Arizona, and across the country,” he said. “Trump gave corporations a huge tax cut with no conditions on spending that money in the U.S.; Biden and Harris have prioritized investing in America.”….Will Harris’s strong environmentalism be an obstacle to winning a number of working-class votes? Most likely, particularly in places like Western Pennsylvania, where her opposition to fracking will surely be something that the Trump campaign will stress. “She may not do well in Western Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh,” another labor leader told me, “but she’ll boost turnout in [heavily Black] Northern Philadelphia and Detroit, particularly if Obama campaigns alongside her there.” That labor leader is also confident that Harris will stick with the kind of pro-union appointees to whom Biden entrusted the Labor Department and the NLRB. “Democrats with centrist records, like Biden had, now understand this is good policy and good politics,” he added….I herewith offer a couple of suggestions myself that might win her more support, or at least more of a hearing, among working-class voters. As I’ve noted, Trump’s suggestion of making tips tax-free actually won’t affect most tipped workers because they don’t make enough money, even with the tips, to pay income taxes. (Indeed, according to a report released today by UC Berkeley’s Food Labor Research Center and the organization One Fair Wage, fully 66 percent of tipped restaurant workers have incomes falling beneath that threshold.) Nonetheless—and despite some speculation that Wall Street consultants would mislabel their fees as tips if such a change were made—I think Harris should adopt this proposal (saying she’s open to crossing the aisle when a decent, or even half-decent, proposal originates there) and go it one better, challenging Republicans to raise the national minimum wage from the $7.25 where it’s languished for the past 15 years, and the tipped minimum wage from its microscopic $2.13—positions I doubt the newly “pro-worker” Republicans will embrace….As well, she should emphasize the arguments that Hannan has made: that factory construction increased by 73 percent once the Inflation Reduction Act passed, that infrastructure construction stagnated under Trump and soared under Biden, and that, as vice president, she cast the deciding votes on much of the “Build, Baby, Build for a Clean, Prosperous Future” legislation that is Biden’s legacy.”