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It’s Tuesday. Two weeks from today, polls across the country will be open! Eeeeeek. Here’s what’s coming up:
- Some Democratic senators in “blue wall” states are keeping their distance from Harris.
- Georgia’s last-minute, controversial election rules are causing a stir. Keep reading for an explainer on the legal process happening.
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Trump is in Florida and North Carolina today; Harris is taping interviews with NBC News and Telemundo.
- “The Daily Show” did a segment on Trump’s McDonald’s visit. It is peak Jon Stewart.
I’m Cate Martel with a quick recap of the morning and what’s coming up. Send tips, commentary, feedback and cookie recipes to cmartel@thehill.com. Did someone forward this newsletter to you? Sign up here.
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Take a peek into Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan Senate races, and they will tell you a lot about Democrats’ fears.
Democratic senators running for reelection in those “blue wall” states are slowly distancing themselves from Vice President Harris, reports The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. They’re also being careful about criticizing Trump during their debates and instead focusing on policy proposals, a sign that they’re hoping to pick off Trump voters in their Senate races.
For example:
🔷 In Pennsylvania: “Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) has even embraced Trump’s tariff policies. His campaign launched an ad last week that described him as ‘independent’ and touted how he ‘bucked’ the Biden administration to protect fracking and “sided with Trump to end NAFTA.”
🚨 Keep in mind: The Cook Political Report shifted the Pennsylvania Senate race from “Lean Democrat” to “toss-up” on Monday. Now, all three “blue wall” states are toss-ups.
🔷 In Wisconsin: “Endangered Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) ignored President Biden and Harris, and made only a passing reference to Trump, in her one and only debate appearance Friday. Her opponent, businessman Eric Hovde, meanwhile, frantically tried to connect the incumbent Democratic senator to the Biden-Harris administration.”
🔷 In Michigan: “Democratic Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin has sounded like a Republican at times, talking about her home on a ‘dirt road’ where no electric vehicle would dare go. She has flashed Trumpian rhetoric about how Japan and South Korea ‘ate our lunch’ in the 1980s by being a step ahead of U.S. automakers in promoting fuel-efficient vehicles.”
Read more: ‘Senate Democrats running away from Harris in “blue wall” states’
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➤ THE FEARS MAY EXTEND TO NEVADA:
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The early voting totals in Nevada could signal “serious danger” for Harris in the state, according to veteran Nevada journalist Jon Ralston.
How so?: More Republicans have submitted mail-in ballots than Democrats in the first three days of early voting. Read Ralston’s analysis
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Nationally: Harris leads Trump by 3 percentage points, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
In Georgia: Trump tops Harris by 4 percentage points in Georgia, according to a new survey conducted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Eight percent of voters said they are still undecided.
Arab voters: Trump leads Harris by 2 percentage points among Arab American voters, according to a new Arab News/YouGov poll.
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➤ OK, BUT HOW ACCURATE ARE THE POLLS?:
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The New York Times’s Nate Cohn explains two theories for why the polls were inaccurate in 2020.
The first theory — ‘The unified theory’: “This theory holds that pollsters simply can’t reach enough of the least politically engaged voters — and these voters overwhelmingly back Mr. Trump. The polls can do fine in midterm elections, when only the highly engaged (and now relatively Democratic-leaning voters) cast ballots, but they underestimate Mr. Trump in presidential elections.”
The second theory — ‘The patchwork theory (but ultimately the pandemic)’: “In this tale, the polling errors in 2016 and 2020 may look similar, but they were actually very different. For one, the ‘gold standard’ national polls were pretty good in 2016, while they were terrible in 2020. This suggests that there were distinct challenges in both elections, like undecided Republican voters who disliked Mr. Trump in 2016, the failure of state pollsters to weight by education, and ultimately the pandemic.”
Read Cohn’s full explainer: ‘Two Theories for Why the Polls Failed in 2020, and What It Means for 2024’
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➤ INTERESTING READS FROM THE TRAIL:
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- ‘How Hurricane Helene scrambled the election in North Carolina’: Vox’s Amanda Lewellyn
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‘Kamala Harris Isn’t Repeating the Mistakes of 2016’: Vanity Fair’s Molly Jong-Fast
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‘What Elon Musk Really Wants’: The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer
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‘Republicans ramp up defensive strategy on abortion after midterm struggles’: The Hill’s Emily Brooks
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‘The Many Links Between Project 2025 and Trump’s World’: The New York Times’s Elena Shao and Ashley Wu
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➤ AN OP-ED THAT’S GETTING TRACTION:
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Harlan Ullman, senior adviser at the Atlantic Council, wrote an op-ed for The Hill where he questions, “What if Joe Biden was the better candidate all along?”
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What’s going on with these new election rules?:
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Georgia’s Republican-led State Election Board imposed new election rules just weeks before Election Day. The rules are pretty controversial, so Georgia judges are now picking them apart.
What critics say: “They drew heavy criticism across the spectrum, from poll workers to Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, who warned that chaos would be unleashed with the eleventh-hour changes.”
What proponents say: “Proponents said the rules served to better safeguard November’s contests in the first major election since 2020, which saw unbridled and unfounded claims of widespread fraud.”
What happens now?: The state’s Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. A date has not been set, though.
Read Ella Lee’s full explainer: ‘Georgia’s new election rules scrutinized by courts as voting begins’
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The IRS unveiled its 2025 tax brackets. 🔎 See where you fall
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Abercrombie & Fitch’s former CEO Mike Jeffries was arrested on sex trafficking and prostitution charges.
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Ohio’s former Republican governor, Bob Taft, endorsed Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) in his Senate race.
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Trump is selling “MAGADonald’s” shirts after he “worked” at the fast-food chain drive-thru over the weekend.
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🥜 Celebrate: Today is National Nut Day!
🐄 Chick-fil-A is releasing its own content app: The fast-food chain is launching the “Play” app with entertainment for families with young children. (CNBC)
🍟 Trump working at McDonald’s was obviously excellent ‘Daily Show’ fodder: Watch Jon Stewart’s segment about Trump working the fryer at McDonald’s.
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The House and Senate are out. President Biden is in New Hampshire this afternoon, and Vice President Harris is in Washington. (all times Eastern)
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To leave you on an entertaining note, this dog absolutely has main character energy.
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