Harris Spends 15 Minutes on "60 Minutes"

Yesterday, CBS aired the now-traditional (since 1968) pre-election interview with the major-party presidential nominees (well, one of them, since Donald Trump bailed out). If you would like to see the segment, here it is:

Truth be told, we didn't find it to be worth 15 minutes of our time. Bill Whitaker, who drew the assignment, asked questions that were very obvious, and that were sometimes very leading. For example, he grilled Harris on her economic plan, observing that it would add $3 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years, and demanding to know how she would pay for that. What that question overlooks is that EVERY president of the last century has added to the deficit, almost invariably at a rate greater than Harris' plan would. While we don't have a problem with asking about the math behind the plan, the lack of context made it seem that her plan extends the deficit at an unusually high rate, which just isn't correct. Meanwhile, as a reward for his "gotcha" question, Whitaker just got well-worn talking points in return.

This same dynamic was on display with the other issues that were addressed—Israel, Ukraine, abortion, the border, etc. To the extent that anything piqued our interest, it was the moment when Whitaker tried to get Harris to comment on whether or not Benjamin Netanyahu is a close ally of the United States; she would only say that Israel is a close ally of the United States. We'll also add that we know this is 60 Minutes' "style," but we dislike it that they chop up the interview as they see fit, and often impose voiceovers on the footage halfway through a person's answers.

For most of the last 5 minutes of the 20-minute segment, Whitaker chatted with Tim Walz. And the main theme there was: Is Walz a liar? Again, we saw little of use here. The various examples that Whitaker raised—the timing of the 1989 visit to China, the military rank, etc.—have already been addressed by Walz, and have been dissected by the media. Either you believe Walz' explanations, or you don't. Further, even if you think Walz has a lying problem, his (alleged) whoppers have come at the rate of, what, one a week? The complete list of Walz lies/alleged lies is equaled by Donald Trump or J.D. Vance by lunchtime on most days. The implied equivalence between Walz, on one hand, and Trump/Vance, on the other, smacks of bothsidesism. If a voter is really and truly concerned about honesty, there is one ticket that has the clear edge here.

Incidentally, CBS also revealed a bit more information about Trump's withdrawal from his scheduled appearance. Initially, he demanded that CBS agree not to fact check him during the interview. Later, he added a second demand, saying he wanted an apology for how tough Lesley Stahl was with him in 2020. Both of these were nonstarters for CBS, and so, no interview. And to think that Trump claims that Harris is the one who can't handle the heat.

And on that point, while the Harris interview was useless, it did make very clear, once again, that she's capable of handling these things quite well. Yes, she dodged questions, but that kind of jiu-jitsu is supposed to be part of a politician's toolkit. Truth be told, we think it would look worse if she couldn't dance around a leading question, or a question with no good answer. Meanwhile, she was personable, and in command, and knew the material. The point is, this is not a Reagan 1988 or Biden 2024 situation; Harris does not NEED to dodge interviews.

That brings us to what we really want to talk about, which is Harris' media strategy. We had an item yesterday covering all the carping from Democrats that Harris isn't doing enough press. For example, Obama-era operative David Axelrod has felt free to share his many criticisms of her approach. We must admit, whenever Axelrod opens his mouth, we are reminded of the line from the movie The American President: "It occurs to me that in 25 years I've never seen your name on a ballot."

In any case, we have a couple of thoughts about Harris' approach. The first is that we actually see some merit in the course that Harris is pursuing. That is to say, if you do a bunch of media in August or September, you're probably not going to accomplish much, since the low-information/persuadable voters probably aren't paying attention yet. Meanwhile, you run the risk of overexposing yourself or, more significantly, saying something damaging that lingers. Think "childless cat ladies," for example. It may very well be best to save your bullets for the home stretch.

On top of that, when people like Axelrod say that Harris isn't doing enough media, they really mean she isn't doing enough traditional media. The seasoned vets tend to turn their noses up at anything that isn't one of the big three broadcast networks, the big three cable news networks, the Sunday morning shows, The New York Times, The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal.

The truth is, Harris actually has done a fair bit of traditional media. She was on CBS yesterday, and has also had hits on two of the big three cable news networks (all but Fox), and has already sat down with both the Times and the Post.

Meanwhile, the candidate is giving a fair bit of time to podcasts and other "off the wall" options. She did the basketball podcast All the Smoke last week. As we noted in yesterday's item, she did the Call Her Daddy podcast over the weekend. For those who are unfamiliar, that is the second most downloaded podcast in America. Host Alex Cooper, who is basically a female version of Howard Stern, has 5 million listeners, nearly all of them women. Speaking of Stern, who has 10 million listeners, three-quarters of them between 25 and 54 years of age, Harris will be sitting down with him this morning. She's also got a town hall with Univision later this week, along with appearances on The View and Late Night with Stephen Colbert.

It seems pretty obvious to us what's going on here. The people who follow the traditional media? They are largely high-information voters, and most of them have presumably made up their minds as to how they are voting. So, Harris is going to where the low-information voters are. She connects with 5 million of them here, 10 million of them there, then adds another 3 million (Colbert), and another 2.5 million (The View). The David Axelrods of the world might not like it, but it sure looks pretty shrewd to us. (Z)

Trump Gone Wild

There was an interesting article this week in Knowable magazine, about birds that practice obligate brood parasitism. That's a fancy way of saying that they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds (often entirely different species), tricking the nesting birds into doing the hard work of raising the egg-laying birds' offspring. Author Sofia Quaglia observes, among other things, that this evolved at least seven times independently (as opposed to being influenced by one of the other obligate brood parasitic bird species). There are 100 or more bird species that do it in this way.

What does that have to do with U.S. politics? We will get to that. For now, we'll note that while Kamala Harris is conducting her carefully planned, very measured media blitz, Donald Trump is all over the place. And we don't just mean that in the sense of "he's criss-crossing the country." We also mean that he keeps demonstrating his lack of restraint and his apparent lack of mental discipline, and issuing forth with all sorts of whackadoodlery. A rundown of the "highlights" from just the last few days:

• Over the weekend, Trump addressed a group that supports school vouchers. It took him 33 minutes to actually get to that subject, while his entire speech was a melange of words and thoughts and assertions that made virtually no sense to anyone in attendance. The New York Times tends to clean things like this up; they've done it often enough that there's now a term for it: "sanewashing." To its credit, The Washington Post did not do this, skewering the address under the headline "Trump mixes up words, swerves among subjects in off-topic speech."
  
  
• This one wasn't actually that recent (it's from August), but it did become public over the weekend. Trump did a fundraiser in Colorado, and went off the rails while tearing into immigrants. In particular, during a harangue about 22 people he claims fled to the U.S. after being released from prison in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Trump declared: "We said, 'Where do you come from?' They said, 'Prison.' 'What did you do?' 'None of your fu**ing business what we did.' You know why? Because they're murderers."
  
  
• Yesterday, Trump called into the Hugh Hewitt radio program to share some more choice thoughts about immigrants, and about Kamala Harris' approach to them:

  She wants to go into government housing. She wants to go into government feeding. She wants to feed people. She wants to feed people governmentally. She wants she wants to go into a Communist Party-type system. When you look at the things that she proposes, they're so far off. She has no clue.
  
  How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person, and they're now happily living in the United States. You know, now a murderer—I believe this—it's in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now. They left, they had 425,000 people come into our country that shouldn't be here that are criminals. And, you know, one of the worst has 325,000 young children are missing. Can you imagine if that was Biden? No, no, can you imagine if that was Trump?

  Wow. We assume most folks realize this without our pointing it out, but that "bad genes" stuff could very well come right out of Mein Kampf. That's why we started this item with the stuff about birds. Is Trump actually getting this stuff from Mein Kampf, or from people who have read Mein Kampf? Or is his mindset just so similar to the mindset of Hitler and the Nazis that he just so happens to come up with the same things independently? Just like the seven different times that multiple bird species happened to discover the same reproductive strategy?

It's really shocking how far he's declined. And if he gets reelected, can you imagine where he'll be at, mentally, 4 years from now? And you thought we would wait for Halloween to try to frighten you.

This item is kind of a downer, and the next one is not much better. So, since we are on the subject of Trump nuttery and Nazi-ry, let's share a meme, courtesy of the legendary New York Times pitchbot account:

The fellow who runs the account says the three best answers he's seen are: (1) Assault and Prepper, (2) 2 Live Coup, and (3) Nazi by Nature.

We thought we might extend it to all music groups, not just hip-hop, and let Electoral-Vote.com readers take a crack. If we get enough good ones, we'll run a list later this week. Send your suggestions to comments@electoral-vote.com, with subject line "Trump-Musk Band." (Z)

Republicans Show Their True Colors on Disaster Relief?

We got a question from reader G.D. in Round Lake, IL that we are going to address now, instead of waiting until Saturday:

Would you classify the impending hurricane lined up for Florida to be one of those Unknown Unknowns that also qualifies as an October Surprise? Considering how close Florida might be, and the Senate race there, depending on where it hits and the level of sustained damages, could this drastically change the outcome—especially if it primarily impacts rural (Trump) supporters more than others?

Truth be told, it really shouldn't be a much of a surprise. We know when hurricanes are most likely to hit the U.S. (mid-September through mid-October), and there are also ways to protect against them, and to try to minimize damage. And yet, the leadership of the various states that have been hit hard does not seem willing to take those steps. Which means we are left with what is, indeed, a potential October Surprise that could affect some pretty big electoral outcomes—the presidential races in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida; the Senate race in Florida; etc.

To illustrate what we mean, consider this piece from The New York Times, which focuses specifically on North Carolina. Over the past 20 years or so, there have been numerous debates over regulations that would make homes more hurricane-resistant. For example, in 2015, the non-profit International Code Council recommended a requirement that new houses in flood zones be built at least one foot above the expected height of a major flood. The problem is that such a rule, like many other hurricane-proofing regulations, increases the cost of building a house. So, while most states adopted the recommendation promptly, North Carolina did not do so until 2019, and even then it was made an option for local authorities to consider, not a mandatory statewide rule. We are witnessing the unfortunate effects of that choice (and many others) right now.

Meanwhile, to whatever extent the hurricanes have been a "surprise," and to whatever extent their effects have disproportionately been visited on right-leaning voters, you would think that politicians on both sides of the aisle would know the hurricane playbook by heart. And yet, the Republicans have been putting on a staggering performance of tone deafness and lack of concern. We'll run through three examples from just the past few days.

To start, and most significantly, FEMA is about to run short on cash. It can handle immediate needs—say, opening temporary shelters—even once Milton hits. But it won't be able to begin work on long-term recovery—say, rebuilding roads—without more funding. No problem; Congress can just return to Washington for a couple of days, and appropriate some more money, right? Joe Biden would sign the bill in a heartbeat. Not so fast, though, as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said yesterday that he's not willing to commit to calling everyone back to Washington, and that he may just wait until after the election before addressing the issue.

Johnson's official reason for this is that "it takes a while to calculate the actual damages, and the states are going to need some time to do that." One cannot take this seriously. There are many things that are known right now (like, all the roads and bridges that are wrecked). There are many things that won't be known for months and months (like, the exact price tag to fix all the infrastructure in North Carolina). There will not be some magical level of financial clarity that just so happens to be reached a day or two after the election.

So, what is Johnson's real game here? We have three ideas:

1. Either of his own volition, or on marching orders from Donald Trump, he doesn't want to give Democrats a "win" right before the election.
   
   
2. He knows that, thanks to the Freedom Caucusers and, perhaps, other budget hawks, such a discussion would be ugly, and would be bad PR for the GOP right before an election.
   
   
3. As the Republicans desperately try to hold the House, Johnson doesn't want his members to be off the campaign trail, even for a couple of days.

Maybe we're right about all of these. Maybe only some of them. But we very much doubt we are 0-for-3. And if any of these theories is correct, then it means Johnson is putting politics over the well-being of his fellow citizens. You might think someone who says he is a follower of Christ, and who comes from Louisiana (which also has hurricane challenges) would have more humane priorities. Apparently not, though.

Moving on, Donald Trump continues (along with many other Republicans) to spout nonsensical conspiracy theories. This is absolute madness to us, from both a human perspective and a political perspective. Who on Earth is impressed by this craziness? Meanwhile, we can hardly think of a better way to alienate a voter than to make them into a cheap political pawn while they are navigating a life-changing crisis. And we're not the only ones who see it this way. State Sen. Kevin Corbin (R-NC) is, unlike us, actually living it. And he took to Facebook yesterday to, quite literally, beg his fellow Republicans to knock it off with all the conspiratorial crap. Trump also got absolutely roasted by the editorial board of the Charlotte Observer, which wrote:

Western North Carolina is trying to pick up the pieces left behind by Hurricane Helene, which decimated the region, leaving communities destroyed and a death toll in the triple digits.

This is not a situation to capitalize on for political gain. But former President Donald Trump has politicized the situation at every turn, spreading falsehoods and conspiracies that fracture the community instead of bringing it together...

Let's be clear: Western North Carolina is not a political football. This is not a campaign opportunity. The most unhelpful thing any politician—or anyone else—can do right now is spread misinformation and tell people that their government isn't doing anything to help them.

Sowing the seeds of political division is always an unnecessary and tiresome endeavor. But doing so in times of great need, when unity is paramount, is particularly shameful.

We don't see a single word there we disagree with.

Finally, given the damage done to Florida by Helene, and the damage that is expected to come from Milton, both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have tried to get Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) on the phone to discuss next steps. The two Democrats know that this is a time to put party aside; they've already had constructive conversations with both Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) and Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA). However, DeSantis refused to take the phone calls, because he said that they "seemed political." Kamala Harris was asked about this on Monday, and told a reporter:

You know, moments of crisis, if nothing else, should really be the moment that anyone who calls themselves a leader says they're gonna put politics aside and put the people first. People are in desperate need of support right now. And playing political games at this moment in these crisis situations, these are the height of the emergency situations. It's just utterly irresponsible, and it is selfish, and it is about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.

Again, we don't see anything here we disagree with.

Anyhow, back to the opening question. Maybe the hurricane/hurricanes were an October Surprise, and one that will work to the detriment of the Republicans. We aren't sure about that. What we are more confident about is that voters in those three states are going to notice the responses from both political parties, and some of them are going to be influenced by that. To put it another way, the most prominent Republicans in the country—Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, Ron DeSantis, etc.—are taking a "maybe" October Surprise and converting it into a "definite" October Surprise. (Z)

Whitley Has Some Music for Democrats' Ears

Most readers will be familiar with J. Michael Luttig, the unquestionably conservative former federal judge who became disgusted with Donald Trump and Trumpism, and who has worked to defeat the Republican Party, in hopes of saving it from the former president.

The Texas equivalent to Luttig is Glen Whitley. Whitley was a judge in Tarrant County for many years, and is also unquestionably conservative. Like Luttig, Whitley is well-traveled in conservative legal and political circles. And like Luttig, Whitley is currently working to defeat the Republican Party.

Whitley made headlines this weekend when he appeared at a rally for Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) to offer an endorsement in the U.S. Senate race against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Whitley likes much of what he sees from Allred, including his work on the border, and on eliminating the use of burn pits by the military. Meanwhile, like so many others, Whitley loathes Cruz. He says he can no longer support the Senator, as Cruz is in Donald Trump's pocket and has otherwise shown a total lack of integrity. Hard to disagree with that assessment.

This is not the main reason we note Whitley's remarks, however. It's that he said something else that Democratic voters will find very interesting, about "shy Harris" voters:

There are a lot, I think. They're afraid to come out, because when they do, they get ridiculed and they get bullied and they get belittled. And so a lot of people who have been staunch Republicans and still are staunch Republicans, are afraid to stand up and be confrontational with some of the leaders that we have right now.

It's going to be close, but I truly believe that a lot of Republicans are going to go into that booth and say, 'I can't support the insurrection.' ... I have talked with a number of people who I believe will do that, and they may not openly come out and say, 'I'm voting for Harris,' or they may just not vote.

The crowd, being overwhelmingly Democratic, thought that was great.

There has been much speculation, including on this site, about a potential "shy Harris" phenomenon. Whitley is just one guy, of course, and his evidence is anecdotal, so you can't exactly take it to the bank. That said, if anyone is in a position to have insight on this, it's him. The possibility that he actually is onto something is high enough we thought his comments worth noting. (Z)

Some EXXXtra Help for Harris-Walz

When it comes to defeating Donald Trump and Project 2025, it's all hands on di... er, deck, it would seem. As readers will recall, one of the many elements of the plan is to ban all pornographic websites. This is unrealistic on half a dozen different levels, but there it is, nonetheless.

In view of the threat to their livelihoods, the porn industry is ready to fight back. According to a story in The New York Times yesterday, seventeen of the top pornographic actors have bought $100,000 of anti-Project 2025 and anti-Trump advertising, in service of their "Hands Off My Porn" campaign (Note: that link is safe for work). The online ads will be shown to users whose IP addresses are in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. In other words, the people who swing for a living know exactly which the swing states are.

The pornographers also know how to read a poll. One of Kamala Harris' greatest areas of weakness is with younger, male voters. And you know who consumes the lion's share of online porn? Males between the ages of 18 and 49. So, it's not crazy to think that the "Hands Off My Porn" campaign is going to be able to reach a lot of voters who are not currently supporting Harris, and with an issue that they care about.

And while we are on this general subject, we'll also pass along a different sort of approach to the problem, albeit also one involving artistic product of a mature nature. An anonymous artist has executed, from rubber and rebar, a 43-foot-tall, 6,000-pound effigy of Donald Trump, sans the ill-fitting suit. It is titled "Crooked and Obscene." Here's a safe-for-work shot of the piece being installed in Phoenix:

If you prefer a... fuller view of the anatomically correct work, there are several shots here. You might want to have a sharp object on hand, so you are in a position to gouge your eyes out, Oedipus Rex-style.

Before being displayed in Phoenix, the effigy was displayed in Las Vegas, and now it is reportedly en route to a third swing state. We are not so sure it will change anyone's votes, but you never know. MAGA types have been pitching fits online, which at very least means that the work is resonating with some viewers. (Z)

Early Voting Update

Last week, we had an item about Michael McDonald—the political scientist, not the musician who was reportedly a member of Steely Dan. McDonald is the nation's expert in early voting and, as reader J.P. in Glenside, PA, brings to our attention, he has commenced with updates of his page for 2024.

We'll probably check in with him once a week between now and the election. Here's a rundown of the first round of early voting figures:

• Thus far, 1,896,960 votes have been received, across 25 states. Given that blue states tend to be more friendly to early/absentee voting, the ballots have a blue skew. That said, the highest number of ballots has been cast in the purple state of Virginia, while Florida is in the top five.
  
  
• Of those 25 states, 20 register voters by party. Thus far, ballots cast by Democrats outnumber ballots cast by Republicans by a margin of more than 2-to-1 (58.4% to 25.9%). The blue lean of the responding states surely explains some of that, but not all of it. It sure looks like the Democrats' tendency to vote early at a much greater rate than Republicans is going to hold for another election. Donald Trump will be happy; the RNC, not so much.
  
  
• Just under 60% of the ballots received so far were cast by voters over 65. That's not too surprising, since that demographic votes more reliably than any other age cohort. Further, older (often incapacitated) voters tend to rely on absentee voting more than other cohorts. And there are some states where absentee voting is ONLY available to older voters (and active-duty military and overseas voters).
  
  
• Only five of the states that have reported votes so far break ballots down by gender: Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan and North Carolina. And in those states, 52.2% of the ballots were cast by women, while 44.7% were cast by men (3.1% chose not to reveal their gender). That's a gap of 7.5%, which might seem good for the Democrats (since women skew blue), but the blue team won women by 11 points in 2020 and 15 points in 2016. So, Harris is really going to need to extend her advantage here. There's every chance she can, especially since this is a pretty small sample size.

That's the news, for now. In 2020, McDonald documented 101,453,111 early votes. The 2024 numbers will surely get more interesting, and more instructive, once the voting tallies reach the tens of millions. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

Yes, Virginia, it really is a blue state. (Z)

State	Kamala Harris	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Michigan	47%	44%	Oct 01	Oct 04	Glengariff Group
Virginia	52%	41%	Sep 28	Oct 04	Christopher Newport U.

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.

Today's Senate Polls

There was a poll last week showing the race as somewhat close. We didn't believe it. This one is probably too friendly to Kaine, but we'd still guess it is more representative of the state of the race. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Virginia	Tim Kaine*	55%	Hung Cao	35%	Sep 28	Oct 04	Christopher Newport U.

* Denotes incumbent

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