Trump's Health Becomes the Story

As we wrote yesterday, Kamala Harris' decision to release her medical report wasn't really about reassuring the American public (since those reports are always somewhere between "positive" and "overwhelmingly positive"), it was about putting the ball in Donald Trump's court, and making HIS health an issue.

The plan has already worked like a charm. For example, a group of more than 200 medical professionals released a letter yesterday, in which they reminded Trump (and everyone else reading) that he promised back on August 20 to release his medical records, and has yet to do so. The letter observes:

Donald Trump is nearly 80 years old. While many older adults are highly functional, age can also come with cognitive changes that affect our ability to function well in complex settings. We are seeing that from Trump, as he uses his rallies and appearances to ramble, meander, and crudely lash out at his many perceived grievances. He also is notably refusing to give the public the ability to properly vet or scrutinize his capacities. Just last week, he backed out of an interview with 60 Minutes, and he is refusing to debate Vice President Harris again—both venues where the country might be able to more adequately assess his demeanor and fitness. As we saw in the first presidential debate, Trump is displaying irrationality and irritability. Notably, he ranted about migrants eating people's cats and dogs. This was widely debunked as untrue. In the limited opportunities we can examine his behavior, he's providing a deeply concerning snapshot. Given his advancing age—if elected again, he would be the oldest president in history by the end of his term—his refusal to disclose even basic health information is a disservice to the American people.

It is somewhat improbable that an effort involving 200+ people could be organized in less than 24 hours. Either the Harris announcement persuaded them to pull the trigger and release the letter while the iron was hot, or else Harris' campaign knew the letter was coming and coordinated with the authors.

Trump is also coming under fire from various folks in the media, particularly the late-night hosts. For example, Jimmy Kimmel, who is the anti-Trumpiest of all the late nighters (barely beating out Stephen Colbert), used his monologue last night to dare Trump to join Harris in taking a cognitive test: "The guy who's up in the middle of the night reading tweets about himself, wants to give someone else a cognitive test. Pretty sure we all watched her ace that test when she handed you your tangerine ass in the debate, but ... I'm all for it."

Trump could theoretically play this in at least a couple of ways. He could claim that he's already released plenty of information, and there's no need to release any more. Or, he could simply ignore the whole thing, and pretend the issue doesn't exist. He's had success with both of these approaches in the past, in terms of killing unpleasant things he'd rather not be talking about (taxes, Obamacare replacement, border wall funding, etc.).

Instead, Trump chose just about the worst response possible, conveyed via his boutique social media platform:

I believe it is very important that Kamala Harris pass a test on Cognitive Stamina and Agility. Her actions have led many to believe that there could be something very wrong with her. Even 60 Minutes and CBS, in order to protect Lyin' Kamala, illegally and unscrupulously replaced an answer she had given, which was totally "bonkers," with another answer that had nothing to do with the question asked. Also, she is slow and lethargic in answering even the easiest of questions. We just went through almost four years of that, we shouldn't have to do it again!

The man is 78 years old and still has not figured out what it means when you put a word—like, say, "bonkers"—in quotation marks. He's so "intelligent."

Tactically, we cannot see any reason that the Harris campaign should not respond thus, either via a statement, or during one of the candidate's media hits:

Vice President Harris would be delighted to take a cognitive test, under the following conditions: (1) the test is conducted by a psychiatrist recommended by the APA, or a neurologist recommended by the AMA; (2) former president Trump takes the same test with the same person serving to administer it; (3) former president Trump agrees that both sets of results will be made public. As to the choice of test, former president Trump can pick whatever test he likes. This will provide useful and valuable information for the American public, as they make their choice in November.

There is no way Trump would actually take the bait, since he would be at risk of producing a bad result, whereas Harris would not be. However, calling his bluff would make him look weak, which he hates, and would keep his health in the news for at least another cycle or two. (Z)

Weirdest... Rally... Ever

As long as we are on the subject of Donald Trump's mental health, we are now going to write about his rally/town hall yesterday. We don't usually do that, but he was in particularly bizarre form.

Trump was in Oaks, PA. That's a suburb less than 20 miles from Philadelphia, which would not seem to be Trump territory, but when a state is that swingy, you go wherever you can go. Anyhow, let's start with the somewhat minor, but very Freudian, slip of the tongue that Trump issued forth with. Urging his people to get their ballots cast, he said he hopes "everybody gets out on January 5th." This was part of a nearly un-parseable word salad, although it was nonetheless clear that he meant November 5th. That said, this is dangerously close to saying he hopes that everyone gets out on January 6th, maybe for a little bit of insurrection. As we said, Freudian slip, at least from where we sit.

Moving on, Trump was eventually joined on stage by Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) and then by Mary and Charles Strange, Gold Star parents who lost their son in 2011. As the Stranges made their way on stage, Trump made a joke about also having been shot, and how that makes it harder to move about (because apparently he walks on his ear?). It was inappropriate enough that even Noem, the noted dog killer, was taken aback and tried to correct the former president. Once Charles Strange had time to say his piece, which was basically to ask for an investigation into his son's death, Trump responded:

So here's what we're going to do. In the first week—not the first day because I made a lot of promises in the first day, we're gonna drill baby drill, we're gonna close up the border, we're gonna do a lot in the first day. In the first week, we will set up a commission.

We think that everyone can agree that the most important thing on the minds of grieving parents is how the U.S. is going to increase its production of fossil fuels.

Thereafter is when things got really weird. There were two different incidents, during the event, where an attendee fainted (ostensibly due to heat), and Trump had to pause. Eventually, the former president declared that he and everyone else were tired of questions, and that the time had come for some music. And so, he wrapped things up, and then he spent more than half an hour wandering around on stage, and sometimes vaguely dancing, while various bits of music played. See for yourself here, if you wish:

The playlist was... unusual. There was some classical stuff, like "Time to Say Goodbye" by Andrea Bocelli and Luciano Pavarotti. There was "It's A Man's Man's Man's World" by James Brown. There was "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People, which is a signature song at Trump events, because apparently nobody in his campaign has yet figured out what it's about. Other songs included "Hallelujah" by Rufus Wainwright, "Nothing Compares to U" by Sinead O'Connor, "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses, and the godawful "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony Music (yes, that's his actual stage name). Recall that Trump has received cease and desist letters for more than half of these songs, telling him to stop using them.

The Harris campaign has already commented on this, tweeting: "Trump appears lost, confused, and frozen on stage as multiple songs play for 30+ minutes and the crowd pours out of the venue early." And the candidate herself added to that, reposting the tweet to her personal account, and adding "Hope he's OK." We think the answer to that question has become clear: "No, no he's not OK." (Z)

Don't Say We Didn't Warn You, John Roberts

Let us now conduct a brief review of the lecture that, as chance would have it, (Z) delivered yesterday. In 1846, an enslaved man named Dred Scott, along with his wife Harriet, filed a lawsuit demanding manumission. The argument was that while the duo had once lived in the slave state of Missouri, they had traveled with their owner to the non-slave states of Minnesota and Wisconsin. This being the case, their continued enslavement was illegal.

Of the first 12 presidents of the United States, nine were Southern slave owners. You know what kind of judges Southern slave owners tend to appoint? That's right, Southern slave owners. And so, by the 1850s, the Supreme Court was jam-packed with slave-owning justices, including the Maryland slave owner who served as Chief Justice, Roger Taney. Taney held that post for close to 30 years, and had his fellow justices largely wrapped around his finger.

When the Dred Scott case made it to the Supreme Court in 1856 (yep, it took 10 years), Taney sensed an opportunity to resolve the slavery question once and for all. By that time, the majority of Northerners wanted to see the institution limited to the states where it already existed, while the majority of Southerners wanted to see it spread, ideally as far and as wide as possible.

Taney, writing for the 7-2 majority, made two findings. The first was that the suit was fundamentally invalid, because Black men (and women) had no right to sue in an American court. The Chief Justice could have stopped there, but instead went on to also find that if the suit HAD been valid, Scott would still have lost, because the laws Congress had passed limiting slavery were invalid. In short, Taney said slavery was a state issue, and not a federal issue, and states and territories could do whatever they wanted when it came to legalization (sound vaguely familiar?). Problem solved!

Or maybe not. Southerners were, of course, thrilled by the work of their fellow Southerner. On the other hand, many Northerners were outraged, since the decision would not only have opened up all future territories to slavery, but would also have theoretically re-opened the issue in states where slavery had already been outlawed. So, Northerners said they would not honor the decision. That included a guy who had been out of politics for a decade, but who jumped right back in, thanks to Taney's decision (and other Southern shenanigans in 1856 and 1857), a fellow by the name of Abraham Lincoln. So, far from "resolving" the slavery issue, Taney's decision served only to pour fuel on the fire, while also condemning the Chief Justice to eternal shame as an incompetent, tone-deaf, partisan hack.

We bring this up because the current Chief Justice has botched a number of rulings very badly, such that we have written several times that he's at risk of displacing Taney as the worst chief justice in American history (see here for the most recent example). We recognize that the Supreme Court, by definition, deals with thorny issues, and that many people are going to disagree with whatever they say. Our sense of his reputation is not just about his rulings being disagreeable, it's about how badly he's handled them.

Consider, for example, the Dobbs ruling. Actually, truth be told, future generations of Americans are almost certainly going to look down upon the findings there, the way we do with Plessy or Korematsu, because they are out of the mainstream in our time, and figure to be even more so in 2040 or 2060 or 2080. But beyond that, there was the embarrassing pre-ruling leak of the decision, and then the post-ruling nonsense about how it's not the Court's job to think about the impact of their decisions in the real world.

To take another example, Roberts made a train wreck out of the Colorado kick-Trump-off-the-ballot case. The Court's finding there was defensible, but its actual opinion was not. We slammed it, lawyer-reader A.R. in Los Angeles, CA slammed it (see the link in the above paragraph), George Conway slammed it because the writing was near-incomprehensible and, beyond that, gave no clear sense of how officials might deal with future cases. Remember, a major part of the Supremes' job is to establish precedents. But you can't do that if... nobody can understand the reasoning behind your ruling.

And then there's the presidential immunity ruling. The Supremes took their sweet time figuring that one out, and then uncorked a ruling that had legal scholars, liberal and conservative, screaming. As readers know, Roberts gave presidents something near to a blank check to do damn near anything they want to do, legal or no, as long as their actions can be plausibly considered part of their "official duties." At that point, it seemed Roberts had bowed to his inner hard-right Republican, and had gone full MAGA.

As it turns out, though... maybe not. There was new reporting this weekend about Roberts' actual mindset. It would seem that he felt that the immunity case raised great constitutional issues that needed to be addressed. And he decided that he and his Court would craft a brilliant and incisive ruling that would resolve those issues for all time. Once again, sound familiar? Let's just say that nothing here has us questioning the parallel we drew to Taney. After the decision came down, and the response was so negative, Roberts was apparently stunned into silence, and retreated to... whatever (lavish) cave he lives in. In contrast to the normal summer schedule for Supremes, he didn't do any speeches or other appearances.

In short, Roberts is apparently living in a bubble, and has totally lost the pulse of what the rest of the world is actually thinking. Who knows what the impact will be of the particular awakening he underwent after the Louis XIV decision. At very least, particularly given his track record in 2020, he's back to being "not a sure thing for Trump" in any election-related lawsuits that reach the Supreme Court after the election. (Z)

Harris Gets Right with the Media

And when we say "right," we really mean "far-right."

Kamala Harris—who, as you may have heard, doesn't do media appearances, and is afraid of interviewers who might challenge her—is going to go into the lion's den. Two lion's dens, possibly. Yesterday, Fox announced that she will sit down for an interview with host Bret Baier, to be aired tomorrow night at 6:00 p.m. The interview will be conducted in Pennsylvania, and, per Baier, will only be "lightly edited." Beyond that, not much is known.

That's one lion's den. The (potential) other one is that the Harris campaign is in discussions with Joe Rogan to appear on his podcast. Rogan, for those who aren't familiar, is somewhat right-leaning and very conspiratorial, though he hides those identities behind a "just asking questions" mask. In any case, he has the most popular podcast in America, with an audience that skews very male (and, especially, young and male). So, an appearance there would be a pretty good counterpoint to Harris' interview last week on the Call Her Daddy podcast, which is the second most popular podcast in America, with an audience that skews very female (and, especially, young and female).

The risks and rewards of this media strategy are pretty obvious. On Fox, and on the Rogan podcast if that interview happens, she's going to face some... unfriendly questions. That means there's an opportunity for her to really step in it. It would not be a great idea for someone whose faculties are in question—Joe Biden, Donald Trump—to sign up for an appearance with such hostiles.

On the other hand, if Harris is confident in her abilities—and she has every reason to be—then she makes a pretty important point by being willing to take this on (consider how much Pete Buttigieg impressed with HIS willingness to go on Fox). Further, this affords her an opportunity to reach something like 20 million Americans who would otherwise be very difficult for her to reach. In particular, you can bet good money that Harris and her team know full well that Baier's show (Special Report), where the interview will air, attracts more independent voters than any other Fox program.

There are some commenters who are doing the knee-jerk thing, and asserting this is a sign that Harris is desperate. We don't think you can reach that conclusion. Sure, she could be looking at the polls and not liking what she's seeing, and so could be gambling in hopes of righting the ship. But she could also be executing a media strategy that's been in place for weeks or months. Or, she could even believe she's got enough margin right now that she can afford to press her advantage. Any of these three options is possible.

Donald Trump, of course, does not like his turf to be infringed upon, particularly by a Black woman. So, he blew a gasket when news of the Fox interview broke yesterday. Here's what he posted on his boutique social media platform:

Lyin' Kamala Harris has wisely chosen Bret Baier, of FoxNews, to do a much needed interview, because he is considered to be "Fair & Balanced," though often very soft to those on the "cocktail circuit" Left. I would have preferred seeing a more hard hitting journalist, but Fox has grown so weak and soft on the Democrats, constantly polluting the airwaves with unopposed Kamala Representatives, that it all doesn't matter anymore. Hopefully, the people will understand on November 5th, and Early Voting. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

At least he got Election Day right (see above).

We don't watch every Harris interview, but we'll definitely be tuning in for this one. It will be good preparation for election night, when the only one of us who can get Fox News on their TV will have to suck it up and spend several hours watching, to see what the outlet is saying about the results. (Z)

Early Voting Update

We're going to take a look at the early voting numbers each Tuesday between now and the election, and see what's interesting.

This week, there are a couple of things worth noting. The first is that, at this time in 2020, 15,938,255 early ballots had been cast. This year, so far, 4,729,468 early ballots have been cast. Obviously, that is considerably fewer. A big part of the equation is that the pandemic has passed, and considerably fewer people regard early/absentee voting as the only safe option. There are also changes in the rules (e.g., red states getting less permissive) and also in reporting procedures. The general presumption is that early voting favors the Democrats, letting them pile up a tough-to-topple lead heading into Election Day. It looks like the blue team won't have as big a lead this year as they did in 2020. That said, there's still time, and the early-voting numbers could take a big jump.

The other thing worth noting is something we got wrong last week. As we noted, only five states break down their early ballots by gender: Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan and North Carolina. At the moment, the early votes from those states are 54.9% from women and 44.1% from men (the other 1.1% declined to state, or put a gender identity other than the two from the Garden of Eden).

No states broke down early voting by gender in 2020, so we can't compare directly. However, here is the breakdown of women's general election vote, rounded to the nearest whole number, in every election since 2000:

Year	Voted D	Voted R	Dem. Adv.
2000	52%	48%	+4%
2004	54%	46%	+8%
2008	53%	47%	+6%
2012	53%	47%	+6%
2016	52%	48%	+4%
2020	52%	48%	+4%

Obviously, with a lead greater than 10 points, Kamala Harris would outperform every Democrat of the last 20 years, if that were to hold.

Because of the abortion issue, Harris probably is doing better with women than most or all recent candidates. That said, the numbers are also skewed by the fact that the early votes are disproportionately Democratic (53.9% to 29.0% so far), and women are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. However, we can try to correct for that, at least a little.

Taken as a whole, American women are 51% Democratic/lean Democratic, 44% Republican/lean Republican and 5% independent. Georgia does not give a partisan breakdown, but in the four states that do that, and also give a gender breakdown, one would expect there to be about 338,477 votes from women. There have actually been 408,921 such votes. Roughly speaking, that means the women's vote is something like 20% higher than expected. Since normal is something like Democrats +5, it's reasonable to guess that Harris is on pace to win the women's vote by 6 or maybe 7 points, which would be a pretty big difference from 2016 and 2020. So, this bodes well for her, though keep in mind that the projection is a bit crude, and is based on a small and maybe unrepresentative sample. (Z)

PollingWatch 2024: Beware the Blue Zones

We have no doubt that the presence of the word "polling" and the word "blue" has given 100% of readers the wrong impression as to what this piece is about. We shall rectify that promptly.

Although "blue zone" might sound like something political (e.g., "Urban areas in the United States tend to be blue zones"), it's not. A blue zone is one of the places in the world (e.g., Okinawa Prefecture, Japan; Nuoro Province, Sardinia, Italy; Icaria, Greece) where residents are known for being disproportionately likely to live long lives. They are called blue zones because the researchers who first studied them used blue pens to mark up their maps.

Much attention has been given to cracking this code, and trying to figure out what makes these folks different. Is it something in their diet, like lots of fish and healthy oils, or lots of veggies, or moderate alcohol consumption? Is it something in their environment, like clean air? Is it a simple, rural, low-stress lifestyle? Is it genetic? Something else?

Last week, Saul Newman, of the University College London, published a study in which he says he knows what the answer is. It turns out that the secret to the blue zones is that... they are total crap, and that residents in those places are no more or less long-lived than anyone else. In fact, what these areas generally have in common are three things: lots of poor people, shaky record-keeping when it comes to things like birth certificates, and pensions that only kick in at a certain age. You can see how these things would combine to have people declaring themselves to be 10 or 15 years older than they really are.

In other words, this is a "lies, damned lies, and statistics" story. Sometimes the numbers lie. And we bring it up because our gut feel tells us that there are issues with the polls this year. We don't know it, we just suspect it. And so, we thought we would start running items 3-4 times a week, from now to the election, looking at the matter from various angles. Maybe our suspicions will be sustained. Maybe not. In any event, we're going to give it the old college try. We have several items sketched out (just questions, not answers yet), but if you think there's an angle we should consider, let us know at comments@electoral-vote.com. (Z)

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