Democrats Work to Keep Abortion Front and Center

You might have heard that abortion is going to be a big issue in this election. And, just in case you or anyone else hasn't heard, the Democratic Party is doing everything it can to make sure everyone keeps their eye on that particular ball (and not on the distractor that is Haitians eating dogs and cats).

Undoubtedly, readers are familiar with the criticisms that Kamala Harris doesn't do interviews, and isn't putting forward specific policy positions she supports. Well, yesterday, Harris did an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio, and in it she put forward a very specific policy position: She supports a filibuster carve-out that would allow the Senate to pass a bill codifying the right to an abortion nationwide. Here are her exact words:

I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe, and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do.

Again, she is very specifically speaking of a carve-out, and not a wholesale ending of the filibuster.

We emphasize that point because, less than an hour after the Harris interview aired, Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) had a hissy fit and announced that he would not be endorsing Harris for president. He decreed:

Shame on her. She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It's the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.

We will note three things here. First, Manchin is disingenuously doing what the right-wing media are also doing right now, and behaving as if Harris called for a complete and total end to the filibuster. As we note above, she most certainly did not. Second, the so-called "Holy Grail of democracy" barely existed until the 1960s, did not exist in its current form until 1975, and did not truly become an offensive weapon until the 1990s. Somehow, the country managed to survive 200 years without its "Holy Grail." Third, and finally, does Manchin really think that Congress is working well right now? Really?

We just do not get this guy; he's either stupid, willfully ignorant, shamefully dishonest, or some combination of the above. And it certainly does not weaken the "Manchin is stupid" thesis, we will point out, that he is misusing the "Holy Grail" metaphor here. A holy grail is something that is not already in hand, and is sought, like "a cure for cancer is the holy grail of modern medicine," or "cold fusion is the holy grail of modern physics," or "the director's cut of The Magnificent Ambersons is the holy grail of lost films." We suspect that what the Senator meant is that the filibuster is the crown jewel of democracy. Even then, he's still wrong.

Of course, if Harris is elected, her promise doesn't actually mean all that much. The executive branch doesn't get a vote when it comes to Senate procedures. And, more importantly, the Senate's procedures aren't going to change unless there are at least 51 votes for it. That almost certainly means at least 50 Democratic senators. It's possible that it could be done with 49 Democrats plus Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME), but if those two women were open to such an arrangement, it could also be executed right now (doing an end run around Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, I-AZ). The fact that it has not been executed suggests pretty strongly that one or both are not willing.

This is not to say that Senate Democrats are doing nothing when it comes to abortion (though they aren't doing much because, again, filibuster, not to mention a GOP-controlled House). Some readers will have seen the story published last week by ProPublica, about the tragic death of Amber Nicole Thurman. In 2022, Thurman took abortifacient pills, and had complications when not all the fetal tissue was expelled from her body. This requires a relatively simple fix, a dilation and curettage, that any hospital should be able to perform. However, the Georgia hospital to which Thurman turned for help could not do it, because post-Dobbs, that procedure was illegal in the state. For 20 hours, Thurman lingered, in agony, while a severe infection spread and became septic. Finally, the doctors decided they were able to operate, but by then it was too late, and she died.

This bit of reporting has actually prompted two responses from Senate Democrats. First, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is going to hold hearings into the matter, to try to determine if the staff of the hospital broke any laws in failing to treat Thurman in a timely manner. Second, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is teeing up a pair of bills for votes. The first, sponsored by Patty Murray (D-WA), would guarantee everyone the right to emergency health care, regardless of what state abortion laws might say. The second, sponsored by Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), would give a tax break to women who have to travel to procure an abortion, so as to offset their costs. These bills have failed before, and they will fail now—they're just messaging bills, at this point, meant to give Democratic candidates for office something to talk about as they campaign over the next 45 days.

And speaking of talking about abortion on the campaign trail, let's also pass along the story of how Ohio GOP U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno managed to shoot himself in the foot last week (his remarks were recorded as part of a town hall held last Friday, but were not broadcast until Monday of this week). Asked about abortion access, the candidate declared:

You know, the left has a lot of single issue voters. Sadly, by the way, there's a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women that are like, "Listen, abortion is it. If I can't have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else."... Okay. It's a little crazy by the way, but—especially for women that are like past 50—I'm thinking to myself, "I don't think that's an issue for you."

That's tone deaf on something like six different levels, and even has many Republicans firing back at Moreno. Given that it's a close race, but one where Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) appears to be leading, Moreno probably did not benefit from insulting both younger women (by suggesting they are voting foolishly) and older women (by suggesting they have no skin in the game anymore). Anyhow, it's an example of how the Democrats absolutely can benefit if they compel Republicans to address abortion on the campaign trail, as the Senate messaging bills are trying to do. (Z)

Maybe, One Day, People Will Speak of the "Harris Coalition"

Every victorious presidential candidate pieces together a different electoral puzzle. Sometimes, the coalitions they build are such a dramatic departure from the past that they enter political lore. The FDR/New Deal coalition is one of those, the Reagan coalition is a second and the Trump coalition is a third.

There were a couple of interesting bits of news yesterday when it comes to the winning coalition that Kamala Harris is trying to cobble together. To start, each election cycle, the nonpartisan groups APIAVote and AAPIData conduct a poll of Asian-American voters, to see where they are at as a (very heterogeneous) group. At this time in 2020, 46% of Asian-American voters supported Joe Biden, 31% supported Donald Trump and 23% were undecided or planning to vote third party. Harris, being half-Asian, is doing a fair bit better with this demographic, as you might imagine. According to the 2024 AAPI Voter Survey, released yesterday, 66% of Asian-American voters say they will cast their votes for Harris, as opposed to 28% for Trump and just 6% who are undecided or are planning to vote third-party. AAPI Data head Karthick Ramakrishnan also noted that enthusiasm among Asian-American voters in 2024 is higher than in any other year that AAPI has conducted a voter survey.

Moving along, another key part of the Harris coalition, of course, is younger voters. The latest Harvard Institute of Politics youth survey was also released yesterday, and boy howdy, is she crushing Trump among the whippersnappers under 30. Among likely voters in this cohort, she has the backing of 61% while Trump is the choice of 30%. That's a 31-point gap. In addition, 75% of 30-and-under Democrats now plan to vote, as compared to 60% of 30-and-under Republicans. That's a 15-point gap; when Joe Biden was on the ticket, the gap was only 2 points. Also, less than half of young Democrats supported Biden enthusiastically; for Harris the number is 80%.

The Washington Post had a story yesterday that certainly complements the findings of the Harvard youth survey. According to the Post, it took Harris just 9 days to pile up more unique donors than Biden had during his entire campaign. Further, Harris' donors are younger than Biden's (about 9 years younger, on average) and are less partisan (only 58% of her donors are registered Democrats).

The upshot here is that the Harris coalition, whether it does the job or not, is different from the Biden coalition in substantive ways. We will remind readers, yet again, that when pollsters got to work building their models for the 2024 election, they started with the 2020 electorate. If the 2024 electorate is meaningfully different from the 2020 electorate (say, more Asian voters, more young voters, more low-engagement/nonpartisan voters), that's not easy to correct for on the fly, especially with only a month or so of Harris candidacy to make adjustments.

Incidentally, in our (brief) remarks on yesterday's presidential polls, we wrote: "Siena continues to have a very Trumpy lean this cycle." Several readers wrote in to say that Siena is a good pollster founded by a former Democrat, etc. Note that "very Trumpy lean" does not mean that Siena is wrong/bad (or that it is right/good). It means that they are clearly using a model of the electorate that is Trumpier than the other pollsters. Once the votes are in, around 6 weeks from now, we'll know whose model was right. The folks at Siena might be saying "We told you so!" but they might also end up with egg on their faces. Either is well within the realm of possibility, though note that very few high-quality pollsters have been on the same basic page as Siena this cycle (Emerson has been pretty much in agreement, though). (Z)

Trump Is a Dick

A Dick Nixon, that is. Or that is how it appears, at least.

By now, most readers will have seen the stories that Israel has turned up the heat in its current war, targeting Hezbollah, in particular, in a series of attacks made possible by exploding pagers and walkie-talkies. This might make a great movie, but it makes for a terrible reality.

This obviously does not look like a situation that is headed toward peace anytime soon. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz takes it one step further, and is reporting that Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that he will not agree to a cease fire, under any circumstances, in the next 45 days. The U.S. presidential election, as "chance" would have it, is 42 days away. We cannot find any other outlet that has the 45 days bit, but The Times of Israel and The New York Times are both reporting that Joe Biden now doubts that he will be able to work out a cease fire or a hostage exchange before leaving office, despite his best efforts. This would seem to confirm Haaretz' reporting, albeit indirectly. Thanks to reader L.S.-H. in Naarden, The Netherlands, for the heads up on this news, incidentally.

Back on August 14, pretty much all the major news outlets reported that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu had just had a phone conversation with Donald Trump. The next day, Netanyahu's office denied the call ever happened, while the Trump campaign declined comment. Maybe there was no call, but we seriously doubt that. The nation's major news providers do not move all forward, at the same time, with a made-up story. Plus, Netanyahu is an inveterate liar, and would never admit to a phone call if there was any chicanery involved.

Add it all up, and it sure looks like Trump interfered with efforts to secure peace, in much the same way that Richard Nixon managed to derail a peace deal in Vietnam in 1968. And even if you want to give Trump a pass here, one cannot avoid the conclusion that Netanyahu believes (almost certainly correctly) that he'll get a better deal under Trump than he will under Biden or than he would under Kamala Harris, and he's doing what he can to achieve his desired outcome—increasing the violence, while maneuvering away from any possibility of peace. It's a risky game, since if Harris does win, she is not going to have warm and fuzzy feelings about Netanyahu, to say the least.

It is an unfortunate final chapter in Biden's long and distinguished foreign policy career. He delivered his final address before the U.N. on Tuesday morning (read it here or watch it here), and it was very good and very compelling. His argument was that anything can be achieved by cooperation, and that world peace is within reach. However, he was clearly thinking, in the back of his head, about the two ugly conflicts—Ukraine and Israel—that will still be underway when he leaves office, despite his best efforts to resolve them. (Z)

Trump Legal News: She's the Only One

As expected, Ryan Wesley Routh has been charged with several additional crimes, including "Attempted Assassination of a Major Presidential Candidate" (a violation of 18 USC 351). This would seem to imply that if you take a shot at, say Jill Stein or Cornel West, you're in less trouble than if you go after Donald Trump. If so, that is... interesting.

In any case, Routh's immediate future is going to involve spending a fair bit of time in court, which means a judge had to be assigned to his case. And who did he draw? That's right, Aileen Cannon, who appears to be the only federal judge in the entire state of Florida. Given her proclivities, Routh better get his affairs in order.

Of course, not all federal judges are quite so Trump-friendly. In fact, some of them are not Trump-friendly at all. You know, that whole thing about justice being blind, calling balls and strikes, not taking sides? Among the judges who is not in the bag is Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the Washington case. A few weeks ago, she set a bunch of deadlines for filings and hearings in the case, making clear that she does not care about the election calendar. Trump's attorneys filed a motion to change all the deadlines, on the basis of, in effect, "but the election!" Yesterday, Chutkan advised that she's having none of it, and that Trump's attorneys can take their motion and shove it.

And finally, it is possible (though it seems unlikely) that Trump will face criminal charges in yet another venue. Ohio state law allows private citizens to bring criminal charges, in some circumstances. And so, Guerline Jozef, of the Springfield, OH, based Haitian Bridge Alliance, has brought criminal charges against both Trump and J.D. Vance. The charges are disrupting public services, making false alarms, telecommunications harassment, aggravated menacing and complicity.

The next step here is an as-yet unscheduled hearing, at which it will be determined if the charges have merit. If so, then the plaintiffs are asking that arrest warrants be issued for both Trump and Vance. We are hardly experts in Ohio law, particularly the relatively obscure areas that this suit raises. However, we do know that the local DA chose not to pursue charges, and that several law firms declined to represent the Haitian Bridge Alliance. So, we infer from this information that the case is a longshot. An even longer shot is the possibility of issuing arrest warrants for candidates for office while an election cycle is underway. That said, you never know, which is why we pass it along. (Z)

Trump Says Third Time Better Be the Charm

On Sunday, the Sinclair Broadcast Group aired an interview with Donald Trump, conducted by Sharyl Attkisson. Attkisson is a partisan hack pretending to be an investigative journalist, not unlike John Solomon, but she did manage to produce one potentially newsworthy moment. She inquired whether a 2028 run is in the cards, if this year's run is not successful, and Trump said: "No, I don't. No, I don't. I think that... that will be, that will be it. I don't see that at all. I think that hopefully we're gonna be successful."

Now, it is true that Trump said something similar in 2020, along the lines of "If Biden wins, you won't hear from me anymore." Obviously, that was not the truth. And it's certainly possible that Trump is lying now, or that he really feels this way at the moment, but that he might change his mind later.

That said, we are inclined to think that this is the rare example of some truth issuing forth from The Donald. His heart does not seem to be in campaigning, rallies, etc. anymore, as indicated—most obviously—by the listless acceptance speech at the RNC. Maybe he is bored of it all, and is no longer getting the adrenaline rush he once got from adoring crowds. Maybe the crowds aren't as large and adoring anymore. Or maybe he's freaked out by the assassination attempts. Actually, it could well be all of the above.

Beyond that, among Trump's major goals—and, very possibly, his only goals—in 2024 are: (1) shore up his finances, and (2) stay out of prison. By 2028, he will either have been saved financially by the Truth Media stock sale and other grifts (like the newly introduced crypto exchange and even more newly introduced "collectible coins"), or he will be in ruins. Similarly, by 2028, he will have either beaten the rap the old-fashioned way (with lots of lawyers and longshot legal arguments) or he'll be in prison.

And then, on top of that, add that Trump is 78 years old and is slipping. Just this week, he lit into Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, and said that NBC should bring Johnny Carson back as host. "Where is Johnny Carson? Bring back Johnny," were his exact words. There are a couple of problems with that plan. The first is that Carson retired from the gig in 1992, and said he would not return under any circumstances. The second is that he died in 2005, which means he's probably gonna stick with that promise. Needless to say, whatever is deteriorating/has deteriorated in Trump is not going to benefit from another 4 years up against Father Time.

David Frum was on CNN earlier this week, and during a discussion of Trump's statement that he's not going to run in 2028, Frum said this, which is largely in agreement with our take:

Trump is pre-losing. He's losing in his own mind.

That's why he's desperately selling silver coins when he should be campaigning. That's why Mike Johnson is ignoring Donald Trump's demands and threats and keeping the government open. The speaker is keeping the government open when Trump wants the government shut.

That's why his wife is hawking this book and that's why he seems so depressed every time you see him. He is tasting defeat. He knows what's happening and he can't exert himself or mobilize himself in order to do anything.

That's why he's doing so few events. He's listless, he's lethargic, and he's losing in his own mind. His world is crashing in on him. He's pre-losing.

As you evaluate, keep in mind that Frum is a conservative insider, and well dialed into American politics. On the other hand, he IS an anti-Trumper and... a Canadian, so there are also some pretty good arguments for taking his assessment with a few grains of salt. That said, we think he has the right of it.

We think it's particularly important that Trump has now said, numerous times, things like "If I lose," "Hopefully I don't lose," etc. That is a posture that was almost entirely absent in 2020. If he is allowing for the possibility of defeat, that could certainly affect his campaigning. It might even presage the possibility that, if he's clearly defeated, he doesn't put up quite the fight that everyone is expecting. (Z)

Today's Election Shenanigans Update

We've got one piece of (potentially) bad news on this front, and one piece of (potentially) good news. Most people prefer to hear the bad news first, so we'll start there. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was asked yesterday if he would certify a Kamala Harris victory in the upcoming election. The correct answer to that question is "yes." This, of course, is not the answer he gave. Instead, he offered up the answer that is standard for most Republicans these days: "Well of course—if we have a free, fair, and safe election we're gonna follow the Constitution, absolutely."

This sort of qualified answer is absolutely unnecessary. Should there be compelling evidence of chicanery, nobody expects the Congress to look the other way, and there are procedures in place for addressing the problem. There are only two reasons that Johnson would choose to give something less than the Full Sherman answer (which, again, is "yes"). The less damning is that he has to play along with Donald Trump's "stop the steal" fantasies, because that's what it takes to be in "leadership" in the Republican Party right now. The more damning is that he's a part of the plotting, planning and scheming, and he's helping lay the groundwork for cheating, should Trump lose the election.

So that is the bad news, that Mike Johnson apparently has much less of a spine than Mike Pence. Now the good news. We had been meaning to write a bit more about the machinations of the Georgia Election Board, and then reader G.G. in Shreveport, LA gave us the heads up that Anna Bower at Lawfare beat us to it.

The executive summary (and consider reading the entire linked article) is that the Georgia Elections Board isn't actually going to help very much, or at all, in terms of helping Trump to steal the state's EVs. To start, the new ballot-counting rule creates some potential to drag things out. It MAY even encourage some local officials to commence "investigations" (which probably aren't legal). However, Georgia state law makes very clear that the returns have to be submitted within a week of Election Day, at the very latest. Any officials who did not comply would be hauled into court instantly, and told to provide the ballot counts, or face imprisonment. And even if a person was, or several people were, willing to take a metaphorical bullet for Trump, and to spend some time behind bars, the ballots and machines still exist, and the numbers could quickly be harvested by a court-appointed referee.

All of this would be true of anyone else, at any point in the process, who might be tempted to abrogate their duties. And there is plenty of time—again, given that courts give these matters top priority—built into the process to turn the legal screws on anyone who might try to reinvent the rules (up to and including a state legislature that steps in and decides to "award" the EVs to Trump).

Even in the worst-case scenario, it is worth noting that Team Trump may well be operating under a rather serious error of constitutional law. Many people have said, or written, that if no candidate gets 270 EVs, then the election will be sent to the House for a contingent election. This is simply not correct. In fact, the contingent election happens if no candidate gets at least 50.1% of the ascertained electoral votes. Imagine this situation: Georgia's 16 EVs are disputed, beyond the date the electors meet (December 17). Harris wins Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, the one Nebraska EV, and the safe blue states. That would put her at 262 EVs. Then, Trump wins Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, the one Maine EV, and the safe red states. That would put him at 260 EVs. With Georgia's 16 EVs rendered moot by the terms of U.S. election law, there would only be 522 EVs available, and it would require 261 EVs to win. So, Harris would be elected in this scenario.

The conclusion here is something we've written many times: It is plausible to steal an election BEFORE ballots are cast, by kicking people off voter rolls, requiring ID/proof of citizenship, reducing the number of polling places in minority communities, intimidating voters, etc. It is nearly impossible to steal an election AFTER ballots are cast; there are just too many safeguards. And while it is true that Trump and his acolytes have had 4 more years to plan, as compared to 2020, so too have the people who would protect democracy. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

The leads aren't big, but Kamala Harris is ahead in all three swing states here, which is certainly better than being behind in all three. (Z)

State	Kamala Harris	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Michigan	48%	45%	Sep 16	Sep 19	Suffolk U.
North Carolina	46%	45%	Sep 04	Sep 13	YouGov
Nebraska	40%	56%	Sep 19	Sep 22	SurveyUSA
New Mexico	50%	42%	Sep 12	Sep 18	SurveyUSA
Nevada	48%	47%	Sep 09	Sep 16	Noble Predictive Insights

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

Today's Senate Polls

We tend to doubt the Michigan race is this close. Yes, there have been a few other close polls, but for every one of those there are three that have Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) up 5-10 points. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Michigan	Elissa Slotkin	45%	Mike Rogers	43%	Sep 16	Sep 18	Suffolk U.
Rhode Island	Sheldon Whitehouse*	52%	Patricia Morgan	37%	Sep 12	Sep 18	MassINC

* Denotes incumbent

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