New Registrations Are Surging

In most of the swing states, registrations are up compared to 2020. Will this mean there will be more voters this year? Probably, since when people register to vote just before an election, they are very likely to vote. Also, this time, COVID-19 is not stalking the land, making it easier to vote. The conventional wisdom has always been that high-turnout elections help the Democrats, but there is evidence that there are plenty of marginal Trump voters out there. If they decide to participate this time, it could help the Republicans. So, who knows which party high-turnout helps more?

To give one example, North Carolina has 500,000 more registered voters now than it had in 2020, when Donald Trump won the state by 74,000 votes. In Michigan, there are 350,000 more voters now than in Oct. 2020. Biden won that state by 150,000 votes. In Nevada, there are 260,000 more registered voters now than in 2020. In 2020, Biden won the Silver State by 33,600 votes. In August 2024 alone, 125,000 new voters registered in Arizona.

The surge in registrations is due to several factors. One of them is that since the 2022 election cycle, 8 million 16- and 17-year olds have turned 18 and are thus eligible to register. Another one is the ferocity of this year's presidential election, which may motivate some eligible but previously unregistered citizens to go register.

Online sites that help people register are seeing more traffic than in the past. Sometimes that is in response to some external event. For example, vote.gov was getting 30,000 visitors a day until Taylor Swift dropped her bombshell. In the next 24 hours, the site had 406,000 visitors. We don't think that was a coincidence. Sept. 17 is National Voter Registration Day. On that day, another site, the similarly named vote.org, broke its record and registered 150,000 new voters, of which 16% were from the seven swing states.

One swing state is lagging, though: Pennsylvania. There, 150,000 fewer people are registered now than were on Election Day 2020. But people can still register.

If you want to know the last date you can register in person, online, or by mail, these interactive maps show the deadlines for every state. In some states, the deadline is as early as Oct. 4. In 25 others, you can register when you show up on Election Day. Three swing states allow registration on Election Day: Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin. These dates are important to the campaigns. Up until the deadline, the focus is registering new voters. After the deadline, the focus is getting registered voters to vote in-person or by mail. Of course, in states where you can register and vote at the same time, the focus is on both registering and voting up until Nov. 5.

A name you are going to see a lot here and elsewhere until Nov. 5 is Michael McDonald. No, not the musician who was part of The Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan. The professor of political science at the University of Florida whose research speciality is elections, especially turnout and early voting. Every political reporter in the country is probably going to check in with him regularly for the next 5 weeks to see how things are going compared to past cycles. He loves being in the media, so he is happy to oblige. He has also been a consultant to various pollsters. (V)

The Elections Are Uncommonly Close This Year

The elections this year show an exceedingly divided country. Right now, our map has Kamala Harris at 276 electoral votes and Donald Trump at 262. Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight has an article on why Nevada could go red this year, in contrast to most previous years. Nevada has an unusual economy, highly dependent on the hospitality industry, with many workers earning much of their living through tips. The state's population is 28% Latino and Latinos have been trending Republican recently. All in all, Trump has a good chance of picking off the state.

What would happen then? The current 276-262 score would then become 270-268, still enough for a Harris win. However, our model assumes that Trump will win all five EVs in Nebraska and Harris will win all four EVs in Maine. Most likely, Harris will win NE-02 and Trump will win ME-02, so the two districts cancel out and it is the same as a Trump sweep of Nebraska and a Harris sweep of Maine. However, there is a realistic chance that Trump could win Nevada and also both NE-02 and ME-02. That would result in a 269-269 tie. This is not some wild-eyed fantasy. It could happen. Harris knows this and is spending millions of dollars in NE-02, sometimes referred to as "the blue dot."

If it ends up 269-269, we get a contingent election, with the House picking the president in an election with each state having one vote. It is possible that the House could end up with as many Democratic delegations as Republican ones, although that is unlikely because the small states with a single House member are mostly Republican. But if the House is deadlocked, then the Senate gets to pick the vice president, who would act as president until the House picks a president.

But right now, we have the predicted Senate at 50-50. This is slightly misleading, because in the Nebraska regular election, union leader Dan Osborn is slightly ahead of Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE). He isn't actually a Democrat, but an independent. If he wins, he might caucus with the Democrats, the way the four other Senate independents do. Still, there is a small, but real chance that the Electoral College will deadlock at 269-269, the House presidential vote will deadlock at 25-25, and the Senate will deadlock at 50-50. Talk about a divided country. If all three of these things come to pass (unlikely, but possible), the speaker of the House will act as president until the deadlocks can be broken. But it is not a sure thing the House can elect a speaker. In 2023, it took 15 ballots to elect a speaker. If the House can't elect a speaker, then the president pro tem of the Senate is next in line. But if the Senate is 50-50, there won't be a president pro tem. Next in line is the secretary of state, so we could get Acting President Tony Blinken because cabinet officers' terms do not automatically end on Jan. 20. Stranger things have happened. (V)

Precision Disinformation Campaigns May Hurt Harris with Young Black Men

Despite massive enthusiasm from young people, Kamala Harris has not surged in the polls. She is a bit ahead of Donald Trump nationally and in most of the swing states, but only a bit. How come the enthusiasm isn't translating into better polling?

A number of Democrats associated with the Harris campaign have looked at this phenomenon closely and concluded that the main culprit is a sophisticated and precisely targeted disinformation campaign on social media platforms, especially Twitch. This is crucial for people whose only source of election information is social media. The main target appears to be young Black men. Many of them feel that progress on issues they care about is much too slow and the disinformation campaign blames Joe Biden and Harris for dragging their feet. Here, Donald Trump's image as someone who ignores rules, laws, and other barriers works for him. The pitch can be: "He can get things done because he will just trample on anyone or anything in his way."

Some surveys have shown that young people aren't really tuned in much to politics yet. Right now, for many of them, going back to school and getting settled has priority. Once early voting starts, many of them will begin to pay attention.

Trump has an advantage here because he has been a candidate longer than Harris, so even people who are not really paying attention know him better. Harris still has to introduce herself. She and her campaign are well aware of this and are definitely targeting young voters already. (V)

The DNC [sic] Is Spending Money in Idaho [sic] and Guam [sic]

Yeah, we had to [sic] the headline to avoid getting a thousand e-mails politely informing us of typos in it. The DNC has so much money now that it feels comfortable in not only spending money downballot, but also way downballot and in places that don't normally get much love from the Party. The DNC raised $69 million itself last month, separate from Kamala Harris' campaign.

You might be surprised at the DNC spending money in Arkansas, Kansas, North Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia, but it is doing that. Not in the presidential race, mind you, but lower down. For example, in Kansas, Republicans have a supermajority and can override vetoes from Gov. Laura Kelly (D-KS). But if Democrats can flip three seats in the state Senate, the Republicans will no longer be able to override gubernatorial vetoes, and all of a sudden will have lost most of their power. Then Republican leaders in the state legislature will have to negotiate with the governor, something they don't have to do now. In other states, flipping a few seats in the state legislature can change partisan control of a chamber. Arizona and Pennsylvania come to mind here. States are important and who runs them is also important. States do more things that affect people's lives than does the federal government. This has always been true, but it took a while for the DNC to notice this. In the past, all attention went to the top of the ticket and maybe Congress. Everyone below that was shut out. No longer. (V)

Vance Has a Healthcare Plan and a Strategy

Donald Trump may have concepts of a plan for healthcare, but Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has an actual plan. Only it is not his. It is Paul Ryan's. It's pretty simple at its core: Healthcare can be made cheaper by not providing it to people who are sick. If you want to dive into the details, this is how it would work. Private insurance companies would be allowed to refuse to enroll people with pre-existing conditions. The companies could decide what conditions were grounds for refusal. The result would be that the companies would then be insuring mostly healthy people, so they could lower premiums to attract new customers. Competition among companies would determine how much customers would pay. It is estimated that about 80% of the population would be covered this way. For these people, health insurance would be cheaper than it is now.

What about the 20% of the population with serious chronic illnesses? In RyanCare, the government would run high-risk pools these people could join. They would be funded by annual appropriations from Congress. This would allow Congress to determine every year exactly what it wanted to spend on health care. A minor consequence of this plan is that the available money would be finite. If it were all gone by August and a patient put in a claim in September, the government wouldn't pay. Instead it would advise the patient to try to get sick next year before April or May, before the money ran out.

How would this play politically? Possibly fairly well. Something like 80% of the population would get good private insurance for less than they are paying now. Republicans would take credit for lowering the cost of health care. For the other 20%, they probably wouldn't be so happy and wouldn't vote for the Republicans. Nearly all politicians can count to 100%. They will take 80% over 20% any day.

In addition to his healthcare plan, Vance also has a campaign strategy. At events, he takes questions from local reporters before he takes questions from national ones (if he takes them at all). Local ones go easier on candidates. Nevertheless, as soon as the reporter begins asking a question, Vance cues the booing so the reporter is drowned out and can't ask the question. Vance has said about this: "We're having fun. You're allowed to ask your question; they're allowed to tell you how they think about it. That's OK. This is America."

If the reporter does manage to ask a question, the crowd jeers. When Vance "answers" it, even if the "answer" doesn't relate to the question, the crowd cheers. One reporter described the crowd as the Greek chorus in an Aeschylus play. It is there to amplify the emotion, not to explain anything. Does it work? It seems to be an improvement for the wannabe VP, because Vance has had trouble connecting with crowds and getting them to boo reporters provides a common denominator between Vance and "the people." (V)

The Next Debate Is Tomorrow

It doesn't seem likely that there will be another presidential debate, but there will most definitely be a vice-presidential debate, and it is tomorrow. It will be sponsored by CBS and will take place at 9 p.m. ET in New York. It will be held in the Manhattan studio that once hosted "Captain Kangaroo." Seems appropriate to us, given the tone and tenor of modern politics. The moderators will both be women: Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan. Will this get more women to watch? We don't know.

J.D. Vance won the coin toss and decided to give the final closing statement. That meant that Gov. Tim Walz (DFL-MN) got to pick where he stands on stage and (naturally) he picked the power position, on the right from the viewer's perspective (stage left). Walz will be introduced first. Neither candidate may bring notes or props on stage. They may also not interact with anyone during the commercial breaks. There will not be any opening statements. There will not be a studio audience. The debate will run for 90 minutes.

Will the debate be wild and wooly? On the one hand, CBS has made two important decisions that could increase the wooliness factor. First, moderators will not call out lies from either candidate. The network has said that is up to the candidates. Second, the mics will not be muted at all. This allows each candidate to respond to any lie in real time with "LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE."

Sen. J.D. Vance is a Yale-Law-School-trained lawyer. Lawyers at that level are expected to make reasoned arguments and not just scream. Tim Walz was a teacher for many years. Same applies to him. Will it be civil? Probably mostly, with some interruptions and back-and-forth yelling. Will it matter? Unless one of the candidates compares himself to Jack Kennedy, probably not. Can you think of anything ever said at a vice presidential debate not relating to Jack Kennedy that you can remember off the top of your head? We can't. That said, Vance might want to bring a can of bug spray. We can certainly remember the Mike Pence fly.

One word to listen for is "weird." It was Walz who launched that word into the political stratosphere. It might well land on the debate stage. We are kind of expecting that it will, actually. One point Vance will surely try to make is that Walz claimed to be a command sergeant major when he was merely a sergeant major. His argument is way down in the weeds, though, and has to do with the exact moment a promotion counts. Is it when your commanding officer grants it or when the last bureaucrat has stamped the last piece of paper? In any event, Walz will point out that he served in the military for 24 years vs. Vance's 4 years.

Both candidates are taking prep seriously. Vance has done prep sessions at his Cincinnati home, and in mock debates with Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) playing Walz. Walz has also done mock debates, with Pete Buttigieg playing Vance. (V)

Kennedy Is Still Fighting to Get on and off Ballots

Keeping track of where Robert Kennedy Jr. is on or off the ballot is a project unto itself. Remember, when he and his backers thought his presence on the ballot would help Donald Trump, he fought tooth and nail to get on as many ballots as possible. He did get on a number of them. Good work, Bobby. Now that his campaign turned out to be a total failure and it appears he is hurting Trump, he is fighting to undo much of his hard work getting on the ballots. For the most part, it is the swing states that he cares most about.

In most states, he asked to be removed from the ballot after the deadline, so the secretary of state simply refused, conformant to state law. So Kennedy sued. In some cases, a Republican-friendly Supreme Court ruled that state law isn't so important when following it will hurt Trump, so they removed him. He got off the ballot in Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. He also got off in Arizona, but there he submitted his request before the deadline, so a lawsuit was not needed.

On Friday, Kennedy got some bad news in Wisconsin. The Supreme Court there, which has a Democratic majority, ruled that the deadline for removal has passed so he must remain on the ballot. Bummer, since Wisconsin is one of the closest states.

In New York, Kennedy is trying to get ON the ballot. The dispute there is a little different from in the other states. A New York voter challenged the validity of his attempt to get on the ballot because his petition used a false New York State address, in violation of state law. He actually lives in California. A state judge ruled in favor of the voter, de facto meaning that Kennedy had violated New York State law by using an in-state address he does not live at.

Kennedy appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and lost there. Then he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. On Friday, the high Court ruled against Kennedy. So, his name will not appear on the New York State ballot. NY AG Letitia James urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Kennedy's petition because absentee ballots to overseas and military voters have already gone out. By upholding the lower court's decision, those ballots are now legal and there are no problems, except in Kennedy's mind. They are probably right there, next to the worm.

Kennedy is so hypocritical it is beyond belief. It is thought he is hoping Donald Trump will give him a plum job in his administration if he wins. He clearly does not know how Trump thinks. Trump values true loyalists or at least people who can put on a good act. Neither describes Kennedy. (V)

Democratic Ads Feature Women Who Needed an Abortion and Were Refused

Many political ads feature the candidate saying something positive about himself or herself or something negative about the opponent. But quite a few of the Democratic ads this year are different. The candidate is not in them at all. Here is an example of one running full-blast in North Carolina:

Nominally, it is an ad for AG Josh Stein (D), who is running for governor, but Stein isn't in the ad. It is an ad against all Republicans in the state since the Democrats are trying to tar all Republicans with Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC). The Democrats are quite serious about the ad. They are spending millions of dollars to run it on television and digitally.

In five states, Democratic Senate candidates are running similar ads. In them, a woman speaks to the camera and says she wanted to have a baby. However, her doctor told her that the baby would not survive and she might not either unless she had an abortion, which was illegal in her state. The ads are gut wrenching, which is the idea, of course. These are not women who, to quote Robinson, "were not responsible enough to keep your skirt down." The women wanted the baby very much, but it was malformed and wouldn't survive, and in some cases, neither would the mother absent an abortion. This kind of ad may come to define the 2024 election cycle, especially if the candidates running them all win. (V)

Follow the Money

If you want to know which House race is the most important, look for the one where the most money has been spent. In this cycle, the winner is NY-19, a district that runs from the New York City exurbs west to the Catskills and over to the Finger Lakes district. It covers parts of Dutchess, Orange, Rockland and Westchester Counties, and all of Putnam County. So far, a total of $36 million has been spent there. That is an extraordinary amount for a House race, even for one with a PVI of EVEN. Even for a Senate race, that would be a lot. Here is the district:

The race pits Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY) against challenger Josh Riley (D). In 2022, Molinaro barely beat Riley, who figures that in a presidential year, he will have a better chance. Molinaro understands that he is in a tight race, so he is repeating J.D. Vance's lie that Haitians are eating cats and dogs. Will that work in the CATskills? Or with the childless cat ladies? Who knows? But the race has become extremely negative. Molinaro is calling Riley an elitist D.C. lawyer who pushed far-left progressive policies. Riley is calling Molinaro an abortion extremist.

As a sign of the importance of the race, the DNC has opened seven offices in the district, staffed by 12 paid employees. This is unheard of.

This is one of five swing districts in New York represented by Republicans that Democrats are targeting. All of them are being bitterly fought, but this is the only one with a PVI of EVEN, making it ground zero. (V)

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