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New polls: (None)
Dem pickups: (None)
GOP pickups: GA PA
We have enough polls now to warrant putting Kamala Harris' name on the electoral-vote score. Still, don't take this too seriously for at least a week, until we have multiple polls for all the swing states. Nevertheless, this is already Harris' world. The number of GOP pickups is down to two today (GA and PA). On June 26, it was as high as seven.
Trump Spars with Black Journalists
Yesterday, Donald Trump was interviewed at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago. It did not go well. He fought with the moderator and it turned hostile almost instantly.
The moderator, ABC News' Rachel Scott, noted that Trump had insulted Black prosecutors, the first Black president, and the four members of The Squad, all of whom are minorities. She asked him why Black voters should trust him after that. He replied: "Well first of all, I don't think I've ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner." Watch:
Trump called the interview "disgraceful," and said they invited him under false pretenses because he expected Kamala Harris to be there. Actually, most candidates would be happy to be the sole focus of an interview. Trump could have talked about how unemployment was low for Black people during his administration and many other things. Instead he picked a fight with the moderator.
Trump declared that he was the best president for Black Americans since Abraham Lincoln. He said that the invasion of millions of immigrants was taking Black jobs (and got irritated when asked what, exactly, "Black jobs" are). Trump also questioned whether Kamala Harris was Black and mispronounced her name many times. He implied that she was actually an Asian who turned Black for convenience. The moderator pointed out that she attended an HBCU and was a member of a Black sorority. Trump said: "I think somebody ought to look into that, too." When he was asked if Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) was ready to be president on day 1, he didn't answer. He also lied often during the interview, while audience members yelled: "False, false, false." It is an odd way to deal with a demographic group you are trying to win. And they were mostly journalists. You think they might report on the interview?
At yesterday's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: "As a person of color, as a Black woman who is in this position that is standing before you at this podium, behind this lectern, what he just said, what you just read out to me is repulsive, it's insulting."
When we heard that Trump was addressing a group of Black journalists, our initial assumption was that he'd found some sort of group for right-leaning Black journalists, and he was going to use his appearance before them to show how much he embraces "diversity." We were shocked on finding out the group he was speaking to is NOT conservative. Given his general views on race, not to mention his current campaign of raging against Harris, there was virtually no chance this could have ended well. This whole thing was an unforced error that is going to cost Trump Black votes. Surely his campaign manager told him to be nice to Black people and talk about all the good things he did for them as president. He didn't even try.
That the appearance did not go well, and led to Trump being widely lambasted, did not stop him from declaring victory, however. He used his officially-below-$30-a-share social media platform to announce: "The questions were Rude and Nasty, often in the form of a statement, but we CRUSHED IT!" If that is "CRUSHED IT!," we'd hate to see what blowing it looks like.
And yesterday's less-than-stellar appearance follows on the heels of an appearance where Trump shared his opinion that Kamala Harris hates Jewish people, and agreed with his right-wing interviewer that Harris' Jewish husband doesn't count because he's "a crappy Jew." You see a theme here: Barack Obama isn't really an American, Kamala Harris isn't really Black, Doug Emhoff isn't really a Jew. We don't think this helps attract votes to the Trump ticket. However, it could drive them away, and it REALLY could motivate Harris voters to get to the polls.
Now that Trump is experiencing some adversity, he's completely dumped the "I'm a new man" bit, and he's reverted to doing what his gut and his id tell him to do. That worked for him, just barely, in 2016 when he was up against a very unpopular opponent. It may be less effective in 2024, particularly given that his opponent is not historically unpopular, and is currently climbing dramatically in terms of approval rating. (V & Z)
The Fed May Help Americans--and the Republicans Wildly Oppose It
Fed Chair Jerome Powell appears ready to cut interest rates. That would make loans to consumers and businesses cheaper, although it would punish savers, especially older people. Powell would do this only if he felt that inflation was no longer a threat. If he made the cut, there would be news stories everywhere that inflation is over. This would undercut one of the core arguments of Donald Trump and the Republicans, namely that inflation is rampant. They certainly don't want a Trump appointee to be out there saying "inflation has been beaten. We can go back to normal now."
Trump is trying to head off the cuts (even though low interest rates help the real estate industry) by claiming that due to an impending election, the Fed shouldn't do anything. But the Fed is not allowed to take politics into account when making a decision. If Powell were to hold off on cutting rates to help Trump, that would make the Fed just another political agency, like the FCC and the Supreme Court. Powell knows that and will strongly resist the influence of politics.
Yesterday, Powell said that he might cut interest rates as soon as September 17, when the board next meets. The Fed's preferred measure of inflation is close to its target of 2%, so mission accomplished. The Fed pulled off a soft landing. It killed inflation without causing a recession. If Trump were smart, he would take credit for appointing such an economic genius to run the Fed, but he probably won't.
This would be perfect timing for Harris. Just as the campaign is getting in full swing and people are paying attention, she can say that inflation is over and prices won't go up by much anymore. (V)
Abortion Opponents Want to Kill the Ballot Measures
Supporters of abortion access are trying to get initiatives that would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state Constitution on the ballot in a dozen states. Abortion opponents are scared to death of this being put to a vote because everywhere it has come to a vote before, it has passed, even in the red and purple states of Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan. So the anti-choice folks' strategy is increasingly doing whatever it takes to prevent the initiatives from making the ballot in the first place. This includes challenging signatures, getting friendly attorneys general to declare something is legally wrong with the measures, and getting the courts involved to kill the measures. It's all-out war.
In the key swing state of Arizona, for example, Arizona Right to Life sued last week to disqualify the measure, saying that signatures were forged, people were tricked into signing, and forms were incomplete. The group Arizona for Abortion Access said that all these claims were false. Now the courts will have to decide. Arizona Right to Life didn't ask the state AG to declare the measure invalid because Arizona AG Kris Mayes is a Democrat and would not have cooperated.
Lawsuits go both ways. A Republican-dominated panel of state lawmakers tasked with writing a ballot summary decided to describe the measure saying that it would allow the abortion of an "unborn human being." The measure's organizers want to change that to "fetus." A member of the panel fought back and said that "fetus" is a medical term and that real people use "unborn human being." A lower court ruled in favor of Abortion Access but the case will go to the state Supreme Court.
In Montana, where a Senate race could determine control of the Senate, abortion opponents have sued to disallow the signatures of registered voters who haven't voted recently. State law requires a certain number of registered voters to sign ballot petitions, but says nothing about how often they have to vote to qualify to sign petitions. But opponents think it is worth a shot because 20% of the signatories have not voted since the deadline the opponents invented.
Why are they doing this? Toni Webb, of the ACLU, said: "It is an unfortunate distraction. Campaigns are now having to pay for lawyers and deal with litigation." Of course, every penny they spend on lawyers is a penny they can't spend on advertising or get-out-the-vote campaigns. That's probably not an accident.
In Arkansas, Republican officials had stopped counting signatures due to a minor error on the cover sheet. A court recently ordered them to continue counting.
In Florida, a pro-choice measure qualified in April after the organizers gathered over a million signatures and beat back an attempt by the state AG to kill the measure. Now Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has said that there has to be a financial impact statement to go with the measure. There is a battle over that, naturally. DeSantis wants it to say that allowing abortion will mean fewer live births, thus fewer future taxpayers and fewer future revenues for the state. Of course, he doesn't mention that fewer people also mean fewer schools, fewer prisons, fewer people on welfare, and lower expenses for the state. What he cares about is growing the state so it gets more House seats and electoral votes in 2030. There are battles in other states as well.
All of this is putting Donald Trump in a bind. He said that abortion should be up to the states. OK, so the battles are now going on in the states. What's his position? Especially on the abortion measure that will be on the Florida ballot in November and on which he will get a vote.
The effect of an initiative on elections is not clear. In many states, large numbers of Republicans voted for the abortion measures in the past. Getting them to the polls does not guarantee that they will all vote for Democrats, but probably a majority of abortion supporters are Democrats. (V)
Ain't Over Til It's Over
You thought the primaries were over? Nope. There are quite a few primaries in August and September. All of the states listed below still have pending U.S. House primaries. Some also have U.S. Senate primaries, as indicated in the “Notes” field:
| Date | State | Notes |
| Aug. 6 | Kansas | |
| Aug. 6 | Michigan | Open Senate seat primaries |
| Aug. 6 | Missouri | Which Democrat will face Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO)? |
| Aug. 6 | Washington | Which Republican will face Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA)? |
| Aug. 10 | Hawaii | Which Republican will face Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI)? |
| Aug. 13 | Connecticut | Which Republican will face Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)? |
| Aug. 13 | Minnesota | Which Republican will face Sen. Amy Klobuchar (DFL-MN)? |
| Aug. 13 | Vermont | Which Republican will face Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)? |
| Aug. 13 | Wisconsin | Which Republican will face Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)? |
| Aug. 20 | Alaska | |
| Aug. 20 | Florida | Which Democrat will face Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL)? |
| Aug. 20 | Wyoming | Which Democrat will face Sen. John Barasso (R-WY)? |
| Sep. 3 | Massachusetts | Which Republican will face Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)? |
| Sep. 10 | Delaware | Open Senate seat primaries |
| Sep. 10 | New Hampshire | |
| Sep. 10 | Rhode Island | Which Republican will face Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)? |
In some cases, the Senate primary is just a formality because there is only one candidate or one serious candidate. In Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin is almost sure to face Eric Hovde, a wealthy venture capitalist who owns a bank and lives in California. In Florida, Rick Scott will probably face former representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, an immigrant from Ecuador. Florida is full of immigrants from Latin America; that could give her an edge, although beating an incumbent senator is always tough. In Delaware, there is an open seat due to the retirement of Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE). But it is virtually certain that the race will be between Rep. Lisa Rochester (D-DE) and Walmart executive Eric Hansen. In Wyoming, the Democrats found a candidate in Scott Morrow, not that it matters much.
One race that is interesting is in Vermont. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is running for reelection. The Republicans will probably nominate sacrificial lamb Gerald Malloy, an Army veteran. He will be crushed, but we have to give him credit for his clever website URL, deploymalloy.com. One problem here is that although Bernie is the most popular senator in the country and will flatten Malloy, he also has to beat Father Time. Bernie is 82 and the governor, Phil Scott, is a Republican. If Father Time wins this one, Scott will replace Sanders with a Republican. The Bern learned nothing from RBG. He could have stepped aside and let Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) move up, but he chose not to. They all expect to live forever. And by the way, we haven't heard a peep from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who just turned 70 and has severe Type I diabetes. If she were to retire now, Joe Biden could nominate a young Latina and the Senate would quickly confirm her. After Jan. 20, that might not be the case. None of them ever learn. Except Biden. He's a real star.
Some states also have gubernatorial primaries coming up. These include Missouri, Vermont, and Washington. In some states there are also primaries for lieutenant governor, attorney general, and other statewide offices as well as House seats. (V)
Harris Has Crushed Bobby Kennedy Jr.
For a long time, Bobby Kennedy Jr. was riding a wave of support from the double haters. In the polls, he was as high as 15% a month or two ago. That now seems like a year or two ago or maybe a decade or two ago. A YouGov national poll released yesterday has Kamala Harris at 46%, Donald Trump at 44%, Kennedy at 3%, Jill Stein at 0% and Cornel West at 0%. The rest are undecided.
Kennedy is clearly struggling. He is running out of money, he is having trouble getting on the ballot in many states, his family is actively opposed to him, and since the Democrats swapped candidates, he is cratering in the polls, as well.
Finances are a huge problem, as they always are for marginal candidates. He spent $1 million more than he took in last month and his campaign is already $3 million in debt. His biggest super PAC took in only $228,000 in June. He could self-finance the next couple of months if he wants to throw away his money, but if the goal of his backers was to pull votes away from Biden to help Trump... well, guess what, Biden is no longer running. How long will Kennedy keep up his campaign? Maybe he doesn't mind throwing away his money, but for what? To get maybe 1% of the vote and humiliate himself?
What doesn't help is that Kennedy hasn't changed his campaign much since Harris got in. It has always been mostly about attacking Biden, and occasionally Trump. He is still doing that. It is as if he didn't notice that Biden isn't running anymore. Attacking Biden all day isn't a way for him to get a lot of votes.
There is already speculation about Kennedy making a deal with Trump. In return for an endorsement, Trump would give him some plum job in his administration, or at least an ambassadorship to some country with a pleasant climate. Kennedy has already contacted Trump, but he hasn't said what they talked about or whether any deal was made. The danger for Kennedy is that he could discover that Trump's idea of a plum assignment and his don't align well. For example, Trump could offer ambassadorships to Nauru or Tuvalu.
Nauru is an island made of bird poop, and when the mining of the bird poop became uneconomical in the 1990s, the country decided to become an illegal tax haven. Trump might consider that a plum assignment.
Tuvalu is a volcanic archipelago and doesn't have any bird poop to speak of. However, its official ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code is TV. So if you want the URL of your Website to be xyz.tv, you have to register it in Tuvalu. In 1996, a Canadian company paid the government of Tuvalu $50 million for the right to license domain names with extension .tv. The contract was resold several times, but Trump probably sees making money from licensing your ISO 3166 country code as a great business deal, so being ambassador there would also be a plum assignment in his eyes. (V)
Harris May be Tougher on the Supreme Court than Biden
Joe Biden has now announced his plans to reform the out-of-control Supreme Court. They include constitutional amendments to declare that nobody is above the law, not even the president, term limits for justices, and a binding code of ethics for the justices. It is a bit late, though. When Democrats had control of Congress and he could have tried to make some progress on these things, Biden did nothing. It is clear this is just a political stunt and he doesn't really mean it.
Kamala Harris is going to ride Supreme Court reform for all it is worth as a campaign issue. However, it seems likely that if she wins, she will take it seriously and will try to do something about reforming the Court.
With a Democrat as president, the Republicans might be open to a constitutional amendment that said that presidents are not immune to prosecution, not during their term and not after. She could encourage the Republicans by mentioning some illegal acts she could take (like ordering Donald Trump put in prison without bothering with a trial) and without having to answer for them. It might have a chance.
Getting a term-limits amendment passed and ratified would probably be impossible. Republicans have a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court now and hope to keep it for decades, although sometimes justices leave the Court involuntarily, as Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg found out the hard way. Congress could pass a term-limits law, but the Supreme Court would surely shoot it down, citing the wording of the Constitution itself, which grants justices a lifetime appointment, assuming good behavior.
A law subjecting justices to the same code of ethics as federal judges would be doable if the Democrats get the trifecta and can manage to overcome a likely filibuster. Figuring out a serious enforcement mechanism is an open issue, however.
What if Harris can't do any of these things, or can only do the third one? Done? Then what? She might be open to other ways to rein the Court in. One of her top advisers is Brian Fallon, a leading exponent of expanding the Court. It has varied from 6 to 10 justices over time, and can be changed at any moment simply by having Congress pass a law dictating the size. Fallon would no doubt advise Harris that this is the moment for an expansion, and probably for an expansion of the lower courts as well.
Fallon formed a group called Demand Justice. Its chief counsel, Christopher Kang, said: "The thing we tried to instill at Demand Justice is that the courts are just not on the level anymore and are making decisions based on politics, not on law." To the extent that Fallon has Harris' ear and all the other methods fail, she might agree to support expanding the Court.
The other thing that Congress can do without a constitutional amendment is strip jurisdiction from the Court. The Constitution specifically gives Congress the power to limit the appellate jurisdiction. In the most extreme form, Congress could effectively nullify Marbury v. Madison by passing a law restricting the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction to, say, only cases in which someone had killed a hamster and the owner sued the killer for damages. Everything else is off the table. Since there is nothing in the Constitution about the Supreme Court having the power to throw out laws duly passed by Congress, a very broad restriction like the above would actually return the Court to its intended role, which was never to run the country. That was left to the political branches. Will Fallon push Harris on this? Very likely. Will she agree? She might. (V)
If It Can Happen by Accident It Can Happen on Purpose
The CrowdStrike bug disrupted the entire country for the better part of a week. Everyone is focusing on all the delayed flights and hospitals that had to shut down, and so on. But according to an opinion piece by Mick Mulvaney, who was director of the OMB, acting director of the CFPB, and chief of staff in the Trump administration, all of them missed the point.
Mulvaney was driving from Milwaukee to Chicago the day the CrowdStrike bug hit and needed to get gas. The gas station was accepting only cash because its credit card processor was hit by the bug and was down. In a war situation, attacking the credit card processor is just as good as blowing up an oil refinery (only easier). In both cases, the result is no gas.
We are already seeing this kind of asymmetric warfare. In 1982, a $200,000 Exocet missile sank a $50 million British warship. In Ukraine, $80,000 Javelin missiles are regularly destroying $5 million Russian tanks. There are plenty of other examples of cheap attacks that cause massive damage.
We haven't seen this in politics much yet, but don't hold your breath (but do see the item below on deepfakes). Suppose a hacker either affiliated with one side or rooting for one side penetrated the other side's main computer system and took control. What could it do? A lot. It might be able to get into the campaign's main bank account and wire tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to its account in Switzerland, and from there route it to Liechtenstein, then to the Cayman Islands, then to Nauru, and then break it up into smaller chunks and send them to hard-to-track offshore banks around the world. The campaign wouldn't be able to recover it.
Or suppose the hacker could send out a fake tweet from Donald Trump saying that he fully supported J.D. Vance's plan to give children the vote (to be exercised by their parents) so that large families would (rightfully) get many more votes than childless cat women. Or a fake tweet from the Harris campaign saying that on Jan. 20, 2025, at 1 p.m. she would order the CIA to capture Donald Trump and store him at Guantanamo Bay permanently so that the U.S. courts couldn't get him released. It is easy to think of incredibly damaging fake tweets (or press releases or notices on their website) either side could send out in the name of their opponent. Of course, the victim would vigorously deny the original message etc., but millions of people would believe the tweet/release/etc. and not the denial.
And then there are deepfake videos, like the one we had on Monday. But suppose a hacker could make one that was not quite so over the top and post it on the campaign's own website and block the campaign from removing it, by changing all the passwords. It could be up for hours and do immense damage. The possibilities are limitless and we doubt anyone is taking the threat seriously. After all, look at the damage the CrowdStrike bug did, and that was a simple bug, not a carefully planned attack with a serious attempt to make it difficult to undo the damage. If this becomes a reality, and it is not too hard to imagine that it could, we are in for some rough sailing. (V)
States Are Fighting Deepfakes with Largely Toothless Laws
Deepfakes generated by AI are proliferating. The DHS is warning election authorities about how they could mislead voters and influence elections. A dozen or so states have passed laws trying to fight the problem. Some of them require candidates to label AI-generated content as such, with penalties if they fail to do so. In some states, it is serious. In Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and New Mexico a candidate can go to prison. However, in some other states, it is a joke. In Utah and Wisconsin the penalty is $1,000. In Oregon it is $10,000. If a campaign has spent $10,000 making an ad and many thousands more buying air time to broadcast it, adding another $1,000 to the bill is simply a cost of doing business. You do it, you get fined, and you pay the fine promptly. Rinse and repeat.
And, of course, this applies only if the perpetrator can be caught. If an outsider not (formally) connected to a campaign posts a deepfake on YouTube, the police have to first notice that some video is a deepfake, then figure out who done it and then catch him. If he lives in St. Petersburg, Russia, that could be a bit complicated. In reality that is rarely, if ever, going to happen.
The law could be written differently, of course, holding the platform responsible. If a deepfake is posted to YouTube, then YouTube would be responsible and subject to the fine, not that a $1,000 fine is likely to bother Google very much. But it could be vastly larger—for example, $1,000 for each time someone viewed it. Needless to say, the tech companies would oppose this with everything they've got. However, since neither the Democrats nor the Republicans especially like them, there is potential for doing something here.
The FCC voted earlier this year to outlaw the use of AI-generated voices in robocalls. However, the rule hasn't been finalized yet and may not be before the election. So it is legal to make up a recording that sounds like Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, call millions of people, and have the candidate "say" outrageous things. But even after the rule is finalized, it can be enforced only if the robocalls can be traced back to a campaign. If an outsider financed by dark money is making the calls, catching him and proving that he was the one who generated the calls will be very difficult. (V)
How to Donate to Democrats with Impact
Kamala Harris raised $250 million in the first week. Together, that is a record haul and will allow her to run a good campaign. But from the point of view of an individual donor thinking of tossing another $50 into the pot, $250,000,000 and $250,000,050 are kinda the same number, more or less.
Two organizations that support the Democrats are trying to guide donors to make donations to Democrats where they will have the most impact. They are Oath and Blue Tent. They look at three factors: (1) competitiveness, (2) high stakes, and (3) financial need. They have analyzed thousands of races from state legislatures on up. If a race is not competitive, either because it is a sure win or a sure loss, why waste money on it? So only competitive races make the finals.
Second, the race has to matter. The Idaho state Senate is 7D, 28R. If one of the Republican seats is very competitive and with some extra cash, the Democrats could change the Senate to 8D, 27R, that race would not be a good investment since it really doesn't matter who wins it, even if the race is very winnable.
Third, if a race is winnable and important, but the candidate already has more money than he or she could possibly spend, then the donor should look elsewhere. Only if a race scores high on all three factors does it get recommended.
On Oath's main page, there is a link to the top six candidates. One is running for the U.S. House (Rudy Salas in California is trying to unseat an incumbent Republican in a D+5 district). One is running for lieutenant governor of North Carolina. The others are running for the state legislatures in Michigan (which the Democrats barely control, so this is a defense play), Arizona (which the Republicans barely control), and Wisconsin. Due to the new map, the entire Wisconsin legislature is up for grabs and this seat meets all the criteria.
Blue Tent works a little differently. You can choose one of 10 candidates for state legislatures, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania (which is also on knife's edge) and a few other states. But you can also donate to groups that support various causes and let them choose the races. The causes include climate change, criminal justice reform, grassroots organizing, gun violence, housing, progressive media, racial justice, regulating Wall Street, reproductive rights, the courts, voting rights, and workers' rights. That way, you pick a cause you care about and they find the candidates who can best help that cause.
Finally, Blue Tent has selected groups to donate to, including those focusing on AAPI voters, Black voters, Latinos, white women, young voters, grassroots organizing, and a number of others. So with Blue Tent, you can choose a candidate, a cause, or a group you like and get the biggest bang for the buck.
If anyone knows of analogous groups for Republicans, please let us know and we will write them up, too. Note that WinRed is like ActBlue, a clearinghouse for funneling money. It doesn't suggest giving it to this representative or that state senator, so please don't suggest WinRed. (V)
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