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Harris' Campaign Is Bigger Than Trump's
There is so much contradictory information out there that it is hard to understand what is actually going on. It turns out that a national election has a lot of moving parts. Who knew? For one thing, Kamala Harris is running a much bigger campaign than Donald Trump. She has spent $263 million on ads since the end of the DNC. Trump has spent $109 million since then. She also has more staff, more volunteers, a larger surrogate operation, more digital presence, and a smartphone-based organizing program. She is flying drones to put on light shows. Rally attendees get light-up bracelets. She has more money than she can use and is pulling out all stops. Trump has never faced a money-storm like this one before.
The September figures bear this out. The Harris campaign spent $192 million on ads in September to Trump's $72 million. The article linked to in this paragraph has a summary of the horse race in each of the swing states according to The Hill. Here are the polling averages from The Washington Post:
They pick the same winners we do, even though we no doubt use a different selection of polls. We both see Harris ahead in the three blue wall states and Nevada. That's just enough. Nevertheless, the race is tighter than a tick and either candidate could win.
Is there anything Harris is not doing? She's not campaigning. She is not holding many rallies and not doing many interviews. She is playing it safe and hoping the air war does the job. That works when you are 10 points ahead with a month to go. Many Democrats think that running Hillary Clinton's 2016 playbook is not a good idea when the race is tied everywhere. They want her to be out on the trail doing rallies, town halls, and interviews day and night in all seven swing states. Trump is everywhere and she is not. On Sept. 28, Trump gave a speech in Wisconsin and then went to the Georgia-Alabama football game. Harris went to a fundraiser in San Francisco. At this point, she needs to be getting more votes, not more dollars.
David Axelrod said: "There's a time at which you just have to barnstorm these battlegrounds. These races are decathlons, and there are a lot of events, and you have to do all of them because people want to test you." He doesn't think she is doing enough. If you are the underdog, you can't just pretend you are the overdog and sit on your lead.
Harris is getting plenty of advice. One Democratic operative said: "Do not go to Georgia one more time. You gotta get to Michigan. You need to live in Pennsylvania [because] the challenge is still Black voters in Philadelphia, Black voters in Detroit."
Harris does interact with the media, but not in a substantive way. She gives off-the-record briefings to reporters on her campaign plane during flights. She needs to do live interviews with local media in swing states, and she hasn't been doing that. That said, in the coming week, Harris is going to do a national media blitz. She will be on Howard Stern's radio show, Stephen Colbert's TV show, and The View. A taped interview with her will air on 60 Minutes today. Yesterday she was on the popular Call Her Daddy podcast. So she has apparently taken to heart all the criticism that she is avoiding the media.
Some Democratic strategists say that doing retail politics is worthless, and stopping at a couple of diners every day is pointless. The people she needs won't be there. The only way to reach them is by massive advertising, which she is doing. And this week, the media blitz.
Tim Walz is campaigning constantly, but it is fairly low key. The campaign is trying to minimize risks, possibly due to Walz' modest performance in the debate. But in interviews, his authenticity comes through, which can offset any facts he gets wrong. In contrast, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) is everywhere and talking to anyone who will listen. He doesn't always tell the truth, but he is very visible. (V)
Trump Has a Cheaper Way to Fish for Votes
Donald Trump's campaign has less money than Kamala Harris', which means he can't go toe-to-toe with her on ads and ground game. So he has adopted a different approach altogether, possibly because he had to, but possibly because his team really believes in it.
In a nutshell, Trump's strategy is based on the belief that a large percentage of the marginal voters and nonvoters are disaffected people who hate both parties and the establishment. He hopes by running as an outsider, he can convince them that he also hates the establishment, so they can potentially be motivated to vote for him.
The strategy is based on an app called 10xVotes that promises to help conservatives find 10 nonvoting friends, family, and neighbors. Trump, J.D. Vance, Tucker Carlson and other conservatives urge audiences to download and use it. The idea is for each person who downloads the app to find 10 people who are marginal or nonvoters and get them to vote. This is the ultimate decentralization of the campaign, but it is essentially free, a real plus when you are being outspent by 3x.
Trump ran a pilot of this plan in Florida in 2020. It targeted Black men in the majority-Black city of Miami Gardens. It put flyers featuring outspoken Democratic opponents of Israel on every Jewish doorstep in South Florida. It bombarded Cuban-Americans and Venezuelan-Americans with messages tying Joe Biden to the socialist dictators of their countries. Trump did win the state by 3.4 points. Did this campaign help? Susie Wiles, who ran the Florida operation, thinks so, and now she is running the entire campaign, along with Chris LaCivita.
Not everyone believes this strategy will work. Veteran Republican operative Dennis Lennox of Michigan said. "It's political malpractice. It's a Hail Mary." Can you really count on people who go to rallies to remember to download the app? Will the app really be able to supply each person with 10 names of potential Trump voters who usually don't vote? How did they build such a database and is it up to date? Paul Hudson, who is running for Congress in Michigan, said: "That strategy would be crazy for anyone else. They're low propensity voters for a reason. But I get the sense they [the Trump campaign] are committed to it."
Another unconventional thing Trump has done is outsource his ground game to other groups. Turning Point USA Action was going to handle the ground game in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Then it discovered it didn't have enough money, so it dropped Michigan. A little later it dropped Wisconsin. It is still planning to do Arizona, where the organization is based. If history is any guide, it won't do well there. In 2022, it worked in Arizona for Blake Masters for the Senate and Kari Lake for governor. Both lost. Badly.
Another group that is working on Trump's ground game is the America PAC, which has been funded to the tune of $46 million by Elon Musk. While that is a lot of money, Musk knows next to nothing about running the ground game for a political party and does not take advice easily from those who do know.
Some Democrats say that Trump isn't really trying to win the election by getting more votes. His real strategy is to challenge the results everywhere after the election and get his Supreme Court to hand him the keys to the White House. That's basically what happened in 2000, after all. (V)
Republicans Are Fighting over Early Voting--with Trump
This year, for the first time, Republicans are spending tens of millions of dollars to get Republicans to vote early. But they have a problem—their own candidate. While the RNC is urging voters to cast their ballot early, Donald Trump is telling them it's stupid and mail carriers could "lose hundreds of thousands of ballots, maybe purposefully." He also attacked the practice of all states sending absentee ballots to overseas and military voters as a way to evade citizenship checks.
David Urban, a former Trump senior adviser, said: "It's counterproductive. We're kind of pushing a message, and then the president comes and says, 'I'm not so big on that.' It's much more difficult to convince people." The RNC and allied groups want to get reliable Republican voters to vote early so that they can later work on the marginal voters, but Trump keeps throwing sand in the gears by talking constantly about mail-voting fraud. In many states, the state party has a list of people they think will vote for Trump. They want to be able to cross off as many as possible before Election Day, so they can focus on the remaining low-propensity voters on the final day. But if few Republicans vote early, the state parties will have long lists of potential Republican voters and won't be able to contact all of them on Election Day. Republican strategist Mark Graul in Wisconsin said: "Trump's scaremongering screws it up."
RNC and party officials have been crisscrossing the country giving out the message that voting early is safe and convenient and then Trump tells the voters that their vote might not count if they vote before Election Day. It is not helpful. In fact, it is worse than that because if the RNC had realized early on that Trump was going to defeat their campaign, they would have spent their money in other ways.
In Pennsylvania, for example, the failure is very clear. Only a quarter of the mail ballots requested have been from Republicans, and so far less than one-fifth of the ballots returned already have been from Republicans. In Virginia, Democrats are mailing ballots in at a higher rate than Republicans.
Nearly every step of the way Trump has undermined the RNC. In January, after winning the Iowa caucuses, Trump said mail-in ballots beget "crooked elections." In June in Detroit, he called them "treacherous." In September he said the USPS could lose ballots either through incompetence or purposefully. Gee, he and Democrats agree on that one, although Democrats attribute the problem to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who is still on the job. Republican National Committeeman Andy Reilly of Pennsylvania put it gently: "It does send a mixed message."
Not only is Trump at odds with the RNC and allied super PACs, but he is also at odds with his own spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt. She said the former president "has encouraged all Americans to vote absentee, early, or in-person on Election Day." In reality, he has only encouraged the third of the three options. It must be tough being a spokeswoman for Trump and having to lie like that. On the other hand, maybe one day Leavitt will run for governor of Arkansas. (V)
Hurricane Helene Is Still with Us
We and others have written about this before, but it is really important. Politico has another story about the effects of Helene on the election. The people there are suffering, but the election is going to happen anyway, so we can't ignore this. Here are a few photos of the horrendous damage the storm caused.
One of the many effects of Helene was to wipe out the Democrats' robust campaign infrastructure in the western part of North Carolina, centered in Asheville. All of the Buncombe County plans were instantly canceled. All the party volunteers switched to doing relief work. The party chair, Kathie Kline, relocated to a hotel in Charlotte temporarily where she has power and Internet. She is doing her best to collect volunteers to do GOTV work but it is a struggle.
Early in-person voting starts statewide in 2 weeks, but many voting sites are unusable and the county election authorities there are trying to find alternative locations, although a recent state law makes that illegal. Do votes from an authorized but illegal polling site count? Beats us. Ask Chief Justice John Roberts, since other folks may be asking him that in a month or so. Of course, the legislature could change the law before Election Day, but there is no guarantee that it will.
In addition to all the logistical problems, misinformation and conspiracy theories are sprouting like fall mushrooms after a good rain. Donald Trump is claiming that the federal government is withholding aid from Republican counties. Far-right groups are saying the government will bulldoze communities and seize their land. Elon Musk claimed that private flights to bring supplies to North Carolina were blocked by the FAA (Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that is absolutely false). Alex Jones posted a note saying that the federal government is stealing aid to keep red areas from voting. The list goes on and on. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweeted "they can control the weather." Who's "they"? Democrats? The Harris campaign? The people who operate the Jewish space lasers?
Science fiction and non-science fiction aside, we tried to get a better handle on how Helene might affect the election. Remember that Donald Trump won North Carolina by 74,483 votes in 2020 (out of 5,524,804 votes cast). Keep that in mind. Twenty-five counties have been declared disaster areas. This does not mean that every county was affected equally or that no other counties sustained damage, but it is a starting point. We looked up the 2020 vote by county. Trump won 23 of the counties. The first three columns below give the 2020 election results by county and the fourth column gives the net Trump vote for each county:
| County | Trump | Biden | Net Trump | 25% vote | 50% vote | 75% vote |
| Alexander | 15888 | 4145 | 11743 | 2936 | 5872 | 8807 |
| Alleghany | 4527 | 1486 | 3041 | 760 | 1521 | 2281 |
| Ashe | 11451 | 4164 | 7287 | 1822 | 3644 | 5465 |
| Avery | 7172 | 2191 | 4981 | 1245 | 2491 | 3736 |
| Buncombe | 62412 | 96515 | -34103 | -8526 | -17052 | -25577 |
| Burke | 31019 | 13118 | 17901 | 4475 | 8951 | 13426 |
| Caldwell | 32119 | 10245 | 21874 | 5469 | 10937 | 16406 |
| Catawba | 56588 | 25689 | 30899 | 7725 | 15450 | 23174 |
| Clay | 5112 | 1699 | 3413 | 853 | 1707 | 2560 |
| Cleveland | 33798 | 16955 | 16843 | 4211 | 8422 | 12632 |
| Gaston | 73033 | 40959 | 32074 | 8019 | 16037 | 24056 |
| Haywood | 22834 | 13144 | 9690 | 2423 | 4845 | 7268 |
| Henderson | 40032 | 27211 | 12821 | 3205 | 6411 | 9616 |
| Jackson | 11356 | 9591 | 1765 | 441 | 883 | 1324 |
| Lincoln | 36341 | 13274 | 23067 | 5767 | 11534 | 17300 |
| Macon | 14211 | 6230 | 7981 | 1995 | 3991 | 5986 |
| Madison | 7979 | 4901 | 3078 | 770 | 1539 | 2309 |
| McDowell | 16883 | 5832 | 11051 | 2763 | 5526 | 8288 |
| Mitchell | 7090 | 1867 | 5223 | 1306 | 2612 | 3917 |
| Polk | 7689 | 4518 | 3171 | 793 | 1586 | 2378 |
| Rutherford | 24891 | 9135 | 15756 | 3939 | 7878 | 11817 |
| Transylvania | 11636 | 8444 | 3192 | 798 | 1596 | 2394 |
| Watauga | 14451 | 17122 | -2671 | -668 | -1336 | -2003 |
| Wilkes | 27592 | 7511 | 20081 | 5020 | 10041 | 15061 |
| Yancey | 7516 | 3688 | 3828 | 957 | 1914 | 2871 |
| Total | 583620 | 349634 | 233986 | 58497 | 116993 | 175490 |
| Trump loss | 175490 | 116993 | 58497 |
In the 25 counties, Trump's net edge was 233,986 votes. Now what? Just suppose the damage is so bad that only 25% of the voters in each county vote (column 5), and the Democrats and Republicans are hit equally hard. Then Trump's edge in the 25 counties will be only 58,497, which represents a net loss for him of 175,490 votes.
Alternatively, suppose half the people in the affected counties vote (column 6). Then his edge is 116,993, which is 116,993 fewer votes than in 2020. Or, assume 75% of the people vote (column 7). Then Trump gets 175,490 votes more than Harris, which is 58,497 less than in 2020. If fewer than about two-thirds of the affected people vote and nothing else changes, Trump's loss in these mostly red counties will allow Harris to eke out a win in the state and get the state's electoral votes. If 70% vote and Trump ekes out a statewide win of a few thousand votes, expect to hear that the hurricane was part of God's plan to have Trump win North Carolina. (V)
Number of Vacant Judgeships Is at a 30-Year Low
Joe Biden understands that the election looks to be a coin flip at this point and Donald Trump has roughly a 50% chance of winning. For that reason, the President is trying to fill as many vacancies for U.S. district judges and appeals court judges as he can. If his plan works, the next president will have the smallest number of judicial vacancies to fill in 30 years.
Currently, of the 870 Article III judgeships, only 43 (4.9%) are vacant. This is the smallest number since January of 1989, when George H.W. Bush took over. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wants to confirm as many judges as he can in this session of Congress. For that reason, there will be a lame-duck session of the Senate after the election, when he can ram more nominations through. The Senate is not in session now because close to one-third of the members are out campaigning, but the current Senate will come back on November 12 and work on judicial confirmations until the new Senate is seated on January 3. Donald Trump got 234 judges confirmed in his term and Schumer is trying to beat that.
One thing the Democrats are doing may hurt their quest to fill all the vacancies. There is a quaint Senate custom known as the "blue slip." What it means is that when there is a vacancy in [State X], the senators from that state are given blue slips. If they return the blue slips, the Judiciary Committee proceeds with the confirmation process. If they don't, the nominations are de facto killed. Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) has revived this antique procedure. It means that vacancies in red states are not going to be filled, even if Biden has made a nomination. Republicans don't honor the blue-slip system and ram through confirmations in blue states whenever they get the chance.
Needless to say, the outcome of the election could change the equation. If Harris wins and the Democrats hold the upper chamber, Schumer might not burn so much of the midnight oil, since there isn't too much difference between seating a Democrat in January versus seating one in, say, March or April. On the other hand, if Trump wins and/or the Republicans take the Senate, not only will Schumer burn midnight oil by the barrel, he might also put the kibosh on the blue slips.
When Trump took office, there were over 100 judicial vacancies, largely due to the Republicans blocking many of Barack Obama's nominations near the end of his term. This is why Trump got to make so many appointments: Senate Republicans kept the positions open for him.
Traditionally, many judges announce their retirements after Jan. 20, when the new president is sworn in. Most judges want to be replaced by a president of the same party that nominated them. If Harris wins, older Democratic appointees will retire en masse; if Trump wins, Republican ones will. Of course, if the president's party does not control the Senate, some judges will bite their lips and stay seated. Currently, about 100 judges meet the requirements to retire or claim senior status, but many of them are waiting to see who wins the election. (V)
Adam Schiff Is Out Campaigning Every Day--but Not for Himself
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) had a plan during the primary. Instead of spending his vast campaign warchest boosting himself, he spent it boosting former baseball player Steve Garvey, who is a Republican. The ads all said that Garvey was the only true conservative in the race, thus encouraging Republicans to come out and vote. The idea was to make sure Garvey came in second in California's top-two primary system, thus allowing Schiff to avoid a November battle with another Democrat. Ratf**king at its finest. It worked like a charm, as Schiff faces the hopeless Garvey in November.
Now given California's blue lean, Schiff isn't even bothering to campaign for himself. He hasn't even run any ads so far. His own election is a done deal. Instead, he spends his time campaigning for other Democrats, mostly Democratic challengers trying to knock off incumbent House Republicans in California, and vulnerable Democratic senators out of state. This kind of team spirit could pay off for him later when Schiff would like to be on certain committees or later be in leadership positions. Politicians tend to remember who was there when they needed help.
For Schiff, campaigning across California for the competitive House races is a twofer. It helps the Democrats capture the House, but also increases his own exposure in parts of the state far from his Burbank district. He also said: "I want a Democratic House to work with."
In October, Schiff is going to barnstorm all the competitive House districts in California and make at least six trips out of state to help shore up Democrats in tight Senate races. He is a prolific fundraiser and has raised $7 million for Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party committees. He also transferred $1 million from his own campaign to the DSCC. He has a national e-mail list and is happy to share it with other Democrats. This is how you make friends and influence people when you are a first-term junior senator. This is not Schiff's first time playing Santa Claus. In 2020, he gave out $19 million to Joe Biden and candidates for the House and Senate.
Dan Newman, an advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), said: "The race ended in March, so Senator-elect Schiff is doing exactly what he should to maximize his impact in the Senate." He's not exactly a senator-elect yet, but that is just a minor formality. (V)
The Heritage Foundation Is Working on Lists of Whom to Fire in Trump v2.0
One of the items in Project 2025 is to reintroduce Schedule F, which would declare about 50,000 civil servants to be political appointees and thus fireable by the president at will. Of course, to be most effective, Donald Trump should fire only Democrats, and not Republicans, otherwise he will be replacing experienced Republicans who can get things done with inexperienced Republicans, who don't know beans about their new job. But how can Trump tell which civil servants are Democrats and Republicans? Ask each one? Probably not.
The Heritage Foundation is coming to his rescue. It has filed dozens of FOIA requests with NASA to get information about which NASA employees have talked to Elon Musk (who is in the space business) or Donald Trump. The Foundation says that NASA is failing to do cool things in space because it is too busy being woke on the ground. Based on what it learns, Heritage could present Trump with a list of people to fire the minute Schedule F goes into effect. Nice to have people working to help you.
NASA isn't the only agency the Heritage Foundation is targeting. It is just the one in the news right now. In recent years, it has filed over 65,000 FOIA requests. This gives it quite a bit of information it could use when advising Trump about whom to fire. (V)
Blue States Are Trying to Trump-Proof Their States
The governors of a number of blue states are actively taking measures to prevent Donald Trump from causing certain kinds of problems in their states should he win. Washington and Massachusetts bought a 4-year supply of Mifepristone and stored it safely in state at an undisclosed location just in case Trump bans interstate transport of abortifacients by enforcing the Comstock Act. California has made its own deal with car manufacturers about emissions standards, which means they won't be able to sell gas guzzlers and highly polluting cars in California, even if federal standards are eliminated. If all the blue states do the same thing, it won't be worth it to the auto companies to have two production lines, one that meets blue state standards and one that meets (much lower) federal standards, if any. It will be simply easier to sell the blue-state models nationwide. Colorado is about to guarantee same-sex marriage in its state law. In short, many blue states are trying to foresee damage Trump could do if he wins and are trying to counter it in advance. Their AGs are also preparing lawsuits to challenge Trump's regulations on many fronts. Unlike 2016, when Democrats were caught flatfooted, this time they are prepared. Project 2025 has become required reading in blue-state AG offices.
California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D) said: "We've already stopped Trump once and we're prepared to do so again." He is also coordinating with leaders in other blue states. Trump will have a much tougher time governing if half the states are actively opposing him and fighting him tooth and nail on everything. Remember, the Constitution clearly defines what powers the federal government has, delegating other powers to the states. In a Trump administration, there will be many lawsuits from states claiming that the federal government is not allowed to do what Trump is trying to do. This could put some of the conservative Supreme Court justices in a bind. While they may like Trump, they also like muzzling the federal government in favor of the states. The states could win some of the cases.
If Trump wins, Newsom is almost certain to run for president in 2028. He wants to prepare for that by being the leader of the opposition starting Jan. 20 at noon. Under him, California is already pursuing its own foreign policy, negotiating deals on climate change and other things with China, Australia, and other countries. What would happen if Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate treaty but California (and some other states) joined it? It would take years before the case got to the Supreme Court.
Newsom is also active domestically. Last week he signed a bill requiring insurance companies to cover in vitro fertilization. Again, if the other blue states do the same thing, the insurance companies may decide it is simpler to have one set of policies for the whole country than two, and then cover it everywhere, even where that is not mandated by state law. There are a lot of things the blue states can do to set de facto national standards if they work together.
Currently, 42% of the country's population lives in a state with a Democratic trifecta, 41% lives in a state with a Republican trifecta, and 17% live with mixed government. Of course it could get tricky if red states begin outlawing things blue states are mandating. Imagine what would happen if Texas banned electric cars and passed a law banning all cars that get more than 30 MPG.
In short, if Trump wins he will get major pushback from at least 20 states that will test the limits of federalism in a way it hasn't been tested since 1860. It is one thing for a president to be opposed by individuals who hold rallies and protest marches. It is something quite different for the governors and AGs of 20 states to use their full powers to resist almost everything the president is trying to do and making a good legal case that Trump is exceeding his authority under the Constitution. (V)
Even More Action in Arizona on Nov. 5
Arizona will be an exciting place to watch on Nov. 5. The presidential race could go either way. There is a bitterly fought Senate race, although Rep. Ruben Gallego (D) is consistently ahead in the money race and in the polling. Three House races are competitive. In AZ-01, Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) is fighting for his political life against Amish Shah (D) in an R+2 district that Schweikert barely won in 2022 against an unknown and underfunded candidate. This time Shah is going to get $6 million from the House Majority PAC and it is a presidential year, to boot. In AZ-04, Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ) is facing Kelly Jones in a D+2 district. In AZ-06, Rep Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) has a rematch on his hands against former state Sen. Kirsten Engel (D), whom he beat by 1.5 points in 2012 in an R+3 district. This district is a top priority of the DCCC. Oh, and there is the abortion initiative on the statewide ballot, too.
Want more action? Republicans control the state Senate 16-14, with every member up this year. Republicans also control the state House, 31-29, with every member up this year. If Democrats pick up two seats in each chamber, they will get the trifecta.
Not enough excitement for you? Well, there are two retention elections on the ballot for state Supreme Court justices, both of whom voted to maintain a Civil War-era abortion law that is extremely unpopular in the state. Pro-choice groups are trying to fire both justices. If they are fired, Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) will appoint their successors, who will also have to face retention elections in the future.
Anti-choice forces know that they are going to have trouble defending anti-choice justices, so they are trying to do an end run on the issue. Instead of supporting the justices, they have placed Proposition 137 on the ballot. It would end all retention elections for justices permanently, and would invalidate the two on the ballot this year. If Prop. 137 wins, then the current (Republican-dominated) Arizona Supreme Court will be frozen in place. If Prop. 137 loses and both justices on the ballot are fired, this will begin a process in which Democratic appointees could get a majority on the court, as every justice comes up for a retention election every 6 years.
In short, political junkies in Arizona have a lot of action to look forward to on Nov. 5. (V)
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