Lazy Caturday Reads: The State of the Race

Tokuriki Tomikichiro, Black Cat Three-Kittens Butterfly

Good Afternoon!!

There are just 3 more days to go until E-Day. I just hope what’s left of our democracy survives the election and whatever horrors the Trump people have in store if he loses. And I think he is going to lose; he certainly seems to be preparing for that outcome.

Things are looking good for Harris at the moment. The polls are definitely moving in her direction, and some experts are questioning whether the race is as close as the media wants to make it.

This is from The Times (UK): Kamala Harris ahead in enough swing states to win, Times poll says.

Kamala Harris is on track to become America’s first female president by a narrow margin thanks to the Democratic vote holding up in the rust belt of old industrial states, according to the final Times poll before the US election.

Of the seven swing states that will decide the White House, Harris is forecast to win three battlegrounds in the north known as the “blue wall”, as well as Nevada in the west, while Donald Trump is favoured to claim back Georgia and hold North Carolina, YouGov found. The two rivals are level-pegging in Arizona….

Of the rust belt states, Harris is four points ahead among likely voters in Wisconsin, and three points ahead in Michigan and Pennsylvania. She is one point ahead in Nevada. Likely voters are evenly split in Arizona, and Trump is one point ahead in both Georgia and North Carolina.

The Times surveyed the seven swing states because the outcome in the other 43 states is far more predictable….

If the results after election day on Tuesday turn out like the YouGov poll, Harris would win the Oval Office by a margin of 276 electoral college votes to 262. This would make it the closest finish since the 2000 election, which was decided by 271 to 266 after a month of legal wrangling about Florida’s result was resolved by the Supreme Court.

Read more and see the data at the link.

The presidential race could very well be decided by women. I still believe that abortion is the number 1 issue in this election.

CNN: As women outpace men in early turnout, Trump’s challenge to win over female voters comes into focus.

When Alex Cooper, the popular podcaster behind “Call Her Daddy,” released her widely discussed interview with Democrat Kamala Harris last month, she revealed she had invited the vice president’s Republican opponent, Donald Trump, to appear on her show as well.

“If he also wants to have a meaningful and in-depth conversation about women’s rights in this country, then he is welcome on ‘Call Her Daddy’ anytime,” Cooper told her millions of listeners, most of them women.

Tetsuhiro Wakabayashi, What is for dinner?

Trump’s campaign had received an offer to join the show, according to sources close to the former president, but ultimately decided to pass. Instead, Trump doubled down on a strategy of speaking directly to America’s young men through appearances on right-leaning, male-dominated online shows. He will end his campaign Tuesday having largely avoided podcasts, YouTube channels and daytime TV shows tailored toward female audiences.

And if Trump’s third White House bid falls short, his approach to courting women – who narrowly outnumber men and are more reliable voters – may be among his campaign’s most scrutinized strategies. Trump advisers and allies had argued throughout the late summer and early fall that his appeal among men would make up for the lack of support from female voters, but in recent weeks the widening gender gap has caused alarm for some Republicans.

“We’ve seen a women problem for all Republicans, up and down the ballot,” one Trump-aligned GOP operative told CNN. “It starts at the top.”

Let’s face it. Trump never had much chance to win over very many women who aren’t evangelicals.

Trump’s uncertainty about how to appeal to women has been evident even in the final days of his campaign, leading to public disagreements with his staff over his messaging. At a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Wednesday, he recounted advice from aides urging him to drop his repeated promise to be women’s “protector” because they saw it as inappropriate.

“‘Sir, please don’t say that,’” he said he was advised. “Why? I’m president. I want to protect the women of our country. Well, I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not. I’m going to protect them,” Trump told the crowd….

Behind the scenes and on the phone with close allies, Trump will ask why women don’t like him, three sources familiar with the conversations said.

“He thinks women want someone who will keep them safe. Keep their children safe,” one of the sources said.

…[B]eyond his rallies, women do not appear to be responding to the former president’s attempts to reach them. The latest ABC News/Ipsos national poll showed Trump trailing Harris among likely female voters by 14-points – a margin that far outpaces his 6-point lead among men.

Adding to Trump’s challenges is a gender gap in early voting. In the seven most contested battleground states, women have cast 55% of ballots so far, while men account for 45%, according to Catalist, a Democratic-aligned data firm. This 10-point disparity representing nearly 1.4 million ballots, though slightly less than it was four years ago, nevertheless has Trump allies concerned.

Trump is really falling apart in embarrassing and humiliating ways. Last night he appeared to simulate oral sex during his rally in Wisconsin. He also spent about 5 minutes of one of his final chances to reach voters complaining about his microphone and threatening not to pay his audio staff.

And then there was the threatening language he used about Liz Cheney in an interview with Tucker Carlson. From the Washington Post: Trump embraces violent rhetoric, suggests Liz Cheney should have guns ‘trained on her face.’

Republican nominee Donald Trump faced a fresh controversy on Friday after he suggested former congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) should have guns “trained on her face,” escalating his vilification of a prominent critic from within his party, as well as his use of violent imagery….

Cheney said Trump’s intent was to intimidate anyone who challenges him. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) said her office is investigating whether Trump’s comments could have violated state laws involving intimidation of public officials, spokesperson Richie Taylor said.

“This is how dictators destroy free nations,” Cheney, who lost her position in House Republican leadership for condemning Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, and went on to serve as vice chair of the committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol, said Friday on social media. “They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

Relationship by Toshuki Fukuda

It appears that frontal lobe damage from his dementia has left Trump with absolutely no inhibitions or filter on what he will say or do in public. 

Trump could face legal blowback from his remarks. 12 News Phoenix: Arizona’s top prosecutor investigating Trump’s comments about Cheney as possible death threat.

During his Glendale appearance, Trump suggested his Republican critic should face ‘nine barrels shooting at her.’

Arizona’s top prosecutor tells 12News she is investigating whether Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump violated state law by making a “death threat” against former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney during remarks Thursday night at an event in Glendale.

“I have already asked my criminal division chief to start looking at that statement, analyzing it for whether it qualifies as a death threat under Arizona’s laws,” Attorney General Mayes, a first-term Democrat, said during Friday’s taping of “Sunday Square Off.”

“I’m not prepared now to say whether it was or it wasn’t, but it is not helpful as we prepare for our election and as we try to make sure that we keep the peace at our polling places and in our state.”

We know that Trump will challenge the results if Harris wins, and there very well could be violence. The Harris campaign says they expect Trump to claim victory before all the votes are counted–as he did in 2020.

At the New York Times, Jim Rutenberg and Alan Feuer write: Trump, Preparing to Challenge the Results, Puts His 2020 Playbook Into Action.

Former President Donald J. Trump and his allies are rolling out a late-stage campaign strategy that borrows heavily from the subversive playbook he used to challenge his loss four years ago.

This time, however, he is counting on reinforcements from outside groups built on the false notion of a stolen election.

With Election Day only three days away, Mr. Trump is already claiming the Democrats are “a bunch of cheats,” as his allies in battleground states spread distorted reports of mishaps at the polls to push a narrative of widespread fraud.

Mr. Trump and his most prominent supporters have pointed to partisan polling and betting markets to claim that he is heading for a “crushing victory,” as his top surrogate Elon Musk recently put it. The expectation helps set the stage for disbelief and outrage among his supporters should he lose.

Black Cat White Cat, by Toshuki Fukuda

And in a direct echo of his failed — and, prosecutors say, illegal — bid to remain in power after the 2020 election, some of his most influential advisers are suggesting he will yet again seek to claim victory before all the votes are counted.

Such a move ushered in his efforts to deny his defeat four years ago and helped set the stage for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In many respects, though, the effort that led to Jan. 6 never ended.

“It’s been four years of spreading lies about elections and recruiting volunteers to challenge the system, filing litigation,’’ said Joanna Lydgate, the chief executive of States United Democracy Center, a nonprofit group that works with state officials to bolster confidence in their elections. “What we’re seeing today is all of that coming to fruition.” [….]

In a statement, Dana Remus, a top lawyer for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, said, “It isn’t surprising that he is already questioning the results of a still ongoing election” and added, “He failed when he tried this in 2020, and he will fail again.”

The authors note that some things are different though.

For all the similarities, there are important differences between now and 2020, some of which reassure the coalition of civil rights lawyers, Democrats, Republicans and election administrators working to prevent a repeat of 2020:

• Congress has passed a new law, the Electoral Count Reform Act, meant to make it harder to stop the final certification of the results by Congress on Jan. 6, as Mr. Trump tried to do four years ago.

• Mr. Trump no longer has control of the federal government — which he sought to use to press his 2020 case. In the states, there are fewer like-minded Republicans in key positions of power than there were four years ago.

• Some of the loudest clarions for stolen election theories have paid heavily for circulating them, including Fox News, which last year paid Dominion Voting Systems $787 million to settle a lawsuit over the network’s promotion of false theories that Dominion’s machines had switched votes.

• And the experience of 2020, along with more recent clashes over voting issues, has taught election administrators lessons about fortifying themselves against a similar effort this year.

“You have the benefit of something having happened once before,” said the Pennsylvania secretary of state, Al Schmidt, a Republican. “You learn from it to guide you moving forward.”

Another story could affect the race, although it may be too late and to complicated–the tapes of Jeffrey Epstein talking about Trump that were just revealed. It’s shocking that many in the media have been sitting on these tapes for a long time.

The Guardian: Jeffrey Epstein details close relationship with Trump in newly released tapes.

A New York author and journalist has released audio tapes that appear to detail how Donald Trump had a close social relationship with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein that he has long denied.

The tapes, released as part of the Fire and Fury podcast series by Michael Wolff, author of three books about Trump’s first term and 2020 bid for a second, and James Truman, former NME journalist and Condé Nast editorial director, include Epstein’s thoughts about the inner workings of the former US president’s inner circle.

Wolff says the recordings were made during a 2017 discussion with Epstein about writing his biography. Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges two years later. Despite his crimes, the wealthy financier was at the heart of a social circle of the rich and powerful in the US and overseas that contained many famous names.

Wolff claims the excerpt tape is a mere fraction of some “100 hours of Epstein talking about the inner workings of the Trump White House and about his longstanding, deep relationship with Donald Trump”….

By Tetsuhiro Wakabayashi

The Fire and Fury tapes reveal Epstein recalling how then president Trump played his circle off against each other. “His people fight each other and then he poisons the well outside,” he says.

The author names Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus and Kellyanne Conway as being among the acolytes and officials Trump played off each other like courtiers in a competitive court.

“He will tell 10 people ‘Bannon’s a scumbag’ and ‘Priebus is not doing a good job’ and ‘Kellyanne has a big mouth – what do you think?’

“‘[JPMorgan Chase CEO] Jamie Dimon says that you’re a problem and I shouldn’t keep you. And I spoke to [financier] Carl Icahn. And Carl thinks I need a new spokesperson.’”

Epstein continues his exposition of Trump’s approach to management: “So Kelly[anne] – even though I hired Kellyanne’s husband – Kellyanne is just too much of a wildcard. And then he tells Bannon: ‘You know I really want to keep you but Kellyanne hates you.’”

In response to the podcast, Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary, said, “Wolff is a disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies in order to sell fiction books because he clearly has no morals or ethics” and accused the author of making “outlandish false smears” and engaging in “blatant election interference on behalf of Kamala Harris”.

This could be embarrassing for Trump, but I doubt if most voters be affected by it.

Tim Alberta has an important article at The Atlantic: Inside the Ruthless, Restless Final Days of Trump’s Campaign.

The Introduction:

At the end of June, in the afterglow of a debate performance that would ultimately prompt President Joe Biden to end his campaign for reelection, Donald Trump startled his aides by announcing that he’d come up with a new nickname for his opponent.

“The guy’s a retard. He’s retarded. I think that’s what I’ll start calling him,” Trump declared aboard his campaign plane, en route to a rally that evening, according to three people who heard him make the remarks: “Retarded Joe Biden.”

The staffers present—and, within hours, others who’d heard about the epithet secondhand—pleaded with Trump not to say this publicly. They warned him that it would antagonize the moderate voters who’d been breaking in their direction, while engendering sympathy for a politician who, at that moment, was the subject of widespread ridicule. As Trump demurred, musing that he might debut the nickname at that night’s event, his staffers puzzled over the timing. Biden was on the ropes. Polls showed Trump jumping out to the biggest lead he’d enjoyed in any of his three campaigns for the presidency. Everything was going right for the Republican Party and its nominee. Why would he jeopardize that for the sake of slinging a juvenile insult? (A campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, said the nickname “was never discussed and this is materially false.”)

By Toshiuki Fukuda

Over the next several days—as Trump’s aides held their breath, convinced he would debut this latest slur at any moment—they came to realize something about Trump: He was restless, unhappy, and, yes, tired of winning. For the previous 20 months, he’d been hemmed in by a campaign built on the principles of restraint and competence. The former president’s ugliest impulses were regularly curbed by his top advisers; his most obnoxious allies and most outlandish ideas were sidelined. These guardrails had produced a professional campaign—a campaign that was headed for victory. But now, like a predator toying with its wounded catch, Trump had become bored. It reminded some allies of his havoc-making decisions in the White House. Trump never had much use for calm and quiet. He didn’t appreciate normalcy. Above all, he couldn’t stand being babysat.

“People are calling this the most disciplined campaign they’ve ever seen,” Trump remarked to friends at a fundraiser this summer, according to someone who heard the conversation. He smirked at the compliment. “What’s discipline got to do with winning?”

It’s a long, detailed article. If you’re interested in reading the rest, here is a gift link.

One more before I wrap this up. Russell Payne has an interesting piece at Salon on the Congressional races: “Democrats are in a stronger position”: Election forecasters give Dems an edge in swing House races.

With much of the attention on the House gravitating towards the battleground states of New York and California, where Democrats are trying to push back GOP gains from 2022, a handful of races scattered around the country heading into Election Day could ultimately be the difference in which party holds the majority.

Logan Phillips, the founder of Race to the WH, has his eyes on a handful of races that he sees as potential flips, including the race in Maine’s Second District, Washington’s Third District and two swing districts the Pennsylvania, where he thinks might serve a bellwhethers.

In Maine’s Second District, Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat, is defending his seat from the Republican challenger Austin Theriault. The race is closely watched because Golden has held onto the seat since defeating the incumbent Republican in 2018, even though former President Donald Trump carried the rural Second District in both 2016 and 2020. In 2022, Golden won by six points. Golden currently leads in FiveThirtyEight’s average by 1.9 points.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez is in a similar situation in Washington’s Third, as the freshman representative is attempting to hold onto her seat a district that also supported Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Gluesenkamp Pérez won in 2022 by less than a point. In FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, the GOP challenger, Joe Kent, leads by a point.

In general, Phillips gives Democrats a better chance of winning the chamber than other prognosticators. He currently gives Democrats a 70% chance of winning control of the chamber while most forecasters see it as a coin flip. While he cautions that he doesn’t see them as the overwhelming favorite to win, he was also among the most accurate forecasters in 2022, projecting that Republicans would win 223 seats. The GOP ended up winning 222.

“There are plenty of strong incumbents on both sides of the aisle. The reason I view democrats as favored is that Democrats have recruited stronger challengers,” Phillips said. “Democrats are in a stronger position to take on those incumbents.”

Read the rest at Salon. 

That’s where things stand today. I guess a lot could happen in 3 days, but I think Harris is going to win. I hope and pray that I’m right.