Evening Report — Trump, Harris race to the middle

by Jonathan Easley - 08/30/24 4:24 PM ET

Evening Report

Trump, Harris race to lock down independents

Former President Trump and Vice President Harris are sprinting to the center on hot-button policy issues, underscoring how the razor-tight race for the White House could be decided by a few thousand independent voters in a handful of states.

The left-wing views Harris took during her doomed 2020 run for the Democratic presidential nomination have dogged the early days of her campaign, provoking a pivot to the middle since she became the party’s standard-bearer. Harris officially revoked some of her past positions in a CNN interview on Thursday night.

And Trump has mused about how Republicans need to be more empathetic in how they discuss women’s health issues, leading him to make surprising new remarks about abortion and in vitro fertilization (IVF).

In both instances, the candidates risk alienating activists on the further ends of the spectrum. But they’re gambling that these voters will come home in the end, and that the movement to the middle could tip the balance in what is lining up to be one of the closest presidential races ever.

How Trump and Harris are moderating their views:

🔵 HARRIS:

Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash that she no longer supports banning fracking, an important issue in Pennsylvania, which is lining up to be the make-or-break state for both campaigns.
Harris also said she would enforce border laws to restrict illegal immigration, after saying in 2020 that illegal border crossings should be decriminalized. Harris said Thursday “I believe there should be consequences” for breaking immigration laws. Immigration remains one of the top issues for voters.
The left-wing pro-Palestinian faction of the Democratic Party hopes it has a closer ally in Harris than it does in President Biden, but Harris on Thursday said there would be no change in policy in terms of providing arms to Israel.
Will the status quo be a turn-off to the hundreds of thousands of Democrats in swing-states who voted “uncommitted” in the primary to protest Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza? Here’s how the leaders of the Uncommitted movement responded: “The Vice President’s statement was morally indefensible and politically shortsighted … Harris must turn the page from one of the most glaring foreign policy failures of our time…”
Harris cleared the decks on some of the issues that have dogged her, but further shifts to the center could be coming at the debate on Sept. 10. Trump is sure to challenge Harris on past remarks she’s made about policing and the Medicare-for-all bill she cosponsored.

🔴 TRUMP:

Trump’s remarks to an NBC reporter before a town-hall on Thursday night have anti-abortion conservatives on edge. Trump has not committed to how he’d vote on a Florida ballot initiative to overturn the state’s ban on abortions after six weeks. But he said: “I think the six week is too short, there has to be more time.”
That remark has some anti-abortion conservatives raging. Conservative commentator Matt Walsh said on X: “Trump needs to make absolutely clear that he will vote against it. Aligning with Planned Parenthood and the radical left to defend infanticide would be not only morally abominable but politically suicidal. It totally demoralizes and alienates your base for the sake of appealing to people who won’t vote for you regardless.”
Harris is making abortion rights a centerpiece of her campaign. The Harris campaign is embarking on a “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour across Florida next week. Trump has acknowledged that Republicans must watch how they speak about the issue. State ballot initiatives in the post-Roe era have proved popular, and new polling finds that abortion rights measures on the ballots in Arizona and Nevada this year have support from a majority of Republicans.
Trump on Thursday also said he’d support a government mandate to force insurance companies to pay for IVF services, as Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to outlaw the procedure.
In June, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would make access to IVF a national right, arguing it went too far. All Republicans voted to block it except moderate Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine). Republicans offered their own bill to discourage states from banning the procedure, which was squashed by Democrats.
Trump believes Democratic attacks over IVF are damaging, but some Republicans are casting his proposal to force insurance companies to pay for the procedure as a big government intrusion akin to ObamaCare.

Perspectives:

The National Review: Trump’s IVF proposal would expand ObamaCare.
RealClearPolitics: Democrats are trying to reinvent far-left Harris.

Read more:

Harris vows tougher approach on migration, supports weapons for Israel.
Ballot measures in 41 states give voters a say on abortion, other issues.
Five takeaways from Harris’s CNN interview.

Welcome to Evening Report! I’m Jonathan Easley, catching you up from the afternoon and what’s coming up. Enjoy the long weekend, we’ll return on Tuesday after Labor Day. Not on the list? Subscribe here.

CATCH UP QUICK

Inflation holds steady as Fed nears rate cut. Economic confidence ticked up slightly in August.
Terrorism threats rise three years after Afghanistan withdrawal.
Major grocery chains are ending tobacco sales.

NEW THIS AFTERNOON

Biden returns to campaign trail

President Biden will return to the campaign trail this weekend, appearing with Vice President Harris at a union event in Pittsburgh.

Biden has cut a low profile since the Democratic National Convention two weeks ago, where Harris accepted the party’s nomination that was assumed to be Biden’s only five weeks ago.

The president left the convention for a vacation in California, and then spent this week at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Del.

Biden’s unpopularity and collapsing poll numbers in the wake of his disastrous debate performance provoked Democrats to pressure him out of the race. But the Harris campaign is betting that “Scranton Joe” can be an asset in Pennsylvania, which is the most important swing state on the map.

Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by less than 1 point, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to win the state since 1988.
Biden won the state in 2020 by just more than 1 point.

Whoever wins Pennsylvania will be the favorite to win the White House. Harris has drastically improved on Biden’s standing in the Keystone State, and most polling averages show her with a slight lead over Trump. However, three new polls have found Trump with a slight lead, and two others showed the race is tied.

In a post called “Does Harris have a Pennsylvania problem?,” election analyst Nate Silver notes the recent polls showing Trump’s strength come at a time when Harris should be enjoying a post-convention bounce.

If Harris loses Pennsylvania, there will be a lot of handwringing among Democrats about why she didn’t pick the state’s popular Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) to be her running mate.

From Silver: “It’s possible that RFK’s dropout and endorsement of Trump is having more effect in Pennsylvania and the other Rust Belt states than elsewhere, which have older, whiter and more disaffected electorates. And as I said, it’s also possible that all of this is noise and/or that the model is overdoing the convention bounce adjustment. But while Tim Walz has had a strong rollout as Harris’s VP, I can’t help but wonder what her numbers would look like with Josh Shapiro instead.”

Harris will also campaign over the long weekend in Detroit, as she seeks to shore-up Black support in another critical “Blue Wall” battleground.

Trump won Michigan by the narrowest of margins in 2016, becoming the first GOP presidential candidate to win there since 1988.
Biden won it back in 2020 by nearly 3 points.
Harris leads in most of the polling averages in Michigan, but an EPIC/MIRA survey released Friday found Trump with a 1-point lead.

📺 SUNDAY SHOWS

Reuters/Pool

Here’s who’s coming up on the Sunday shows:

CBS “Sunday Morning”: Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

CBS “Face the Nation”: Harris-Walz campaign national co-chair Mitch Landrieu; Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey; Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).

CNN “State of the Union”: Republican National Committee co-chair Michael Whatley; California Senate candidate Rep. Adam Schiff (D).

NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno (R); former Trump national security adviser H.R. McMaster.

FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).

ABC “This Week”: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.); Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)

Compiled by The Hill’s Elizabeth Crisp.

IN OTHER NEWS

State Watch

A round-up of news from across the country…

Former President Trump’s attorneys asked a federal court to intervene in his New York hush money conviction, citing the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. Trump’s sentencing for his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying records is currently scheduled for next month.
Two Georgia election workers asked a judge to hand over Rudy Giuliani’s assets as they seek to collect on the $146 million defamation judgement over his false claims that they engaged in election fraud.
Independent candidate Cornel West will appear on the ballot in Georgia, where he’ll be one of four candidates who don’t represent the two major parties.
The North Carolina Board of Elections says Robert F. Kennedy Jr. must remain on the ballot even after he pulled out of the race and endorsed Trump. Kennedy has been trying to get off the ballot in the swing states, worried that he’s pulling support from the former president.
Major book publishers are suing the state of Florida over laws that allow challenges to books allowed in school libraries.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) said he made an “honest mistake” when he claimed to have a Bronze Star for his service in Afghanistan on an application in 2006.
Former Biden official Maggie Goodlander, the wife of White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, filed a “bizarre” financial disclosure in the primary race to replace retiring Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.)