Morning Report — Harris, Trump on 10-week sprint

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 08/26/24 6:36 AM ET

The billion-dollar sprint is on.

The most intense phase of the 2024 election is underway. Each presidential campaign will raise and spend fortunes to try to tip the scales, perhaps by just tens of thousands of votes in key states, to win in the Electoral College on Nov. 5.

In just two weeks, Sept. 6, the first mail ballots get sent to voters. A presidential debate is set for Sept. 10, but former President Trump is questioning whether he’ll be there. And early in-person voting will start as soon as Sept. 20 in some states.

Vice President Harris and her team, eager to claim a bounce from Democrats’ nominating convention last week, report that the combined Biden and Harris campaigns raised more than four times as much as Trump in July and erased the former president’s cash advantage.

“Step two usually happens post-conventions, post-Labor Day, when the bell rings,” John Anzalone, Biden’s lead pollster in 2020, explained during an event last week hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.

PULL QUOTE HERE“That is like the battle for the slim universe — you can call them anything you want: persuasion voters, swing voters, independent voters,” Anzalone added. “It’s pretty small, and that’s where each side [spends] a billion dollars.”

Democrats say pro-Harris groups have raised more than $500 million since President Biden left the race last month.

The combined Biden and Harris campaigns have spent $329.5 millionin total this election cycle, versus $117.2 million by Trump. There are signs that the former president’s campaign is ramping up its spending as Harris has narrowed the polling gap.

Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, will bus through Georgia on Wednesday and hold a Thursday rally in Savannah. Trump and his vice presidential pick, Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance, hope to lock up support this week during multiple events in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The candidates will criss cross the same flight patterns over the next 71 days, landing just long enough to be seen and heard at one or two events most days.

▪ The Hill: Democrats and GOP battle amid a close election.

▪ The Hill: Democrats brace for Republican attacks against Harris.

Harris leads Trump by 4 points in the latest national polling average charted by political analyst Nate Silver. Her national lead Friday was 7 points, according to a survey conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University. But the polls that really count, in swing states, show Trump firmly in the race. In one example, the most recent RealClearPolitics polling average in Arizona showed Trump up 2 percentage points over Harris.

Trump advisers and his campaign team are encouraging the Republican nominee to focus on policy rather than personal grievances to woo undecided and independent voters. The former president, distracted by Harris’s surge and Democrats’ barrage of attacks last week, worked to combine takedowns of Harris with explanations of his own outlook and policies, if elected.

Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), interviewed Sunday on CNN, said he has encouraged the former president to campaign on policy because Americans “are hurting” as they wrestle with high prices. “This whole joy lovefest doesn’t exist in the real world,” the senator said, referring to Democrats’ upbeat campaign mantra.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ There’s a drop in Generation Z alcohol consumption. That trend captures the attention of the spirits and wine industries.

▪ Because of Instagram and selfies, the most important room in a restaurant these days is the bathroom.

▪ Did Taylor Swift create a new era for food bank donations?

LEADING THE DAY

CAMPAIGNS & POLITICS

FIVE RACES TO WATCH IN THE HOUSE: The fate of the House majority hangs in the balance. After Biden’s exit from the presidential race and Harris’s nomination, Decision Desk HQ paused its House forecast. Democrats, nonetheless, are hopeful they can flip at least four seats to retake the majority, while Republicans are confident they will keep and even expand their edge in the chamber. The Hill’s Mychael Schnell spotlights five House races to watch this cycle, from Pennsylvania to New York to Colorado.

Meanwhile, Alaska Republicans are looking to avoid a repeat of the midterms, when they lost the state’s lone House seat to incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola (D) in the Last Frontier’s unusual ranked-choice system, wherethe top four candidates advance from the nonpartisan primary. Peltola finished first in this week’s top-four nonpartisan primary, followed by Republicans Nick Begich and Lt. Gov Nancy Dahlstrom (R), according to the latest tallies from Decision Desk HQ. But Dahlstrom, backed by Trump, bowed out of the race Friday as her party looks to consolidate support. The dynamics carry echoes of 2022, when the ranked-choice system debuted and Peltola flipped the seat amid a divided GOP.

“The system is designed to eliminate vote-splitting and eliminate spoilers. So all they have to do is use the system,” said Alaska-based Republican strategist Robert Dillon. “But if they don’t pick a second choice, then that support doesn’t transfer to the next candidate.”

NATIVE AMERICAN ISSUES IN MONTANA: Over in the Senate, a hotly contested contest in Montana spotlights public safety concerns among the state’s Native American communities, a critical voting bloc in the 2018 reelection of Sen. Jon Tester (D). Such voters are again poised to influence the outcome of former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy’s Republican challenge to the incumbent. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the contest a “toss up,” and Trump won the state by more than 16 points, or nearly 99,000 votes, in 2020. Tester, a longtime member and former chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, has pressed the Government Accountability Office to review “unacceptable” public safety efforts by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Montana (The Hill).

Asked about the timing of the letter, Jeff Stiffarm, president of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes of the Fort Belknap Indian Community, said, “It’s an election year.”

2024 Roundup

▪ Vance told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that he’s “thrilled” to have support from “Kennedy Democrats,” referring to independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s suspension Friday of his presidential bid and endorsement of GOP nominee Trump.

▪ Kerry Kennedy, sister of RFK Jr., denounced Trump and her brother while endorsing Harris. “I think if my dad were alive today, the real Robert Kennedy would have detested almost everything Donald Trump represents, his lying, his selfishness, his rage, his cynicism, hatred, racism, fascist sympathies, deliberate misinformation about vaccines [and] criminal felony convictions,” she said during an interview with MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.”

▪ Vance says Trump, if elected, would veto a federal ban on abortion if sent to his desk by Congress. He also defends Trump’s proposed tariffs.

▪ The path of Vance’s conversion to Catholicism and his baptism in 2019 is explored by The New York Times. “His quieter, private conversion to Catholicism … reveals some core values at the heart of his personal and political philosophy and their potential impact on the country.”

▪ Trump and allies favor use of the U.S. military at the southern border and to thwart domestic protests, despite existing law and practice against it, according to The New York Times. … Meanwhile, Biden’s asylum restrictions, borrowed from Trump, are working as predicted, and as warned.

▪ House Republicans, who spent much of the past three-and-a-half years investigating Biden, shifted gears to probe the vice president’s immigration role and Walz’s teaching ties to China.

▪ Local election officials have a more public prominence since 2020 because of Trump’s baseless allegations that his loss to Biden was rigged.

▪ A Teamsters endorsement of the Democratic ticket is uncertain, despite the union’s past support for the party.

▪ Ten states have abortion measures on ballots in November.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House and Senate are out until after Labor Day.

The president is in Rehoboth Beach, Del., where he plans to remain for the week. He will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m.

The vice president is in Washington today and has no public events.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff is campaigning and fundraising at separate events in Water Mill, N.Y., and Sag Harbor, N.Y., this evening.

ZOOM IN

STATE WATCH

🔥 Wildfires in California block some homeowners from obtaining insurance to protect their property in the future. Regulators are proposing reforms they hope can revive a competitive insurance market. “The situation is hurting consumers badly,” Amy Bach, executive director of the consumer advocacy group United Policyholders, told The Hill. “It doesn’t feel like it’s going to resolve on its own,” Bach added.

🌀 Hurricane Honereached its closest point to Hawai’i some 45 miles south-southwest of South Point, on the Big Island, on Sunday morning. Maximum sustained winds Sunday were near 85 miles per hour and heavy rain prompted flooding concerns, but the heavy rains did not have major consequences (Axios and The New York Times).

⛽ Drivers in Indiana, Wyoming and Missouri spend more annually on gasoline than do consumers in high-pump-price states California and Washington, according to a new study by Bankrate. Why? Average annual mileage. … AAA has ranked states for the highest current gasoline prices as well as the lowest. Hawaii tops the list with the highest pump prices and Mississippi stands out with an average pump price below $3 a gallon, at the bottom of a ranking compiled as of Aug. 23.

ELSEWHERE

© The Associated Press / Naama Grynbaum | Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pictured Aug. 4 in Jerusalem, warned on Sunday that Israel will take all measures to defend itself against Hezbollah.

INTERNATIONAL

MIDDLE EAST: Israel on Sunday launched a series of airstrikes in Lebanon in what the country’s military described as a preemptive attack against Hezbollah, leading the militant group to respond with rockets and drones. Israeli forces said they launched the attack after learning Hezbollah had plans to launch missiles and rockets toward Israel in retaliation for the killing of a senior commander. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would take all measures necessary to defend itself (The Hill and Reuters).

“We are determined to do everything possible to defend our country, to return the residents of the north safely to their homes and to continue to uphold a simple rule: Whoever harms us — we harm him,” he said in a statement.

The escalations come as regional tensions ratchet higher. Israel is also bracing for a possible attack by Iran in retaliation to the killing of a Hamas commander in Tehran. On Sunday, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog said on CBS’s “Face The Nation” that the U.S.’s “very strong” posture in the Middle East has prompted Iran to hold off on a retaliatory attack (The Hill).

CEASE-FIRE TALKS: Hamas on Sunday rejected new Israeli conditions put forward in Gaza cease-fire talks, casting further doubt on the chances of a breakthrough in the latest U.S.-backed effort to end the war, though talks are set to continue (Reuters).

▪ CNN: Even if a Gaza cease-fire is agreed, Israel has made clear it reserves the right to resume the war with Hamas.

▪ Axios: Biden asked Netanyahu to pull Israeli troops from part of the Egypt-Gaza border.

▪ NBC News: Satellite images show Ukraine’s expanding attacks inside Russia. Kyiv has stepped up its campaign of aerial attacks against strategic targets, from bridges to an air base and oil depot deeper inside Russian territory.

In Germany, the suspect in a Friday night knife attack in Solingen that killed three people and wounded eight others has been arrested. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack. Four of the six severely injured are still in life-threatening condition. The suspect is a 26-year-old Syrian citizen who had applied for asylum in Germany and turned himself in to police (The Washington Post).

OPINION

■ What the lobstermen of Maine tell us about the election, by Scott Ellsworth, guest essayist, The New York Times.

■ NASA can save the VIPER lunar rover with private-sector help, by Mark R. Whittington, opinion contributor, The Hill.

THE CLOSER

And finally … ⚾ Big, big money for a famous piece of baseball history.

An anonymous collector bid more than $24 million at auction Sunday to snag Babe Ruth’s “called shot” jersey worn during the 1932 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs.

Ruth’s often imitated “called shot” occurred on Chicago’s Wrigley Field in the fifth inning of the third game of the series. With the count of two balls and two strikes, Ruth seemed to point two fingers toward center field. Then he belted the next pitch deep in the center field seats. Ruth later said he was calling the home run.

“The legend of Babe Ruth and the myth and mystery surrounding his ‘called shot’ are united in this one extraordinary artifact,” said Chris Ivy, director of sports for Heritage Auctions.

The slugger’s apparel, auctioned in Dallas, broke a record for the ultimate price while the back-and-forth bids among collectors lasted for more than six hours. Bidding for the Babe’s jersey soared well above the competition in 2022 for fellow Yankee Mickey Mantle’s 1952 rookie card, which Heritage sold for $12.6 million.

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