Morning Report — Early voting begins; Harris, Trump deadlocked

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 09/06/24 6:40 AM ET

Watch your mailboxes, the 2024 election is officially underway. That’s right: North Carolina, which leads the pack for early ballot distribution, is scheduled to dispatch ballots as early as today.

Other states will soon follow suit, with early in-person voting offered in 47 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Exempt? Alabama, Mississippi, and New Hampshire.

AND IT’S POPULAR: In the 2020 election, marked by pandemic-era regulations, Pew Research Center found 22 percent of voters cast their ballot in person before Election Day, while 45 percent said they voted by absentee or mail-in ballot.

(As of this writing, North Carolina’s mailing could be delayed. A judge ordered a temporary pause on ballot distribution after former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. requested to remove his name from the state’s ballots. North Carolina’s State Board of Elections last week voted to reject the request, saying it wouldn’t be practical to reprint ballots and delay the start of voting. That ruling is on hold until noon as a judge grants Kennedy — who since exiting the race has been urging voters to support former President Trump — time to appeal.)

REPUBLICANS ARE STEPPING UP efforts to persuade once-skeptical voters to cast ballots early, with a focus on Pennsylvania, where early voting kicks off Sept. 16. The Hill’s Caroline Vakil reports GOP unease over early voting and absentee ballots has been a vexing problem for the party since 2020, due in no small part to Trump, who has offered mixed messaging on the strategy.

Republicans are hoping that recent initiatives, such as an Republican National Committee-led “Swamp the Vote” operation urging voters to cast ballots ahead of Nov. 5, will help make up ground against Democrats, who are much more likely to vote early.

“There’s no way that we can give somebody else 50 days to get their vote out and hope to overcome that at 13 hours, and I think some of the races that we’ve had since 2020 have brought that home,” said Sam DeMarco, GOP chair of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania.

DEAD HEAT: Early voters will cast their ballots in an election pollsters have characterized as close as an election has been this century between Trump and Vice President Harris, according to the latest forecast model from Decision Desk HQ and The Hill. While the Decision Desk HQ model shows Harris with a 55 percent probability of winning, it suggests the contest is essentially a jump ball affair with seven states in serious contention for both campaigns.

That puts even more importance on next week’s debate between the two candidates, and a strong or disastrous performance by either has the potential to be a gamechanger.

“I would put this debate as high as stakes as the one we saw” between President Biden and Trump, Decision Desk HQ’s Scott Tranter told The Hill’s Jared Gans.

▪ The Hill: Harris has a 2-point lead over Trump in a new survey of likely voters from Emerson College Polling.

▪ The Guardian: Trump has quietly wound down his campaign in Minnesota, Virginia and New Hampshire, states he was targeting six weeks ago when Biden was the nominee. He is focused on a handful of swing states.

One analyst is predicting the next president: American University professor Allan Lichtman — who has correctly predicted the outcome of nine out of the 10 most recent presidential elections — made his guess for this year’s race. He’s betting on Harris and explains why. (🏃 Don’t miss the video!)

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which has not endorsed a candidate, will host a roundtable with Harris and the union’s members and executives Sept. 16.

▪ A “miracle molecule” could cut fentanyl deaths in half — or lead to more addiction.

▪ House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) tells Punchbowl News he believes the Senate will feel pressured to take up a short-term funding bill with a voter ID requirement attached later this month to avert a shutdown. “If we pass a CR next week, whatever’s in it, the Senate’s got to go do something,” Scalise said. “At some point, the Senate has to do their job.”

LEADING THE DAY

POLITICS & CAMPAIGNS

Locked in a presidential race in which he touts his experience, Trump used a Thursday speech at the Economic Club of New York to weave policy pledges with his political warnings about “Comrade Kamala Harris.”

Details behind Trump’s economic arguments were gauzy but promises and boasts were abundant. The former president repeated his faith in the economic benefits of trade tariffs, about which experts disagree, and the sway they gave him as president during negotiations with international stakeholders.

Threatening tariffs, he said, amounted to “tremendous political power” that he claimed “stopped wars” when he was in the Oval Office.

Here are some of the proposals Trump mentioned:

▪ Creation of a government efficiency commission to weed out fraud and waste, possibly to be steered by billionaire Elon Musk, whom he credited for the idea.

▪ A reduction to 15 percent in the corporate tax rate for companies that make their products in the United States. Trump also wants to make permanent the 2017 GOP tax cuts he signed into law. It promises to be a significant legislative battle on Capitol Hill in 2025.

▪ A federal ban on mortgages for undocumented immigrants, to lower home prices and increase housing supplies (although such home sales are a fraction of houses sold in the U.S. annually). Trump told business leaders he wants to see affordable homes built on federal lands and would “eliminate regulations” on home construction, which he asserted could lower housing costs by 30 percent.

▪ Urge Congress to send him legislation to “bar all benefits” for undocumented immigrants.

▪ Declare an “immediate” national emergency for energy production, especially for electricity to support the energy demands of artificial intelligence to compete with China.

▪ An end to what he termed the Biden administration’s “electric vehicle mandate” and pullback of all “unspent funds” under the Inflation Reduction Act to end existing climate and energy initiatives Trump disparaged as the “Green New Deal.”

▪ “Rapid approvals” for proposed oil drilling and refining projects and “reactors of all types.”

▪ Elimination of 10 existing federal regulations for every new one (Trump’s approach as president was 2-for-1 by executive order, rescinded by Biden in 2021).

▪ Backing to make the U.S. the “world capital” for crypto currency and Bitcoin (an idea that sparked enthusiastic applause by the New York audience).

▪ Deficit reduction achieved through revenues from higher tariffs, which Trump said would add “billions and billions” of dollars to the budget. “We have so many ways to make so much money,” he added. Some federal revenues could support childcare benefits, Trump suggested when asked if he would work with Congress to tackle rising childcare costs shouldered by financially strapped families.

▪ Creation of a U.S. sovereign wealth fund to invest in national development projects. Trump did not mention that nations he admires with sovereign wealth funds have budget surpluses, not an ocean of red ink, as in the U.S.

FRIENDS: Trump name-dropped world leaders, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping as “my dear, dear friend” until their relationship soured with COVID-19 and tariffs. He gave a shoutout to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un (“I got along great with him”) and strongman Victor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary (“They liked me. They respected me”).

“I know the smartest, the best people,” the former president continued. “I know the smart ones and the dumb ones.”

Trump told the business audience that Kennedy is backing him to be the next president because “Bobby” wants to focus on America’s need for safe, healthy food. But in a Thursday Wall Street Journal op-ed, Kennedy wrote that his public policy interests after endorsing Trump are medical, pharmaceutical and chemical, arguing that Americans are caught in a “chronic-disease crisis.” Democrats believe Kennedy seeks a perch in a potential Trump administration for a broad slate of goals. “It’s definitely going to be a role that impacts something in public health,” said one Kennedy ally familiar with the discussions around a potential appointment if there is a Trump victory. “Bobby has the network of experts, lawyers and leaders ready to step up and do battle.”

2024 Roundup

▪ Cash dash: The Harris campaign reports raising $361 million in August for a war chest of $404 million as the campaign sprints toward Nov. 5. Democrats are out-raising Trump and his campaign.

▪ This morning Harris is set to be interviewed on “The Rickey Smiley Morning Show” podcast, a conversation taped Thursday.

▪ Trump scheduled a news conference in New York City at noon today. Topic? Unclear.

▪ GOP activists, party lawyers and state officials are mobilizing behind a crackdown on alleged noncitizen voting. Voting rights advocates say the effort is spreading misinformation.

▪ With the war in Gaza raging, Trump allies see an opening to lure Arab and Muslim voters away from Democrats. It’s a constituency deeply skeptical of the former president that is nonetheless fed up with what it sees as the Biden-Harris camp’s failure to rein in Israel’s military campaign.

▪ Moderate Republican Senate candidate and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan launched two new campaign ads featuring his three daughters and four granddaughters to push back against campaign attacks from Democrats dealing with reproductive rights. Hogan, who is trailing Democratic Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks in a recent poll, favors restoring Roe v. Wade.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House and Senate return to Washington Monday.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will fly to Ann Arbor, Mich., to discuss at 3:15 p.m. local time how his administration’s investment agenda is helping communities in the state. The president will depart for Wilmington, Del., where he will remain for the weekend.

The vice president is in Pittsburgh, her location for weekend debate preparation.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has meetings until midday in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

First lady Jill Biden is in New York City and will participate in a civic engagement event.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will speak in Chicago at a campaign event at 1:45 p.m. CT.

Economic indicator: The Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. will release the jobs report for August. The report will likely guide the Federal Reserve, which is expected this month to reduce its benchmark interest rate.

ZOOM IN

COURTS

Hunter Biden, seated Thursday in a California courtroom, pleaded guilty to nine tax violations, a decision that exposes him to a possible prison sentence for withholding at least $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019 during a period of heavy spending accompanied by cocaine and alcohol abuse. The back taxes were paid.

Biden and his defense lawyers were persuaded they could not prevail with their case and faced additional expenses and family turmoil if a trial took place. Following a Delaware criminal trial two months ago that ended with guilty verdicts on three felony gun charges, Biden, 54, opted in California to plead guilty. He did not cut a deal in exchange for reduced punishment. He will remain free on bond until his sentencing hearing in mid-December. President Biden will not pardon his son, the White House press secretary repeated.

The younger Biden, through his lawyers, will likely make a case for probation instead of prison time after conceding to charges he evaded a tax assessment, failed to file and pay taxes and filed a false or fraudulent tax return.

He faces separate sentencing Nov. 14 in Delaware.

Early Thursday, Hunter Biden’s lawyers unsuccessfully attempted to make an “Alford plea,” which would have acknowledged without abandoning a claim of innocence that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict while seeking to leapfrog beyond a trial to accept U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi’s eventual sentence. Prosecutors objected.

⚖️ WHAT’S NEXT? Thursday in Washington, federal Judge Tanya Chutkan, presiding in the government’s criminal case against Trump for alleged subversion of the 2020 election, said the November presidential contest has no bearing on scheduling criminal proceedings. She set a brisk schedule in the case, including a Sept. 26 deadline for an opening brief from prosecutors on the impact of the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, and a response from the defense team on similar terrain due on Oct. 17.

“The electoral process and the timing of the election … is not relevant here,” she said during a hearing to plan next steps. “This court is not concerned with the electoral schedule.” Here are six takeaways from the day’s proceedings (The Hill).

CNN: Trump sentencing: Judge Juan Merchan will decide today if sentencing in the New York Trump hush money trial, scheduled Sept. 18, will be delayed until after Election Day, as requested by the former president’s legal team. Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts.

💡 The Associated Press’s special video report on Jan. 6 defendants using evidence drawn from court records relied on more than three years of reporting while tracking the nearly 1,500 Capitol riot cases brought by the Justice Department. The reporting contradicts the former president’s narrative about events that day: “In Trump’s telling, the mob on Jan. 6 assembled peacefully to preserve democracy, not upend it, and the rioters were agitated but not armed. They were not insurrectionists but rather 1776-style ‘patriots.’”

ELSEWHERE

INTERNATIONAL

“NOT CLOSE” TO CEASE-FIRE: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday on Fox News that a cease-fire and hostage release deal was “not close,” as both sides appear to have broken further apart on major parts of the negotiations, including Israel’s military presence in Gaza. Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew said the U.S. can’t scrap the existing deal that has been under debate since May 31 (The Hill and The Jerusalem Post).

“We can’t begin working on a Plan B because the minute you say that there’s going to be focus on a Plan B, Plan A becomes impossible,” Lew said at the International Institute for Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. “I think this Plan A still has a very feasible path towards being accomplished.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday it was incumbent on both Israel and Hamas to say yes on remaining issues to reach a deal as sticking points continue to accumulate — among them the release of hostages held in Gaza and Palestinians in Israeli prisons (Reuters and The New York Times).

WARTIME AID: Top U.S. and allied military leaders are in Germany today to discuss Ukraine’s wartime needs as Russia conducts one of its deadliest airstrikes in the conflict and Ukraine presses its offensive in the Kursk region. Putin said Thursday that Ukraine’s gamble to seize territory in Kursk has backfired by boosting his own military’s advance.

“Were they successful?” Putin asked rhetorically about Ukraine’s offensive. “No. The enemy has failed.”

▪ CNN: Video footage appears to show Russians killing surrendering Ukrainian soldiers.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: French President Emmanuel Macron appointed Michel Barnier, the EU’s former Brexit negotiator, as prime minister in an attempt to find a path out of the political gridlock that has gripped the country since the snap elections months ago.

▪ The Hill: Nicaragua on Thursday released 135 political prisoners — including 13 people affiliated with an American evangelical church — on humanitarian grounds in a deal brokered by the U.S. government.

OPINION

■ How the quiet war against press freedom could come to America, by A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, The Washington Post.

■ Trump wants another Supreme Court bailout. Here’s how federal judges can stop him, by Norman Eisen, opinion contributor, The Hill.

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press / Susan Walsh | Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), pictured in 2023 whispering to President Biden, publicly nudged Biden toward his July decision to withdraw from the presidential contest.

And finally … 👏👏👏 Congratulations to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners! We asked readers to puzzle over some powerful authors in the headlines.

Here’s who booked victories with this week’s challenge: Stan Wasser, Richard E. Baznik, Phil Kirstein, Chuck Schoenenberger, Pam Manges, Mark R. Williamson, Robert Bradley, Linda L. Field, Harry Strulovici, Jerry LaCamera, Luther Berg, Rick Schmidtke, Jay Kucia, Randall S. Patrick, Susan Reeves, Carmine Petracca, Lori Benso, Savannah Petracca, Steve James and Mary Anne McEnery.

Associate Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is promoting her memoir, “Lovely One,” a title that refers to an African translation of her given name.

Former President Trump, through a conservative publishing group co-founded by one of his sons, is marketing a new coffee table book of photographs titled “Save America.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is promoting her memoir, “The Art of Power.” Just weeks before its release this summer, she demonstrated her book’s title by appearing on MSNBC with a nudge to Biden to exit as the Democratic Party’s nominee.

Vice President Harris authored two memoirs a decade apart. Her second, released in 2019 before she launched her unsuccessful presidential bid, focused on her life story. The title of her first memoir was “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer.”

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