Morning Report—State of presidential race: Exhausting

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 09/23/24 6:20 AM ET

No one knows this morning how this presidential election will end in 43 days. Not voters, candidates or paid political advisers. Pollsters greet daily survey results with head shakes and eager calls for fresh polls.

The political drama is suspenseful and exhausting. It’s a contest about everything and nothing. What’s intended to shock has a short shelf life, replaced by new shocks while complex ideas get distilled to bumper stickers. Voters either tell interviewers they don’t know enough about their choices or turn off the news and insist they’re ready to fill out ballots today.

Even former President Trump, targeted for assassination twice since July, sounds cautious. He told an interviewer that if he’s defeated by Vice President Harris in November, he won’t seek the presidency again in 2028. He’d be 82. “I think that that will be, that will be it. I don’t see that at all,” he said.

Harris Saturday accepted CNN’s invitation to debate Trump a second time on Oct. 23. The former president said no — early voting has begun.

“It’s just too late,” he told supporters during a Wilmington, N.C., rally.

“I have burnout over the election — I’m ready for it to be over,” Michael Boaz, 62, of Marietta, Ga., a fallen-away Trump voter who says he hasn’t made up his mind about Harris, told The New York Times.

Did the vice president get a bounce for her widely praised performance at the Sept. 10 debate? Analysts say the 105-minute jousting match, viewed by more than 67 million people, did not appreciably change the race.

National polls hint at a favorable environment for Trump. He’s showing signs of political strength in Sun Belt swing states Arizona and Georgia. Yet, Harris appears to be pulling slightly ahead of her opponent in Eastern swing states, according to surveys. She’s seeing encouraging signs in Pennsylvania, a key battleground in the Electoral College. In North Carolina, Harris trails Trump by a small margin.

The vice president has a 3.6 percentage point lead over Trump nationally, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ aggregate polling. It grew slightly from early September when Harris had a lead of 3.2 percentage points. The Washington Post’s polling average also showsa slight improvement for Harris compared with before the debate. While she continues to lead Trump by two percentage points nationally, that national lead has ticked up slightly after the inclusion of NBC News and CBS News polls released Sunday.

▪ The Hill: Senate Democrats say they worry that pollsters are undercounting Trump’s support.

▪ Reuters: Harris this week is expected to release new economic proposals to help Americans and businesses create wealth.

RUNNING MATES TO DEBATE: Vice presidential nominees Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) are scheduled to debate next week, hosted by CBS News. Vance Saturday said he advocated a second face-off after that, but he was turned down by the Harris-Walz team.

“I’d love to have a second debate. We’ve actually offered Tim Walz a second debate, and they’ve totally rejected it,” Vance said while campaigning in Leesport, Pa. “I actually think that you should have to earn this job.”

Democrats have been aggressive in using social media and paid advertising to skewer Vance as a conservative who conceded during a CNN interview that he’s willing to “create” political narratives to focus news media attention on issues of importance.

Vance says he wants to roll back the Affordable Care Act’s protections for people with pre-existing health conditions — terrain on which Democrats, with years of experience, are eager to do battle. The issue is likely to arise during the debate with Walz. The upshot of Vance’s proposal, which Congress would have to approve, could raise insurance costs and health risks for millions of Americans (and hike profits for insurers).

Until the enactment of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, insurers could charge their customers higher premiums and deny or drop them from insurance if they had health conditions prior to their policies.

“We’re going to actually implement some regulatory reform in the healthcare system that allows people to choose a health care plan that works for them,” the senator told a reporter after his rally in Raleigh last week. “What that will also do is allow people with similar health situations to be in the same risk pools.” He said that would “work better” for people with chronic health problems and for “everybody else.”

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ The Supreme Court during its new term Oct. 7 will take up gun rights, gender transition medical procedures for minors, regulation of e-cigarettes and medical pot.

▪ Southwest Airlines will present to investors Wednesday plans for an overhaul to increase revenues, with impacts expected for employees.

▪ Here’s how to weigh the pros and cons of buying vs. leasing a car.

LEADING THE DAY

CONGRESS

TICK TOCK ON THE SHUTDOWN CLOCK. Lawmakers have until Sept. 30 to fund the government or risk a shutdown and congressional leaders on Sunday released a draft of a short-term stopgap to keep the lights on until December. The bill, which was the result of bipartisan negotiations in the House and Senate, would keep the government funded at current levels through Dec. 20 — setting up a holiday funding fight. Republican leaders are aiming to bring the bill up under a regular rule process, with a floor vote on the legislation by Wednesday. It then heads to the Senate.

Not everyone is happy: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is dealing with disappointment from his own conference, who will be key in deciding the top lawmaker’s fate as GOP leader next year. The disappointment has, thus far, not bubbled up into a revolt, write The Hill’s Emily Brooks and Mychael Schnell. Hard-liners recognize the difficult position Johnson is in balancing his razor-thin GOP majority, desire to avert a shutdown and goal of retaining an edge in the lower chamber this November.

Even less appealing? Trump’s calls for a government shutdown in the absence of a proof-of-citizenship voting bill being signed into law represent a public break from the GOP presidential nominee in the lead-up to the November election. Republicans almost universally support the voting bill, but they say pushing the issue so intensely that it results in a shutdown would backfire on the party.

“Everybody wants to go home and campaign, and there are some, particularly that want to go home and campaign, because they’re in really tough races,” said Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.). “A government shutdown would embolden our enemies, further undermine our reliability and respect among our allies. So, I don’t think a shutdown is good for anybody.”

The Hill: Here’s what made the cut in Congress’s plan to avert a shutdown — and what didn’t.

House Democrats launched an aggressive campaign to push back against the false claims from some top Republicans that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating their neighbors’ pets. Led by members of the House Haiti Caucus, the Democrats are warning the false narrative from the GOP accusers — most notably Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) — has made Haitian immigrants the target of bigoted aggression and violent threats in Springfield and beyond (The Hill).

POLITICS & CAMPAIGNS

CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor, is causing political turbulence in a must-win swing state for Trump. CNN reported last week that Robinson is linked to comments made a decade ago on a porn site that urged for the reinstatement of slavery, detailing an affair with his wife’s sister and calling himself a “black NAZI.” Robinson on Sunday announced a major staffing shakeup after a number of top aides quit following the report’s publication.

The accusations about Robinson are damaging enough that Trump steered clear of the candidate at his Wilmington, N.C., rally on Saturday, making no mention of his longtime ally — though some of the former president’s supporters didn’t see them as disqualifying. Others, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Robinson “has an obligation to defend himself” and called the charges “beyond unnerving.”

“If they’re true, he’s unfit to serve for office,” Graham told NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “If they’re not true, he has the best lawsuit in the history of the country for libel.”

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (D), the state’s Democratic candidate for governor, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday that candidates should be held accountable for continuing to support Robinson.

“They have been supporting him, and now it looks like folks want to run away from him, but they have lifted [him],” Stein said. “Mark Robinson could not exist without the support of Donald Trump.”

The New York Times: From Robinson to false assertions about migrants eating pets, Trump’s campaign has faced chaos and controversy over the past few weeks.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said Trump is “just deranged” and disconnected from women’s lives in the United States for suggesting on Saturday that they’d be better off with him as president and no longer worried about health care or abortion. “Women will be happy, healthy, confident and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion,” Trump asserted (CNN).

🗄️ CABINET WATCH: Let the chatter begin. In the last stretch before November’s elections, Cabinet hopefuls and pundits are speculating the makeup of Harris and Trump’s possible presidential Cabinets. Who could be in Harris’s Cabinet? And who’s angling for a spot in Trump’s Cabinet 2.0?

Angling for Cabinet roles? Former independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard are angling for pivotal roles in a possible Trump administration. Meanwhile, conservative lawyer Mike Davis, a former Supreme Court clerk and former chief counsel for nominations for then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), could be Trump’s attorney general.

2024 ELECTION ROUNDUP

▪ Harris-Walz schedule: The vice president is in Washington. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will headline two receptions in San Antonio this afternoon.

▪ Trump-Vance schedule: The former president at 7 p.m. will hold a rally in Indiana, Pa. Running mate Vance will speak in Charlotte, N.C., at 5 p.m. and headline another event in Charlotte at 6:30 p.m.

▪ Endorsements: More than 700 high-ranking national security officials endorsed Harris over the weekend, with some leaders expressing concerns about Trump’s “scary authoritarian streak.”

▪ In reliably Democratic Maryland, its Senate race is nowhere close to being a slam dunk for progressives. Larry Hogan, the popular former Republican two-term governor, has remained within striking distance of Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D), with some surveys showing them dead even.

▪ Alsobrooks improperly took tax breaks she was not qualified to claim on Washington, D.C., and Maryland properties, per CNN.

▪ Palm Beach County, Fla., election officials say a typographical error that changed Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Walz’s name from Tim to “Tom” on overseas ballots will not affect counting of votes: “The error in no way affects the proper tabulation of any of the electronic ballots and every vote will count as the voter intended,”

WHERE AND WHEN

The House meets at noon. The Senate will convene at 3 p.m.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will speak at 10:30 a.m. in the East Room during a visit for the Gotham F.C. Championship. He will meet in the Oval Office at 12:30 p.m. with United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, known as MBZ. Biden will depart the White House for New York City and arrive by 4:30 p.m. ahead of the U.N. General Assembly gathering scheduled through Wednesday.

The vice president is in Washington, D.C., and will meet with the United Arab Emirates’s MBZ at 2 p.m. at the White House.

First lady Jill Biden will be in New York City for events related to the United Nations. She will speak at 2 p.m. at the LGBTI Core Group’s “Leaving No One Behind: An Inclusive Future for All” event. She will speak at 2:30 p.m. about lead exposure in low- and middle-income countries during an event hosted by USAID and UNICEF. She will attend the Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen Global Platform session at 3 p.m. co-hosted by the first ladies of Ukraine and Estonia, along with Belize, Finland, Lithuania, Malawi, Guatemala, Suriname and UNICEF. She will join the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting to discuss the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research at 5 p.m.

ZOOM IN

STATE WATCH

Michigan: Gov. Whitmer declined during a CNN “State of the Union” interview Sunday to specifically back Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D), who recently charged nine pro-Palestine demonstrators and two counter protesters involved in incidents at the University of Michigan for alleged unlawful actions. “I’m not going to get in the middle of this argument that they’re having,” the governor said. “I can just say this: You know, we do want to make sure that students are safe on our campuses, and we recognize that every person has the right to make their statement about how they feel about an issue, a right to speak out. And I’m going to use every lever of mine to ensure that both are true.”

Ohio: Students at Springfield, Ohio, schools that shut down for multiple days after 33 separate bomb threats have been impacted, education authorities point out. Two universities moved classes online after threats of a shooting, one specifically targeting “members of the Haitian community” after baseless accusations of immigrants eating people’s pets. Experts worry about the collateral damage among children sparked by a racially tinged political myth about immigrants recirculated nationally by Trump and Vance.

California: Homeless encampments in San Francisco have mostly disappeared. Mayor London Breed — a Democrat in a difficult reelection fight this November — began in August to ramp up enforcement of anti-camping laws following a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

ELSEWHERE

INTERNATIONAL

THE DEADLY PAGER and handheld radio attacks in Lebanon this week have raised fears that a larger Israeli attack on Hezbollah is imminent and a wider war is inevitable. The Hezbollah fighters killed and wounded by the device explosions could have been an opening shot by Israel as it prepares its forces to move into Lebanon, some analysts have said. Israel is also hinting that it is ready for a bigger fight against Hezbollah as operations slow down in Gaza against Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would take “whatever action is necessary” to diminish the threat posed by Hezbollah. Both sides have traded airstrikes and attacks since Israel was accused of rigging pagers and walkie-talkies in Beirut and parts of Syria last week.

“If Hezbollah didn’t understand the message, I promise you it will understand the message,” he said in a recorded statement.

Dozens of Israeli warplanes attacked more than 150 targets in Lebanon this morning, and Israel called for civilians to evacuate or move away from areas in which Hezbollah operates and properties it says could be storing weapons

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Saturday there is “a real and acute” danger of an all-out war, but that the U.S. is working on preventing it. Axios reports U.S. officials hope to use Israeli military pressure on Hezbollah to get a diplomatic deal to return civilians to their homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border.

“We’re going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out,” President Biden said on Sunday.

MUNITIONS: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited anammunition factory in Scranton, Pa., Sunday that produces critical munitions Ukraine is using in its fight against Russia. Ukraine has received more than 3 million of its 155 mm shells from the United States.

▪ Reuters: Zelensky is scheduled to meet with Biden and Harris Wednesday.

▪ The New Yorker interview: Zelensky has a plan for Ukraine’s victory.

The U.S. visit comes as Zelensky prepares to address the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week. He is also expected to present U.S. officials with a plan for use of long-range missiles on targets inside Russia.

The Hill: Latin American leaders are sharpening their anti-American rhetoric as attention north of the border is increasingly pulled to other matters.

OPINION

■ Trump’s price controls on credit cards: He wants to cap interest rates at 10 percent. Is this the Sanders campaign? by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

■ Take back the public square: Why silence won’t slow polarization, by Simon Davidson, opinion contributor, The Hill.

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🎼 About 12 minutes of petite movements for a string trio were rediscovered in the Leipzig music library, written by Germany’s Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, likely when he was a teenager between the mid- to late 1760s.

The latest edition of a contemporary catalog of Mozart’s works refers to the newly unearthed composition as “Ganz kleine Nachtmusik” (“very little night music”).

The library’s sepia-toned ink manuscript was not penned by the composer, but is believed to be a copy made around 1780, according to researchers. A list created by Mozart’s father had alerted academics to the existence of “many other chamber music compositions” by the young artist, which were all thought to have been lost until the emergence from the library holdings of the string trio.

Listen to a few minutes of the music performed last week by young musicians HERE. One YouTube commenter added: “Mozart dropped new single.”

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