42 Days 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

State of Play:  The good news is that Kamala Harris continues to lead in most national polls and her net favorability rating has increased dramatically. The less good news is that virtually all of those polls, especially the ones in the swing states, are well within the margin of error and a disturbingly high number of poll respondents continue to view Trump favorably. Moreover, despite Trump’s cockamamie economic plans, including his stated intention to impose high tariffs combined with his total misunderstanding of how they work, voters continue to give view him higher marks on his ability to handle the economy, a top concern of the electorate.  Also, the polls don’t take into consideration the Republican party’s voter suppression efforts which have grown increasingly nefarious. For example, last week, the Republican dominated Georgia State Election Board, voted in favor of hand counting all ballots in the November election, an unreliable, time-consuming process that will most certainly slow down the counting of ballots, and could cause Georgia to miss the deadline to report its official results for Electoral College purposes.  Brad Raffensperger, the Republican Georgia Election official who refused to find Trump the 11,000 or so votes he asked for in 2020 is very concerned that the new rules will jeopardize the state’s counting of votes, he also thinks that the new procedures are illegal, and they may be but that also means more court battles. Throughout the country, Republican election officials have been finding reasons to kick certain “types” of voters off the voting roles and make voting more difficult.  Additionally, there are concerns that Speaker Mike Johnson who, even if the Republicans lose the House in November will be Speaker until January 3, will find ways to throw additional wrenches into state vote confirmations. That’s not an unreasonable concern given that Johnson has been an ardent supporter of Trump’s assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. Republican officials in Nebraska are working hard to change the rules that govern the allocation of their electoral college votes. Though 48 states allocate all their electoral college voters to the winner of their popular votes, both Nebraska and Maine allocate theirs differently, giving two votes to the state popular vote winner and one to the popular vote winner in each congressional district.  There are two districts in Maine and three in Nebraska.  This process could and frequently does lead to a split electoral college vote.  Concerned that the Omaha district vote will go to Kamala and expecting a close election where just one electoral college vote could be the decider, Republicans are trying to change Nebraska’s allocation process to winner takes all before the November election.  If you are having trouble sleeping at night, you are not alone.  

The Nepo Vote:  It’s still not clear if RFK Jr’s endorsement of Trump has much, if any value, but he too is all in on voter shenanigans. The mailing of absentee ballots in North Carolina was held up while state courts considered his request to have his name removed from the presidential ballot even though he missed the official deadline.  After the courts ruled in his favor, ballots which had already been printed had to be reprinted causing a delay as well as costing affected counties in excess of $100,000. RFK is still litigating to get his name removed from the ballots in swingy Michigan and Wisconsin, but curiously he’s appealing to keep his name on New York’s ballot. By the way, RFK is also claiming that the sexts between him and New York Magazine writer Olivia Nuzzi which became known in part because he shared them with some friends, were her fault. It’s worth noting that the sexting took place for about nine months and during that time, Nuzzi also wrote articles about his then opponents, Biden and Trump. In any case Trump’s team doesn’t seem to care about RFK’s questionable behavior and for the moment still plans to give him health policy responsibilities should he make it back to the White House.  MAVA Make America Viral Again! On the subject of health, JD Vance is talking about replacing Obamacare with a plan that separates the healthy from those with preexisting conditions proving that he doesn’t understand how insurance works and also that some battles never die.  Vance is scheduled to debate Tim Walz on October 1.  Kamala has challenged Trump to debate her again on CNN on October 23.  So far, he’s not interested, for obvious reasons. 

Tar Heels:  Trump is still polling ahead of Kamala in North Carolina, no thanks to gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson whose noxious views and heinous old social media posts continue to reverberate at least with those who aren’t claiming that they were manufactured by AI, the excuse de jure when past posts come back to haunt. Trump campaigned in the state this weekend but disinvited Robinson. To be clear, he hasn’t “unendorsed” Robinson, at least so far, but he doesn’t want to be seen with the guy he previously characterized as MLK on steroids. Although Robinson remains North Carolina’s gubernatorial candidate, he now has almost no staff as the majority of them, including his campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, finance director and senior political consultant have resigned because though they always knew he was a hateful bigot they just didn’t realize that so much of his hate was documented.  Robinson isn’t the only one who’s being kept away from Trump, his handlers are now also keeping, or at least trying to keep Laura Loomer off his plane. Melania has had little to say about Trump’s Loomer obsession, she’s marketing her soon to be released book and defending her nude pictures, equating their artistic value to Michelangelo’s David. Not to be outdone, Trump and his sons are working on a crypto scheme targeting those who missed out or didn’t lose enough on his Truth Social grift.       

Senate Races: Though its not a given that Democrats will retake the House, they stand a chance if they retake a view of those California and New York seats they lost in 2022.  However, holding the Senate remains a stretch given Democrat retirements and the number of vulnerable Democrats up for reelection this cycle.  While most eyes are on Montana and Ohio, the races in Michigan and Maryland though currently polling blue aren’t a given: Ohio because though Sherrod Brown is relatively popular, the state was Trump plus eight in 2020; Michigan because Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin who is running for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Stabenow is facing Mike Rogers a relatively popular former Republican Congressman; and Maryland because Democrat Angela Alsobrooks who is running for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Ben Cardin is facing popular former Republican Governor Larry Hogan.  Three other states are worth watching: Texas where Democratic Congressman/Veteran/ex-football player Colin Allred is challenging Republican Ted Cruz; Florida where Democrat Debbie Murcarsel-Powell is challenging Republican Rick Scott; and Nebraska where Independent candidate Dan Osborn is challenging Republican Senator Deb Fischer.  Neither Cruz nor Scott is particularly popular in their states, but Scott is hugely wealthy and is spending boatloads of his own money to defend his seat and Cruz, despite all this disdain he engenders, always seems to manage to win.  Moreover, though we keep on hearing that Texas is becoming a purple state it’s remains red.  Nebraska is the outlier here, much to everyone’s surprise Dan Osborn, who is running as an independent, there is no Democratic candidate, is a Veteran, steamfitter, industrial mechanic, and labor union leader.  He is making life difficult for Senator Deb Fischer, even polling one point ahead of her in some polls.  Osborn has avoided saying which party he’ll caucus with if he wins but though he skews Republican on immigration, he’s much more Democrat-like on others, he supports reproductive rights and the legalization of cannabis among other things so it fair to assume he’ll join with Chuck Schumer’s team should he manage to eke out a victory.       

#BringThemAllHomeNOW