BY MATT BERG
& CROOKED MEDIA |
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If any candidate has momentum, it’s Harris, not Trump.”
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Is Kamala Harris really ahead in Iowa? It’s hard to say for sure, but a shocking new poll giving her a lead in the Hawkeye State looks like a positive omen for her campaign, either way.
- There’s a good reason why Ann Selzer is widely considered the queen of Iowa polling — and, by some, the best pollster in America. She’s got a long track record of getting her state right. That explains why Selzer’s final poll, which showed Vice President Kamala Harris leapfrogging former President Donald Trump in Iowa to a 47-to-44 lead, made the brain of every Democrat you know suddenly surge with a crackling sense of optimism. Before this weekend, everyone thought Trump had Iowa in the bag (a state where he was leading President Joe Biden by 18 points in that state in June). So… was this poll just an outlier? Or was it a sign?
- Most other polls suggest this race remains extremely tight, at the national level and in the seven most-watched swing states. “If I were a Democrat, I would go into the night saying we have a 50-50 shot,” pollster Nate Silver told our friends at the What A Day podcast. Silver penned a New York Times op-ed last month declaring that while his gut tells him Trump will win, we should trust the numbers, and not our guts (and not his gut either). Now, however, he sees recent trends in Harris’s favor. “We're going into the last week where, if any candidate has momentum, it's Harris, not Trump,” he said.
- Sean Bagniewski, a Democratic state representative in Iowa, told What A Day that he would be “very surprised” if she won the state. But other parts of Selzer’s poll should set off alarm bells for the Trump campaign, he explained: “Women, Independents, seniors, and late-deciders are breaking for [Harris] in surprisingly high numbers. I’d rather have our hand than theirs,” he wrote in an email. The poll may not predict an Iowa win, but extending that momentum to places like Michigan and Pennsylvania could make all the difference.
To be sure, this race remains very fluid, and could go either way. Yet Harris has other reasons to be hopeful, beyond Iowa.
- Some of America’s best election-guessers have harnessed their mega-nerd power, crunched the data, and predicted wins for Harris. Journalist Jon Ralston, known as “The Oracle” of Nevada, sees a narrow Harris win in his state. Sabato’s Crystal Ball predicted Harris will carry the overall election by holding the “Blue Wall” states. Historian Allan Lichtman, who has a pretty good track record, remains confident Harris will win.
- Another bad sign for Trump: A poll conducted after Trump’s disastrous racism-laced rally last week — in which a so-called comedian compared Puerto Rico to “a floating island of garbage” — found that Harris has a 34-point lead among Latinos in Pennsylvania, a demographic that numbers around 600,000. She was up only 19 points among Latinos in the state last month, according to another poll. That’s a big deal, because Pennsylvania is especially seen as a crucial component to securing enough Electoral College votes to win.
- In a call with What A Day this afternoon, Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA) said that the rally gave Democrats in the battleground state another way to contrast their message — one of optimism and progress — with Trump’s divisive rhetoric in the home stretch. Asked about the New York Times headline today that claimed Republicans are stressing “optimism” in Pennsylvania, Deluzio said that he’s “not seeing that kind of energy on the Republican side. I mean, Trump has essentially outsourced this to Elon Musk's dumpster fire of an operation. It is not competing with what we are doing.”
Kamala Harris needs to perform well in a combination of swing states to pull this off. For a deeper dive into how that could work, Crooked’s polling guru Dan Pfeiffer chatted with fellow polling maestro Steve Kornacki on Pod Save America. Give it a listen here.
Readers! Yes, you! What are you planning to do to stay sane on Election Night? We want to know! Message us at whataday@crooked.com.
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STOP THE STEAL, PART DEUX?
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MAGAworld has already laid the legal groundwork for contesting this election, but far-right extremists are going even further. On social media, right-wing groups have repeatedly called for activists to intimidate poll workers and advocate against absentee voting at election board meetings.
“The day is fast approaching when fence sitting will no longer be possible,” reads a Telegram post from a Proud Boys chapter, according to the New York Times. “You will either stand with the resistance or take a knee and willingly accept the yoke of tyranny and oppression.”
The fringe “Stop the Steal” movement, which tried to overthrow the last election, has also ramped up its misinformation campaign, this time with a helping hand from Elon Musk, the billionaire conspiracist who owns X.
All of that’s concerning to officials on Capitol Hill, where memories of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot remain all too fresh. One Democratic lawmaker told NOTUS that they’re preparing a “getaway costume” composed of “tactical pants, tactical boots and one key part of the disguise” that the lawmaker asked the outlet not to disclose. Several Democrats have also reportedly taken out legal insurance to pay for lawyers, just in case Trump tries to target them.
These trends are a worrying reminder that the weeks after the election could be pretty tense, especially if Donald Trump loses and (as would be widely expected) refuses to accept that result while embarking on another round of baseless accusations of election fraud.
One big upside this time, though, is that Trump isn’t the president. He’d be complaining from the outside, with considerably less leverage than he had last time. For example: Recall the time Trump placed a threatening phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger about the need to “find” more Trump votes. Getting a call like that from President Trump is a very different thing than getting it from citizen Trump.
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A Pennsylvania judge ruled that Elon Musk’s $1 million daily giveaway to swing state voters can proceed. That comes shortly after Musk’s lawyer argued that his client’s sweepstakes is legal because “there is no prize to be won. Instead, recipients must fulfill contractual obligations to serve as a spokesperson for the PAC.” If $1 million isn’t a prize then I would definitely not like a prize, please.
If Donald Trump wins the election, he would likely “criminalize the anti-war movement here in this country, essentially trying to create a carveout in our free speech rights against pro-Palestinian advocacy,” Uncommitted movement co-founder Abbas Alawieh told the What A Day podcast. While Uncommitted hasn’t endorsed Kamala Harris, Alawieh said he’s voting for her.
Trump said that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after losing the 2020 election, during a rambling 90-minute rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday morning. He also said he wouldn’t mind if reporters were shot: “To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don’t mind that so much.” Ummm… I’d mind!
MAGAworld is saying ominous things about the future of healthcare in America if Trump wins, like overhauling the Affordable Care Act, openly questioning vaccines, and taking fluoride out of drinking water. Experts are worried about the real-world consequences if these ideas become policy. Is it a bad idea to let the guy whose brain was eaten by a worm make decisions about your health? Do we have to find out???
Western security officials believe Russia tried to place electric massagers implanted with a flammable substance on cargo and passenger planes bound for the U.S. and Canada, the Wall Street Journal reports.
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This has been a long, wild, and yes, weird election cycle, and we could not have gotten through it without all of you. Crooked’s mission is to create a space for honest conversations about news, politics and the world around us. Whatever happens next week, we’re committed to maintaining that mission. That’s why today’s a great time to join Crooked’s subscription community— Friends of the Pod. If you like our content, this is the best way to support the work we do. Friends of the Pod perks include ad-free Pod Save America episodes, Pod Save The World bonus segments, exclusive podcasts like Pollercoaster with Dan Pfeiffer, access to our Discord community, and more. We are offering 25% off new annual Friends of the Pod subscriptions through election day. With an annual subscription, you’re saving $30/year and supporting Crooked Media. Join now and hold it together with us during election week and beyond.
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The State Department reportedly uses a fictional country called “the Republic of Z” to train diplomats for real-world scenarios. It’s a very secretive project, but it’s also pretty funny: “Z’s independence day is April 1 and its ‘national shame’ is a raccoon that raids offices,” Politico’s Nahal Toosi writes. Everything in the country is purple-tinted, even the supposedly evil raccoon, pictured in the article.
The Onion published a hilarious video today showing an election touchscreen map that “takes deeper look inside key swing voter.” Take notes, Steve Kornacki!
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