The Journal. - Red, White and Who? A Swing-State Debate

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

After a tense debate, Ryan Knutson and Molly Ball unpack a busy election week and examine what’s next for both campaigns in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania. Plus, could a state like Nebraska decide the election? Further Listening: - Red, White, and Who? How Abortion Plays for Trump and Harris  - For Kamala Harris, a Big Interview and a Narrow Lead  - Is the Trump Campaign Going Off Track?  Further Reading: - We Asked Undecided Voters Who Won the Trump-Harris Debate  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I thought you were going to bring your cat. Bring my cat to the recording studio? Yes. He's a little shy. He preferred to stay home today. My cat is 20 years old. Oh, wow. Yeah.

What's your cat's name? His name is Heavy. I like the name Heavy. What's your cat's name? His name is Heavy. I like the name Heavy. That's fun. So the reason that I'm asking you about your cat is because it feels like we've constantly been talking about cats in this election. First with JD Vance's comments that resurfaced about childless cat ladies, and then Donald Trump talking about cats and dogs in the debate this week.

And then Taylor Swift said that she was voting for Kamala Harris by posting a photo of herself with her cat. Yeah, you might say it was the through feline of the debate. Oh, got more where that came from, Ryan. Get used to it. It's mostly just a coincidence, but the reason they were really in the news this week

is because Donald Trump brought them up at the debate. It's mostly just a coincidence, but the reason they were really in the news this week is because Donald Trump brought them up at the debate. It seems to have originated in like a Facebook post, basically an urban legend that Trump seized on and brought up in the debate and insisted was true, even though the moderators correctly pointed out it is not true as far as we know. This idea that there's a small town in Ohio that has been overrun with migrants and they are eating people's pets. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats,

they're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening. All right, so we didn't just come here to talk about cats and dogs. This week there was also a debate that took place in a very important swing state. So let's get into it. Let's do it. From the Journal, this is Red, White and Who. Our show about the road to the White House.

I'm Ryan Knudsen. And I'm Molly Ball. It's Friday, White and Who. Our show about the road to the White House. I'm Ryan Knudsen. And I'm Molly Ball. It's Friday, September 13th. Coming up on the show, a big debate in a major swing state. When you're working out at Planet Fitness, it's a judgment-free zone, so you can really step up your workout. That's why we've got treadmills. And our team members are here to help, so you can be carefree with the free weights. They're also balance balls, bikes, cables, kettlebells, and T-Rex equipment.

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Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings may vary. Eligibility and member terms apply. All right, so obviously the big thing that happened since the last time we spoke was the first and possibly only presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. And I watched the debate and I was flipping back and forth between the channels afterward, the news networks and a lot of the people on the panels were talking about how Harris

won this debate. Kamala Harris pitched a shutout on almost every subject I can think of. People on the right, of course, were saying that she wasn't that strong, that Trump won, that he was up against the moderators, that it was a three-on-one. The ABC moderators targeted Trump with tougher questions, more follow-ups, and nonstop corrections. What's your take on how this debate played out for Trump and Harris? I don't think there's any question that Harris won this debate. That seems to be the consensus.

That was certainly my take, although, you know, it wasn't a knockout. It certainly wasn't as overwhelmingly obvious as the Trump-Biden debate back in June. But Republicans are pretty openly admitting that Trump didn't do well in this debate, that she successfully baited him and got under his skin. And Democrats are very, very happy with how the debate turned out. How much do you think it matters that Trump didn't have a strong performance given how his supporters feel about him? Well, first of all, his supporters aren't the ones he needs to reach.

They're by definition already voting for him anyway, right? Both of these candidates are trying to reach swing voters, trying to reach undecided voters. There was quite a large audience for this debate. The early ratings data that I've seen shows about 67 million people tuned into this debate. So it's a big audience. This is the audience of general election voters who may not have been paying attention until now. And Harris was trying to paint a picture of him

as someone who is too focused on himself to focus on governing, to focus on the needs of the American people. She's trying to convince people that he's the one who's fixated on the past and who's fixated on personal grievance, and she's the one who is, in her phrase, for the people. And so he sort of validated her frame by continuing to talk about the past, to talk about his personal grievances, to talk, again, in largely untrue terms, about the things that he's personally obsessed with,

instead of talking about the issues where people think he may have a better idea than her, the issues where he's more trusted. And then the other thing that Harris was hoping to illustrate about Trump was just his temperament. And this is, again, this is the number one qualm that voters have about him. Even a lot of voters who might feel inclined to

support him. And so that was really on full display in the debate. And that's part of the reason that Republicans were so dismayed by his performance. A lot of voters were saying that they felt like they needed to see more from Kamala Harris, you know, going into this debate about her policies and how she would govern. Do you think that she did enough to make voters feel comfortable that they, that they got an answer on that as to what type of president she would be and what her policies are? This to me is the main asterisk on Harris's win in the debate. You're right. I and many other people went into this debate seeing it as an important moment for her to

fill in the blanks that are still in the minds of a lot of voters about her. And the debate was so much about Trump. She was talking about him, he was talking about him. And so to the extent that people were tuning in wanting to know more about her, they may have felt like they didn't get those questions answered. Our reporter Sabrina Siddiqui reached out to several undecided voters for an article that we published asking them, did you feel like you've learned enough from the debate to make up your mind? And quite a few of these voters who are still on the fence, they said,

yes, she won the debate. Yes, she did a better job. Yes, I didn't like the way he came across, but I still don't feel like I got my questions answered. I still don't feel like I know enough about her. So that to me was the number one missed opportunity for her was really filling in that definition that for a lot of undecided voters is still a bit of an unknown.

So we talked earlier about Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris in the cat photo that she put out. But I'm curious to get your take on how much do you think this endorsement will matter? I think it matters. I'm not a Swiftie, but I live with one. And she is not old enough to vote, but she certainly listens to everything Taylor Swift says. That's not to say she would do anything Taylor Swift told her to do, but it was interesting the way Taylor Swift worded this endorsement, right? She talked about it as being a response to disinformation, specifically the AI images that Trump has promoted that make it look like she supports Trump.

And so, she's framing this as this isn't me, you know, being an activist and wanting to get involved in politics. I was sort of dragged into it by people misrepresenting me and my views. And she encouraged people to register and vote. And it certainly wasn't any surprise which way she was going to go in this election. She endorsed Joe Biden in 2020. We know that she is a liberal on these issues and cares a lot about particularly gay rights and women's rights.

But I think the combination of the incredible following she has and her ability to communicate with a lot of people who might not hear that message otherwise. And the way she worded the endorsement has the potential to be really powerful. And then of course there's the cat, which is a very cute cat. And she signed the post childless cat lady, which appeared to be a clap back to something that Donald Trump's vice presidential nominee, JD Vance said a few years ago when he was criticizing the Democratic Party as being made up of, you know, childless cat ladies. But it really reminded me in that moment of Hillary Clinton's comment from 2016

about, you know, Trump supporters being this basket of deplorables that really became a rallying cry on the right for Trump supporters. I think that's a really good comparison actually actually because candidates say a lot of things. But sometimes there will be one thing that people latch onto as the one thing they know about that candidate. And for Vance, who, you know, was new on the national stage when he got picked to be Trump's running mate and who people didn't really know much about, this seems to be the thing that's really penetrated, you know, pop culture, taken off

outside the political media to the point where it's something that I think regular people who don't know anything else about JD Vance, it's the one thing they know about him. And it has become a rallying cry. You saw t-shirts at the Democratic convention, people waving, you know, childless cat ladies for Harris signs. So it's definitely taken off as a sort of identity marker for Vance and Trump's opponents as well. So let's talk about where this debate took place, which is the state of Pennsylvania. Last time we spoke you talked about how important Pennsylvania is in this election, that it's essentially a must-win for both candidates. Can you say more about why that is? Like, why is it that Pennsylvania became so important in this election? Well, bottom line is it's a big swing state.

And any big swing state is going to be important. James Carville once memorably described Pennsylvania as two big cities with Alabama in the middle. So you have Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, both Democratic strongholds, and then rural Pennsylvania, which is deep, deep, deep red, very conservative. And the crucial swing counties are all those suburban areas around the two big cities. And because it's such a large state, it has a lot of electoral votes. So both candidates are going to be focused very, very intensely on the state of Pennsylvania. And interestingly, I saw some data that said that the ratings for the debate were highest in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, that those were the parts of the country where the most

people tuned in to watch the debate. Interesting. So to the extent that both campaigns are trying to communicate with people in this big, important swing state, they got their wish in Pennsylvania with the debate. Well, our senior producer, Rachel Humphries, spoke with some voters in Pennsylvania this week. Hey, Rachel, do you want to come tell us about how those conversations went?

Hi, Ryan. Hi, Molly. Yes. So you spoke to voters in Pennsylvania this week, and the polls show that this state is incredibly tight. I think Harris has less than a one percentage point lead over Trump at the moment, so basically tied. What did you hear from voters there?

Yeah, I talked to voters across the state, some Trump supporters, some Harris supporters, and an undecided voter. And I asked them what they made of the debate. Now, the Trump supporters said they thought he could have done better, and one was surprised by how much Harris managed to get under his skin. But they both made the point that they felt ABC was biased towards Harris and actually

made the debate harder for Trump. What about the Harris supporters? How do they feel about how the debate went? Yeah, one that I spoke to, she described herself as being a supporter of Harris, quote, a thousand percent. But after watching the debate, she still felt that she wanted to know more about Harris' policies, that she had been a bit lacking in detail on those, and she's really hoping that we can hear that before election day. And you also spoke with someone who is still somewhat on the fence. Yes, I spoke to Lou Pintorelli earlier this week and he's from Philadelphia.

So I live in suburban Philadelphia right now. I come from South Philadelphia. South Philadelphia has pockets of pro-Trump places and some pockets of very liberal places. From my experience, just driving around and seeing the signs, I do feel more support for Harris this cycle. And before Tuesday night's debate, did you know who you were going to vote for? I was leaning very strongly toward Vice President Harris. Have you changed how you feel about that after the debate?

Yeah, I'm going to vote for Vice President Harris. Yeah, I'm going to vote for Vice President Harris. I liked seeing the contrast between the two candidates really sort of put into perspectives. I thought she was excellent compared to how former President Trump was not answering questions and rambling about conspiracies and worried about his crowd size and stuff like that. And that's not, you know, stuff I want in a leader. So Molly, as usual, it seems turnout is going to be so important for the Trump and Harris campaigns in Pennsylvania this year. It's going to be about the ground game. It's going to be about, I remember, you know, in 2016, Hillary Clinton had a rally that was also a concert with

Beyonce and Jay-Z. So you're going to see that kind of thing where the campaigns are bringing their most impressive surrogates to the state to try to turn out their voters. You know who's from Pennsylvania, though? Who? Taylor Swift. She is originally, isn't she? Yeah. Didn't she grow up on a Christmas tree farm? Mm-hmm. In is originally, isn't she? Yeah.

Didn't she grow up on a Christmas tree farm? Mm-hmm. In Pennsylvania. I do know some Swift trivia. All right. Thanks, Rachel, so much for speaking to those voters. Molly, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to talk about a different state, Nebraska.

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That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. All right, so Molly, are you ready for our listener question? I am, Saketumi. This one comes from Stephanie Rose in Omaha, Nebraska. Hi, Molly. I was wondering if a state like Nebraska, where it isn't winner take all, could significantly

affect the election. Thanks. So just to clarify for some listeners who may not know, Nebraska is one of two states, the other one being Maine, that it's not a winner take all for their electoral votes. They split it up. Can you explain what that means exactly? How does that work? Yes, and can I just say, and I love our listeners and I love the questions that they have been sending us, they're always so interesting and an opportunity to

talk about stuff that's a little bit not in the news but super important and interesting. So yes, the electoral college, every state gets a certain number of electoral votes and in 48 states they a certain number of electoral votes, and in 48 states, they give all of their electoral votes to the person who won the popular vote in that state. But in two states, they split up the votes geographically based on the winner of each congressional district in the state. So in Maine and Nebraska, they may give some electoral votes to one candidate, but one

electoral vote to one candidate, but one electoral vote to the other. Nebraska, a big red state, but there is one congressional district around Omaha that swings back and forth between the parties that Joe Biden won in 2020. So all the electoral votes in Nebraska went to Trump, except that one that went to Joe Biden. So Nebraska could play a big role, and they've been putting up these blue dot signs around the state to symbolize the fact that Omaha has the potential to be a blue dot

in a sea of red. And given how close this election is, given how close the electoral map is, it is possible that it could be the deciding vote in the presidential election. Just that one electoral vote? It's possible. There are some scenarios, and I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole here, but there's a scenario where if Kamala Harris wins the blue wall states of the upper Midwest, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, but loses all the sunbelt states, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona, you potentially get a tie and that single electoral vote in

Nebraska could be the deciding vote. Wow. So Stephanie's vote in Omaha, Nebraska might really, really matter then. Yes. And both campaigns are acting this way. Tim Walz was born and grew up in Nebraska. He has been there to campaign. And this is part of the reason that even though it's

a red state that has the potential to help the Democrats, Nebraska still hasn't changed this sort of quirk of its electoral laws. They like the attention. They like that they're politically important in a small and marginal way. Well, I was going to ask, why would a state even want to split their electoral votes?

Like, where does this idea come from? And is there a chance that more states might do it? I don't know the full political history, and I haven't heard of any other state wanting to do this. Again, because most states are either pretty blue or pretty red, so they don't want to take the chance of potentially taking votes away from the candidate that they support. We're going to do a whole episode on the Electoral College in the coming weeks because it is

so fascinating and so controversial and I've been getting so many interesting questions from listeners about it. But before we go, I do want to look forward a little bit to the next week and the next coming weeks. The candidates have now each had their conventions. There has now been the debate. What's left on the to-do list for each candidate over the next several weeks before the election? We are now in the home stretch of the campaign. Both candidates went from the debate direct to the swing states. They're going to be campaigning very aggressively. You're going to see them doing events nonstop.

There's going to be a vice presidential debate on October 1st. So it's going to be an exciting several weeks. Thanks so much, Molly. It's great to talk to you. I'll let you get home to your cat. And I'm going to go walk my dog. Sounds good. Alright, we'll see you next week. Thanks, Ryan. Before we go,

I want to ask you a question. Are you planning to vote by mail this year? Why? Do you think it matters at all how people vote? Send us an email or voice message to thejournal at wsj.com That message to thejournal at wsj.com. That's thejournal at wsj.com. Red, White, and Who is part of The Journal, a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street

Journal. Our senior producer is Rachel Humphries. Our producer is Pierce Singing. Our editor is Catherine Whalen. Production help from Laying Tom. I'm Ryan Knudson. This episode was engineered by Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley and remixed by Peter Leonard.

Additional music by Emma Munger. Fact checking by Amelia Schoenbeck. Artwork by James Walton. Special thanks to Kate Leinbach, Sarah Platt, Ben Pershing, and the whole journal team. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with another episode of Red, White, and Who next Friday morning. See you then. I did not get in nearly as many cat puns as I was hoping,

unfortunately. I'm disappointed. I thought you would have just been... Which other ones do you have, Molly? Oh, I don't know. Perfect is the obvious one, right? If you can get that one in there. Yeah, perfect or catastrophe.

Feline great. Yeah. More than one way to swing a cat. Skin a cat, I mean. That kind of thing. Swing a cat, though. That's right for this election. Yeah, a swing cat.

Are there any swing cats left out in the electorate? You can't swing a cat in the state of Pennsylvania without hitting a swing voter, I've heard.