The NPR Politics Podcast - Harris' & Trump's Paths To The Presidency

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

As election day nears, Vice President Harris and former President Trump will focus their campaigns in specific states in their efforts to win. We look at the latest NPR Election Map and explore their relative paths to victory.This podcast: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, political correspondent Susan Davis, and senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our intern is Bria Suggs. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Cynthia. This is the sound of a beautiful summer night in Kansas City, Missouri. There's a live band playing and people assembled to watch a free outdoor showing of the Barbie movie. And I'm relaxing on my balcony on the 26th floor of my condo building, just taking it all in. This show was recorded at 1.26 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, August 5th of 2024. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Okay, on with the show. Honestly, I'm feeling a little overstimulated by all of that. I was going to say, that could be cool for a little while, and then it's sort of like, time to go to bed, guys.

Watching a movie and listening to music at the same time is hard for me. I will admit. Well, hey there, guys. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today on the show, the paths to the presidency and how the political map is shifting now that Democrats have Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket instead of Joe Biden. Domenico, you are our political cartographer. I love that word, cartographer. So give us the top lines. How are

all of the changes we've seen in the last few weeks affecting the political landscape? I really like that because I'm like obsessed with maps generally, not just political ones. We can go off about that another time. But the landscape is basically back to where we were before Biden's dismal debate performance. When you look at the seven big states that we always talk about, we break them down by two regions, the blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and the Sunbelt states of Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina. In the blue wall states, Trump's lead there has basically evaporated. It was about three points or so over Joe Biden in the days after that debate performance. Now that's completely gone. In fact, Harris on average has about a one point lead in Michigan,

for example. That's within the margin of error, of course. But those are pure toss-ups. Sunbelt, you still give Trump an ever-so-slight lean Republican, but his leads have basically been slashed in half from what were about six to only about two to three points in most of those places. And the Harris campaign feels pretty good that they might be able to overcome some of that organizing and some of the enthusiasm and momentum we've seen Harris get since she got in. So it sounds like, in other words, what was a close race now appears to be an even closer race. And Sue, what do you make of what's going on there? What I think is so interesting, and I was reading through Domenico's analysis of this today, to me, the biggest impact of Harris being at the top of the ticket now does seem to be the Sunbelt State. Specifically, I'm most interested in watching as polls evolve in places like Georgia and Nevada, where it had seemed and felt like we're just slipping away

from Joe Biden. And when you were talking to Democratic strategists, they were kind of talking about those states as like, they could win without them, right? Like they were even almost acknowledging that they might be out of reach, especially in Nevada where Trump at some polls was up eight, nine, 10 points in some things. So it is clear that putting her in has at least had an initially positive impact for the Democratic campaign. Whether she can continue to ride that, I think, is the big question. And I can continue to ride that, I think, is the big question. And I think for me personally, Georgia is one of the most interesting races to watch because of Black turnout and Black enthusiasm. Obviously, having the first Black

woman at the top of the ticket seems like it would be a natural way to juice Black turnout in Atlanta and the Atlanta area and sort of recapitalize on the Biden path in 2020. And that certainly could have an effect in North Carolina as well, where remember, Barack Obama won in 2008. He's like the only Democrat to do that in a very long time in North Carolina. And a lot of people said that it is really because of how much he was able to juice black turnout and the margins with young voters, which is really kind of overlooked when it comes to North Carolina. But that was a huge key.

And they're both groups that Harris is doing much better than Biden was with. And when you look at, you know, the campaign body language, you know, forget about the polls. I always say, let's look at how the campaigns are spending their money. Just so happened that this week, the Trump campaign went up with a slate of ads in North Carolina, something that they were not really doing before. Their big focus was Pennsylvania. But I will say when Sue talks about Georgia, and I mentioned Pennsylvania, those are really it seems like if we zero in on any

states, those are the two states that look like could determine this election. Domenico, it's striking to hear you talk about Georgia, because to me, that suggests just how quickly the landscape has changed. Because when I visited Georgia in May, it really felt like Democratic organizers and activists on the ground were incredibly pessimistic about their odds. And so, you know, it's not just the polling. As Sue was saying, it feels like it's the money, it's the volunteer, the boots on the ground who feel like they are in a fundamentally different place. And you saw that. I mean, at the rally, there were, what, over 10,000 people at that rally the other week for Kamala Harris. I cannot imagine going to a Joe Biden event that would have had that many people, frankly, in the audience.

No. I mean, you'd get like 300 to 400 people at a Biden event. I mean, that's essentially where it was at. Didn't mean people weren't going to go vote, but the enthusiasm certainly not the same as the crowds that we've seen for Harris. And it's something that's got the Trump campaign raising its eyebrows because we know Donald Trump pays very close attention to crowd size. This is something that's very important to him. And what the Harris campaign told me is that they actually saw a tremendous boost in volunteers after that and at that event in Atlanta, that 10,000-person rally that they had. They said they got 1,000 new volunteer signups just from that rally.

And they have about 15,000 total in the state of Georgia now signed up new, about 7,000 in North Carolina, about 1,200 in Nevada. So you're seeing a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of change happening. Sue mentioned Nevada. One of the things about Nevada that's really interesting and why I would sort of throw the polls out for anything before sort of now is because it's one of the states with sort of the least engaged parts of the electorate. It's weird politically. So we've been talking about seven states in total, but if you had to whittle this down, Domenico, what do you see as being the easiest, clearest path for the soon-to-be Democratic nominee Kamala Harris? Yeah, I mean I get the sense that the Harris campaign sees the Sun Belt as icing, that their path is sort of opening up a little bit in the Sun Belt. If they're able to kind of peel off some of those states, then they don't need to win as much in the blue wall states. But I also get the idea from

them that the blue wall is really the entire ballgame, that this is where it's at. Because if Harris wins Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and holds on to that one congressional district in Omaha where she's favored right now, she would have 270 electoral votes exactly. So she wouldn't have to win anything else. She could lose all of those Sunbelt states and would be at 270. For Donald Trump, on the other hand, his path looks like it goes just through Pennsylvania and Georgia, because if he wins both Pennsylvania and Georgia, he doesn't have to win anything else of those other five of the seven swing states that we're talking about. He would be exactly at 270 with Pennsylvania and Georgia.

But that is like the key for them, right? That's where they're spending 77 percent of all the ad money from Team Trump is being spent just on those two places alone. And I think that it's interesting then to see them start to spend in other places now, because they were before Biden dropped out, they were starting to feel like, hey, maybe Virginia's in play, maybe Minnesota's in play. And now the landscape is sort of back to where it was before Biden dropped out before he had that terrible debate. And you see the map rejiggering itself here. So does this map that Domenico has been laying out surprise you at all? I mean, it feels like a lot of change in such a short amount of time. It's so much change, but it's almost change back to the beginning.

It's almost like the original outlines and contours of this race and what the paths were, respective paths were to 270. So in that regard, no, I don't find it all that surprising. What I think that, and Domenico said this in his piece, and I think it's worth reminding, like, this is a very tight race, right? Like, there's no overwhelming red wave or blue wave coming. All of these races are going to be tight. And a lot of these races, they're within the margin of error. So I think that we're in this moment where Kamala Harris has the momentum. She certainly benefited from a ton of good press since she became the nominee or entered

the race. But there's still, like, so much campaign left to go. And we'll see about her vice presidential selection. But I think to Domenico's point, it certainly makes a lot of sense as to why people like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz are high up on that shortlist, because I think that they're keeping that very blue wall in mind. And those are candidates that would seemingly appeal to those voters. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll be back in a moment. And we're back.

And Sue, of course, there is not just a presidential race at stake this November. There are a lot of congressional races also up for grabs, as I know you are paying attention to. So what does the presidential landscape that we have been discussing tell you about the congressional map? Yeah. And just as a reminder, Democrats currently control the Senate. Republicans currently control the House. And both chambers could flip in this election. So one of the questions, and frankly, I'll say right up at front, we don't fully know the answer yet because we're still waiting to see what the down ballot effects are of putting Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket. But as Domenico was saying earlier, there was this sense, especially when Biden was still in the race for Democrats, that the bottom was starting to drop out and that the landscape of races that could be more competitive was expanding into Senate races like in New Mexico and even Virginia. And with Biden out, there has also been this sort of rebound where it does look like the number of competitive

races is sort of back to the known universe. That said, it's a reminder that Republicans are in a really good position to take control of the Senate. They're already going to pick up a seat in West Virginia with the retirement of Joe Manchin. And that means they just need to win one other race to take the Senate, where I think the thing that we're watching for is what does this do to the House landscape? Republicans control the House, but it's, you know, gosh, it's like a single digit majority. Democrats only need to net gain about four or five seats to win the majority. And presidential races tend to carry the weight of the House with them. It would be very unlikely for the top of the ticket and the House to go in opposite directions. I think there's something like 16-ish, heavy on the ish,

House seats that have voted for the opposite party than the top of the ticket that won. So what this does to House races, I think, is the thing we're all waiting to see. But I've been talking to election analysts and campaign people, and they're all like, look, we just don't know yet. We're going to need another four to six weeks to really see how this is shaking out across the country. I think the congressional map in a presidential year often gets overlooked, but it's so important also to the presidency because when people think about which direction they want the country to go, you need Congress to do things with the president or against the president, right? So if you wind up having Harris win the White House but lose the Senate or the House, she wouldn't be able to get done the things that people would want her to get done and vice versa, right? I mean if you've got Donald Trump in the White House, he's only got four years left. He needs to have full control in Washington. So if you want to stop either candidate's legislative agenda, these congressional races are so important. And we also saw in swing

districts just how unpopular Donald Trump was, for example, in 2022, in those midterm elections. You know, a lot of analyses that have been done, including by Republicans who have sent me their PowerPoint presentations, talk about how it wasn't really all about abortion rights. It was largely about candidates who were viewed as too extreme in the mold of Donald Trump. And I think that that gets forgotten just how unpopular Donald Trump is. I think that a lot of Republicans in the House were relying on Biden at the top of the ticket and had also sort of strategized their campaigns against running against a very unpopular Democratic incumbent. Places that I'm watching to see how this might

shake out is in blue states, places like New York and California, not exactly swing states on the presidential level, but home to at least half a dozen competitive House races. And what Republicans weren't counting on was a switch at the top of the ticket that very much juiced Democratic base turnout, enthusiasm, potentially non-white voter turnout. And that puts them in a much different position than running against Joe Biden. Yeah. And putting Harris on the ticket is a little bit of political whack-a-mole because where she does well with younger voters and non-white voters, she has been struggling, I've seen in our polling, for example, with suburban voters and white voters overall. So

she, in these next couple of weeks, really has to be able to win this messaging war about who she is to be able to, you know, give some reassurance to those voters. There does really seem to be this race to identify and label Harris, whether it's, you know, from the right or the left. And I was speaking with Glenn Boulder the other day, Republican pollster. And one thing I thought that was really interesting is he mentioned to me that the ways that voters felt so negatively and have felt very negatively about the economy under Biden, they don't yet seem to be translating all that negativity to Harris. Whether that will change, who knows, on the inflation picture or the sort of broad pessimism that some voters have had on the economy. But what's interesting is that even though she has been a part of this administration, it doesn't seem to translate in the same way that voters feel about Biden and the economy. I mean, she certainly isn't

as well defined in the electorate as both Donald Trump and Joe Biden are. And this is a point that Jacob Rubashkin, who's a nonpartisan election analyst with Inside Elections, I was speaking to him about this sort of broader effect of changing out Harris at the top of the ticket. And he made a point that I think is worth remembering is that like, Donald Trump is still fundamentally an unpopular candidate. He had a couple good weeks certainly going into his convention. He's incredibly popular among Republican voters. But nationally, he's still a pretty unpopular figure. And he said what he was looking for, even more than the Trump to Harris head to head polling, is what her popularity, her favorable ratings are, especially coming out of the convention and that like through September, because she has the potential, at least because so many people dynamic going into November. If you have an unpopular, someone who's fundamentally unpopular nationally and someone who could has the potential to become more popular.

OK, so I have one last question before we wrap up today's show. I keep hearing political analysts refer to this time period as a honeymoon period for Harris. The idea that she's getting this boost in fundraising and even favorability because she sort of surprisingly replaced Biden at the top of the ticket. And there is this expectation that it won't last. You know, there's a lot that can happen over the next few months. We saw big drops in the stock market today. There's a lot of uncertainty about a wider war in the Middle East. you, how real is the landscape and the map we are looking at in this moment? Because it seems like

people keep waiting for this honeymoon to end. And will it likely end? I mean, it has to end at some point because I don't think every candidate has a good day every day. Look, she's still pretty untested. I would say a couple of things remains to be seen whether she actually gets on a debate stage with Donald Trump. There's all sorts of weird politics around that. But you have to think ultimately they have to face off at least once before the election. She also just hasn't been put through the fire a lot. It seems like she hasn't done a ton of like open press conferences. She hasn't been in unscripted situations yet. And she has a record of not always, you know, hitting the ball out of the park in those moments.

So I think that there is waiting to see sort of the grind of the campaign. And can she answer uncomfortable questions? And she hasn't been fully tested in that regard yet. And I think that could shape a lot about how people view her. But it's worth keeping in mind that people will start voting by September in some states. All right, let's leave it there for today. We will be back in your feeds tomorrow with the latest news. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House.

I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.