The battle to win crucial voters in Pennsylvania
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Good morning and welcome to US Election Countdown. Today let’s talk about:
The intensifying race for Pennsylvania
Trump’s shifts on abortion
How national security is changing economic policy
With two months to go, it looks like the presidential race could come down to Pennsylvania.
Kamala Harris has a lead of 0.4 percentage points over Donald Trump in the state, according to the FT’s election poll tracker, a margin so tiny it’s basically impossible to call.
The vice-president will be in Pittsburgh today — her second visit to the city in less than a week, as she tries to woo voters in the swing state.
Trump has been spending a good amount of time in Pennsylvania, too, including a Fox News town hall in Harrisburg last night.
Both campaigns are spending more on adverts in Pennsylvania than in any other swing state, or on national ones: Harris has pumped $146.8mn into ads in the Keystone state, while Trump has spent $131.8mn, according to the FT’s ad tracker.
In 2020, Joe Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania by just 81,660 votes. For Democrats to hold on to Pennsylvania — the winner of which has won the White House in 10 of the past dozen presidential elections — Harris will need to make gains in the traditional Democratic strongholds of Philadelphia and its surrounding areas, while curbing losses in rural regions.
Zooming out, the race isn’t just tied in Pennsylvania — it’s neck and neck nationally. [Free to read].
Harris is leading Trump by 3.6 percentage points nationally, according to the FT polling average, but all her battleground state leads are within the margin of error.
The economy, immigration and abortion remain top of mind for voters. Harris has the advantage on reproductive rights, while immigration and the economy play better for Trump. We’ll be watching to see how the candidates’ performance in next week’s hotly anticipated debate influences opinion on these topics.
Campaign clips: the latest election headlines
The Biden administration will block Nippon Steel’s takeover of US Steel on national security grounds, as Harris tries to win over blue-collar voters in the state. US Steel, for its part, though, has said that thousands of jobs in the swing state are “at risk” if the deal is blocked.
Trump is set to announce new economic proposals today that include a government efficiency commission recommended by Elon Musk. (WSJ)
Republican Liz Cheney, a former member of Congress and daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, endorsed Harris citing the “danger” of a second Trump term.
The Biden administration has accused Russia of trying to influence the 2024 election with misinformation aimed at US voters.
In an olive branch to Wall Street, Harris will propose a smaller increase than Biden to the top tier of the capital gains tax bracket.
Harris is trying to rebuild Biden’s winning 2020 coalition but has more work to do to win over some Black, Latino and young voters who have drifted to Trump. (WSJ)
Behind the scenes
Trump is on the defensive on abortion as he struggles to define his position on the critical election issue. He’s trying to thread a tricky needle, aiming to hold on to religious anti-abortion voters, a core part of his base, without haemorrhaging support from moderate and independent voters who tend to favour abortion rights.
I had a chat about this with Republican strategist Doug Heye, who told me:
The reason he sort of struggles on this is it’s the first time we’ve ever seen Donald Trump trying to be nuanced. And Donald Trump isn’t nuanced. He’s blunt force trauma.
He’s trying to figure it out as he goes along, which I don’t say is a criticism, per se, but it’s just it’s new to him.
History indicates that Trump will not get the hang of nuance, “but the fact that he’s even thinking in that direction, to me, is interesting”, Haye added.
Late last month, Trump said on his Truth Social platform that “My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights”, four days after telling CBS News he would not use an 1873 federal law restricting what can be mailed to curb access to the abortion pill. His running mate, JD Vance, also told NBC’s Meet the Press that the ex-president would not impose a federal abortion ban.
But then last week, Trump said he’d vote against an amendment to Florida’s state constitution guaranteeing abortion rights, after earlier suggesting he’d vote to make sure abortion was not limited to the first six weeks of pregnancy. The state at present has a ban on the procedure after six weeks.
Datapoints
The US economy is being transformed by national security, as fears about spying and dual-use technology — particularly by China — overshadow free market thinking.
And as national security becomes more entrenched in economic policy, nationalism has taken over: making the US’s manufacturing sector competitive again has become a geopolitical priority [Free to read].
This shift in US policy towards economic nationalism is likely to continue no matter who ends up in the White House after election day.
Should Trump win, the US’s approach to international economic policy will probably get more protectionist, transactional and unpredictable, though his overarching approach to China is murkier.
Meanwhile, Harris hasn’t signalled that she’ll deviate too far from Biden’s strategy, which surprisingly went further than his predecessor’s on linking economic and national security.
One example: the White House is putting the finishing touches on plans to slap 25 per cent tariffs on imported Chinese cranes that line US ports. The action is meant to both spur US production and protect against potential spying. It comes after the US already imposed 100 per cent tariffs on imported electric vehicles from China.
Viewpoints
Oren Cass, chief economist at American Compass, thinks the election race has been filled with empty campaign promises as both candidates avoid being pinned down on policy at the expense of a functioning democratic republic.
Politicians are realising they can use video games to reach younger voters, says Tom Faber.
Columnist Jennifer Rubin tells us how Harris could improve on Biden’s White House with her cabinet picks and what issues she should focus on. (Washington Post)
NYT’s David Brooks and Ross Douthat pretend it’s November 6, the day after the election, and contemplate how Trump and Harris might have won, respectively. (NYT)
Political scientist Justin Grimmer says we shouldn’t trust election forecasts — we don’t know if widely used polling averages are any good. (Politico Magazine)
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