The 24 Seven: Opportunity Zones
The top seven issues shaping the race for the White House
1. The Clock
Voting starts in six weeks.
(That’s early voting in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia, according to Ballotpedia — it ramps up fast from there.)
Election Day, Nov. 5, is three months away.
The clock is running down. Fast. Which means the chances to intentionally alter the course of this election are fleeting.
There have been an inordinate number of major news events this cycle, yet very few of them have actually changed the course of the hardened American electorate. The first ever criminal charges, trial and conviction of a former U.S. president, the Supreme Court vastly expanding presidential power, and more.
However, the four-week stretch from the first (and possibly only) presidential debate to President Joe Biden dropping out of the race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris did inexorably reshape this race — mostly, it seems, by waking up the Democratic electorate and the pro-democracy coalition.
Here’s a look at the possible game-changers we can see now, three months out. (Granted, Godzilla could still emerge from the seas, a comet could strike the White House and RFK Jr. could get caught cosplaying with a dead bear cub. This is 2024, after all.)
2. Harris’s Veep
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro appears to be at the top of the list. Harris and her team (which largely consists of top Democratic talent from across the party, including many of Biden’s top aides and, increasingly, former president Barack Obama’s top advisers – including the notable recent hire of David Plouffe.)
Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, along with Shapiro, met with Harris and her team this weekend for a final round of interviews and
At this moment, Harris’s running mate remains one of the key “known unknowns” in the race — someone who could help push Democrats across the finish line in November, or derail their coconut-pilled energy of the last two weeks.
The first test, according to her campaign, will be tomorrow in Philadelphia when Harris and her soon-to-be-named second campaign there as part of a battleground state swing.
3. Debatable
There could be another presidential debate, the first between Harris and former president Donald Trump.
Or there could be two more televised interviews.
Trump is a master at the interview (for sheer political purposes). He’s excellent at steamrolling journalists and clouding debate with a flood of vague and indiscernible statements (see his appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists last week, where his start was delayed as he fought against getting fact-checked onstage, and then punctuated by his attacks on Harris’s race — which have firmed into a defining characteristic of the Trump campaign since then.)
Harris has not been as profligate with her sit-down interviews, which could derail her momentum when she finally does sit down for one, akin to when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stepped out of the Fox News, Twitter bubble last spring and started engaging with the press. (SiriusXM 124 host Julie Mason and I dissected this, and much more, in the latest episode of the 24sight Pod, which posted Saturday. It’s a banger.)
4. Honeymooning
What’s the expiration date on a political “honeymoon”?
Two weeks ago, Trump’s top campaign aides dismissed Harris’s launch as a honeymoon period. And a fair number of top reporters said this energy would evaporate. (Of note, this mirrors many of the same arguments used by former establishment Republicans in the 2016 primaries to attempt to wish away Trump — which, of course, didn’t bear out.)
I’ve noticed the raw enthusiasm for Trump ebbing for a few years now, including diehard MAGA fans leaving his truncated campaign rallies early — New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg’s criminal charges against Trump last spring clearly triggered a reflexive rally-around-Trump effect among the GOP’s base voters last spring.
Harris is “new” on the national scene — which is to say new to most voters and citizens who don’t follow the minutiae of minute-by-minute politics the same as reporters and political operatives — and seems to be reaping the benefits of fresh energy.
The “honeymoon” does not seem to be over, and instead seems to be morphing into momentum. (Of note, handicappers still have Trump as the frontrunner with a clear edge in the states needed to win the election.)
Here’s longtime polling analyst
with his adjusted 2024 forecasting model.5. Race Bait
Questioning Harris’s Blackness is now a feature of the Trump campaign’s attack on the ascendant Democratic nominee after the Republican nominee launched the “birther” style attack on Harris at the NABJ convention last week.
Rising star in the Trump Party, Rep. Byron Donalds, was the latest to hammer away at the racial attack Sunday on ABC News with George Stephanopoulos.
Donalds, a Black Florida Republican who at one point was considered a possible running mate for Trump, called it a “phony controversy” and said “a lot of people are trying to figure out” Harris’s race. As Stephanopoulos noted, there aren’t any questions about her race - she’s bi-racial, born to a Jamaican father and Indian mother.
6. January 6th
The January 6th criminal case against Trump is back on, after a landmark detour to the Supreme Court which ended with a split court deciding that presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts.
The high court remanded the case back to federal district court Friday. Federal prosecutors and one of Trump’s legal teams are set to appear in court August 16th to hash out next steps.
The Washington Post notes that a trial before the election seems highly unlikely as any decision to proceed would likely be appealed to the Supreme Court again, which would not take up the issue until next year.
7. It’s still the economy
One consistent in this stunningly chaotic presidential race has been concerns among voters about the economy, aka pocketbook issues. (It’s why Trump and the Republicans have leaned so heavily, routinely, into the issue.)
The July jobs report found unemployment ticking up to 4.3 percent nationwide, pushing talk that the Federal Reserve missed the mark waiting too long to cut interest rates as it looks to fight inflation, NBC reports.
Unlike other top issues, ranging from abortion and immigration to race and gender, the economy is one of the few which touches all demographics — and as such has the potential to reshape things in unexpected ways.