The 24 Seven: Second Attempt
The 24 Seven: Second Attempt
The top seven stories shaping the race for the White House
1. Suspect Caught
Palm Beach County Ric Bradshaw told reporters Sunday that law enforcement quickly apprehended a suspect they believed was preparing to assassinate former president Donald Trump Sunday
“Be proud of your law enforcement,” Bradshaw said at the presser.
But questions of presidential security are rampant, again. How did the alleged shooter make it to within shooting distance of a former president before the Secret Service found him?
The person in custody now, Ryan Wesley Routh, was charged Monday with two gun counts, CNN reports, and has a long rap sheet and extreme social media presence — ranging from supporting Trump, then President Joe Biden, and Tulsi Gabbard and Vivek Ramaswamy to portraying himself as a frontline freedom fighter for Ukraine.
Indeed, this latest stunning attempt is not nearly as bad as the historic assassination attempt two months ago in Butler, PA, in which the alleged gunman fired off multiple shots — striking a former president in the ear and killing a member of the audience.
Look for more in a bit in my latest chat with
of The Illinoize, going out later today.2. Political Violence
Is a normalized part of the modern political era, unfortunately. The exclamation point on this provided by media baron Elon Musk on his social media site X.com, when he stated publicly Sunday night “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.”
One of the most powerful and influential people in the world made that statement publicly, and only after being hit repeatedly on his media juggernaut with the clear implications — that someone as powerful as him with as big a bullhorn as X.com could be painting a target on the sitting president and vice president — deleted the statement and said he was joking.
3. Harris WHYY interview
Harris will sit for an interview Tuesday at WHYY-FM in Philadelphia with members of the National Association of Black Journalists. Significant on a number of levels, as Harris has taken heat for not doing more interviews, NABJ took some heat for hosting Trump last month — and Trump made news there opening with a racial attack on Harris, and of course because Pennsylvania remains perhaps the singular most important state on the map to winning the White House.
For their parts, Trump and Vance have been prolific on cable news and the networks, with Vance drumming up a lot of attention as a regular guest on pretty much every Sunday show now. I’ll be watching for clearer answers from Harris on policy, particularly the economy.
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4. Poll Testing
Ann Selzer with the Des Moines Register is one of the best in the polling business, and her findings in Iowa showing that Trump is now up there over Harris by only 47-43% is astounding. (More on that here.)
Good polling is crucial in analyzing just what the heck is happening in this race. And pollsters who know their domains backward and forward are hard to come by. Justin Young and veteran pollster Michael Cohen and I discussed at length last week in our debate recap on Justin’s Politics, Politics, Politics Podcast last week. (I cite as one example of a great pollster, longtime Maryland surveyor Patrick Gonzales, who knows where and how to sample across the state to get accurate outcomes — very much like Selzer in Iowa.)
I’m digging deep in to my old stats classes from graduate school here to tell you, there are a lot of garbage polls out there. Academically speaking, and political science is indeed an academic field — polling of anything, from who America wants to be president to the Drake/Kendrick Lamar battles, typically requires somewhere between 800 and 1,000 quality respondents to establish a decent sample size which can then be analyzed to determine a sufficiently strong likelihood of attitudes, sentiments, outcomes.
If you head over to 538’s collection of polls, I tend to read and watch certain polls — including some long established ones — to spot trendlines and movement in their regular surveys. There was a very big DC freakout last week over the results of the latest New York Times/Siena poll which showed Trump eclipsing Harris for the first time nationwide, but as I noted last week in The 24 Seven, that poll was the outlier. And indeed a slew of other reputable polls have shown the surge in enthusiasm for Harris seems to be translating into momentum, more than a month after she entered the race.
5. Spending Battle
House lawmakers are still working on a stopgap measure to keep the government open after a plan from top Republicans fell apart last week. Lawmakers are back in Washington this week.
6. Still the Economy
Writing at his great Sunday Substack
, Bruce Mehlman digs into the disconnect between the macro-level economy, which seems to be moving along just fine, despite rampant predictions of a recession months and months ago, and American dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy — and how that translates in the polls.The Republican nominee and former president has been criminally convicted, indicted and tried many times over, has survived an assassin’s bullet and continued spreading strange stories. Harris and running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have continued riding a surge of enthusiasm from re-energized voters — and largely dodging tough questions on policy (with a helping hand from Trump) like in the debate last week.
But the economy, grocery prices, the price of gas, all remain things consistently front and center for most voters. (Close seconds, in terms of widespread impact and animating voter are abortion/reproductive rights and immigration.)
7. Questions/Swag
Loyal reader Veronica Kennedy earned a 24sight News mug on a bet in the paid subscriber chat last week during the debate. Your author doubted Trump and Harris would shake hands to start the debate, but they did indeed shake hands.
I was inspired by fellow Substacker
who had some sweet “Wake up to to Politics” gear at his launch party last week — and a great interview on the state of things with veteran Washington Post reporter Josh Dawsey — so look for some additional opportunities for 24sight swag in the future.And for paying subscribers, I’m starting an open thread over in the chat — anything catching your eye or interesting, drop a note. This’ll be like the plaintext version of C-SPAN Washington Journal.
🚨🚨🚨 If you made it this far and would like full access to 24sight News, I’ve got a Pennsylvania special for you, upgrade to a paid subscription to support independent journalism now through the Sept. 10 debate in Philly for 76% of the regular price. (And welcome to all new 24sight News supporters who signed up through my DNC special access drive!)
Cheers,
Tom