LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) – After a summer of historic turmoil, the path to the presidency for both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump this fall is becoming much clearer.
The Democratic vice president and former Republican president are devoting almost all of their remaining time and resources to just seven states. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars targeting voters who, in many cases, are just beginning to pay attention to the election. And their campaigns are trying to focus their messages on three familiar issues—the economy, immigration, and abortion—even amid heated debates about character, culture, and democracy.
The candidates will discuss in a week what will be their first meeting. The nation’s leading swing state, Pennsylvania, begins in-person absentee voting in a week. By the end of the month, early voting will be underway in at least four states, with a dozen more on the way by mid-October.
In just 63 days, the final votes will be cast and it will be decided which of them will lead the world’s most powerful nation.
Privately, at least, both camps admit victory is not a sure thing as they begin the eight-week sprint to Election Day. Harris and Trump have been neck and neck in most national polls since President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign.
The Harris campaign released a memo over the weekend casting himself as the “clear underdog” in the race.
“There is no easy scenario here,” David Plouffe, Harris’ senior adviser, said in an interview. “The path to beating Donald Trump, the path to 270 electoral votes for Kamala Harris, is extremely difficult, but doable. And that’s just reality.”
Trump, for his part, dismisses all indicators that Harris is ahead, even as he berates her in deeply personal and sometimes apocalyptic terms, declaring that “our country is done” if he wins.
“As we move past Labor Day, we’re really entering a time when voters are starting to harden their minds,” said Trump campaign political director James Blair. “We have a good feeling about things. We feel energized. Our people are energetic. But there is certainly a lot to do.”
The electoral map is located in seven states
Just over a month ago, Trump allies suggested that Democratic-leaning states like Minnesota, Virginia or even New Jersey could be in play. Neither side believes that will still be the case come Labor Day weekend.
By replacing Biden as the party’s nominee, Harris breathed new life into Democratic political prospects, particularly in the Sun Belt states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. All four states have significant numbers of African-Americans and Latinos, traditionally Democratic constituencies that were weak nationally under Biden but appear to have come home to rally behind Harris.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham was among the top GOP officials who brokered peace between Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, whose feud threatened to undermine Republican efforts in the state. Graham told The Associated Press he was concerned about Georgia’s shift to the left.
“Trump was up 5 or 6 points, and over the course of a month it’s become much more competitive,” he said.
Paul Schumaker, a Republican pollster who advises North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, said even a slight increase in the black vote could give Harris an edge in North Carolina, which points to Mecklenberg County, home to the Charlotte metro area. also fast-growing counties like Durham and Wake.
“If Kamala Harris gets them to turn to the Republican pace in rural North Carolina, it’s game over for the Republicans,” Schumaker said of black voters.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to make determined attacks in the Midwestern battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which form the so-called Democratic “blue wall” that he narrowly carried in 2016 and narrowly lost in 2020.
Those seven states — in addition to the swing districts of Nebraska and Maine, which each provide one Electoral College vote — will command virtually all of the candidates’ attention and resources over the next eight weeks.
Trump is investing more advertising dollars in Pennsylvania than any other state on Election Day.
A Trump victory in Pennsylvania alone would make it difficult for Harris to earn the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Harris’ team claims he has multiple paths to victory.
The Democrats’ organizing advantage
Democrats currently have a clear advantage in the struggle to televise elections and reach voters in person.
Harris’ team is on pace to outscore the Trump camp 2-1 in television advertising over the next two months. And even before Biden gave way to Harris, Democrats were using a superior campaign infrastructure in key states.
Harris’ team, which includes his campaign and an affiliated super PAC, has more than $280 million in television and radio bookings between Tuesday and Election Day, according to media tracking firm AdImpact. Trump’s team, on the other hand, has reserved $133 million for the last part, although the number is expected to increase.
Trump’s side actually outspends Harris on television in Pennsylvania, where both parties are spending more than $146 million between Tuesday and Election Day, according to AdImpact, dwarfing other states. Georgia will spend nearly $80 million on advertising in the last eight weeks of the campaign.
But in five other battleground states, Harris has the airwaves largely to himself — at least for now.
Trump and his allied super PACs have made only marginal ad bookings in Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Nevada. Harris’ team will invest at least $21 million in each of the five states, according to an AdImpact analysis.
Harris’ team also has more than 300 coordinated offices and 2,000 staff on the ground in swing states, according to a weekend memo from his campaign. Trump’s campaign has only a few dozen offices of its own, and instead relies on less experienced outside groups to ensure its supporters arrive on Election Day.
Blair, the political director of the Trump campaign, denies that the Democrats have as big an organizational advantage as the numbers show. Outside allies organizing on Trump’s behalf are well-funded, including a new company backed by billionaire Elon Musk.
Here’s what the polls say
Both candidates are locked in tight races among the top seven swing positions. Democratic pollster John Anzalone said Harris “put Democrats back in the game where it’s kind of a toss-up.”
But now comes the hard part, Anzalone said.
“On the bell after Labor Day, there’s a battle for a thin universe — you can call them whatever you want: persuasion voters, swing voters, independent voters — and it’s pretty small, and that’s where each side gets a billion. dollars,” Anzalone said.
Many independents appear to find both candidates unsatisfactory, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in August.
So far, Harris also has a slight advantage in key independents, while he and Trump even have in others.
For example, about 3 in 10 independents say “honest” better describes Harris, while about 2 in 10 say it better describes Trump. About three in 10 also say “committed to democracy” better describes Harris, while less than two in 10 say it better describes Trump.
Independents rated the candidates about as likely to win an election, handle a crisis and “care about people like you.”
Who is a “change candidate”?
The race could ultimately be decided by whichever candidate has the most success as the “candidate for change,” as about 7 in 10 voters say the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to a late-July post-Biden poll by AP-NORC. withdrew from the competition.
Trump was the face of change when he won the 2016 election. And despite serving in the White House for four years, he continues to energize millions of frustrated voters who embrace his brash leadership style and unwillingness to follow the traditional rules of politics.
Harris has been Biden’s vice president for nearly four years, but the historic nature of her candidacy — she would be the first female president — allows her to make a compelling case that she represents a new direction for the country, said veteran Democratic strategist James Carville. .
Still, he is concerned about his party’s “severe underperformance” in so-called “blue wall” states in the last election.
“I feel good after the election,” Carville said. “Let’s get some hay to the barn. There’s still a lot of hay in the field.”
___
Citizens reports from New York and Thomson-DeVeaux from Washington. Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
