| | | | |  | | By Lisa Kashinsky | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | THE POLLS …
- Final NYT/Siena battleground polls: Arizona: Trump +4 … Georgia: Harris +1 … Michigan: Trump +1 … Nevada: Harris +3 … North Carolina: Harris +3 … Pennsylvania: Tied … Wisconsin: Harris +3.
- Focaldata MRP: Arizona: Harris +1 … Georgia: Trump +1 … Michigan: Harris +5 … Nevada: Harris +3 … North Carolina: Trump +3 … Pennsylvania: Harris <1 … Wisconsin: Harris +1. More on the Focaldata MRP model below
- NBC News: Tied at 49 percent nationally among registered voters.
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Repeatedly in recent days, Donald Trump has played right into VP Kamala Harris’ closing argument that he’s “unhinged.” | Angelina Katsanis/POLITICO | THE VIEW FROM PENNSYLVANIA — Good morning from the Lancaster Airport, where DONALD TRUMP is holding his first of three rallies in three states on the second-to-last day of the campaign. Repeatedly in recent days, Trump has played right into VP KAMALA HARRIS’ closing argument that he’s “unhinged.” And most Republicans have hardly batted an eye at it. But new polling might give them cause for pause. The final Des Moines Register poll dropped last night — and promptly rattled what has been a stubbornly close race when it showed Harris up 3 percentage points over Trump, 47 percent to 44 percent, in Iowa, a state that has not been thought to be competitive this cycle. Could the topline be a warning sign for Trump? Sure. After all, J. ANN SELZER’s poll is the gold standard. And, as our in-house polling expert Steve Shepard writes, her last survey in 2020 ended up foreshadowing JOE BIDEN’s narrow margins across the Blue Wall states and losses in other historically swingy parts of the Midwest. But it’s the crosstabs that are likely more telling — and more troubling for Trump, with implications beyond the state he twice carried.
- As our own JMart points out, the poll shows Harris leading by 20 points among women in this heavily white, Midwestern state — yet another sign of her strength among one of the voting blocs Trump is weakest with. It’s the latest poll that suggests Harris’ strength with women could be enough to offset any marginal losses among Black and Latino voters.
- It also shows voters 65 and older , a bloc that typically favors Republicans, breaking for Harris. That’s particularly true among senior women, who the survey found supporting Harris by a more than 2-to-1 margin (63 percent to 28 percent), compared to senior men, who favor her by just 2 points (47 percent to 45 percent).
That jibes with the Harris campaign’s internal research, which shows the VP continuing to make gains with women and inroads with seniors, according to a senior campaign official granted anonymity to discuss the private data. And it builds upon other positive signs Harris’ team has seen at this late stage: that the split screen between Harris’ focused and forward-looking closing message and Trump’s discursive in-person appearances — which veer widely away from the disciplined message of his campaign’s TV ads and the remarks loaded onto his teleprompters — is helping to drive late-deciding voters to her side. That late-stage shift is also backed up by this morning’s NYT/Siena polls (although the slightly better numbers for Harris in the Southeast and signs of softness in the Rust Belt scrambled much of the current conventional wisdom). Still, Trump’s chief pollster, TONY FABRIZIO, dismissed the Iowa poll as “a clear outlier” in a memo last night, citing both 2020 exit polls and a more recent survey that show the former president ahead with seniors and at less of a deficit among women. Trump, in a social media post this morning, claimed no president has done more for farmers and Iowa than he has. Bullish or bluster? Trump claimed yesterday that he was winning blue New Jersey. And his campaign seems to be employing an expand-the-map strategy down the home stretch that’s either bullish or bluster — with Trump rallying over the past few days in New Mexico and Virginia, and dispatching his running mate, Sen. JD VANCE (R-Ohio), to New Hampshire this evening despite his campaign previously all but writing off the state. Trump won North Carolina twice, but he’s spending more time there in the last weekend of his campaign than in the holy grail of Pennsylvania, my colleague Natalie Allison reports. His reasoning: “We can’t take a chance of losing.” “Campaigns on offense expand the map, not collapse it,” top Trump adviser CHRIS LaCIVITA told my colleague Meridith McGraw yesterday.
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Click here & learn more. | | | But it’s not just Selzer’s survey defying expectations down the home stretch. New research from Focaldata, a U.K. polling company that uses a different methodology than we’re used to in the States — one that draws on a sample of more than 31,000 American voters, for a snapshot that some claim is more accurate — is “tentatively predicting” a Harris victory, per our colleagues across the pond, Tim Ross and Emilio Casalicchio. HAPPENING NOW: Trump’s supporters here in Lancaster dismissed polls that show both a close race in this critical battleground state — “just look at the crowds at his rallies” — and that he’s doing poorly with female voters. Rep. DAN MEUSER (R-Pa.) knocked “knucklehead” MARK CUBAN’s recent remark that Trump doesn’t have “strong” women around him and said “something tells me women for Trump are going to have something to say about that come Tuesday” to cheers from the crowd. And the nearly dozen women I spoke to as things were getting started here defended Trump’s support for women. Still, they all said they’re voting for him primarily because of the economy and immigration. Good Sunday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop me a line at lkashinsky@politico.com. INTERESTING — “Former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn sets post-election talk to anti-Trump conservatives,” by Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney: “The prominent GOP lawyer says he thinks fellow attorneys who oppose Trump will likely be disappointed by the presidential race results.” SUNDAY BEST … — Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-Ga.) on Trump’s comment that he’ll protect women whether they “like it or not,” on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “Even as a man, [I think] that sounds rather ominous coming from the mouth of a convicted sexual predator. We don’t need a predator. We need a president in the Oval Office.” — North Dakota Gov. DOUG BURGUM on Trump’s chances, on “Meet the Press”: “The momentum in the last week that I’ve felt on the ground, including yesterday being at that Penn State football game, is that the energy from all demographics is very, very positive. And in Pennsylvania, Trump’s going to win because of the energy issues … He’s going to win Michigan because of autoworkers. And so I think in some of these swing states it’s in Trump's favor.” — Sen. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-Pa.) on Republican anti-transgender rights ads, on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “If your political capital comes from picking on trans kids or gay kids or anything like that, you’re just bankrupt throughout all of this. My version of being a man is like, hey, I like rib-eyes, I like Motörhead, and I’m never going to pick on trans kids and gay kids. … It doesn’t make you tough. It doesn’t make you a man to pick on trans or gay kids. It just makes you an asshole.” — Maryland Gov. WES MOORE on the Maryland Senate race, on MSNBC’s “The Weekend”: “I do think it’s rich that LARRY HOGAN is asking people to have political courage that he doesn’t have. It is fascinating to me that he’s asking people to be split-ticket voters, but when you ask him who he’s going to vote for, for president, he has repeatedly selected people who are deceased.” TOP-EDS: A roundup of the week’s must-read opinion pieces.
- “Why Trump Has a More Plausible Path to the Presidency, in 19 Maps,” by Doug Sosnik for the NYT
- “The Smearing of Kamala Harris,” by Anita Hill for the NYT
- “Jeff Bezos Should Donate the Washington Post to a Charity,” by Steven Waldman for the Columbia Journalism Review
- “Elon Musk Wants You to Think This Election’s Being Stolen,” by Charlie Warzel for The Atlantic
- “Trump Fails George Washington’s Civility Test,” by William McRaven for the WSJ
- “Donald Trump’s trade remedies reflect America’s troubled reality,” by Robert Lighthizer for the FT
- “Americans, your calls and texts can be monitored by Chinese spies,” by Josh Rogin for WaPo
- “How to End the Backlog of Asylum Cases? Take Them Out of the Courts,” by Michael Riley for Bloomberg
- “The CIA’s Ugly Legacy on Workplace Sexual Violence,” by Kevin Carroll for The Dispatch
| | | | A message from BlackRock:   BlackRock supports retirement plans for roughly half of U.S. public school teachers. Meet Andy, who gives back while securing his future. Watch his story. | | | | | WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY | | At the White House Biden has nothing on his public schedule. On the trail Trump is holding rallies in Lititz, Pennsylvania, this morning, in Kinston, North Carolina, at 2 p.m., and in Macon, Georgia, at 6:30 p.m. Harris will speak at a Black church service in Detroit at 11:55 a.m., stop by a Detroit restaurant and a Pontiac barbershop, hold a rally in East Lansing, Michigan, at 6:05 p.m., and later return to Detroit. Vance will hold rallies in Raleigh, North Carolina, at 12:30 p.m. with DONALD TRUMP JR., in Aston, Pennsylvania, at 4 p.m., and in Derry, New Hampshire, at 7 p.m. Minnesota Gov. TIM WALZ is taking part in a political event in Atlanta this morning, speaking at a political event in Gwinnett County, Georgia, at 12:15 p.m., and hosting a rally in Atlanta at 2:45 p.m. with second gentleman DOUG EMHOFF, JON BON JOVI, THE WAR AND TREATY and MICHAEL STIPE. Walz will then travel to Charlotte, North Carolina, for a nearby political event at 6:45 p.m., before returning to St. Paul at night.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is taking aim at a signature 20th-century public health achievement. | Angelina Katsanis/POLITICO | HOT WATER — ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. announced yesterday that the Trump White House would advise all public water systems to take out fluoride on Day One. Though it’s not an official declaration from the Trump campaign, Kennedy has become a top Trump adviser poised to take on a leading health policy role in his administration — and this is quite the closing argument for him to tackle. The stakes for public health are significant: Removing fluoride would undo “what is widely considered one of the most important public health interventions of the past century,” NYT’s Rebecca Davis O’Brien and Sheryl Gay Stolberg write. There has been some scientific debate recently over the adverse effects of excess fluoridation, but the practice is generally credited for major improvements in dental health over the past 80 years. Though fluoridation decisions are up to local leaders, not the federal government, Kennedy’s announcement “raises the specter of an all-out assault on public-health expertise should Mr. Trump win.” RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE THE BIG PICTURE — The story of this election can look fairly simple if you zoom out to a global lens: The disruptions of the pandemic and subsequent inflation have toppled (or come close to unseating) incumbent parties in countries all around the world, regardless of ideology. That’s one of the points NYT’s Nate Cohn makes in his analysis of why Democrats have struggled to defeat Trump. And as Dems have moved to the right on policy this year, “a long period of liberal ascendancy in American politics might be waning,” Cohn writes. From Philadelphia, WaPo’s Paul Kane writes that the rightward shift, especially on immigration and crime, could last even if Harris wins. Progressive identity politics are fading too, NYT’s Jeremy Peters writes. The long tail of Covid: “Her dad was among the first covid deaths. She wants voters to remember,” by WaPo’s Robert Samuels in Milwaukee THE VIEW FROM FUTURE FORWARD — Internal memos from the pro-Harris super PAC grew more pessimistic in October, calculating that Harris had a 37 percent chance of winning, WaPo’s Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer report. But late momentum has bumped her win probability back up to 49 percent in their analysis. BY THE NUMBERS — As of Friday, early votes already cast nationwide have reached about 47 percent of the total number of votes in 2020, per WaPo’s Patrick Marley, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Joel Achenbach and Molly Hennessy-Fiske. AD IT UP — The Harris campaign put out its final ad, a positive spot with patriotic themes that shows her interacting with voters, per Myah Ward . The ad, which was produced by Blue Sky Strategy, is airing during football games. NOT LIKE MIKE — Harris seized on Speaker MIKE JOHNSON’s since-retracted comment that Republicans would likely try to repeal the CHIPS Act. She tied it to Project 2025 and said it was an example of Republicans’ agenda being unpopular. More from NBC Related read: “Some Fear Factory Boom Could Suffer Under Trump,” by WSJ’s Paul Kiernan SENTENCE OF THE DAY — NYT’s Peter Baker on Trump: “Truth is not always an abundant resource in the White House under any president, but never has the Oval Office been occupied by someone so detached from verifiable facts.” INTERESTING DISPATCH — “How a New Mexico county pulled back from the brink of election chaos,” by WaPo’s Peter Jamison in Bernalillo: “Sandoval County election officials’ radical transparency has earned praise from their fiercest critics. But as a historically close election nears the finish line, can the good vibes last?” HOW HARRIS WINS — In Georgia, Harris has gotten more competitive than Biden by improving with younger voters and voters of color. But it could be inroads with white, college-educated, suburban women that put her over the top, Megan Messerly reports from Atlanta. ON THE TRAIL — “Kamala Harris delivers her closing pitch to North Carolina,” by Brittany Gibson in Charlotte ABOUT LAST NIGHT — Harris made a surprise cameo on “Saturday Night Live” with MAYA RUDOLPH, saying Kamala would put an end to Trump’s “dramala.” More from CNN DEMOCRACY WATCH — “Swing state officials prepare for potential disruptions around December electors meetings,” by NBC’s Adam Edelman: … “A ‘constitutional sheriff’ tried to seize voting machines in 2020. Officials are bracing for a repeat,” by NBC’s Rich Schapiro RACE FOR THE HOUSE LETTER FROM MERCED — “California’s Central Valley could deliver the House to Democrats. Latino voters could hold the key,” by Lara Korte RACE FOR THE STATES MAKING HISTORY — Though the Arkansas Supreme Court will remain majority-conservative no matter what happens next month, either KAREN BAKER or RHONDA WOOD will become the first woman elected to the chief justice role, AP’s Andrew DeMillo reports from Little Rock. POLL POSITION National: Harris +2, per Morning Consult. Trump +1, per TIPP. Tied, per Emerson. … Pennsylvania: Harris +2, per Muhlenberg/Morning Call. Trump +2, per AtlasIntel. Tied, per Morning Consult. … Michigan: Trump +2, per AtlasIntel. Harris +1, per Morning Consult. … Wisconsin: Trump +1, per AtlasIntel. Trump +1, per Morning Consult. … Nevada: Trump +6, per AtlasIntel. … Arizona: Trump +7, per AtlasIntel. Tied, per Morning Consult. … Georgia: Trump +3, per AtlasIntel. Trump +2, per Morning Consult. … North Carolina: Trump +3, per AtlasIntel. Trump +2, per Morning Consult. … Ohio: BERNIE MORENO +1, per Morning Consult.
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New immigrants in Whitewater, Wisconsin, say they've found a peaceful community. | Irie Sentner/POLITICO | 8 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR 1. IMMIGRATION FILES: From LA, Myah Ward has a must-read POLITICO Magazine feature on the enduring trauma of the Trump-era family separations — which the victims fear will recur if he returns to the White House. Seven years on, the now-15-year-old girl and her father whom Myah profiles have now returned to the U.S. legally. But the several months they were separated “cost them parts of themselves they’ll never get back.” In a handful of high-profile cities that Republicans have held up as exemplars of migrant troubles, many residents on the ground continue to bristle at Trump’s depictions, Irie Sentner captures in Whitewater, Wisconsin, and CNN’s Catherine Shoichet reports from Denver. As Irie writes, the problems with a surge of new immigrants are more “unlicensed drivers and a lack of translators,” not shocking crime. But there are many complicated political dynamics at play in the immigration debate. As WSJ’s Arian Campo-Flores reports from Miami, many Venezuelan immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for a while use Trumpian rhetoric in warning about newer Venezuelan arrivals — often across a class divide. That’s part of the reason why Trump has gained with some Latinos on immigration. More big reads: “Fear. Danger. Faith,” by WaPo’s Arelis Hernández: “As immigration tensions deepen, one family risks it all to reach the United States.” … “A Pro-Gun, Anti-Abortion Border Sheriff Appealed to Both Parties. Then He Was Painted as Soft on Immigration,” by Perla Trevizo in Del Rio, Texas, for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune 2. THE PURGE: ELECTION YEAR: “Conservative group’s ‘watch list’ targets federal employees for firing,” by WaPo’s Jonathan O’Connell, Leigh Ann Caldwell and Lisa Rein: TOM JONES’ Heritage Foundation-funded DHS Bureaucrat Watch List “names 51 federal policy experts and high-ranking leaders, the majority of whom are career civil servants at the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. … Among the employees’ actions cited by the group are posts celebrating the legalization of same-sex marriage or lauding the contributions and successes of undocumented immigrants, as well as donations as little as $10 to Democratic candidates.” 3. SCOTUS FALLOUT: A ruling from Judge BERYL HOWELL could squash federal attempts to revive obstruction charges against Jan. 6 defendants, in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that hemmed prosecutors in, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein report . The conservative justices’ decision that prosecutors were misusing the felony obstruction charge led Howell to conclude that there’s “virtually no wiggle room for prosecutors,” Kyle and Josh write. Though her opinion applies to only two defendants, the Obama appointee is an influential voice and the first to weigh in on this. 4. CHIPS AND DIP: “Biden’s chips achievement is losing support before the money actually rolls out,” by Christine Mui and Brendan Bordelon: “Progressives and pro-labor Democrats are souring on President Joe Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act as the administration appears to be loosening some of the environmental and transparency guardrails initially attached to its $39 billion in subsidies.
| | | | A message from BlackRock:   BlackRock is proud to help about 35 million Americans invest to save for retirement. | | | 5. FED UP: Right after the election, the Fed is expected to lower interest rates by another quarter point Thursday, Bloomberg’s Molly Smith and Craig Stirling preview. That would be one of a number of rate cuts coming from central banks all across the developed world this week. 6. TO TELL THE TRUTH SOCIAL: “True believers built Trump’s social-media company. They feel betrayed,” by Amanda Chicago Lewis in The Economist’s 1843 Magazine: “The inside story of Truth Social.” 7. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: The U.S. has been urging its Middle East allies for months to help denounce the Houthi rebels, whose attacks have damaged the region’s economy and worsened Yemen’s humanitarian crisis. But Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others have been reluctant “to counter the Houthi hero narrative in the Middle East,” in which many Muslims see “this scrappy quasi-government … sticking it to the Jewish state,” WaPo’s Abigail Hauslohner and Ellen Nakashima report. 8. A DIFFERENT BEAST: “The Daily Beast Tries to Claw Its Way Back to Relevance,” by NYT’s Katie Robertson: “[A]long with the predictable optimism about the mission they are taking on and enthusiasm about early signs of audience uptick and subscriber growth, [JOANNA COLES and BEN SHERWOOD ] also conveyed a sense of frustration. Frustration that they weren’t greeted by the staff they inherited as warmly as they expected. Frustration that the site’s tech problems meant they’ve had to buy multiple subscriptions just to log in. Frustration that convincing the newsroom of their editorial vision has been an uphill climb.”
| | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | | Bill Clinton says he doesn’t know if America can survive Donald Trump again. Harrison Ford endorsed Kamala Harris. John Fetterman went on Joe Rogan’s podcast. WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Sabrina Siddiqui, national politics reporter at the WSJ, and Ali Jafri, a contractor at the State Department, on Oct. 26 welcomed Ayaan Hasan Jafri, who joins big sister Sofia. Pic … Another pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) … Rep. Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.) … Quentin Fulks … Michael Dukakis (91) … Katie Packer Beeson … Jenn Pellegrino … Jeff Brownlee … Phyllis Cuttino of the Climate Reality Project … Christie Stephenson … Paul Brathwaite of Federal Street Strategies … POLITICO’s Anthony Adragna, Alfred Ng and Ryan Hendrixson … Renuka Rayasam … Katie Fricchione ... Gabby Adler … Amie Kershner … Tara Rountree of Rep. Jennifer McClellan’s (D-Va.) office … Amy Rosenbaum … Brian Babcock-Lumish ... Christian Haines … Shawn Rusterholz … Stuart Rosenberg ... Sky Gallegos … Bob Van Heuvelen … Charlie Hurt … former Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) and Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) … CAA’s Rachel Adler … Anna Wintour … Julian Gewirtz Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike DeBonis, deputy editor Zack Stanton and Playbook Daily Briefing producer Callan Tansill-Suddath. Corrections: Yesterday’s Playbook misspelled Nicolle Wallace’s and Mary McCormack’s names. It also misstated the network on which “Sunday Morning Futures” is airing today. It is Fox Business Network.
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