News Not Noise Letter: What I'm Watching with Days to Go
News Not Noise Letter: What I'm Watching with Days to Go
Women swamp the early vote. Plus: Trump imagines Liz Cheney in front of a firing squad and Russia meddles again
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With just days to go until the election, we are having all the feelings. I know the predictions and analysis can be overwhelming. I’ll tell you what I’m keeping my eye on in these closing days and especially on election night. That’s at the end of the newsletter. First your headlines.
Here are your headlines:
It’s about immigration, stupid: Trump’s closing message should sound familiar. He promised to “stop the massive criminal invasion,” of “horrible, deathly people,” at a rally in Nevada on Thursday, even as he tries to court voters of color. With four days to go, he visited battleground Wisconsin and Michigan, where he stopped at a a halal cafe in Dearborn. There, he spoke with Muslim voters—a previously Democratic voting bloc that has soured some on Harris since the beginning of the war in Gaza.
Cheney backlash: Trump made headlines Thursday when he suggested that Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, whom he called a “radical war hawk,” should be put in front of a firing squad. He said, “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?” Cheney, who has accused Trump of fomenting insurrection on January 6, responded to his comments in a post on X: "This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death.” Trump made the comments while in Arizona; now the state's Democratic attorney general says she's investigating the comments as a possible death threat.
The rise of RFK Jr.: The Kennedy heir seems to be gaining popularity in MAGA land. The anti-vax science skeptic says that Trump promised him control of several public health agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services. The Trump campaign denied the claims, but Trump himself said he would let the RFK Jr. “go wild on health,” and the head of Trump’s transition team said Kennedy had convinced him of the disproven claim that vaccines were unsafe.
Nostalgic already?: Trump was unusually nostalgic at a rally in Michigan on Friday, saying the last nine years had “been the experience of a lifetime for a lot of us.” He added: “You’re going to look back at this time in life, you’re gonna say there was something very, very special about what we all did together.”
Reaching across the aisle: Harris, meanwhile, seems to have locked into a closing message targeting moderate, undecided voters. Upon landing in Madison, Wisconsin she reiterated the theme she has been driving home since her speech at the Ellipse: “My pledge to the American people is to pursue common sense solutions, to listen even to those who disagree with me, and to be a president for all Americans,” she told reporters, adding that Trump, by contrast, “spends a considerable amount of time plotting revenge on his political opponents.”
Harris claps back: Harris seized on Trump’s comments about Cheney, calling them “disqualifying” for a commander in chief and noted the increase in Trump’s violent rhetoric. She called Cheney, with whom she has appeared on the campaign trail, “a true patriot.” At a Thursday rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Harris also shot back at Trump’s claim that he would “protect” American women “whether they like it or not.” Drawing a parallel to the former president's stance on abortion rights, she said, “He simply does not respect the freedom of women or the intelligence of women to know what’s in their own best interests and make decisions accordingly. But we trust women.”
Celebrity train: Celebrities seem to be coming off the sidelines for Harris, including LeBron James, who dropped a scathing video stringing together past racist statements by Trump. Puerto Rican singer Nicky Jam also rescinded his Trump endorsement, saying in an Instagram video: “Puerto Rico deserves respect.” JLo turned out to campaign with Harris in Las Vegas on Thursday, and Harris is expected to rally with rapper Cardi B on Friday night. Both Obamas will be out for her again before Election Day. She’s also gotten the backing of a growing list of Republicans. The latest: Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former federal judge J. Michael Luttig, who declared that “no president before Donald Trump has ever so betrayed America.”
Securing the Vote: You’ll be hearing a lot about the integrity of the vote in the coming days.
Officials working on election security assure me of the following:
Every battleground state has paper ballots that can be reviewed and recounted if necessary.
No voting machine in America is connected to the internet. This means hackers can’t alter the vote.
Officials have game planned many scenarios and have resources to ensure security on Election Day and beyond.
Disinformation flowing: Still, intelligence agencies warn that foreign adversaries – especially Russia and China – are already trying to disrupt this election through disinformation designed to reduce confidence in the integrity of the vote. One example: The FBI said a video purporting to show a Haitian immigrant saying he voted multiple times for Harris was manufactured by Russians. Still, it went viral on X and was shared by a member of the Republican National Committee.
Not the only one: The FBI, ODNI, and CISA released a joint statement Friday saying Russian actors had fabricated another video falsely accusing an individual “associated with the Democratic campaign ticket” of taking a bribe from an American entertainer. The agencies warned that they “expect Russia to create and release additional media content that seeks to undermine trust in the integrity of the election and divide Americans” in the days and weeks to come.
Abortion bans claim more lives: ProPublica is out this week with a heartbreaking story about a pregnant teenager who died last October after being turned away from two Texas emergency rooms, despite showing signs of sepsis. The story follows previous reporting from ProPublica on a second Texas woman who died following delays in miscarriage care, and another in Georgia who died after doctors hesitated to perform a standard operation to clear a miscarried fetus from her uterus.
Others cite near misses: Avery Davis Bell, a 34-year-old from Atlanta, told USA Today she waited 20 hours for doctors to intervene in her miscarriage, despite hemorrhaging so much she became anemic. And a Texas woman named Ondrea Cummings spoke at a Harris rally on Saturday about having to undergo a six-hour surgery after being denied emergency miscarriage care, showing photos of the scars that now stretch from her breasts to her stomach.
Go deeper: I’d like to recommend two powerful films about abortion in America. One is an Oscar-nominated short called Red White and Blue. It’s streaming for free on YouTube. Check it out here. The other is called Zurawski v. Texas, a powerful documentary you can stream this weekend. Register at the link here.
Mixed news on the economy: The latest jobs report out Friday is not stellar, showing the economy added just 12,000 jobs last month—a major step down from the 223,000 added in September. But experts say weak hiring was driven in part by the rash of hurricanes that hit the South and the ongoing strike at Boeing that sidelined some 40,000 workers. On the bright side, an economic report released this week by the Commerce Department shows inflation continued to ease in the third quarter of the year, even as wages and consumer spending increased.
As promised, here’s what I’m watching:
The women’s vote: You already know that there is a historic gender gap in this election. And women are really turning out.
Women for Harris: The NY Times poll shows women favor Harris by 16 points.
Early vote: So far, many more women than men are early voting in the key states. Of the 13.7 million early ballots cast in the seven battleground states, 7.4 million are women’s and 6 million are men’s.
Senior women: Of note, senior women are turning out in such high numbers that, according to data firm TargetSmart, more women over the age of 75 have already voted in battleground states than voted there in 2020.
Young women: Polling shows that women under 30 favor Harris by 39 points. Analysts say many register unaffiliated so they can’t be tracked by party and they plan to vote on Election Day—not via early vote.
What I’m watching: Will women — especially young women — swamp the polls and provide a tidal wave of support for Harris?
The men’s vote: