Hi Intriguer. Recently, a number of articles have pointed out that both the Trump and Harris campaigns are holding fewer public events and are generally less publicly active than candidates during previous presidential elections. These articles are designed to suggest that each candidate could be doing more to win over voters and play off the post-2016 election narrative that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was too confident and that she should have campaigned more in swing states.

Kristen and I chatted about this today, and there are two things that might explain the candidates’ apparent inaction. First, the Vice President and former President have the most protection from the Secret Service in history. I’m no expert, but I suspect it’s logistically impossible from a security footprint perspective to go ‘barnstorming’ across the country like the old days.

Secondly, this is an election in 2024, not 2008 or even 2016. Campaigning now has just as much to do with podcast appearances and TikTok videos as it does kissing babies and measuring pumpkins at the county fair. If Kamala Harris or Donald Trump has an empty morning schedule, my bet is they’re filming selfies or asking who the heck ‘Charlemagne Tha God’ is.

Elsewhere, it’s worth noting that there’s been record early turnout voting in Georgia, which traditionally would been seen as a good sign for the Democrats. I think it’s too early to draw any conclusions, and I’m generally suspicious of anything I read that claims to have deep insight into the horserace based on publicly available information. There are just too many ways to interpret the same information to be sure of anything.

Oh, and by the way, there’s only 19 days left.

- John Fowler & Kristen Talman in Washington DC

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THE CONVERSATION

Polls, podcasts, and legal battles: the race enters final weeks

A summary of this week’s conversation:

1. The Middle East. Yes, we talked about the Middle East again, but only because it’s a key foreign policy story in this election. Last weekend, the Biden Administration announced it would send 100 US troops to Israel to help install and operate the THAAD system (which helps shoot down incoming missiles). Sending THAAD to Israel sends a strong signal to Iran, and Iranian news outlets were all discussing the announcement at length on Monday.

We don’t expect the announcement to affect the election, but American voters are particularly allergic to foreign interventions right now. If those newly deployed US service people were to come under fire, then this story could become a major election issue, but otherwise, we don’t expect it to be important.

Meanwhile, Israel reportedly promised the US earlier this week that they would not strike Iran’s oil or nuclear facilities. That will be a relief to the Harris campaign (and everyone else who would prefer the situation in the Middle East not get worse), which is more likely to be hurt by anti-war sentiments at the ballot box.

Perhaps recognizing that vulnerability, a letter dated October 13, jointly written by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin demanding Israel take steps in the next 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face consequences, was leaked. The 30-day deadline falls after the election, meaning that whether the ultimatum is effective or not is electorally irrelevant. However, we discussed why we think the appearance of at least trying to bring Israel to heel could benefit the Harris campaign.

Lastly, we briefly discussed what the now-confirmed death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar yesterday might mean for a possible ceasefire in Gaza and, yes, for the US election. Vice President Harris addressed Sinwar's death after a Milwaukee campaign event just a few minutes ago, saying, "Justice has been served. He had American blood on his hands." She also said, "This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza," and called for Israel to cease its Gaza offensive.

Israel has now killed Hamas’s and Hezbollah’s most senior military and political leaders and has very likely degraded both organizations’ ability to harm Israel in the short and medium term. It will be very interesting to see if Netanyahu tries to find a new justification for continuing military action or whether he decides now is the time to declare victory.

2. Harris goes into the Fox’s den. Vice President Harris gave an interview to Fox News’s Bret Baier yesterday evening. The New York Times called the 30-minute interview “contentious”, and while it’s true that Baier interrupted the Vice President on numerous occasions, the Vice President did try to filibuster her way through some of the more difficult questions about immigration. Honestly, it was refreshing to see one of the candidates submit themselves to questioning by someone who was willing to push at the pressure points.

Kristen and I also discussed why the Harris campaign decided to go on Fox News. Last week, we noted that this election is more a “turnout election” than an “undecided election”, so her decision to appear on the Republican-leaning program was initially confusing. Ultimately, we think last night's interview did three things for Harris:

• It allowed her to decrease the margin of her loss among Republicans who dislike Trump by giving them a reason not to vote at all. She achieved this by highlighting Trump’s role in the January 6 riots and the former Trump administration members who have publicly said the former President is not fit for office.

• It challenged the narrative that Harris is avoiding hard questions. There’s no doubt Bret Baier asked tough questions, and while we think Harris mostly avoided answering them, she engaged with them in real-time. It’s now harder for Republicans to say she’s avoiding scrutiny.

• Lastly, it appears to have energized her base. Following the interview, Harris’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, called it an “ambush,” a plainly absurd charge given that literally everyone expected the interview on Fox News to be difficult. What Plouffe is doing is playing to the Harris base, who love it when a Democratic politician goes on Fox News and shows some fight (we’re looking at you, Slayer Pete!).

Elsewhere this week, Donald Trump sat down for a conversation at the Economic Club of Chicago and appeared at an all-female-voters town hall event hosted by Fox News and an all-Latino voters town hall event hosted by Univision.

Does this tell us the Trump campaign is worried about support from business leaders, white women, and Hispanic voters? While there’s some evidence that Trump is slipping in polls of economists on who will handle the economy better, the reality is different. An attendee at the event told Intrigue the room was overwhelming pro-Trump and applauded at several campaign lines the former President rolled out. The fact is business leaders still favor Trump, and more Americans trust Trump to be good for their personal finances.

In less encouraging news for the Trump campaign, there’s growing evidence that women, particularly white women, have soured on Trump. His strategy at the all-women town hall may have mirrored Harris' approach during her Fox News interview: to provide just enough disincentives to discourage centrist women from voting.

As for Hispanic voters, both Democrats and Republicans are trying to win over Hispanic voters, who are seen as important swing voters in key states like Arizona and Nevada.

3. Legal battles foreshadow a contentious post-election period. Bloomberg reported this week that more than 165 lawsuits have been filed since 2023 across 37 states challenging various aspects of the US presidential election. Half of those lawsuits are in swing states.

The Republican National Committee recently filed suits in North Carolina and Michigan under the 1986 Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). They're targeting voters who've never lived in the US, challenging their right to vote where they were last "domiciled."

This affects a small number of voters—perhaps 1,000 at most. While those tiny chunks of voters are unlikely to sway the election, it’s not impossible. In the 1916 election, California was the deciding state and President Wilson Woodrow won it by just 3,420 votes.

However, we discussed how the real strategy behind these Republican lawsuits is to sow doubt about the election's outcome. To be clear, many of these cases will have some legal merit, but the sheer number of them across the country will give the layperson the impression that something really did go wrong with the election. It will certainly give plenty of reasons for Trump supporters to apply pressure on officials and politicians to delay certifying the election result. And that’s before you realize that, just like Mike Pence in 2020, Vice President Kamala Harris would be the one to certify her own election should she win.

Of course, this legal tactic isn't one-sided. The Democratic Party has no shortage of lawyers ready to point out irregularities and contest the election result; we just think that the Harris campaign is less likely to challenge the overall legitimacy of the election compared to the Trump campaign.

The bottom line is that unless one of the candidates runs away with the election, the period immediately after the election could be more important than the result of the election itself.

Listen to our full conversation by subscribing to our podcast feed below!

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS…

• President Joe Biden is en route to Berlin, Germany, and plans to arrive at 3:50 pm EST. He will meet with his counterpart, Olaf Scholz.

• Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Wisconsin on Thursday, making three stops in Milwaukee, La Crosse, and Green Bay on the campaign trail.

• Democrat Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz is holding a campaign rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

• Republican nominee Donald Trump is headed to Detroit, Michigan, on Friday, where he will hold a rally at 7 pm EST, before heading to Pennsylvania on Saturday.

• Republican Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, delivering remarks on the campaign trail.

• Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just so happens to be in the battleground state of North Carolina tonight for “a night of conversation”. If women are the deciding factor in this election, Hillary Clinton’s performance over the next few weeks might be crucial.

WORLD VIEW

Here’s how papers around the world have reported on the US elections over the past week —

🇭🇰 Fiery Kamala Harris uses combative Fox News interview to claim break from Joe Biden - South China Morning Post, Hong Kong

• Intrigue’s take: Fiery. Combative. The SCMP is really trying to insert some excitement into their election coverage, but they nail one of the most interesting things about the interview—Harris distancing herself from her still-current boss.

🇷🇺 Trump beats Harris in US voter support by two percentage points - TASS, Moscow, Russia

• Intrigue’s take:  The Russian news agency hasn’t reported on polls for months but decided to cover the first poll result in a while that puts Trump ahead nationally. A coincidence, we’re sure.

🇶🇦 Musk pours $75m into pro-Trump group, underscoring influence on US election - Al Jazeera, Doha, Qatar

• Intrigue’s take: There’s been scant international reporting of Musk’s influence both financially and ideologically on the Trump campaign, but Qatar-backed AL Al Jazeera wrote that Musk’s latest donation “underscores the persistent influence of mega-donors in US politics.”

POLL OF THE DAY

Just a week ago, Harris and Trump were tied in Georgia, while Harris was up in Wisconsin. What a difference a week makes! It seems Trump has also gained a percentage point over the last week, which surprised us, but again, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Polls are useful indicators in the aggregate, but any single poll is almost useless. The race remains exceptionally close, and we think will be decided in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Michigan.

WHAT WE’RE READING

• More Than 165 Lawsuits Are Already Shaping the 2024 US Presidential Election

• The rise — and fall? — of the New Progressive Economics

• A Second Trump Presidency Stands to Radically Remake World Trade

• Trump is everywhere. Anxious Dems wonder why Harris isn’t

POLL