A Very Tight Race
Plus: J.D. Vance shouldn't be near podcasts, Trump takes on marijuana laws, and more...
State of the race: In a polling update from this morning, Nate Silver reports that "[Vice President Kamala] Harris's odds have declined slightly over the past two weeks, as she's gone from roughly a 55/45 favorite to a 45/55 underdog." There are a few factors at play: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropping out (helping former President Donald Trump), a subpar performance in Pennsylvania, and the Democratic National Convention (DNC) bump being a bit smaller than expected.
"Harris is, in fact, polling a bit better now than before the DNC—but only a bit better, with a 3.5-point lead in our national polling average as of Sunday versus 2.3 points before the convention," writes Silver. "The model's baseline expectation was a bounce of more like 2 points. By the model's logic, she's gone from a lead of 2.3 points to a convention-bounce adjusted lead of 1.5 points. That's not a game-changing difference, but it's enough to show up in the bottom line."
Silver makes the good point that, since June 28, there has not been a "normal" news cycle. Instead, we've had the DNC boost, the Biden dropping out news cycle, and the strangeness of the way in which Harris ascended. Given this, you could "ignore the polls entirely and calculate 'normal' based on other factors—what we call 'the fundamentals' around here. Our model's answer, based on the economy being about average and there being no true incumbent in the race, is that 'normal' means a tie in the popular vote but Democrats being underdogs in the Electoral College."
Meanwhile, new ABC News/Ipsos polling shows just how much a lead Harris maintains with women. "Among women, Harris leads by 13 points, 54%-41%," reports Axios, while "among men, former President Trump leads by 5 points, 51%-46% (not statistically significant)." The gender gap just keeps growing, in partisan affiliation and in this race's polling. Speaking of which…
Act normal challenge: A two-year-old video of Republican vice presidential contender J.D. Vance on the Moment of Truth podcast is making the rounds, in which he tries to explain the mindset of the woke: "Clearly this value set [focus on gender inequity] has made me a miserable person who can't have kids because I already passed the biological period when it was possible and I live in a 1,200 square foot apartment in New York and I pay $5,000 a month for it but I'm really better than these other people, what I'm gonna do is project my racial and gender sensitivities on the rest of them. And the reason that our society is broken is because these people don't think the exact way that I think, even though the way that I think has made me a miserable person, I just need to make more people think like that."
Like with so many Vance quotes, I think the point he's trying to make is a reasonable one—that sometimes woke people are engaged in self-justifying projection, and that sometimes parts of that worldview breed misery—but it's communicated in the least palatable, least generous way possible that just makes him look angry and hectoring. Other people's choices really aren't his problem. Also, it really shouldn't be the job of the vice presidential candidate to engage in armchair philosophizing on the political podcast circuit; he should probably be focused on messaging that appeals to the groups Team Trump is trying to win over.
But this is par for the course for Vance, who isn't exactly doing the best job on the campaign trail. But Trump ostensibly knew this when picking him, going for an ideological choice instead of a pragmatic one. He got what he wished for; the question is whether it will in any way help Trump seal up the election.
Scenes from New York: Bring back single-room occupancy (SRO) housing!
People who needed cheap housing in NYC used to be able to "rent a room" in an apartment building with shared kitchens, living rooms, etc.
But building this type of shared housing was outlawed in NYC decades ago.
Now it's time to bring it back. pic.twitter.com/0shNaOJPsc
— Office of Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine (@MBPMarkLevine) August 29, 2024
QUICK HITS
- "After six Israeli hostages were found shot dead in a Gaza tunnel at the weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did something he hadn't done in 11 months of war—he apologized to the bereaved families," reports Bloomberg. "The gesture was among signs the discovery may prove to be a turning point in Israel's long-running conflict with Hamas, after several months of inconclusive cease-fire negotiations. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested on Sunday to demand a truce with the Iran-backed group, while the main trade union called a strike that temporarily shut down banks, shopping malls and even the main airport on Monday morning."
- Trump wants marijuana laws that prohibit public consumption (but he's not necessarily opposed to legalizing it):
Trump comes out in support of legalizing marijuana for personal use.
Adds that it should be prohibited in public spaces though pic.twitter.com/YREOz9xo6Q
— Reese Gorman (@reesejgorman) August 31, 2024
- Bomb-shelter real estate market is heating up.
- "The U.S. government has seized an airplane linked to Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, and brought it to Florida on Monday because it was bought in violation of U.S. sanctions, according to a Justice Department statement," reports The New York Times.
