Today’s notice: The final and forever list of which U.S. counties rule. Which, yes, means the others unfortunately drool.
ERIE COUNTY, PA — Kamala Harris may have largely stuck to her stump speech on Monday night, but she had a tailored message for Erie.
“Erie County, you are a pivot county, because how you all vote in presidential elections often ends up predicting the national result,” she said. The crowd roared to a chant of “Erie, Erie, Erie.”
Talk about county-level pride. But Harris’ point is true: Erie is one of just 25 counties nationally that has voted for the presidential winner in the last four elections.
The Trump and Harris campaigns are betting Erie will be key, pouring time into winning the area — also known on Ballotpedia as one of 25 “boomerang pivot” counties. But it’s hardly the only place that could pick the next president. Harris is spending today across the state in Bucks County, which the local Democratic Party chair has repeatedly called the “key to the Keystone.”
So who is really deciding the election? Dave Wasserman, senior editor at the Cook Political Report, told NOTUS that “every county could swing the election in these states.” But he’s paying close attention to a handful in particular.
NC: Wasserman said Harris must win Nash and New Hanover, home of blue hub Wilmington. She also has to get within striking distance in Cabarrus, just north of Charlotte.
WI: The two boomerang pivot counties Door and Sauk remain pivotal. As could Green, a Madison suburb. (Sadly no mention of crucial Waukesha.)
MI: Saginaw and Muskegon are closely divided and have significant Black populations. Wasserman said Harris has to “keep them in her plus column.”
GA: Biden won Milledgeville, in Baldwin, by a point. Fayette, a county in the Atlanta suburbs, broke for Donald Trump in 2020 but has been rapidly trending blue.
AZ: Maricopa encompasses 60% of the state’s population, so it tautologically provides a good indication of how the state is breaking.
NV: As just about anyone who has watched John King on Election Day knows, Washoe is the place to track.
Then there’s PA: There’s the Biden lovers of Lackawanna, Luzerne, Erie and Northampton — all places where Harris may struggle to match the numbers of her former running mate. But in Montgomery, Chester, Lancaster, Cumberland and Allegheny, Harris could expand Biden’s margins. Meanwhile, Trump will try to grow his edge in Lehigh and Berks.
And there’s Bucks, where Harris is stumping today. JD Vance stopped by two weeks ago, and Doug Emhoff swung through an Eagles watch party there last month. It won’t decide the election alone, but Wasserman called it “the suburban county that most closely approximates the state’s swing status.”
—Riley Rogerson, Katherine Swartz
The Economic Left Misses Joe
Does progressive populism have a home in a Harris administration? Economic lefties may have some warm feelings about Joe Biden, but NOTUS’ Alex Roarty and Claire Heddles report that they are growing increasingly wary of Harris.
“Look, what’s actually happening is Mark Cuban and his consiglieres like Jeff Zients are gleefully carrying the water of the billionaire class. And over cigars, scotch and poker, they’re positioning themselves as the Kamala Harris economic whisperers,” Erica Payne, the founder of Patriotic Millionaires, told the pair. Payne says Harris is projecting an economic vision comparable to Sen. Mark Warner.
Is the change in tone real or the result of campaign season? “To some progressives, Harris looks more comfortable this campaign than she ever did while running to the left in 2019,” Alex and Claire report.
Read the story here.
Dems Hope Project 2025 Attack Works in Trump Country
The DNC is banking that their No. 1 attack on the GOP, Project 2025, works in Trump’s No. 1 stronghold: rural America.
On a Tuesday press call, Democrats from Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin addressed issues like crop insurance programs, rural connectivity and USDA funding that don’t often get much national play, but, they claim, Trump and Project 2025 would derail.
Trump is, as Wisconsin farmer Dylan Bruce put it, “treating us like hay seeds and like we’re stupid … We refuse to let Trump pull the wool over our eyes with empty promises.”
—Riley Rogerson
Front Page
- Kamala Harris Casts Donald Trump as a Threat to Black Americans: Harris suggested Trump’s vision for America is fascism.
- Trump Claims Tariffs Are ‘Beautiful,’ Talking to Putin Is ‘Smart’ and Jan. 6 Was ‘Peaceful’: In an interview at the Economic Club of Chicago, Trump made a number of assertions about the economy, the Federal Reserve’s relationship with the president and his plans for a second administration.
Quiet Quitting, Election Officials Edition
Many of the people who are set to actually run this year’s elections are pretty new to the job, NOTUS’ Nuha Dolby reports. She ran the numbers and found that “more than 40% of elections in 354 counties (or their equivalents) are being run by someone different than the person in charge during the 2020 election. In 2020, only around 30% of these same counties were served by someone new than in 2016.”
Some have walked away from the job after the 2020 election lies and subsequent harassment campaigns against balloting officials. Those that stayed are working in a different world from the one before those lies, officials told Nuha.
“Since we’ve been sued so many times lately, anything I say out loud, ‘do not use for suing purposes,’” the Columbia County, Pennsylvania, elections director said. “We actually preface a lot of phone calls with that these days, which is sad that we’ve gotten to that point.”
Read the story here.
Democrats Think Cancun Is Cruz’s Weakness
Remember what must be among the pettiest leaked group chat messages ever? NOTUS’ Casey Murray reports that Texas Democrats are closing their efforts to oust Sen. Ted Cruz with ads about his family’s 2021 winter escape to Cancun, Mexico. Rep. Colin Allred’s campaign is running ads about it, and “some Republicans supporting Allred cite the episode as one part of the reason why they’re opting to vote for a Democrat this cycle.”
Read the story here.
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here are great stories by … not us.
- For some Americans, looking at the polls is stressful. For others, the polls are also a warning about what their days at work could be like starting in 2025. Robin Bravender reports for Politico on the jitters among government workers in agencies like the EPA.
- Maybe the best (or bleakest, depending on your POV) beat in America is New York City politics right now. In The Washington Post, Laura Wagner reports on Hell Gate, a worker-owned news outlet hitting its stride just in time for all the, well, everything going on in the Big Apple these days.
Number You Should Know
154,505
The number of early votes cast in the first day of Georgia early voting by 1 PM, according to Gabriel Sterling, COO in the GA Secretary of State’s office. The figure “set an opening day of Early Voting record,” Sperling posted.
Tell Us Your Thoughts
What do you think is this election’s most important county?
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