Today’s notice: How scary are Harris’ union problems in Pennsylvania? Which was spookier, when a comedian said the word “garbage,” or when Biden said it? Isn’t it eerie how COVID-19 just vanished from politics?
‘We’re Not Going Back’ vs. Look at These Jobs Numbers!
A centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s erstwhile reelection campaign was the jobs created through the billions of dollars in federal spending he spearheaded through the infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act. Vice President Kamala Harris has largely put that message on the back burner in favor of a forward-looking message on creating an “opportunity economy” and on abortion.
“She wants to be the candidate of change,” one Democratic ad maker in Pennsylvania told us. “When you’re the incumbent president, it’s very hard to run as a change agent. It’s a little bit different when you’re vice president, in part because of her identity, in part because Trump was president before, and so she’s trying to run in that lane.”
That shift in messaging may be having an unintended effect on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania. NOTUS spoke to local union leaders across the state, who all said rank-and-file members aren’t giving the Biden-Harris administration credit for the jobs they’re working.
In Pennsylvania, NOTUS found that the influx of federal funding for infrastructure projects largely went to reconstruction, not new projects. That’s a boon for areas with older roads and bridges that have become unusable, but local organizers fear it isn’t driving out union votes the way they hoped.
James Nuber, the business manager of the Local 56 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Erie, said he’s doing everything he can to connect the dots for rank-and-file members between the jobs they’re working and the Biden-Harris administration.
Trying to do that has been a challenge, to say the least.
“I get more reaction when I talk to a brick wall,” he said.
—Katherine Swartz | Read the story here.
Garbage In, Garbage Out
Can you believe the entire campaign cycle comes down to two instances of a person not on the ballot saying “garbage”?
Republicans are feeling a “deplorables” moment with Biden. Democratic operatives reached by NOTUS weren’t happy with the former president — but they weren’t despondent either. “It’s like a 5% unnecessary distraction but not moving any real voters,” said one. “Unlike Puerto Rico trash heap.”
Shifra Dayak and Jasmine Wright found more pronounced frustration closer to Harrisworld. A source simply texted NOTUS “a picture of Harris holding a microphone in 2019 with the words ‘DUDE GOTTA GO’ overlaid on top,” they report. So far, Biden has not totally stopped Harris’ post-Madison Square Garden rally momentum. On Wednesday, prominent Puerto Rican Trump supporter Nicky Jam withdrew his support very publicly over the comments.
Then again, it’s all garbage all the time.
NOTUS’ Alex Roarty was at a Bernie Moreno rally Wednesday where four separate speakers brought up Biden saying “garbage,” either in reference to all Trump supporters or to Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian at Donald Trump’s NYC rally who called Puerto Rico “garbage.” Republicans began fundraising (and making stickers) off of Biden’s comment almost immediately.
Giving a final 2024 Latino polling readout, Equis’ Carlos Odio said Hinchcliffe’s Puerto Rico comments may not have much swing state impact outside of Pennsylvania, where there is a large Puerto Rican population. But any impact in Pennsylvania could be big. Odio didn’t have data on whether the comments moved the needle with Latino voters, but he said, “It spread in a way that normally these things do not, just at the point when people are already voting.”
And then there’s Philly’s Democratic Party chair and close Biden friend, Bob Brady, who told NOTUS’ Riley Rogerson that he didn’t know what Biden meant. “Who cares,” he said. “I can’t take away what he said about garbage.”
—Evan McMorris-Santoro | Read more from Jasmine and Shifra here.
Front Page
- ‘They Look at All of Us as Black’: Dems May Be Falling Short With a Key Voting Bloc: “They say, ‘We see you.’ But they don’t see you,” one source familiar with the Democratic Party’s efforts to court African voters told NOTUS.
- Supreme Court Clears the Way for Virginia Voter Purge: Glenn Youngkin gets a win.
- The Big Issue Still Weighing On Voters That Hardly Anyone Wants to Discuss: “As a country, we’ve been through a lot over the last few years,” former President Barack Obama said. “We forget sometimes.”
Quotable: The Issue That Must Not Be Named
“The smart messaging on COVID is not to mention it at all,” GOP strategist Matthew Bartlett said. “No one wants to talk about it. It is in the rearview mirror.”
On one hand, COVID-19 was a dark chapter for the country that no one wants to revisit. On the other hand, there’s plenty of political messaging left on the table with the campaigns avoiding the subject. Still, politicians and pundits were insistent that the campaigns should continue to let sleeping dogs lie.
“Nobody wants to deal with it. It was such a catastrophic event. There’s kind of a post-traumatic stress to it that people just want to avoid it. They don’t want to think about it,” Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, told NOTUS of the pandemic.
What Will Security Look Like in D.C. on Jan. 6?
The day the election is certified (you may have heard of it, Jan. 6) and Inauguration Day have been designated “national special security events” in D.C. But what that will exactly look like “is tangled in a web of bureaucracy between the city, the Pentagon and the Secret Service,” reports NOTUS’ John T. Seward.
Several National Guard units are readying for a potential deployment to D.C. MPD has sent out requests for thousands of police from across the country. But the Secret Service is in charge, and the agency “hasn’t publicly asked for additional support beyond its own ranks.”
Number You Should Know
12
Only a dozen seats will determine who controls the legislature across six states, according to Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
In Michigan, the House is up for grabs by two seats. In Minnesota, by four in the House and one in the Senate. In Arizona, it’s down to two seats in each chamber. And in Pennsylvania, the House majority is up for grabs by one seat.
“The difference between a majority can come down to a seat or a few hundred votes,” Williams said on a press call on Wednesday.
—Katherine Swartz
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by … not us.
- We’re at the finale of the ‘LOL, Everything Matters’ election by Ben Terris, Maura Judkis and Jesús Rodriguez for The Washington Post
- Donald Trump’s political director breaks down the final sprint to election day by Shelby Talcott for Semafor
- “A Year of Frustration”: How New Mexico Kept Denying People Voting Rights Despite Reform by Lauren Gill for Bolts
Be Social: We Used to Build Things in This Country
In a world before social media, campaigns had time to do the important things like make incredibly detailed Halloween-themed press credentials.
https://x.com/OKnox/status/1851290896941056390
Tell Us Your Thoughts
What’s the best political-themed Halloween costume for 2024?
Send your thoughts to newsletters@notus.org.
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