Today’s notice: A plane ride with JD Vance. A dive into America’s trains. And a trip to Erie, PA, via automobile. Steve Martin would be proud.
JD Vance is all too aware that he hasn’t exactly nailed the messaging as Donald Trump’s running mate.
In an exclusive interview with NOTUS over the weekend, Vance acknowledged he’s taken some liberties on several issues.
“Certainly one thing that I’m going to try to do is, like — and I’m 99% successful — is not speak for him on an issue where we haven’t actually talked about it,” Vance said.
He specifically mentioned the situation where he said Trump would veto a national abortion ban — only for Trump to say during his debate with Kamala Harris that he “didn’t discuss that with JD.”
Vance told NOTUS that Trump had made it clear he doesn’t support a national abortion ban, but suggested that he should be careful about speaking for Trump.
“I just got to be a little bit more precise in how I describe that next time,” Vance said.
On health care, Vance set the 2010-Rememberer world afire when he brought up the words “risk pools” last month. Speaking with Reese, he dialed back the details to a “concepts of a plan” level. “Vance said a second Trump administration would ‘protect preexisting conditions,’ declining to go into specifics on a health care plan,” Reese reports.
On taxes, Trump proudly signed the law capping the SALT deduction; now, he is promising to eliminate that cap. Vance vocally supported the cap earlier this year, which has put him in an awkward position now that Trump has changed his position. Vance’s takeaway from the experience seems to be to say nothing. “It doesn’t, frankly, really matter whether I criticize it or praise the SALT or love the SALT or hated the SALT,” Vance told Reese. “He’s the one who sets the agenda.”
Vance is playing the role he agreed to: second banana. It is not easy for any VP nom, but Vance’s learning curve has been especially public.
Winning Michigan Is More Important Than Beating Michigan
Vance is a famous grad of Ohio State (aka “The Ohio State University”), but he’s willing to take that hat off for the moment.
“Oh, man, that’s fucking tough,” Vance joked when Reese asked if he’d prefer the campaign win Michigan or the Buckeyes beat the University of Michigan when they face off in November. “Probably the campaign winning Michigan.”
For Young Swing State Voters, the Gender Gap Is Real
The Gen Z gender gap is in full force in Erie, Pennsylvania — just like it is across the state, the “blue wall” and the country. Young women are supporting Harris in droves, and young men are drawn to Trump.
So, at a Harris rally yesterday evening, I posed the question to the young women (and the few young men) in attendance: What’s driving the gender divide in their own backyard? Overwhelmingly, they told me it comes down to abortion.
“Young women have a lot more riding on this,” Marley Ramon, a senior at Mercyhurst University, said. “Men don’t have to think about stuff like their personal autonomy. So it’s easier to be a Trump supporter for things that I would consider selfish in comparison, like economic reasons.”
Justin Zacker, a 35-year-old sporting a “White Dudes for Harris” ball cap, has volunteered for Democrats in neighboring, deep red Mercer County since the Kerry campaign. He said the gender gap is only growing.
“The Democratic Party has a messaging problem with white, younger men,” Zacker said. He added the men around him gravitate to Trump because of “wanting to dive into the toxic masculinity bullshit.”
Still, Zacker didn’t sound too worried.
“I feel far better about the women that are voting for Harris than I will for the guys that are going to vote for Trump,” he said. “The women will show up. These guys are a 50-50 shot.”
—Katherine Swartz, reporting from Erie, Pennsylvania
Front Page
- What Happens When Consultants Are in Charge of Building the Nation’s Infrastructure: State and local governments are contending with hollowed-out workforces.
- How a Town in Texas Could Restrict Abortion Nationwide: Anti-abortion advocates are hoping voters in Amarillo, Texas, adopt a ballot measure this fall. It could be the most consequential abortion fight of this election cycle.
- Trump Promises ‘Largest Deportation Operation’ at His Aurora Rally: The former president has kept Aurora in the spotlight because of its Venezuelan community.
More Money, More Problems
State and local governments got a new infusion of cash (*a lot of cash*) for infrastructure projects, and they’re handing the power over to outside firms and consultants to spend it, NOTUS’ Byron Tau finds in his latest dive into the impacts of the $1 trillion in infrastructure funding.
“What are contractors’ or consultants’ incentives?” former OMB economist Zachary Liscow tells Byron. “That you design a bigger, more complex project — and they will probably get paid more. Those are bad incentives.”
Abortion Ballot Initiative Alert!
An initiative to make one midsize Texas town a “sanctuary city for the unborn” could wind up becoming one of the most consequential ballot measures of this election cycle, anti-abortion and abortion rights activists tell NOTUS’ Oriana González.
If voters in Amarillo, Texas, approve the ordinance, anti-abortion advocates think the city could have standing to intervene in an abortion pill case the Supreme Court sent back to the lower courts last year. And U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who previously ruled to restrict abortion pills nationwide, would take the case.
When asked what made the Amarillo ordinance so important, anti-abortion activist Mark Lee Dickson said, “Obviously it is a place … with one of the best judges in the nation. And I’ll just leave it at that.”
Democrats Abroad Call BS
If there’s an issue that motivates American voters abroad, it’s how they pay both U.S. and foreign income taxes. Trump’s vow to end “double taxation” was exactly what Solomon Yue, CEO of Republicans Overseas, has been wanting to hear.
As for the Democrats Abroad, International Chair Martha McDevitt-Pugh would like to point out that the GOP is challenging the legitimacy of mail-in votes abroad. So it’s safe to say she’s skeptical of Trump’s promises.
“The former president’s statement is extremely opportunistic,” she told NOTUS. “It sounds great to fix everything for us and make sure we never have to deal with double taxation anyway, but he’s really just pandering to Americans abroad to get our votes.”
That said, she’d welcome Harris making her own announcement. But, she wants a more fleshed-out proposal that goes beyond Trump’s, just “not the way Trump did it, where he just made a blanket statement, which is like a fantasy or a wish.”
—Riley Rogerson
Week Ahead
- Harris sits down for an interview with radio personality Charlamagne Tha God today.
- Senate battleground races are heating up with a slate of debates. In Texas, Ted Cruz and Colin Allred will debate today. In Nevada, Jacky Rosen and Sam Brown will face off on Thursday. And in Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin and Eric Hovde will debate on Friday.
- Fox News will air a Trump town hall on Wednesday, where he will take questions from women voters in Georgia.
- The U.S. Army Association hosts its annual conference this week, complete with a packed roster of military contractors, arms dealers and politicians, among many others.
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by … not us.
- The definitive take on the Democratic Party and “uncommitted” from Zoe Chace and Ben Terris for This American Life.
- We didn’t see this one coming: The Wall Street Journal uncovered a hurricane-relief worker who also happens to be … a neo-Nazi.
- Politico talked to the rural voters who picked Tim Walz six times, but this time they’re just not feeling him.
Be Social: C-SPAN Edition
ICYMI: NOTUS’ Jasmine Wright talked Arizona and Harris on C-SPAN. (She also fielded some … interesting viewer questions.)
WATCH: @JasJWright joined @cspanwj to break down Arizona’s changing voter base and the pressure on Kamala Harris to win over independents and moderate Republicans amid Democratic losses. pic.twitter.com/Whq7IB6eLV
— NOTUS (@NOTUSreports) October 11, 2024
Tell Us Your Thoughts
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