The Home Stretch: Here’s the election news for Oct. 30
Share this post:
Six days to go and the presidential race continues to heat up.
Massive rallies, celebrity guests and controversial remarks are the hallmarks of the campaigns for the White House. Here’s what’s going on and what can be expected today.
Where is everyone?
Candidates are state-hopping at an impressive rate today.
Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris will visit three swing states, holding rallies in Harrisburg, Raleigh, N.C., and Madison, Wis. Continuing the spate of musical guests at her events, Harris’s Madison rally will include appearances by several musicians, including pop star Gracie Abrams. Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz kicked his day off on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and then heads to North Carolina himself, with events planned in Charlotte, Greensboro and Asheville.
Not to be left out of North Carolina, Republican candidate former President Donald Trump will be in Rocky Mount. He will then travel to Wisconsin, where he will hold a Green Bay rally this evening with former NFL star Brett Favre. Sen. JD Vance, his running mate, will be taping an interview for Joe Rogan’s mega-popular podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” and holding a rally in Bedford, Pa.
What’s the data saying?
Three recent polls of Pennsylvania give Trump a slight lead here in the quintessential swing state. AtlasIntel conducted two polls of likely voters between Oct. 25-29, one head-to-head poll finding Trump at +3% (50%-47%) and one with the full field (including minor party candidates) finding him at +2% over Harris (49%-47%). CBS News/YouGov found Pennsylvania voters split evenly between the two candidates in an Oct. 27-29 poll of likely voters, at 49% each. Redfield & Wilton Strategies also has them tied amongst likely voters at 48% each.
Nationally, AtlasIntel found Trump ahead by 2% in a head-to-head poll (50% to 48%) and 3% ahead in the full field poll, (50% to 47%). A Reuters/Ipsos poll found Harris ahead by 1%, 47%-46%.
Swing state polling continues to be neck-and-neck, ranging anywhere from Harris +5% to Trump +3% in states such as Michigan, Arizona and North Carolina.
FiveThirtyEight’s election simulator algorithm now predicts that Trump wins in 52 out of 100 scenarios and Harris 48 out of 100, if nothing else, that means everyone can breathe a sigh of relief: the likelihood of seeing an electoral college tie is now down to an insignificant percentage.
What’s going on?
Here’s just a little bit of the news circulating today.
Harris and Walz did a bit of cleanup on Good Morning America this morning after President Joe Biden’s comments yesterday. Biden said, “Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. Well, let me tell you something, I don’t, I don’t know the Puerto Rican that I know, the Puerto Rico where I’m fr — in my home state of Delaware. They’re good, decent honorable people, The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”
Harris said, in part, “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.”
Vice President Harris: I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for. You heard my speech last night. I believe the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not. I will be a President for all Americans pic.twitter.com/zVk3oEcpBG
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 30, 2024
Walz said this morning that “The vice president and I have made it absolutely clear that we want everyone as a part of this. Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric is what needs to end.”
Harris delivered her “closing argument” speech to a crowd of 75,000 people, according to her campaign, at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., Tuesday night.
More than 50 million people have already voted in the 2024 general election nationwide. Women are out-early voting men by a 10-point margin in battleground states like Pennsylvania.
And finally, Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed Harris.
I don’t really do endorsements. I’m not shy about sharing my views, but I hate politics and don’t trust most politicians.
I also understand that people want to hear from me because I am not just a celebrity, I am a former Republican Governor.
My time as Governor taught me to…
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) October 30, 2024
What are people thinking?
Here’s your daily look at both sides of the op-ed column as opinions get hotter.
- “Nobelists for Harris Are Unburdened by Proof,” say Kevin Hassett and Casey B. Mulligan in the Wall Street Journal. Their evidence? “What’s lacking from all the political posturing is precisely that: evidence. A scientific approach to policy debate requires a theoretical model showing how the candidates’ policies might affect the economy. The model’s quantitative predictions could be falsified or validated. For Mr. Trump, there is ample evidence that his tax cuts and deregulatory efforts had salutary effects.”
- On the other hand, the Washington Post has Catherine Rampell with “Only care about your pocketbook? Trump is still the wrong choice.” She discusses Trump’s economic plans, including imposing tariffs, mass deportations and politicizing the Federal Reserve. “Each of these policies would worsen inflation, tank the economy and/or widen budget deficits. Dozens of independent analysts — from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Goldman Sachs, Pantheon Macroeconomics, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, Morgan Stanley, Penn Wharton Budget Model, the Yale Budget Lab and UBS, among others — have assessed the economic fallout of Trump’s plans. While they differ on scope of the potential damage, virtually all predict it would be significant.”
- Bret Stephens delivers “A Conservative Case Against Trump” to New York Times readers. “Like many unhappy conservatives, I look at this election as a choice between misfortunes. Faced with a similar dilemma in 1800, Alexander Hamilton offered advice that should resonate with at least a few right-leaning voters today: ‘If we must have an enemy at the head of the government,’ he wrote to a fellow Federalist, the House speaker Theodore Sedgwick, that May, ‘let it be one whom we can oppose and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.’”
- “Return of the ‘normal’ Republican puts the Senate in GOP’s grasp,” crows Isaac Schorr at the New York Post. He bemoans extreme candidates the the Republican Party ran in the past election cycles, especially the 2022 midterms. “But the sting of defeat helped Republicans learn a valuable lesson. This time around, they didn’t want to be left with the same regrets. While the battle for the House remains a toss-up, Republicans are poised to finally take back the upper chamber— largely due to the much-improved quality of their candidates. This year’s crop presents as a collection of citizens who want to serve their country, rather than political obsessives grinding niche axes.”