Knock, Knock

Today’s notice: Democrats are bringing back their tried and (maybe) true campaign tactics and the polls are screaming PENNSYLVANIA.

‘Tens of Thousands’ of Dem Votes Waiting to Be Knocked On

Specific places where Democrats say they left votes on the field because of 2020’s COVID-19 limitations: cities like Detroit and Philadelphia. Donald Trump’s numbers went up between 2016 and 2020 in those cities, and obviously, he’d like to see them stay up in 2024. But the return of full-scale Dem field operation might make that harder.

“Everything fell short in 2020,” veteran Dem field organizer Joan Kato tells NOTUS’ Alex Roarty for his big look at Democratic field operations this cycle. “We weren’t able to reach as many communities that needed extra hand-holding and that extra touch to remind them to vote.”

Traditional high-touch Dem field operations were effectively canceled in 2020 by the pandemic. Concerns over COVID-19 spread are no longer a factor, and Democratic operatives hope there will be “tens of thousands” of more votes to win now that the canvassers and volunteers are back out in force.

Trump largely kept up field operations in 2020. Dems brought them back for runoffs in Georgia, which Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won. One can see where the excitement about not running a campaign of caution during a global pandemic comes in.

But not everyone believes this is the game changer Dem field proponents promise, with some warning that a lot of voters turned out in 2020 and are generally getting weary of the biennial visit from a chipper door knocker. But a marginal difference might be all the difference, so…? Anyway, we won’t find out who’s right until the end of this thing, but it’s a huge and underexplored question in this election.

Read the story here.

Front Page

• House Rejects Mike Johnson’s Government Funding Gambit: The failure was the point.
• Republicans Don’t Want to Accept That Harris’ Numbers on Immigration Are Improving: Some are also blaming Republican leadership.
• Ohio’s Democratic Senator Doesn’t Want to Talk About Haitian Migrants in Springfield: He’s commented on the situation but hasn’t addressed the migrant population directly.
  

How to Survive the Polling Deluge

The time has come for a constant thrum of polls to bang against your psyche. This cycle, the noise sounds like “Penn-syl-van-ia” on repeat: A Quinnipiac poll shows a 6-point spread for Harris in the commonwealth and now a new Marist poll shows a tie.

“Statistically, that’s not a huge difference,” Marist’s Lee Miringoff told NOTUS in the hours before the university’s latest numbers dropped. “It suggests she may be ahead in Pennsylvania or dead even.”

The Marist numbers show Harris overperforming the 2020 PA exit polls with white voters by a lot (Trump 51-Harris 48; Trump won white voters by 15 in the exits) while Trump is overperforming exits with nonwhite voters by a lot (Harris 59-Trump 38; Biden won this group with 82% in the exits).

Dem pollster Paul Maslin isn’t buying the Pennsylvania sweep story that caught brief steam after the Quinnipiac poll came out. “I’d rather be still nervous about it than to somehow think she’s made a breakthrough,” he said.

He described the race as between someone voters don’t know (Harris) versus someone voters don’t like (Trump) — a 2016 in reverse, if you will. But whether Harris gets Trump’s 2016 voters-don’t-know-you-but-don’t-hate-you-yet advantage is TBD.

“It’s great we can pat ourselves on the back, and at the end of the day — as we’ve all learned — it is, I wouldn’t say meaningless … but we all understand this is a battle for seven states and particularly I think two states: Georgia and Pennsylvania are going to decide the presidency,” Maslin said.

So: It’s close in PA.

—Evan McMorris-Santoro and Claire Heddles

Number You Should Know

0.5

The Fed cut interest rates by a half percentage point. We asked Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kevin Cramer, who sit on opposite sides of the aisle on the Banking Committee, what they made of it.

Cramer said the Fed should have waited until after Election Day to make the cut or lowered it by less: “In some respects [a quarter point] would have even probably enhanced their reputation a little bit, because they can say, ‘See, we’re not afraid of Elizabeth Warren or Kevin Cramer,’” he said.

But Warren wasn’t exactly jumping for joy about the half-percent difference either: “They’re not going to be finished until they have an interest rate that better reflects this past year on inflation,” she told reporters, calling for bigger cuts.

—Riley Rogerson

Not Us

We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by … not us.

• Vanity Fair has a deep dive on the woman representing the government before a fraught Supreme Court.
• The NRCC is pouring money into attacking Texas Democrats over LGBTQ+ issues, betting “that issue will resonate more than the border or economy,” Texas Tribune reports.
• Speaking of Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz is trying a rebrand via Texas Monthly.
• Wired’s got a great take on how the Trump campaign got Laura Loomer-ed.

Be Social

Capitol Hill has caught on to adorable Thai hippo Moo Deng. Sen. Chris Coons used her for a serious message about climate change. Florida’s Democratic Senate candidate, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, made Moo Deng chase down Rick Scott.

Leave it to politicians to take something fun and make it … Pokémon Go to the Polls.

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