Today’s notice: North Carolina grapples with Hurricane Helene. Vance and Walz try to set the bar ahead of tonight’s debate. And GOP lawmakers reckon with the year that’s been.
North Carolina Reels From Helene
For weeks, Kamala Harris’ campaign has championed North Carolina as its new frontier, saying that the red-leaning swing state looked swingier than ever. But political insiders and local officials aren’t sure what to make of the electoral consequences of Hurricane Helene devastating the state this weekend.
People are still missing, millions are without power, roads are impassable in many towns and Asheville doesn’t have access to clean drinking water.
With just weeks until election day, NOTUS’ Anna Kramer and Calen Razor report that it’s not clear how many voters have lost IDs or absentee ballots. It’s unknown whether polling stations will open on time. And it’s impossible to predict whether voters will change their minds about who to vote for or whether to vote at all.
In terms of polling, “if anyone is doing phone polling now, I would have to question [the results],” David McLennan, the director of the Meredith College poll, told NOTUS.
That’s not stopping politicians from doing what they do best: politicizing.
Donald Trump said, without evidence, that the Biden administration and Gov. Roy Cooper are “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” Meanwhile, Wake County Democratic Party Chair Kevin Creech told NOTUS that Dems are the “party of compassion and empathy” while Trump’s rhetoric is “grotesque.”
Congress isn’t sure what to make of the hurricane fallout either. Joe Biden suggested that Congress — which is currently not in session — may need to return to D.C. and pass disaster relief. Some GOP and Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Jared Moskowitz, agree. But for now, whether Congress will come back to Capitol Hill is yet another question mark.
The Vance-Walz Expectation Game
Aides and allies couldn’t have set the debate bar much higher for JD Vance, who has wooed Trump with his rhetorical prowess. Though his way with words has gotten Vance in trouble, sources close to the senator told NOTUS’ Reese Gorman he’s more than prepared to defend himself.
“The good thing with JD is that he’s done so much media that he’s been hit with oppo and defended himself so much,” a source with knowledge of debate prep told NOTUS.
Hyping up Vance could backfire, of course. Remember when Republicans accused Biden of taking drugs before the June debate and Democrats sarcastically played along? Yeah, that didn’t go so well.
Meanwhile, ever since Harris selected Tim Walz as her running mate, campaign insiders have tried to lower his bar, warning the media that Walz doesn’t consider himself a strong debater. Walz has repeatedly told aides he’s worried about letting Harris down, according to a Monday CNN report,
Rebecca Pearcey, a Democratic strategist, told NOTUS she thinks Walz might be underselling his skills. “He’s probably a humble guy that doesn’t like to say he’s the best debater and will come out on top of this tomorrow,” she said.
People close to the Harris campaign say the Walz team expects Vance to try and outwit Walz with a wonky and “Ivy League”-like attitude, which Walz has played up by casting his opponent as an out-of-touch Yale grad.
Walz himself told reporters Monday that debate prep has been “good — going great. This is the fun part.”
People close to Vance are pushing back on the Walz-is-a-bad-debater narrative, too. “Walz is very good in debates,” Jason Miller told reporters Monday.
Front Page
- ‘The Thrill is Gone’: Trump’s Tuscaloosa Visit Wasn’t What It Used to Be: Fans at the Alabama-Georgia game just weren’t as excited by Trump’s presence.
- Hurricane Helene Creates a Political Polling Blackout in Crucial States: It could be nearly impossible to accurately canvass voters in North Carolina and Georgia.
SCOTUS Is Coming Back. So Is Dobbs.
The 2022 Dobbs decision is poised to make a quiet return this SCOTUS session in a case involving transgender health care. Republicans are glad to see Dobbs applied to cases that address more than abortion, NOTUS’ Oriana González reports. Democrats are bracing for fallout.
“This has been the fear that we had, that they would use Dobbs to try to deny all kinds of health care to people,” Rep. Diana DeGette, chair of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, told Oriana.
A Number You Should Know
364
Days since Kevin McCarthy’s Oct. 3 ouster. GOP lawmakers told NOTUS’ Haley Byrd Wilt they’re still recovering from the internal coup d’état that put Mike Johnson in power.
Mike Lawler: “In the history of politics, it was the single stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Max Miller: “It was one of the worst things that had ever happened in congressional history,”
Dusty Johnson: “There are many tragedies of the McCarthy ouster, but I think the eight renegades who ousted him have to acknowledge that they didn’t fundamentally change anything about the House.”
Even one of those renegades who ousted McCarthy isn’t satisfied with the consequences. When Haley asked Rep. Bob Good if Johnson has done a decent job he responded bluntly: “No.”
NOTUS Exclusive: Speaking of This Year in the House GOP…
NOTUS’ Casey Murray reports that the DCCC is dropping new ads that use GOP lawmakers’ own words against them, trying to pin what’s been the most unproductive Congress in nearly a century on House Republicans.
The DCCC’s campaign titled “Useless” is set to target vulnerable Republicans with a microsite and dozens of digital assets. The ads play up Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s criticism of her party in June when she tried to oust Johnson.
“People are sick and tired of a feckless and useless Republican Party that never does a damn thing,” she said at the time.
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by … not us.
- ProPublica unspools the stories of Maylia and Jack and how fentanyl devastated their lives.
- The Philadelphia Inquirer digs into the demographic that could tip the Keystone State for Harris: college kids.
- Dozens of people — including innocent bystanders — have died in police chases, according to a San Francisco Chronicle investigation.
- The Washington Post solves a decades old photographic mystery.
Be Social
Scout Walz scored a 14/10 rating from WeRateDogs.
This is Scout. I had the pleasure of going on a walk with him and his dad, @Tim_Walz. We talked about the time Scout locked himself in a bedroom, why you should be honest about going to the vet, and why dogs bring us all a little closer together. 14/10https://t.co/vKeGbVB41S pic.twitter.com/CXrEMqVMY1
— WeRateDogs (@dog_rates) September 30, 2024
Tell Us Your Thoughts
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