Harris Leans on ‘Normie’ Suburban Republicans in Midwest Tour, as Trump Tries To Recapture 2016 Magic

With just two weeks to go until the 2024 election, Vice President Harris is not taking any chances with losing the three Midwestern states that cost Democrats the presidency eight years ago. Her plan to lean into support from what some have called “normie” or “non-MAGA” Republicans could very well pay off in suburbia, even as President Trump tries to recapture some of the showmanship magic that helped him win in 2016. Ms. Harris just concluded her speaking tour with one of her most famous endorsers, Liz Cheney, the former congresswoman. The two started together in Pennsylvania and traveled to Michigan and to Wisconsin to answer questions from voters and make the case that devotees of President Reagan have a home in Ms. Harris’s Democratic Party. “What I would say is that if people are uncertain, if people are thinking, ‘Well, you know, I’m a conservative. I don’t know that I can support Vice President Harris,’ I would say: I don’t know if anybody’s more conservative than I am, and I understand the most conservative value there is is to defend the Constitution,” Ms. Cheney said to applause from a Michigan crowd on Monday. “I would say, to me, a new way forward is this. It’s what you’re seeing up here,” the former congresswoman said. Ms. Harris’s most likely path to the top spot at the White House is straight through the “blue wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, plus the reliably blue states that are already seemingly guaranteed to be in her column. Governor Walz will pick up the blue wall tour on Tuesday with a rally at Madison, Wisconsin, alongside President Obama, followed by a solo rally at Racine, Wisconsin.Trump — who was allegedly described as “exhausted” by an aide, according to Politico — will spend the last two weeks of the 2024 campaign seemingly trying to recapture some of the 2016 magic and energy that led to his upset victory over Secretary Clinton. He is doing events across the country even as Senator Vance sprints across the battleground states as the campaign’s top surrogate. During a photo op at a McDonald’s in the Philadelphia suburbs, Trump appeared joyful and engaged with members of the press and the supporters who were lined up in their cars to accept food from the drive-thru window. On Sunday, he will hold a rally at Madison Square Garden in his native New York, where he is expected to fill the nearly 20,000-seat arena. Trump’s events, including his journey to the fryer at McDonald’s, have garnered him millions of dollars’ worth of earned media coverage, and the rally at Madison Square Garden will almost assuredly result in the same. His ground game in the Rust Belt, however, seems to have not kept pace with Ms. Harris’s. The hundreds of millions of dollars that have poured into the three Rust Belt states over the course of the last three months seems to have worked, with early voting data showing a sizable electorate that could meet or even exceed the 2020 election turnout. On Tuesday, early voting began in Wisconsin; if returns in Michigan and Pennsylvania are any sign, all three states are likely to surpass their turnout rates from four years ago. In Pennsylvania, Ms. Harris has a decisive lead in mail voting returns — at least for now. As of Tuesday, more than 1 million mail ballots have been returned to election officials in the state, with registered Democrats accounting for nearly 650,000 ballots and Republicans just more than 300,000. Independents and unaffiliated voters have sent in a little more than 100,000 votes so far. The return rate for Democrats is higher than for Republicans, though that rate has narrowed in recent days. Of all mail ballots that have been sent to Democrats, 60 percent have been returned, while Republicans have returned nearly 54 percent of their requested ballots. On October 16 — one week after mail ballot returns began being returned to election officials — Democrats had a nine-point return rate advantage over the GOP. In Michigan, there is a rosier picture for Ms. Harris. Like in Pennsylvania, Michigan has already seen more than 1 million mail and early ballots representing more than 15 percent of turnout among all registered voters in the state. The 1 million returned votes also represent more than 50 percent of all mail ballots sent to voters so far. The demographics of the mail ballot returns strongly favor Ms. Harris, with more than 62 percent of all returned ballots coming from Wayne and Oakland counties, the two counties that delivered the most votes to President Biden four years ago. Women — specifically Democratic women — are turning out at higher rates than two years ago, according to data provided by the secretary of state’s office. Ms. Harris has a large lead over Trump among women voters, and Democratic women have now returned more than 335,000 votes to election officials compared to 181,000 votes from registered Republican women.

Harris Leans on ‘Normie’ Suburban Republicans in Midwest Tour, as Trump Tries To Recapture 2016 Magic

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