Counting on the Keystone State
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are working on truncated timelines and with a miniscule map. The abbreviated contest that only came together under 45 days ago is a historical outlier. Most campaigns develop over months, sometimes years, as the Democratic and Republican principals do a slow dance around each other before clashing in a series of showdowns on debate stages.
That obviously hasn’t been the case in 2024. Trump and Harris are set to get together in the same room at least once next week during a debate on Sept. 10.
But that small map isn’t a new phenomenon. In an age of hyperpolarization and our tendency to self-sort into communities and regions with people who think, feel, and vote in similar patterns to us, there are few truly persuadable voters or states that are up for grabs every four years.
That handful of swing states is more important than ever in a race like this one. That’s why the Washington Examiner has been digging through the rules, regulations, and challenges to explain everything you need to know about those seven states this year.
This morning, Congressional Reporter Cami Mondeaux broke down the crown jewel in the swing-state treasure chest. Harris has no realistic path to victory without capturing Pennsylvania. Trump is desperate to prove his victory there in 2016 by roughly 44,000 votes wasn’t a fluke after President Joe Biden tugged it back into the Democratic corner in 2020.
However, regardless of how hard Trump and Harris hit the ground in the Keystone State, they likely won’t know how they performed until well after Election Day.
Pennsylvania’s rules about when officials can begin counting early ballots caused massive delays in 2020. That pause was part of what sparked Trump’s insistence the election was shot through with fraud.
“When the polls closed in Pennsylvania on Election Day in 2020, the initial count of in-person ballots appeared to show Trump ahead,” Cami wrote this morning. “But as the state began to tally mail-in ballots over the coming days, that lead began to disappear. By that Saturday, the state was called in favor of Biden, pushing him past the 270-electoral vote threshold and securing the presidency.”
Republicans blocked a bill earlier this year that would have allowed officials to start counting ballots before 7 a.m. on Election Day, so there will almost certainly be a 2020-style delay in November again.
That delay will likely be exacerbated by a decision the Commonwealth Court handed down last week, Cami wrote.
The court determined it was “unconstitutional to enforce a state law requiring accurate, handwritten dates on mail-in ballots in order to be tallied. The ruling will allow the state to count ‘undated or incorrectly dated’ ballots that were submitted before the deadline.”
Election integrity fights in Pennsylvania weren’t as explosive as battles in Arizona and Georgia, but with essentially no path to victory without the 19 Electoral College votes this year, the Keystone State could be in for more attention than it was bargaining for.
Click here to get caught up on everything about Pennsylvania.
GOP winners and losers
Most Republicans aren’t saying it out loud, but there is a growing sentiment that a blowout defeat for the party in November is the best thing that could happen.
We’ve been seeing more and more former Republicans abandon the party in the time of Trump. The number of defections in recent weeks grew again yesterday when former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney confirmed she is voting for Harris in November.
The country’s top Republicans are still standing behind Trump publicly, even if they have previously expressed doubts and frustrations about his leadership.
There is little reason for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to pick a fresh fight with Trump if there is a chance senators are going to have to start negotiating with him again. But Senate Reporter Samantha-Jo Roth has talked to some Republicans who are waiting patiently for a big loss that could break the Trump fever in the party.
“Our party has been hijacked by Trump and MAGA since 2016, so I think there’s a feeling among some of us that we’d like to move on,” an aide to a Republican senator told Samantha-Jo.
“If Trump loses this election and impacts downballot races, we’re going to have to take a good, hard look at ourselves in the mirror,” the aide added.
The former president’s record isn’t spotless. Besides his upset victory in 2016 over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his tenure as the leader of the party in and out of office has been marred by several high-profile defeats.
Most recently, Republicans failed to make good on a promised “red wave” in 2022. They won back control of the House, but slim margins and vicious infighting, paired with a Democrat-controlled Senate, have prevented them from doing much with their majority.
However, those losses haven’t been damaging enough for the party to make an about-face. A decisive defeat appears to be the only way the handful of voters who want the GOP to recover something of its pre-Trump identity will have any room to lead.
“I think the only way that the Republican Party will wake up again is to recognize Trump is not a winning formula,” former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger told Samantha-Jo at the Democratic National Convention last month.
Click here to read more about the secret GOP hopes Trump doesn’t succeed in November.
House headache
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) headaches are starting before lawmakers even return to Washington.
With Congress’s summer recess wrapping up on Monday, members are going to have to hit the ground running on Tuesday if they want to avoid a government shutdown that could come as soon as Sept. 30. This isn’t Johnson’s first spending fight, and he is preemptively trying to appease the hard-line members of his caucus who made the last one such a struggle.
Despite his offers of appeasement, including the proof-of-citizenship requirement for the voting bill known as the SAVE Act in his spending plan, this isn’t going to be a one-day battle he can fight with assurance of support from his troops, our Congress team wrote this morning.
“Reps. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) plan to vote against the measure when it comes up for a vote on the House floor, according to their offices, while lawmakers, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who pressed for the SAVE Act’s inclusion, are so far noncommittal on their vote,” they wrote.
Massie and Greene once tried to boot Johnson from the speaker’s office after he cut deals with Democrats.
A government shutdown would be detrimental for Republicans in November, but the House’s fiscal hawks are prepared to play hardball with Johnson. And they have Trump’s backing.
“Trump has joined with hard-liners and has explicitly encouraged Republicans to shut the government down if their demands are not met,” our Congress team wrote.
“I would shut down the government in a heartbeat if they don’t get it,” Trump said last week on the Monica Crowley Podcast. “If they don’t get these bills, they should close it down, and Republicans should not approve it.”
Click here to read more about the latest looming shutdown fight.
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For your radar
Biden will travel to Westby, Wisconsin, to deliver remarks about his Investing in America agenda at 4 p.m.
Harris will travel to Pittsburgh at 11:45 a.m. She doesn’t have an event scheduled today, but she will stay in Pennsylvania while she prepares for next week’s debate, which will take place at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) will hold a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, at 6 p.m.
Trump will address the New York Economic Club at noon.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) will hold an event in Phoenix, Arizona, at 5 p.m.
