Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on the voters and states that will decide the election

NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter join Geoff Bennett to discuss the latest political news, including the key battleground states set to decide the presidential race with a month until the election, the strategy behind Kamala Harris’ interviews, Donald Trump’s return to Butler, Pennsylvania and questions about Trump and a cognitive decline.
Geoff Bennett:
With just under a month to go before Election Day, all eyes are on the key battleground states set to decide the presidential race.
Our Politics Monday duo is following it all. That is Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR, who joins us from one of those key states, North Carolina.
So, Tam, you are in Raleigh, this evening. You know, J.D. Vance has said that it would be very hard for the Trump campaign to win this election if they don’t hold on to North Carolina. So, how are things looking there?
Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:
Yes, he’s absolutely right about that. It is one of these key states.
It’s been very close at the presidential level, going back several cycles. Republicans here still feel very confident about this state. However, we know that the Trump campaign realizes that they could lose. That’s why Trump and Vance keep traveling here.
And what I have been learning about today as I have been here and I will be looking into more in particular, the state is working on figuring out how to respond to the hurricane, and the state election board — elections board met today to talk about making sure that people can actually vote when early voting begins later this month.
And, certainly, the campaigns are also working on figuring out how to mobilize voters in areas that have been affected by the storm, where getting to a polling place just isn’t a top priority or the easiest thing right now.
Geoff Bennett:
Amy, this race is still exceedingly close with less than 30 days to go. What stands out for you in terms of polling and the early voting so far?
Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:
To me, what stands out is the fact that we have had a lot happen over the course of a few months.
Geoff Bennett:
Fact-check, true.
Amy Walter:
Very true.
(Laughter)
Geoff Bennett:
This is true.
Amy Walter:
A lot of things. It seems every week we have one of these events that is really quite remarkable.
And yet the numbers just really don’t move that much. What you saw — the most movement in this race was from the time that Biden drops out. Harris is on the ticket. She consolidates much of the Democratic base. And now we just haven’t seen much movement one way or the other.
It’s just like continuing and continually on this very marginal — it’s the knife’s edge of polling. So what we’re looking at for every single one of these states, this is why, to Tam’s point in North Carolina, literally, every single one of those voters out in a place that’s been destroyed by a hurricane, making sure that they are able to cast a ballot.
I mean, these are, what, I think 13 counties that have been impacted. It’s obviously not as many people as, say, a big urban area, but that’s still — in a state that was decided by 70,000 voters, that’s important.
The other thing that really matters, and it’s mattered all along, but it’s even in sharper focus now, is the state of Pennsylvania. It’s the one place where both campaigns are basically spending equal amounts of money and time and energy.
It is — both candidates have a path to win without Pennsylvania, but it is very difficult. And so when we think about where is the place where this election will be decided, you look at the kinds of voters in Pennsylvania that are the most important, and we will be talking about them, I’m sure, going into the next election, but in between suburban voters, the gender gap and these working-class voters, all seeming to move in different directions.
And at what pace they move is going to tell us who wins.
Geoff Bennett:
Let’s talk in more detail about the candidates, because Vice President Harris is spending the rest of the week hitting the airwaves with a series of major media interviews.
She’s going to sit down with Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert, the hosts of “The View.” And she also sat for an interview with the very popular, I’m told, “Call Me Daddy” podcast — I’m sorry — “Call Her Daddy” podcast. We said we were going to get the name of this podcast wrong.
Amy Walter:
Oh, I know. We did.
(Laughter)
Geoff Bennett:
The “Call Her Daddy” podcast.
And she was asked about Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ criticism that somehow Kamala Harris didn’t have anyone to keep her humble because she doesn’t have biological children. Here’s how she responded.
Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble. Family comes in many forms, and I think that increasingly all of us understand that this is not the 1950s anymore.
Geoff Bennett:
So, this appearance was aimed at reaching younger women.
Tam, walk us through the campaign strategy of having Vice President Harris speak to different media figures and different media platforms.
Tamara Keith:
So that podcast is, I think, the number two Spotify podcast. It is a hugely popular podcast with young people, in particular young women.
And the struggle that the Harris campaign has had — and there’s a corollary to the Trump campaign, but the struggle the Harris campaign has had is reaching voters who do not want to be reached. These are people who are actively avoiding politics.
Well, that is a podcast where people go to talk about sex and other things. And politics came to them in the form of this interview with Vice President Harris.
If you look at the swathe of interviews that she is doing this week, she is hitting a lot of demographics. Men, younger men, listen to Howard Stern. “The View” is another audience. “60 Minutes” has the largest news audience out there. So, for a large part of the Harris campaign, she had a lot of earned media.
She was just getting — she was getting a lot of attention just for being new, then for her convention, the debate. And now it’s a phase of the campaign where their campaign is now going out there and trying harder to get to voters, like, everywhere. And it — especially also this Univision town hall is another area, another key demographic of voters.
Geoff Bennett:
Amy, Donald Trump returned to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the first assassination attempt. And he and some members of his family suggested that Democrats are somehow behind these attempts on his life. Take a listen to this.
Donald Trump, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: Over the past eight years, those who want to stop us from achieving this future have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot, and, who knows, maybe even tried to kill me.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Vice Presidential Candidate: With all the hatred they have spewed at President Trump, it was only a matter of time before somebody tried to kill him.
Eric Trump, Executive Vice President, Trump Organization:
And then, guys, they tried to kill him. They tried to kill him. And it’s because the Democratic Party, they can’t do anything right.
Geoff Bennett:
So claims without regard for evidence or propriety. I mean, what are your — what are your takeaways?
Amy Walter:
Right.
Geoff, remember when we were at the RNC, and it was just days after that assassination attempt, and we had Republican official after Republican official say, this event has changed Donald Trump, this is going to be a new Donald Trump,this is going to be a more unifying, a more somber Donald Trump?
And I think, as we saw in his final speech at the RNC, that is not — that Donald Trump showed up for about half of it, and then the sort of regular Donald Trump showed up. But this was also a Donald Trump who was feeling incredibly confident. And the party was feeling very confident that they were going to win.
The Donald Trump that returned to Butler is a candidate that feels like they are not winning, or at least it’s too close for comfort. And so going back into, how am I going to be able to get my team, my side fired up, where he traditionally goes back to is not a unifying message, not how we’re going to go together to bring the country back from a really traumatic place.
It’s — it has to be us versus them. And I think we’re going to see this just continue for the next 30 days.
Geoff Bennett:
Yes.
And, Tam, there’s one last topic I want to get to. It’s The New York Times putting a focus on Donald Trump’s age and mental cognition.
Our friend Peter Baker and his colleagues over there write that: “Donald Trump’s speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane, and increasingly fixated on the past.”
There is this question of, where’s the outrage and the criticism that Joe Biden saw when the question was focused on his age and mental capacity?
Tamara Keith:
Certainly, that debate performance that former — that President Biden had really opened the floodgates of conversations about his health, conversations that voters had been having already.
I think that former President Trump, his health, his age are fair game. He is now the oldest candidate in the race, and he has never released a fulsome health report. He has said he’s aced his cognitive exams, but he hasn’t ever released non-superlative medical reports.
Geoff Bennett:
Tamara Keith and Amy Walter, we covered a lot of ground today. Thank you both.
Amy Walter:
You’re welcome.
Geoff Bennett:
Appreciate it.