The presidential campaigns brace for an intense sprint to Election Day

LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) — After a summer of historic tumult, the path to the presidency for both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump this fall is becoming much clearer. The nation’s premier swing state, Pennsylvania, begins in-person absentee voting the week after. In just 63 days, the final votes will be cast to decide which one of them will lead the world’s most powerful nation. “There’s not a scenario here that’s easy,” Harris senior adviser David Plouffe said in an interview. “The pathway to beating Donald Trump, the pathway to 270 electoral votes for Kamala Harris, is exceedingly hard, but doable. And that’s just a reality.” Trump, meanwhile, rejects any indicators that suggest Harris is ahead even as he lashes out at her in deeply personal and sometimes apocalyptic terms, declaring that “our country is finished” if she wins. “As we move past Labor Day, we will really get into the time where voters start to harden their opinions,” said James Blair, the Trump campaign’s political director. But there’s certainly plenty of work to be done.” The electoral map settles on seven states Just over a month ago, Trump allies suggested Democratic-leaning states like Minnesota, Virginia or even New Jersey might be in play. In replacing Biden as the party’s nominee, Harris breathed new life into the Democrats’ political prospects, especially across the Sun Belt states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. All four states have significant numbers of African Americans and Latinos, traditionally Democratic constituencies who were down nationally on Biden but appear to have come home to rally behind Harris. “Trump was up 5 or 6 points, and all over the course of a month it’s become much more competitive,” he said. What to know about the 2024 Election Today’s news: Follow live updates Ground Game: Sign up for AP’s weekly politics newsletter AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. Republican pollster Paul Shumaker, an adviser to North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, said even a slight uptick in the Black vote has the potential to give Harris the edge in North Carolina, pointing to Mecklenburg County, the home of the Charlotte metro area, but also fast-growing counties such as Durham and Wake. “If Kamala Harris could get them to turn out at the rate of Republicans in rural North Carolina, game over for Republicans,” Shumaker said of Black voters. At the same time, Trump remains decidedly on offense in the Midwestern battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which form the so-called Democratic “blue wall” that he narrowly carried in 2016 and barely lost in 2020. The Democrats’ organizing advantage In the fight to frame the election on the air and reach voters in person, Democrats currently have a decided advantage. And even before Biden made way for Harris, the Democrats wielded superior campaign infrastructure in the states that matter most. Harris’ team, which includes her campaign and an allied super PAC, have more than $280 million in television and radio reservations for the period between Tuesday and Election Day, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. Trump’s team, by contrast, has $133 million reserved for the final stretch, although that number is expected to grow. Trump’s side is actually narrowly outspending Harris’ on the airwaves in Pennsylvania, where both sides will spend more than $146 million between Tuesday and Election Day, according to AdImpact, a figure that dwarfs that of any other state. But in the other five battleground states, Harris largely has the airwaves largely to herself — at least for now. Harris’ team, by comparison, is investing no less than $21 million in each of the five states, according to an AdImpact analysis. Harris’ team also boasts more than 300 coordinated offices and 2,000 staff on the ground in swing states, according to her campaign’s weekend memo. Blair, the Trump campaign’s political director, disputes that Democrats have as big an organizing advantage as those numbers make it seem. Trump’s campaign on Tuesday said it also has more than 100 dedicated campaign offices in key states, which are backed by another 200 existing GOP offices dedicated to Republican victories this fall. Democratic pollster John Anzalone said Harris “put the Democrats back in the game to where it’s kind of a toss-up.” But now comes the hard part, Anzalone said. “Post Labor Day, when the bell rings, there is a battle for a slim universe of — you can call them anything you want: persuasion voters, swing voters, independent voters — and it’s pretty small, and that’s where each side gets a billion dollars,” Anzalone said. For now, Harris also has a slight advantage on some key traits among independents, while she and Trump are about even on others. For example, about 3 in 10 independents say that “honest” describes Harris better, while about 2 in 10 say it describes Trump better. About 3 in 10 also say that “committed to democracy” describes Harris better, while less than 2 in 10 say it describes Trump better. The candidates were about equally likely to be perceived by independents as capable of winning the election, capable of handling a crisis, and “caring about people like you.” Who is the ‘change candidate’? The race may ultimately be decided by whichever candidate can most successfully be cast as the “change candidate” given that about 7 in 10 voters say the country is heading in the wrong direction, based on an AP-NORC poll conducted in late July after Biden withdrew from the race. Harris has been Biden’s vice president for nearly four years, yet the historic nature of her candidacy — she would be the first woman president — allows her to make a convincing case that she represents a new direction for the country, said veteran Democratic strategist James Carville. Still, he’s worried about his party’s “severe underperformance” in the so-called “blue wall” states in recent elections. “I’ll feel good after the election,” Carville said. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://apnews.com/151f82b59473d29a448ef1cea9afe471