The state of the race as Harris-Walz ticket completes election reset

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

So, Tim Walz is in the race.

J.D.

Vance is trying to make a positive impact for Donald Trump.

Kamala Harris seems to be having a good time, in part, perhaps because she hasn't given an interview since becoming the Democratic nominee.

As for Trump, in a press conference this week, he compared the size of his crowds to those of, yes, Martin Luther King, Jr., and then said some other things that were even more disconnected from observable reality.

I'll discuss observable reality tonight with Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, Susan Glasser is a staff writer at The New Yorker, Adam Harris is my colleague and a contributing writer at The Atlantic, and Michael Shearer is a national political reporter at The Washington Post.

Okay, so this is observable reality edition.

But before, before we get to observable reality Mar-a-Lago, I want to set the stage a little bit where we are In the race and where we are in the polling.

Adam, maybe you could give us a little scene-setter since you love crosstabs.

You know, I know how you love breaking it down.

So, the polls are shifting in Harris' direction what does it mean and does it mean anything?

ADAM HARRIS, Contributing Writer, The Atlantic: I mean, it's so nationally, right?

It's hard to really discern a lot what will happen in November by national polls, but Kamala Harris is trending, positively, right?

She's running for about four points ahead of Donald Trump in the Marquette poll, about three points ahead in the PBS poll, which is, you know, right within the margin of error.

But if you kind of dig into that a little bit more, right, you expand the pool outside of just Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

You add in Kennedy, you add in some of the other.

And all of a sudden the picture becomes really promising for Democrats, right?

They never really eclipsed around 40 percent when Biden was the candidate.

Now, they're running at about 47 percent, where Donald Trump is running at around 41 percent, with Kennedy receiving a smaller share of the vote.

So, that really tells you that she's pulling in a base of voter voters that wasn't necessarily excited about Biden, was looking for an alternative, but now really kind of has that.

And if you dig into the states in particular, Wisconsin was a really -- it is a really interesting example there where voters were just not enthusiastic about Joe Biden, right?

It was about 30-some odd percent of voters were enthusiastic about voting for Joe Biden.

But you add Kamala there and it jumps up to about the same enthusiasm that Republicans have for voting for Trump.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

Peter, does that enthusiasm last?

And what do you take out of all the polls?

How much do you take out of all these polls?

PETER BAKER, Chief White House Correspondent, The New York Times: Well, I think, look, I think this is, enthusiasm is important because you saw a Democratic Party that until a couple of weeks ago that was incredibly depressed.

It was completely depressed.

It was in a fugue state.

They felt like it was a death march to Election Day.

They were not at all excited about doing it.

And why does that matter?

Because why would you go out of your way to go vote if you're not all excited?

So, yes, enthusiasm matters.

To see these crowds that she is generating is - - two points about it.

One is extraordinary.

Every Biden rally I've gone to in the last three or four years comes nowhere close to the worst rally she's had in terms of size, energy, and enthusiasm.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And on the joy meter.

PETER BAKER: And on the joy meter, exactly.

And then, secondly, it's driving Trump nuts, right?

You saw that yesterday.

He says, oh my gosh, he's only got a thousand people.

I get 10, 20, 30 times as many people as she has, not true.

Tonight in Arizona, she'll have 20,000 people.

She had 15,000 and 12,000 crowds in the Midwest this week.

These are Trump-size crowds.

And it doesn't mean she's going to win.

It means she's at least caught up to Biden -- or caught up to Trump.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But, Susan, my question is on this question of, is this sustainable enthusiasm and perennial joy, or is this relief that it's not, what did you say, the fugue state death march?

Peter got really -- he went really low.

He went way down there.

But, I mean, is this sustainable?

SUSAN GLASSER, Staff Writer, The New Yorker: Well, first of all it, it's been a long time in our politics since the word joy was trending.

It certainly wasn't on my bingo card for August of 2024.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It certainly has never been spoken on this show.

SUSAN GLASSER: No, wait.

Well, you know, I mean, I feel like I've written the words doom loop, you know, like a lot more times than I've written the words joy as a factor in American politics.

You have to go back, it seems to me, maybe Obama 2008, you know.

But even then you could say that was more inspirational.

Peter and I were talking the other day.

Maybe it was -- you know, you have to go back to 1992 and the Bill Clinton-Al Gore, you know, jubilant duo coming out of the Democratic Convention in New York City.

Whatever, you know, your analogy is it's been a while, first of all.

Second of all, I do think to the polls, there is an interesting question I have, which is, Harris has clearly consolidated the Democratic vote that had not been consolidated under Biden, right?

So, a lot of the reason for Biden's softness in the polls was because Democratic voters or Democratic-leaning independents, you know, they just were uncomfortable casting another vote for Biden.

It wasn't that, you know, Harris has not converted a ton of Republicans.

So, I think the question is, does she not just pull even with Donald Trump and put us right back into essentially a dead even election, or are we going to see her coming out of the convention with something more approximating a lead, even if a small lead?

I don't know the answer to that.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

You know the answer?

MICHAEL SCHERER, National Political Reporter, The Washington Post: Well, I think that's the right point that Susan made that right now we're back to consolidating some of that.

But if you go back to 2020, Biden won that race by four points.

If you look at the polling averages now, she's up by one point.

If you go back to 2020, at this point in 2020, Biden was ahead by seven points.

So, she doesn't yet have the full Biden coalition behind her.

There's still, if you talk to the Biden campaign, a lot of Biden voters from 2020 who will say in focus groups or will tell pollsters, I don't know if I want to vote.

This is all kind of depressing.

I don't really like Trump, but this is not something I'm excited about.

So, she still has a ways to go.

And I think the real question is whether, the next two weeks, those people get there, and we walk into September, and she's back where Biden was at this point in 2020.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Michael, talk about the role of the vice presidential nominees helping and hurting.

Do both, and we could - - everybody can join in, but Walz and Vance.

MICHAEL SCHERER: Wait, so I think the first thing you have to say when you're talking about vice presidential nominees is there's not a lot of historical record of them mattering in November.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

MICHAEL SCHERER: They matter as attack dogs.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: That's why we're only having one question on it.

MICHAEL SCHERER: Right, they matter as attack dogs, they matter as surrogates, they help shape how people think about the person at the top of the ticket.

And I think if that's the scorecard, Trump has probably been hurt by Vance over the last couple weeks because Vance is sort of a sourpuss in the Trump mold.

And Kamala, who's -- the rap against Kamala, she's, you know, a San Francisco elitist, she picks someone who is totally against type, who loves being in front of the camera, who is sort of refreshing and different, at least for Democrats, are getting them going.

So, I think, at least in the short-term, there's an advantage to Harris.

I don't know what that means in the moment (ph).

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Anybody want to argue that vice presidents really matter?

PETER BAKER: Where they matter is, first, do no harm, right?

Because they're not going to help you win a state anymore.

That hasn't happened since Johnson in 1960 helped Kennedy.

They can make a difference, as Palin did, for instance, in 2008, in which you have to explain away problems or mistakes or what have you, and that's clearly where Vance was for Trump, because he's explaining the childless cat lady's stuff.

Now, the question is whether the Walz -- you know, the attack on Walz's military service will try to do the same to him.

At the moment, it doesn't seem to have the same traction, I don't think.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes, let's talk about that for a minute.

Adam, you have a lot of experience with the Army and the idea of stolen valor.

The accusation that he got out of the National Guard early doesn't seem to be sticking.

He did kind of play a little bit fast and loose with the, I carried a gun in war when that war was in Italy.

I mean, do you think that this is a thing where -- I mean, look, Chris LaCivita, Trump campaign manager, invented swift boating, more or less.

John Kerry, who had a tremendous war record, was somehow -- it turned against him.

It was sort of a presage, something horrible in politics, right?

Do you think that this works or people kind of just moving on saying, well, he serve 24 years or so in the National Guard, leave it alone?

Where is it going?

ADAM HARRIS: The average service time in the National Guard is somewhere between like six and eight years, right?

So, serving 24 years, right, having that longevity, saying that he got out right before his unit was about to deploy doesn't necessarily carry the sort of, you know, heft that Republicans might want it to.

The thing that might might stick is that, you know, saying that I carried these weapons in war, right, when you were serving in Italy, but it doesn't seem to have yet gained that traction.

Even though, you know, the idea of stolen valor is, you know, this sort of chief (INAUDIBLE).

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: No, that's radioactive, yes.

GLASSER: I mean, look, even The Wall Street Journal today, you know, I think, cited the New York Post saying this was a pretty thin (ph) gruel and they're willing to entertain plenty of attacks on Walz.

It strikes me that the thing you need to know about this is that the Republicans are running for the third time in a row a man who essentially dodged the Vietnam draft and said that he had bone spurs.

When he was asked about where those bone spurs were, he couldn't remember what foot they were in supposedly.

So, this is not -- you know, if Republicans can turn that you know 24 years of service in the National Guard into some sort of a negative, I would be deeply skeptical about -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But this is Trump's -- one of Trump's magic tricks is he sort of has Teflon about all of these, right?

I mean -- PETER BAKER: I remember somebody reporting though that his view of military services, those people are suckers and losers.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I remember that.

PETER BAKER: I read that someplace.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I read that (INAUDIBLE).

GLASSER: Credible sources.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes, very credible sources, actually.

The -- talking about spurious allegations, I want to bring up in a euphemistic way something that's happening in politics that I find disturbing, which is that there is a story that's very popular in social media about J.D.

Vance and the unnatural use of a couch.

Let's just leave it at that.

It's totally made up.

And the thing that's interesting and a little bit disturbing, we're talking about swift boating and the making of totally false allegations, it seems that the Democrats really love this particular shtick.

And you at home who aren't aware of this, God bless you for being normal, you could Google it if you need to, if you don't know what we're talking about.

But talk about that for a little.

You've had some thoughts on this.

MICHAEL SCHERER: I agree with you, I think it's actually sort of a terrifying development for our political discussion.

I mean, it used to be that you could sort of try and slime somebody, but you slime somebody based on something that has some connection to reality.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

MICHAEL SCHERER: This was an online meme, a joke based on absolutely nothing, basically a slander.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

MICHAEL SCHERER: But it's kind of because it's so absurd, and it has opened the door to that genre of slander for humor's sake, just to be mean, taking place all over the place.

Republicans were making up stories about Tim Walz this week and creating their own memes.

We won't talk about what they are, totally baseless, totally fraudulent.

And if we continue down this path, we're headed to a place where anybody who enters the public square will be immediately slimed with some joke about what they did with a rabbit once or something like that.

And it's just like a bottomless pit.

GLASSER: Yes.

I feel like we already went to the bottom place.

I mean, you know, the entire brand of Donald Trump in politics is to say lies about people and to, in particular, lies that demean them personally and whatever their personal characteristics are.

And he gets thousands of people to cheer and laugh and applaud at that.

And that has been a core part of his appeal to this country for the last nine years.

So, if we're talking about a race to the bottom, sadly, I just feel like we're living in that world already.

MICHAEL SCHERER: But we should call it out.

SUSAN GLASSER: By the way, I don't advocate this.

I'm not saying that this is a good thing that Democrats are now getting in on the act, but, sadly, we've been living in that world.

MICHAEL SCHERER: I'm not excusing anything Donald Trump's done.

I mean, we should, and we do call that out.

It's just once you say, well, they did it, so we can do it too.

SUSAN GLASSER: Oh yes.

I mean, that's -- ADAM HARRIS: And I should add, back to sort of the military conversation, right, Democrats clearly have a limit to what they will do, because, you know, they were asked about J.D.

Vance's service as well, and they said, well, we admire anybody who serves and, you know, who's willing to risk their life.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, there's some restraint somewhere.

ADAM HARRIS: Yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But most of the restraints are off.