Six factors for the final sprint

What to watch in the next 71 days.

Good morning! The conventions are over, the nominees are set, and everyone in Washington is back home and (mostly) recovered from a long week in Chicago.

In today’s newsletter, I want to look at some of the factors that will define the election’s final stretch — both as a way to update you all on the state of the race, and to preview some of the key events to keep an eye out for.

Let’s dive in! (In no particular order…)

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1. The debate over debates

Now that the conventions are behind us, the next major event on the political calendar is the September 10 debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on ABC News. If it happens, that is.

Trump seems to be looking for a pretext to back out of the showdown, criticizing ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos, correspondent Jonathan Karl, and contributor Donna Brazile in a social media post last night. (He also referenced the fact that Disney executive Dana Walden, who oversees ABC News, is a longtime friend of Harris’.) “Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump asked, adding: “Stay tuned!!!”

Behind the scenes, Harris’ campaign is also throwing a wrench into debate negotiations by pushing for the candidates’ microphones to remain hot the entire time, which would be a rules change from the Biden/Trump debate in June, when a candidate’s mic was muted if it wasn’t their turn to speak.

The New York Times recently reported that Harris and Trump have never met or spoken in person. If their two teams do manage to agree on the rules, their first in-person clash will be a major chance for both to reach undecided voters and dominate the narrative of the final weeks.

2. Staying on script

Although Harris’ push for unmuted microphones is a change from the previously negotiated posture,¹ it is nonetheless revealing that Trump’s campaign is arguing against it. After all, it was Trump’s challenger that wanted microphones muted in June; now, the two parties have essentially reversed themselves.

That’s likely because Trump’s advisers know the outcome of the race might hinge on whether they can keep the former president on script. For most of this election, Trump has remained impressively scripted, hammering home swing-voter-friendly arguments on the economy, immigration, and crime. But since Harris joined the race, Trump has seemed rattled — or “on tilt,” in poker parlance, as Nate Silver has put it — veering away from his message to question her racial identity and attack Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. The return to his fold of Corey Lewandowski, whose motto is “let Trump be Trump,” likely didn’t help.

When Trump was president, an amusing divide appeared between his official and personal Twitter accounts. @POTUS was clearly run by staff; if you wanted to know what the president was really thinking, the place to go was @realDonaldTrump. Now, a new version of that divide is here. If you want to know what the Trump campaign wants to be talking about, you can see on his Twitter account, which posts campaign ads, attacks Harris for her stance on fracking, and praises Kemp. (All the hallmarks of a staff-run account!) And then there’s Trump’s Truth Social account, where he went to threaten pulling out of the ABC debate and for his stream of off-message (“WHERE’S HUNTER?”) and off-color (“The highly overrated Jewish governor of Pennsylvania…”) commentary during the DNC.

I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but Trump’s team hopes that Twitter Trump will show up for the rest of the campaign, and at the debate; the real fear now is that Truth Social Trump will come on stage, as he did at the National Association of Black Journalists conference this month.

Don’t get me wrong: Harris’ campaign is also plainly worried about keeping her on script. The VP has held almost no unscripted events since ascending to the top of the ticket; she gave three interviews to influencers at the DNC, but none to traditional media organizations. Sometime soon, Harris will have to subject herself to an interview; we’ll see if Harris’ on-message campaign can continue in that setting, one she has struggled with in the past.

3. Economic numbers

Kamala Harris’ biggest vulnerability is the same as Joe Biden’s: voter perceptions of the economy, which remain devastatingly low.

The economic news since Harris took over the ticket has been a mixed bag: the stock market plunged and then recovered; last week, the Labor Department updated its job growth numbers from the last year, revising significantly downwards. (It turns out the U.S. added 818,000 fewer jobs than originally thought.)

Another curveball is expected to come to the economy next month, when the Federal Reserve is likely to cut interest rates for the first time since 2020. (“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Fed chair Jay Powell said on Friday.) Rate cuts could arrive as a late-in-the-game boost for Harris, making it easier for voters to buy homes and vehicles as borrowing costs go down — and potentially making them feel better about the Biden-Harris economy.

4. War in the Middle East

One moment from the DNC that may not have been audible on television: during Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech, when she began to talk about Israel’s right to defend itself, a handful of attendees began interrupting her and chanting “free Gaza.” But then, in the next breath, Harris turned to discussing the civilian death toll in Gaza — quieting the protesters — and pledging to work for a ceasefire, yielding some of the biggest cheers of her address.

It was a reminder of how the conflict in the Middle East threatens to divide the newly unified Democratic coalition — and how eager the party is for the war in Gaza to come to an end. (Other speakers who mentioned the prospect of a ceasefire/hostage deal, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, were also met with enormous applause.)

And yet, some days, the war seems closer to expanding than ending. Israel and Hezbollah traded fire this weekend, although the two sides are now signaling plans to step back from the brink of a wider conflict. However, the situation remains volatile as ever — while a ceasefire deal could allow Biden and Harris to claim a major diplomatic accomplishment, and give their coalition some space to breathe, a larger war could add credence to Trump’s argument that the Biden-Harris administration has been accompanied by global war and chaos.

5. The RFK factor

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his presidential campaign on Friday and endorsed Donald Trump, giving the Republican ticket a boost on the heels of the Democratic convention.

Kennedy’s support has experienced an incredible drop lately, from 15.5% in July to 3.9% when he dropped out, according to the Silver Bulletin polling average. But, in a close election, even a few percentage points could sway the race, which is why it will be worth watching the first few polls post-Kennedy to see if the move has a big impact.

Personally, I’m somewhat skeptical. After all, anyone who had signed onto a Kennedy 2024 campaign is likely someone who didn’t like either candidate, who is fairly independent-minded, skeptical of authority, and doesn’t like being told what to do. They aren’t exactly the type to hear their chosen candidate endorsed someone and then just follow the group consensus.

But maybe I’ll be wrong, and most of Kennedy’s 3.9% will be reassigned to Trump — which would be a major shift in the race! Polls will be instructive on this over the next few days.²

6. Remember Trump’s conviction?

Here’s something that hasn’t gotten much discussion lately! Amid the Biden dropout, the Trump assassination attempt, and the two conventions, the former president’s conviction has been pretty well overshadowed.

But it could be charging back into the news cycle fairly soon — emphasis on could. Trump’s sentencing was initially scheduled for July, before being postponed to September 18 after the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity. Now, it’s unclear whether the sentencing will happen at all before Election Day.

Judge Juan Merchan is set to make a decision on the sentencing date in the coming days, either opting to push it after the election — or to keep it in the final stretch, a move that would put Trump’s legal troubles back at the forefront at the worst possible time for the ex-president.

1. Harris’ team slammed Trump when he tried to back away from the ABC debate, arguing that Trump was bound to the debates he agreed to hold with Biden. But, now that she’s the one trying to pull a switch, apparently the two sides aren’t bound to the rules of the debates that were agreed to?

2. On a related note, I’m also curious to see the degree to which Harris attempts to use Kennedy’s fringier positions against Trump, and whether those have any staying power as a campaign message.