The State of the Race with Eugene Daniels

Hey all. Hey, before we get to today’s show, I wanted to share some exciting news with you, and to ask for your help translash specifically, two translash films have been nominated for two anthem awards, specifically American problems, trans solutions and artistic legacies, black trans femmes in the arts. So I am going to ask for your help by ensuring that we can take home some statues by, you guessed it, voting specifically by going to celebrate dot anthem awards.com/public, voting hashtag to catch your vote. Or you can just choose the easier route, which is to go to our show notes and follow that link. Thanks for your help and your votes in advance. Hey, fam, it’s me. Amara, welcome to the translash podcast, a show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives. Well, we’re less than two weeks out from election day, and the election is about as tight as almost any and living memory. So that’s why I wanted to turn to someone who actually knows who they’re talking about, who’s been tracking so many of the twists and turns in this election season in order to help sort through all of the confusing news and contradictory news out there. And that person is politico political reporter Eugene Daniels. Now we had Eugene back on in February to talk about the presidential primaries, and since then, he’s been covering every step of the way of Vice President Harris’s ascension from vice presidential nominee to now presidential nominee. And so there are a few better people than Eugene to help us sort through it all.

And something that Vice President Harris has told her team behind closed doors is she has been most worried about losing to the couch, meaning that people don’t actually come out and vote in places that they really, really need them to.

But before we get

to this informative conversation, I want to remind each of you to get your flu vaccine and your COVID Booster. As you know, there’s been a resurgence in COVID, and we’re about to head into holiday season. Specifically, Thanksgiving is about a month away, and we know that you want to take care of your family, friends and loved ones. Also, as of September, you can go order another round of free COVID tests by going to COVID tests.gov so let’s do what we can to keep each other safe. And just a heads up, I am on the road this week, not in the studio, so you may hear a slight differential in audio quality, and that’s why. And with that, let’s start out as always, with some trans joy. You as we count down the days until November 5, we want to celebrate the trans people who are working every day to strengthen our democracy and help make trans voices heard in politics, Rachel booth first ran for the New Hampshire House of Representatives back in 2016 when she lost by only 500 votes. But that didn’t stop her this past spring, Rachel was elected to her town’s governing body, where she’s been proudly serving her community and sharing her story as a 72 year old Vietnam veteran, she’s also a retired computer scientist and second degree black belt, watch out, and the author of three self published books, here’s Rachel to tell us more about why she’s running again to become a State Representative.

I want to run to help the transgender community, mostly because of the way that they’re treating transgender kids. I was one of those transgender children back in 1956 I used to sit outside of the house in the summer in Ohio and wait for the first star to come out, so that I would wish on the first star to make everybody know that I was a girl, because nobody seemed to know that. And I don’t want that for other kids. I don’t want that for the kids today. They have help, they have support groups. They have everything they need, but if they can’t get it, they’re in the same boat that I was in. But I guarantee you I get elected. That’s one of the first things I’m going to do, is start turning around these laws.

Rachel booth, you and your black belt are trans joy. You. I’m excited to be talking again with White House correspondent and co author of Politico’s playbook, Eugene Daniels. Eugene has been covering everything from the midterms to the Democratic presidential primary at politico Since 2018 he is also part of the playbook team, which is essential reading for anyone wanting to keep up with the latest developments in DC as an out black gay man, Eugene has been breaking all kinds of molds in the political world before politico, Eugene covered the 2016 primary and general election as a political reporter at newsy. He is currently the president of the White House Correspondents Association. You can also catch him on MSNBC as a political analyst and the Morning Joe contributor Eugene. Thank you so much for joining me.

Happy to be back. I’m happy to be back,

so I’m super excited to talk to you, because you’ve been, you know, over the last four weeks, you’ve broken among the some of the most important news stories in in politics and on this campaign. First off, what do you believe is the actual state of the race? You know, we know that the public line is at its tide. We know that, you know, it’s starting to look like it’s trending Trump’s way because of a bunch of junk polls. But, I mean, that’s everybody knows that. What I am wondering, though, is, as a person whose job it is to talk to the campaigns all the time, what are you hearing from the campaigns about where it actually is? Because that tells us more about where the race is, not what the campaign is saying publicly, but what what you’re hearing is the actual state of the race from their two perspectives? Yeah. I mean,

both of them are nervous, right? Like they are looking at the polls, but they also have the internal polls, so we don’t get our eyes on too much where they are seeing, kind of what we’re seeing publicly, right, which is a good thing for the polling industry, right? They’ve had a rough few years, so things are kind of looking just as close. The Harris campaign is feeling really good about women and their support there, and the Trump side is feeling really good, and their support with men of all races and of all ages, right? And so this is, you know, what we could see is probably the starkest gender divide that we’ve ever seen in history, maybe, or at least in a very long time, with how men and women are voting, and that’s across the board. You know, the Harris team feels good about the kind of core constituencies for Democrats, black voters, Latino voters, young voters also, but they know that they have some real concerns about black men, Latino men, and young men, right? So even in the places where they feel strong, there’s some little, little issues. But their hope, it seems, is to make sure to build that up on the on the women’s side, right? White women in the suburbs. Is a big group that they’re looking at that is more interested in Democrats this time around, especially compared to 2016 and 2020 because of abortion and reproductive rights and access, and also, a lot of white women in the suburbs are kind of over Donald Trump, right? That is how they have felt for a long time. They’ve been running away from from Republicans because of Donald Trump for years, and this feels, it feels like for the Harris campaign, this may come to a head. Folks may have seen and have a lot of opinions on how the Harris campaign has gone after kind of like the middle of the road, maybe even right leaning or Republican conservative voters, people like Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney who who would have thought that that a Democrat will be touting the support of the Cheney’s on the road and doing events with them, multiple events at this point, and so they’re working on creating a coalition that is kind of unlike anything we’ve ever seen, building on what Biden and Obama did, and kind of adding in their own little sprinkles, you know, because of Trump, you know, the Trump folks are kind of doubling, tripling and quadrupling down on a lot of the policies and a lot of the people that have already voted for him, right? I think they seemingly are hoping to juice the same groups, right? Because there’s always been this talk of what his ceiling is. And so the question is, can you push that ceiling up by juicing up the same people who probably are predisposed to voting for you? And some of these voters are low propensity voters, so that means voters who haven’t voted before, and so they are going after a lot of those voters. The problem with low propensity voters for both the Harris and the Trump campaign is that their low propensity for a reason, they aren’t likely to get out and vote. So you have to add a lot more resources to doing that right if you want you know a 19 year old black guy to vote for you in this state, and they one haven’t voted before and maybe probably weren’t interested anyway, you may have to actually go to their house on election day, knock on it, but like, Hey, we got a bus for you. We’re just picking up everybody along the way, right? So it adds a resource issue into it as well. But both campaigns feel stressed with. That’s the two weeks left to go. Yeah,

it’s really interesting to me, because on the outside, right, when you look at the campaigns, that Harris looks more like what a traditional campaign tries to do at the end, which is, you know, you’re trying to expand your go beyond your your base, you go beyond your supporters, and you reach to people. You reach outward. That’s normally what happens, kind of in the closing week seven campaign. And the Trump campaign is doing the opposite, right? They are not trying to sort of scoop in the people that they’re from the other side, but they really are doubling down on, kind of their core constituency and that, I mean, those are the A Tale of Two, two campaign strategies, essentially one which is kind of 50 plus one and another who, as you say, are trying to shift the numbers by juicing up from the bottom among that juicing up that they’re trying to do, as you alluded to, though, is amongst black men. You kind of have written a lot and broken a lot of stories around this. And I’m wondering, Is that real? What I mean by that is they, as you say, that you know a part of this are going for younger black men, younger Latino men, those that group has an inconsistent, let’s say, and then, in some respects, if they’re 19, a non existent record of actually showing up to vote. And so is what’s being captured, sentiment or actual voters? Yeah,

yeah. It’s hard to know, right? Because polls are the place that voters feel most powerful until they vote right, they’re able to say, I’m pissed off about this, right? You go to them, and if it’s even if it’s a horse race, race and poll, they’re also asking about policy issues, right? So it’s a place where voters can say, like, this economy sucks, and I blame Joe Biden or Kamala Harris for it, right? That’s something that you can do in a poll. Otherwise you’re you know, you can go on Facebook and Twitter, but you want the powerful people, quote, unquote, to see it. And that’s why it’s really helpful for reporters. Reporters is we can look at them and say, This is where voters are going. I don’t always look at the numbers in the horse race. To me, it’s like, what’s underlying there? And if are they issues that have had saliency for a while? Are these issues that we have proof that voters actually vote on and actually come out? How much does it impact their daily lives? Because then you’re more likely to want to do something about it. And so there’s that. But I do think there’s something there. I think the reach outreach from the Trump folks does feel real, right? They’re actually doing it right. Republicans have always said, you know, we’re doing outreach. And, you know, especially after 2012 after the you know, Romney lost, they talked about, you know, we have to get more black and brown voters to be on our side. And then Trump came in and actually realized you can run with more white people, right? So what they are trying to do now is actually go to those voters that seemingly right, at first blush, would be interested in voting for Democrats, but who feel like Democrats have left them behind. And so it’s unclear how successful the Trump folks may be right. He in 2020, got more votes from the black community than Republicans had in a very long time. It’s possible that that might happen again. He’s not going to win black voters. If he does, that will be a remaking of this country that we will ever see, that we have ever seen, and I will eat crow. If that’s the case, he’s probably going to lose by huge margin. But in a race like this, small cuts are really important, right? And it’s not just getting them to vote for you. Some of it’s getting them not to vote at all, right? And something that Vice President Harris has told her team behind closed doors is she has been most worried about losing to the couch, meaning that people don’t actually come out and vote in places that they really, really need them to. If you feel like Democrats haven’t paid a lot of attention to you for years, and then Trump says, Hey, we love you, like, come on over here. Here’s these, you know, go shoes and we got, you know, we’re, we’re talking about these issues that maybe you care about. You may not go vote for Trump, but you might be like, You know what? Whatever. Democrats didn’t get my vote. So what? They just stay home. So that’s probably more the issue that Democrats are running into. And if you talk to the Harris campaign, if you don’t and other Democrats there, some of them are honest that they have left the black men behind in many ways, right one and not dealing with policy issues that overwhelmingly impact black men, right? More than any other group, and when they do, they don’t talk about it in that way. They talk about it in this kind of wholesome we have every voters back way. And so the Harris campaign last week came out with this, you know, this black men agenda, essentially, that had some stuff that was old, but had some stuff that was new, right? It was talking about $20,000 forgivable loans for entrepreneurs, right? All entrepreneurs, but specifically talking about black men starting kind of this healthcare agenda that looks at issues that disproportionately impact black men, right, things that hit us more than usual than other voters. And so it’s also about like the marketing. PR of it like you can’t be scared to tell voters, hey, we know this thing impacts you, and we’re gonna talk to you about it. And so I think what you’re going to see with black men is one they’re being treated like a persuadable group, more so than they ever have before. The same thing with Latino men that you actually have to go out and get their vote. You have to get them to vote for you have to convince them. But I also will say black men vote more in line with black women than any other ethnicity. Right? The gender gap between black men and black women and their voting and how they’re probably going to vote this year is so much smaller than any other group, white, Latino, it doesn’t matter. So there’s that. And I’ve talked to a lot of black men who also feel like black men are being scapegoated. That Charlamagne, the God you know, who talks the Harris campaign a lot, and obviously has a big platform in the black community, spoke to me last week for this story, and what he said was, the concern that he has is that people are looking at less black men support in polls and saying, Well, if she loses because of black men, he said, Democrats did not go out there and shame white women in 2016 and 2020 like black men voted for a woman in 2016 so the idea that they wouldn’t vote for Harris just because she’s a woman, in His eyes, is bunk. And Democrats need to be careful about how they talk to black men, because even the the good vibes and the good nature that they’ve gotten with them over the last few months may go away if you’re talking down to them as well, like no one likes that.

Yeah, I think that that’s right. I’ve always wondered why they haven’t used Raphael Warnock Moore as a surrogate. Why do you think that we don’t hear more from Senator Raphael Warnock as a surrogate, who, alongside Cory Bucha, is one of the two black men in the Senate, but who, because of his authenticity, of his story around growing up poor and in a single household, like, I think resonates going to Morehouse, like a lot of those things would resonate with black men, and why? Why isn’t he deployed more as a surrogate?

That’s a really good question. I’m not sure. I think, you know, he’s done some things right? He’s done a lot of TV and has worked as, like, a real surrogate, not, you know, some people say they’re a surrogate, but they’re not actually one. He’s like, an official surrogate on the um and Harris is going to Georgia this week with Obama. I assume we’ll see Raphael Warnock there in some way, shape or form. But I think you’re right, like it is possibly a missed opportunity, especially in the state of Georgia. I think he’s been on the road in Georgia, maybe not with Harris all the time. It’s not even just that his story is good. He’s a black preacher. He like preaches in the place that Martin Luther King preached right, like, like, there’s not a more connection to like black southern voters and like a black preacher in the south. And so there’s, you know, there’s always a question of who and how they end up using some of these folks. Warnock is one that you would want to see more. I’ve heard people say they want to see some of these governors out on the road even more. I think we’re about to see, we’re like, two weeks out, I think we’re going to see this kind of, like full court press and with your top surrogates, the people that you really like, the people that you have maybe have a relationship with, as the principal that you feel actually may could turn votes sometimes you hold them off until the end. Right? Like you’re seeing that with both Michelle and Barack Obama, where they’re coming in, kind of what would feel like this is like the 11th hour, but like they’re going to North Carolina and Georgia with Harris, where they are trying to juice up the vote in in in early voting, right to get more voters to vote now, just case it rains or whatever on, on that actual Tuesday, other the lines are too long go in some of these states, like Georgia, where we, you know, they have changed some law, so like water and lines and all of that, I think that’s it’s more likely that they’re waiting to deploy him kind of in the in This last stage and that and that really key state of Georgia. Yeah, I

could see him doing well in North Carolina and Detroit. You know, he put, put, you can put him there, and he’ll do just fine. You know, reflecting back a little bit more about this strategy is that a lot of these people that they’re trying to get right now are literally last minute voters, right in the fight between the couch and the and the ballot box, those are last minute voters, and so they’re not going to be paying attention, literally, until the last week, right? That last two or 3% that you’re trying to get, because everybody else is already locked in. They’re not locked in. And so I think it makes sense to hold kind of that, you know, the your juice to the end. Yeah, it’s

interesting, because in 2016 one of the reasons that Trump won was because of those last voters, right? People changing their mind and the last bit of the campaign. 2020 was an aberration for so many different reasons, right? Because of COVID. But we had such a kind of strange campaign in the general election because of it. But like this is. That’s probably pretty analogous, which is like, you’re, if you’re the Harris campaign or the Trump campaign, you’re looking at the polls and you’re looking at what you have internally in focus groups as who’s changing their mind right now, and how do we juice those borders in different areas?

Yeah, yeah, exactly on this issue of like, these, these, what we’re talking about, a lot of our conversations about these small movements in people, I am wondering what you are hearing about the deluge of anti trans ads that they are running. You know, the $60 million drop that really has become a part of Trump’s closing argument around why he should be president. And for me, one of the things that I think that is missed. Actually, I’ve spoken to a lot of reporters about this in the last week, is, you know, they say, well, the campaign is telling me that this doesn’t really move voters, and that they you know, this is in the not in the focus groups or whatever. And I said, well, the fascinating thing is that the way that the Republican Party understands this issue with respect to votes is that it’s actually not designed to be a majority vote getter. It’s designed to be a marginal vote getter. They’re trying to get one or two votes literally per precinct out of this issue, right, which ironically was, you know, Donald Trump’s margin over Hillary Clinton and Michigan last time like you’re it’s designed to move small numbers of voters on this issue, particularly in this case, some of those Nikki Haley voters for whom this frame around protecting kids and all the rest of it would be really important. And so I’m wondering what you are hearing from the campaigns about their strategy around this, and on the Trump side and then the Harris side, kind of this reticence to even answer these ads with kind of some sort of public positioning, which seems strange to me. I mean, modern campaigns know that you don’t let attacks go unanswered. You know, for, at a minimum, a new cycle, but there’s not really been a coherent answer from them yet. So what are you hearing?

I think what you laid out on the on the Trump side is like that. It isn’t key to in their eyes, their last message, but there’s only so much money, there’s only so much time, so whatever you’re kind of giving in that three weeks. That kind of tells a lot of people where your priorities are, right? And on the Democratic side, I think there’s always a reticence to, in their eyes, kind of get into, like, some of these cultural issues, right? Like you haven’t heard them do much of that right, other than to say Donald Trump is a danger to your way of life. And their eyes, Donald Trump is a danger to the freedom you have to marry who you want to marry, they will say, do what you want with with your body, if you are someone who can get pregnant and have children or need an abortion. And the same thing with trans issues. I think, you know, Governor Walz is probably the one who’s talked about it the most. You know, he started, he worked with this kind of Gay Straight Alliance when he was a high school coach, which is, you know, abnormal. I think I played football all the way to college. I don’t think any of my coaches if, maybe, if we would have asked them, they would have got there eventually. But like, you know, I don’t know how into the idea of a gay straight alliance, they would have been. I was in the closet, so I also wasn’t into the idea of it, but I was like gay straight alliance. No, no, I’m straight. I’m over here.

Exactly what I need with that,

yeah, what I need to be over there for. But you know, it does tell you that there continues to be a swath or people believe that there’s a swath of voters that this appeals to, right? And it is about like one or two or four people in precincts, but it’s also just like the fear of the other right. This is not new right. Trans people have been used by Republicans for years as trying to scare people, right? As a political Boogie person, and that has happened for years. I think this increase, you know, because you and I have seen it this entire time. But the money behind it is new, right? For a lot of people, trans people, non binary, people, continue to be a group, and groups that people don’t feel like they’re around them, right? So you can’t really do it with gay and lesbian people, right? Because a lot of people feel like the country went through that, right? We did same sex marriage. The people watched Willie grace or whatever, you know what? I mean, they saw ships creek or whatever. And so, like, we’ve kind of moved in some ways, right? There are still a lot of things happening, but people feel like largely, we’ve moved so less. Voters in polling have an issue with same sex marriage or people or gay people, because they’ve seen more, and you’ve just continued to see less trans and non binary folks in culture, right? And that’s where cultural and politics work, work hand in hand, which is like, if people aren’t seen, then when, if somebody comes and tells you, you know, I’m trying to remember what the exact wording that Donald Trump used in a speech, but little Bobby goes out of the house and then comes back and had gender reassignment surgery. That’s right, if you’re a parent, and that’s like, the first time you’ve heard that, you’re like, No Bobby, like, you know, like the idea that he’s gonna. That that’s going to happen is shocking, right? But that’s people who haven’t been informed. Like, that’s not how it works, right? Like, so it’s fear mongering in kind of its purest form in in American politics, right? And you know, when you’re talking about the percentage of trans people in the country versus the dangers facing trans people, those numbers are so like the exact opposite, right? High danger, low percentage in the country and low percentage of kids who want to hormonally transition or socially transition. Those numbers are low. But if you’re able to scare people into thinking that the schools, Democrats, other queer people, are going to tell your force your kid to change their gender. If you’ve never thought that this is not something someone can change, right? This isn’t a choice for people, right? The same thing as, like, I didn’t choose to be gay people don’t choose to be trans, people don’t choose to be non binary, right? You’re able to convince those voters, even if they, if you talk to them, they may, they may say, I don’t hate them. I just don’t understand it, right? And because Democrats are kind of leaving that space, because they’re trying to stay out of the cultural issues, it’s possible those one or two votes may actually, like make a difference in a lot of these places.

Yeah. I mean, it’s such a so interesting. This entire campaign is a giant experiment, and two different ways of campaign, so we know, in so many different ways, and we’re just gonna see how

changing a candidate with just a few months left to

go like kind of being like mainstream media, you know, to the back, you know, podcast to the front. You know, they’re just a lot of ways in which this is, it’s unconventional. You know, we have Donald Trump talking about former pro golfers, you know, genitalia. So, I mean, it’s just like, you know, there’s a lot going on. And so when you told me off camera that you retired, I understand, like, I was like, how are you doing? You’re like, I’m tired. I was like, I understand why. Let’s fast forward to the prediction that’s implied by some of the answers that you’ve given, which is that it’s got to be a close race. We’re not going to go to bed on november 5 and know who’s president, right? We’re going to be much more somewhere between either what happened in 2020 or maybe even 2000 like, we don’t really know it could, literally could come down to one county in one state, you know, and it’s a, it’s, it’s a knife fight. How are the campaigns preparing for that possibility? And the reason why I asked that is I was talking to a person who is very active in voter mobilization in Georgia, has done a lot to mobilize black voters in that state. And I said to the said to them, I said, you know, how are you feeling about the race? And they said, Well, you know, I’m actually feeling pretty good when I’m out on the trail, but I keep in the back of my mind, the fact that this is from this person’s perspective, I don’t think that Trump is trying to win. I think that, you know, he’s trying to get it close enough to steal it right, which is embedded in that idea, the idea that we’ll have a contested space after the election, where the election will be decided by maneuvers outside of the ballot box. What? How are the campaigns, from what you’re hearing, preparing for this kind of interregnum of the unknown?

Yeah. I mean, this person should be worried. We saw what happened in 2020 right? If they’re like, if Donald Trump does not win the election, whether that announcement happens on Tuesday or Saturday, he’s going to say that he won, right? It is like, it is like, that’s just how he has always worked, right, even going back to 2016 when he lost the Iowa caucuses to Ted Cruz, he said he won, and Ted Cruz stole it, right? No evidence of that. Even when he won in 2016 he said that 3 million voters in California had voted illegally, and those were fake votes. He won the election, and was still saying that. And we saw what happened in 2020 That’s right. I think the thing that when you talk to election experts, is that their concern is that the folks in 2020 who were doing the stop, the steal, they were kind of like amateurs, and now you have lots of lawyers. They’re looking at how they’re operating before the election. One of the things that happens in elections, there’s a lot of lawsuits beforehand. We’ve seen more now than we ever have before. So there’s lots of lawsuits beforehand. There will be lots of lawsuits after. During it will continue, but the ones before, what that shows you is that folks are also looking to kind of create a landscape for a different lawsuit after the election. So one of the things that happened in 2020, for Trump and Republicans was that you’d go to they would say, like, these people shouldn’t be allowed to vote, and the court would say you should have said something. Before they did it right, and so, like they are now, some of that contesting is happening earlier. In order to in the eyes of these election experts, when you have to go back after the election to contest certain areas or locations or whatever, it will be easier to do. So I think that Harris wins, Donald Trump will do all of the things that we’ve seen him do. He just recently said that, like, again, it will be fair if he wins. That is how he views this. That is how he thinks about this. That’s how his team does, or that’s how he does. And some of the people close to him who, even when they’re trying to convince him, like, maybe not, like, you know, he’s a very powerful figure. And so you look at all of the people who resigned that worked for him after 2020 what he was doing in 2020 after January 6, after 2020 democratic lawyers, like lawyers who are big in democratic politics, knew that they were going to have to up this. And so they spent years kind of getting in each other’s heads and talking and creating groups to talk about these kinds of things. And so when it became the Biden campaign, and then now the Harris campaign, there was always these, already, these huge groups around the country in different states, especially these suing states, where Democrats can call on them to go right? So they have their team that’s run by Dean Remus, who used to be counseled in the White House during the Biden years, worked in the Obama administration. It’s been around a long time, she’s heading it up. And you have all these other big wigs that are working within Mark Elias, who people, a lot of people know, would handle recounts if there are recounts. And so you have your big wigs. But then at in every single state, the Harris campaign also has different types of litigators, like hundreds, and their estimation, hundreds of lawyers and legal people, right paralegals or whomever, who are working on this issue, and their hope in either suing or being a part of lawsuits before the election is to take on the misinformation and the disinformation head on to say, you know, we won in court that can’t that lie can’t possibly be true, right? I don’t know how well that worked was in a lot of places. I think folks should really watch Georgia. You have this election board who is very Trump friendly. This is maybe a pretty nonpartisan way to put it that folks are watching, and they are at have been at times at odds with the Republican governor Secretary of State, who, last year, in 2020 Donald Trump, asked them to find 11,000 plus votes for him so he could win the state. They chose not to. They did what they what law says they should do. They follow the law. Those people are probably going to do it again. But that election board, that’s where the concern is. And the election officials said they aren’t terrified of, like the election being overturned and like all of that happening, but they are worried about the gumming up of the works. They feel like there’s a lot of different layers of protection, but, you know, we have a date. We have dates. There are dates that are federally required for folks to for the electors to meet in December and say, like, this is the we’re all good to go. This is who won the election. And so, you know, if someone gums up the works in Georgia all the way up until that point, what happens when there’s no electors, right? What does the country do? And we haven’t had to deal with that before, and so I think they’re most worried about it being a more professional run operation than it was in 2020

Yeah, I think that’s right. I think it’s clear that one of the preparations is that if it doesn’t go the way that they want, is chaos, and that chaos is the strategy here,

and and Trump may win, he may not have to do any of this, right? He just, it’s unlikely that Democrats, I mean, there may be lawsuits, but some Democrats don’t seem like they will be trying to overturn the will of the American voters. But so, so it is a very one sided concern that folks have and should have.

Yeah, I mean, they’ve that was, that’s been part of their promise in order to get the Nikki Haley voter and some of the other Republicans, is that we’re standing up for democracy, and so whoever wins, we’re going to back so they kind of have to follow through on that promise. And couldn’t build an infrastructure that could be reported on by people like you, because it would undermine the brand of what they were doing in terms of getting these voters. So they’re kind of hamstrung, right? They couldn’t really do it, and they wanted to reach those voters. Well, I think everything that you’re pointing to is that it’s going to be a close race. Every vote is going to count. Literally every vote is going to count. And so everyone needs to get out and vote. And also, we shouldn’t be surprised if we wake up on November 6 and don’t know who the president is.

It’s like, that is very likely Pennsylvania doesn’t even come until day of and there are a lot of votes in Pennsylvania, that’s probably the most important swing state. So, like, it is very unlikely that people wake up on Wednesday and we have a president on

that. One last question before you go, I thought that I was going to wrap and then you mentioned. Another state, but I think that’ll be important for everyone listening. Is how things are unfolding in Michigan, with regards to specifically Arab Americans. You know, I have heard rumblings, and I don’t know if this is just, you know, part of the psychological operation campaign that all campaigns do at the end, but you know that suddenly the Harris people are nervous about Michigan, right? That’s one of the things that that is in kind of the the underground whispering campaign. And it’s not that hard to see this kind of, this combination of Arab American voters being skittish about the Democratic Party, plus, if there’s any of this weakness amongst black men that you’re talking about, I mean, it’s not implausible to see that happening, which is maybe why you know this, this whispering campaign around Michigan is gaining traction in these closing days. What are you hearing the campaign say about the role of Gaza and its impact on the race, specifically a place like Michigan, and when I say the campaign, I mean the Harris campaign,

yeah, I mean, I bow in Union voters, also as a place in Michigan that you know, the campaign is concerned about, that’s right? The way that they’ve put it, to me, is the way they have put they put it when they were the Biden campaign, is they feel like this is a subset of a subset of a subset of voters who this is their number one issue, right? And so it goes beyond Arab Americans, right, young black voters who see themselves and what’s happening to Palestinians and harking it back to the civil rights movement or apartheid Africa, right? Like they those kinds of things move them. I think they’ve been doing meetings with the with some of these folks who have been outspoken, right, hoping to, I guess, convince them that things could be different. And if you talk to people who’ve had who’ve worked for vice presidents, who are running for president, what they would tell you is that, like, you have to figure out a way to, like, wink a nod at things maybe different in different policy areas, while still being able to, you know, while still talking in the way that the White House is talking. And the guy that you have to go the next day and meet in the Oval Office with is talking about the issue still being loyal. You’re still being loyal, right? Which is one of the reasons why she is not he backed her so quickly after he stepped down. Was her, was her loyalty over the years. And so I think that the there is a there is a world in which folks feel like Harris would be different. Part of that is just who she is. She is in the past, talked differently than Donald then, then, well, Donald Trump, but also then that Joe Biden has about what’s happening to the Palestinians, and then saying, Who did it right? But at the same time, she hasn’t talked about any policy differences, and that’s what voters hear, right? And so while she’s kind of teetering on this, just like making sure she doesn’t, you know, say the wrong thing, I mean, we’re two weeks out, Harris is unlikely to change the way she’s talking about any of the issues at this point, I think her team feels like they’ve been winking and nodding to certain things. And after she met with Netanyahu, for example, she talked about protesters in a way that that Joe Biden had talked about them before. And people take that and listen to that. But there are a lot of people who whose families are in Palestine, whose families have died in power, like families wiped out, right? People who live here in this country are Palestinian American and whose family members have been wiped out. I don’t know how you convince those people to vote for you, right? When you are not, you know you’re not saying an arms embargo, or you’re not, you know, even when you’re kind of saying, quote, unquote, all the right things about, you know, the people dying, that it’s terrible, that it needs to be stopped, but you’re still sending bombs. So what people are having an issue with, as everyone knows, is, like, what Harris is saying, and then what the administration is doing. If she came out and said, like, if I was president, it would be a rap, like, I wouldn’t be handling it like that. I think she deals with a lot of issues in the White House, but some of these folks might feel better about voting for her, and that is something that her campaign has kind of tussled with and struggled with for months and months now, which is like, how do we do this? I think they are concerned about it. I think they’re probably more concerned about union voters, I would say Michigan and Wisconsin, for some Republicans, and for Trump campaign officials, they feel better about those than Pennsylvania, right? And so it’s like it is, and the reasons why are not always clear. There’s some polling that suggests that maybe there are things that are happening, but it wasn’t just it’s not just Gaza, right? It’s also what’s happening in Lebanon. So if you’re in Michigan, there’s also a lot of Lebanese people, you know, right? And so now it’s a, now it’s a two fold issue. And you know, none of us know how it’s, how it’s gonna shape up, and how, what people actually do when they go into the voting booth, right? Do they actually vote for Joe Stein? Do they actually not vote? Do they fill in their. Everything except president. Or do they look at the you know, the two sides and say, you know, and hope for the best, right, that something will change after January 20, 2025, if they vote X for for Harris or for Trump? And I think there are a lot of people who think they know, but we don’t. We have no idea. So much of this is is someone like AOC, for example, has said, like, she doesn’t know how to and Mehdi Hassan even, like, they don’t know how to tell someone your entire family died, but still vote for Harris, right? Like, it’s just like you don’t like it is, it is nearly impossible to be able to do something like that. So the campaign is, is definitely hitting a wall. And of course, she could counter the President that she’s with, right? He ain’t gonna be president january 20, right at 1159, that job’s a wrap. So she could do that right there. They’re choosing not to. And I think sometimes that’s your answer as well. Yeah.

Well, as we said, this entire race is is jump ball. There’s so many things that make it extremely different, which is probably why it’s so close, because there’s so many countervailing forces at work and approaches and so all that means is that besides everyone voting, everyone listening, needs to subscribe to the playbook that yeah, give me pay to your Yes, yes, yes, directly into your mailbox from Eugene’s to yours, where you can keep up with all of Eugene’s incredible reporting in the aftermath of the election, because it ain’t going to be over on november 5. Sad for you. I feel sorry for you, friend. I mean, I know that you feel sorry for

my husband. I signed up for my husband. We did? I did marry someone, right? I do have a husband still, yeah,

wow. Big vacation coming at the in February.

Yes, hopefully, hopefully, yeah. Fingers crossed.

Thank you so much Eugene for taking time out from the campaign trail, which is wearing you down, but not wearing you out to come and talk to us. So glad to have you back on and thank you so much for everything that you do and how you show up. Thank

you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me

again. You’re welcome.

That was Eugene Daniels, who is an excellent political reporter at Politico. Thank you so much for joining me on the translash podcast. Now listen all the way through to the end of the show for something extra. If you like what you heard, please go to Apple podcast to rate and review us. You can listen to translash wherever you get your podcast. Check us out on the web@translash.org to sign up for our weekly newsletter. Follow us on Tiktok X and Instagram at translash media, like us on Facebook and tell your friends and please do go review us on Apple podcasts. We really need those. The translash podcast is produced by translash Media. The translash team includes Oliver ash Klein and aubre Calloway. Xander Adams is our senior sound engineer and a contributing producer. The music you heard was composed by bind Draghi and also courtesy of ZK records. The Trans sash podcast is made possible by the support of foundations and listeners like you. Well, I’m looking forward to continuing to bask in the glow of the New York Liberty win over the Minnesota links for the WNBA finals as champions the ticker tape parade for that was earlier today, the liberty are the first Brooklyn franchise to bring home finals championship since the 1950s And it was the first ticker tape parade since 2012 so that’s how big a deal this was. It was just a thrill to be able to see such an amazing group of women pull it out, and for it to be my home team is is even more so. And there’s more things coming, like a trip to the White House. So there’s going to be lots of fun. New York Liberty champion stuff to get me through over the next couple of weeks.