LA CROSSE, Wisconsin — After a summer of historic unrest, the road to the presidency is open for both Kamala Harris And Donald Trump This fall it is becoming increasingly clear.
The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president will devote almost all of their remaining time and resources to just seven states. They will spend hundreds of millions of dollars targeting voters who, in many cases, are just beginning to follow the election. And their campaigns will try to focus their messages on three familiar issues — the economy, immigration and abortion — even amid heated debates about character, culture and democracy.
The candidates will debate in a week in what will be their first meeting ever. The nation’s key swing state, Pennsylvania, will begin in-person proxy voting the following week. Early voting will open in at least four states by the end of the month, with another dozen states set to follow in mid-October.
In just 63 days, the final votes will be cast to determine which of them will lead the most powerful nation in the world.
In any case, both sides privately acknowledge that victory is not certain as they begin the eight-week sprint to Election Day. Harris and Trump are neck and neck in most national polls conducted since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign.
Harris’ campaign released a memo over the weekend positioning itself as “the clear underdog” in the race.
“There is no easy scenario here,” Harris senior adviser David Plouffe said in an interview. “The path to defeating Donald Trump, the path to 270 electoral votes for Kamala Harris, is extraordinarily difficult, but it is achievable. And that’s just the reality.”
Trump, meanwhile, rejects all indications that Harris is ahead, even as he attacks her in highly personal and at times apocalyptic terms, declaring that “our country is over” if she wins.
“Now that Labor Day is behind us, we’re really getting into the period where voters are starting to harden their opinions,” said James Blair, the Trump campaign’s political director. “We feel good about things. We feel energized. Our people are energized. But there’s certainly still work to do.”
Just over a month ago, Trump allies suggested that Democratic-leaning states like Minnesota, Virginia or even New Jersey could be in play. Neither party believes that is still the case going into Labor Day weekend.
By replacing Biden as the party’s nominee, Harris breathed new life into Democrats’ political prospects, particularly in 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 that have rallied behind Biden nationally but now appear to have swung back behind Harris.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham was among the senior GOP officials who mediated in a peace between Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, whose feud threatened to undermine the Republican effort in the state. Graham told The Associated Press he was concerned about Georgia’s shift to the left.
“Trump was up 5 or 6 points, and over the course of the month the competition has become much more intense,” he said.
Republican pollster Paul Schumaker, an adviser to North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, said even a small increase in the black vote could give Harris the edge in North Carolina, pointing to Mecklenberg County, home to the Charlotte metropolitan area, as well as fast-growing counties such as Durham and Wake.
“If Kamala Harris can get them to turn out in the same way that Republicans did in rural North Carolina, then it’s game over for Republicans,” Schumaker said of black voters.
At the same time, Trump remains resolute in his assault on the Midwestern battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which form the so-called Democratic “blue wall” that he narrowly won in 2016 and narrowly lost in 2020.
Those seven states — plus swing districts in Nebraska and Maine, each of which awards one Electoral College vote — will capture nearly all of the candidates’ attention and resources over the next eight weeks.
Trump is investing more advertising money in Pennsylvania than in any other state on Election Day.
A Trump win in Pennsylvania alone would make it much harder for Harris to earn the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Harris’ team insists she has multiple paths to victory.
In the battle to televise the election and reach voters in person, Democrats currently have a clear advantage.
Harris’ team is on track to outsell Trump’s camp 2-to-1 in television advertising over the next two months. And even before Biden made way for Harris, Democrats had superior campaign infrastructure in the states that matter most.
Harris’ team, which includes her campaign and an allied super PAC, has more than $280 million in TV and radio reservations for the period between Tuesday and Election Day, according to media tracking firm AdImpact. Trump’s team, by contrast, has $133 million set aside for the final stretch, though that number is expected to grow.
Trump’s side is actually outspending Harris’s side 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 outpaces every other state. Georgia is pulling in nearly $80 million in ad spending in the final eight weeks of the campaign.
But in the other five crucial states, Harris has the airwaves largely to herself — at least for now.
Trump and his allied super PACs have so far made only marginal ad reservations in Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Nevada. By comparison, Harris’ team is investing a whopping $21 million in each of the five states, according to an analysis by AdImpact.
Harris’ team also has more than 300 coordinated offices and 2,000 staffers on the ground in swing states, according to her campaign’s weekend memo. Trump’s campaign has only a few dozen dedicated offices and is instead relying on less experienced outside groups to ensure its supporters turn out on Election Day.
Blair, the Trump campaign’s political director, disputes that Democrats have as big an organizing advantage as those numbers suggest. The outside allies who will organize for Trump are well-funded, including a new effort backed by billionaire Elon Musk.
Both candidates are locked in neck-and-neck races in the seven key swing states. Democratic pollster John Anzalone said Harris has “put the Democrats back in the race, so it’s kind of a toss-up.”
But now comes the hard part, Anzalone said.
“After Labor Day, when the bell rings, there’s a battle for a small universe of — you can call them whatever you want: conviction voters, swing voters, independent voters — and it’s pretty small, and that’s where each party gets a billion dollars,” Anzalone said.
According to the party, many independents appear to find both candidates unsatisfactory. an AP-NORC poll conducted in august.
Currently, Harris also holds a slight advantage among independents on some key issues, while she and Trump are roughly equal on others.
For example, about 3 in 10 independents say “fair” better describes Harris, while about 2 in 10 say it better describes Trump. About 3 in 10 also say “committed to democracy” better describes Harris, while fewer than 2 in 10 say it better describes Trump.
The candidates were about equally likely to be seen by independents as capable of winning the election, able to handle a crisis and “caring about people like you.”
The race may ultimately be decided by the candidate who can most successfully portray himself as the “candidate for change,” as about 7 in 10 voters say the country is headed in the wrong direction, based on an AP-NORC poll was held in late July after Biden withdrew from the race.
Trump was the face of change when he won the 2016 election. And even after four years in the White House, he continues to motivate millions of frustrated voters who embrace his brash leadership style and unwillingness to play by the traditional rules of politics.
Harris has been Biden’s vice president for nearly four years, but the historic nature of her candidacy — she would be the first female president — allows her to make a compelling case that she represents a new direction for the country, said veteran Democratic strategist James Carville.
However, he is concerned about his party’s “serious underperformance” in the so-called “blue wall” states during the recent elections.
“I’ll feel good after the election,” Carville said. “Let’s get the hay in the barn. There’s plenty of hay in the field.”
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Peoples reported from New York and Thomson-DeVeaux reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.