The Fight to Define the Last Days of the Campaign

Happy Thursday! And happy Halloween! Shout out to TMD reader Denise M. for the great, last-minute costume idea for political junkies in yesterday’s comment section: Biden’s Missing Apostrophe. (Another strong contender: Garbage Man Trump.)

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• The Supreme Court on Wednesday—in a brief, unsigned order, as is typical for such decisions—allowed Virginia to proceed with a limited purge of the state’s voter rolls before the election, removing some 1,600 people unable to provide evidence of U.S. citizenship. The order, which also gave no reasoning for the decision, did point out that Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan would have denied the state’s request to reinstate its initiative. The Justice Department sued the state of Virginia to block the voter roll operation—announced in early August—for violating federal voting rights law, which bars such actions within 90 days of an election. Virginia has same-day voter registration, so any citizen wrongly removed from the rolls could register whenever they go to vote. 
• Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday disavowed President Joe Biden’s “garbage” comments made the night before during a Zoom event with Voto Latino, a campaign organization. “First of all, he clarified his comments,” she said at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday. “But let me be clear: I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.” Biden appeared to refer to Trump supporters as “garbage” in his remarks, though the White House—and Biden himself—scrambled to claim he was referring only to Tony Hinchcliffe, the raunchy comedian who made several racial jokes at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday.
• Officials in Clark County, Washington, said on Wednesday that nearly 500 damaged ballots were retrieved from a ballot drop-box that was set on fire on Monday in Vancouver, Washington. An unknown number of ballots were destroyed entirely in the blaze. Law enforcement officials told the New York Times that the words “Free Gaza” were written on the incendiary devices found at the drop-box in Washington state and another nearby in Oregon on the same day, though it’s unclear whether the perpetrator—who has not yet been apprehended—was an anti-Israel activist or simply using the slogan as a lightning rod. According to Clark County election officials, voters who deposited ballots in the drop-box between 11 a.m. on Saturday and 4 a.m. on Monday can request a replacement ballot.
• The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that early estimates show real U.S. gross domestic product—adjusted for inflation—grew at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the third quarter of 2024, down from 3 percent annual growth in the second quarter of the year. Consumer spending increased 3.7 percent from Q2 to Q3, according to the estimate, accounting for much of the GDP growth.
• The U.S. Treasury, Commerce, and State Departments on Wednesday applied new sanctions and restrictions to almost 400 entities and people the Biden administration accused of helping Russian actors evade sanctions. The sanctioned people and entities are located in China, India, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia, and Switzerland, among other countries. Russian defense companies were also targeted in the move.
• Spanish officials said Wednesday that at least 95 people have reportedly died after flash flooding struck the southern and eastern regions of Spain. Heavy rainfall on Tuesday and Wednesday sent cars careening down streets on torrents of water and washed out bridges, with an unknown number of people still missing. The Spanish government declared three days of mourning beginning Thursday.
• The Los Angeles Dodgers secured a come-from-behind victory over the New York Yankees on Wednesday night to win the 2024 World Series four games to one. After sweeping the first three games, the Dodgers struggled in Game 4—losing 11-4—and watched the Yankees score five unanswered runs on Wednesday before responding with five runs with two outs in the fifth inning to tie the game, ultimately winning 7-6. It’s the Dodgers’ eighth World Series win in franchise history. 

Freedom, Fascism, and Garbage 

On January 5, 2024, President Joe Biden kicked his reelection campaign into gear with a rally in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. “Today, we’re here to answer the most important of questions. Is democracy still America’s sacred cause? I mean it,” Biden said in remarks that focused on the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. “It’s what the 2024 election is all about.”

Nearly eight months later, on Tuesday evening, Vice President Kamala Harris stood at the Ellipse—the park just south of the White House where Trump rallied his supporters on that fateful day. “This election is more than just a choice between two parties and two different candidates,” she told a large rally audience. “It is a choice about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American or ruled by chaos and division.” 

After two presidential debates, a historic ticket shakeup, and two assassination attempts, the Democratic pitch to voters sounds a lot like it did at the beginning of the campaign. Or does it? 

With less than a week to Election Day, both campaigns appear to be going back to basics. After losing much of her lead in national polling, Harris is leaning into a negative message she’d largely sidelined, including deploying the “f-word”—“fascism,” that is. The Trump campaign, meanwhile …

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Worth Your Time

• Elon Musk’s PAC launched a massive door-knocking campaign for Trump in recent weeks, and in Wired, Jake Lahut reported on how it’s going. “In Michigan, canvassers and paid door knockers for the former president, contracted by a firm associated with America PAC, have been subjected to poor working conditions,” he wrote. “A number of them have been driven around in the back of a seatless U-Haul van, according to video obtained by WIRED, and threatened that their lodging at a local motel wouldn’t be paid for if they didn’t meet canvassing quotas. One door knocker alleges that they didn’t even know they were signing up for anything having to do with Musk or Trump.”
• In a three-part series for the Wall Street Journal’s podcast “The Journal,” Kate Linebaugh and Lingling Wei reported on the disappearance of China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang. “The last day that Qin Gang, China’s then-foreign minister was seen in public, was on June 25 of last year,” Linebaugh said. “It was a hot humid day in Beijing and according to his official schedule, Qin spent some of that day carrying out his foreign minister duties as usual. Mostly, this meant meeting other foreign ministers. … Qin was foreign minister, the country’s top diplomat. He was a member of the upper echelon of the political elite. And he had the backing of China’s powerful leader, Xi Jinping. Qin had risen high and was expected to keep rising. But instead, after that day in June, Qin disappeared.”

Presented Without Comment

NBC News: Elon Musk Asks Voters to Brace for Economic ‘Hardship,’ Deep Spending Cuts in Potential Trump Cabinet Role 

In the Zeitgeist

There’s no better day than Halloween to re-up one of the best Saturday Night Live skits of recent memory. Any questions?

Toeing the Company Line

• In the newsletters: The Dispatch Politics crew reported on the Harris campaign’s outreach to black voters in Georgia, Scott wrote (🔒) in defense of the U.S. economy, Jonah longed (🔒) for the days when politics was about policy instead of people, and Nick explored (🔒) whether right-wing anger at Biden for his “garbage” comment is in good faith. 
• On the podcasts: Chris joins Jonah on The Remnant for some rank punditry, David and Sarah talk election law on Advisory Opinions, and Hugh Hewitt made the case for Trump to Jamie on the Dispatch Podcast.
• On the site: Daniel Gullotta looks at the history of witchcraft in Colonial America, Brian Riedl argues the best electoral outcome for fiscal conservatives would be a Harris victory paired with a Republican Congress, and Matthew Maughan explains how policymakers can save Medicare Advantage from itself.