Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration and Harris campaign. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren In last week’s debate, DONALD TRUMP refused to accept any responsibility for lying about the 2020 election results or inciting the ensuing insurrection at the Capitol, complaining that his campaign’s dozens of lawsuits were dismissed over “a technicality,” not on the merits. KAMALA HARRIS’ response was devastatingly blunt, reappropriating his signature catch phrase. “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people … and clearly, he is having a very difficult time processing that,” she said. “We cannot afford to have a president of the United States who attempts as he did in the past to upend the will of the voters in a free and fair election.” But here’s the thing that even the strongest debate zinger can’t change: Trump’s team has been working to make it easier in 2024 to enable him, should he lose again, to accomplish what he failed to do four years ago — to subvert the democratic process in order to retake the White House. Democrats are also taking it more seriously. A new election integrity PAC guided by NORM EISEN, ALLEGRA LAWRENCE-HARDY and JIM MESSINA launched late last month with an initial $10 million investment. On Tuesday, the Democracy Defenders PAC announced another six-figure contribution in conjunction with Fair Fight, aiming to help state Democratic parties in key battlegrounds combat GOP legal and legislative efforts to make it harder for people to vote and easier for state lawmakers to manipulate the election results. West Wing Playbook spoke with Messina, the PAC’s chairman, about the state-specific threats he outlined in a new memo and the organization’s broader effort. This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity. How is the legal environment different from four years ago because of these new restrictions around voting in some states? A lot. The other side just has their shit together. Last time, they kind of were reacting after the [election]. This cycle, there’s already been a total of about 100 lawsuits in the entire country. It’s a concerted effort to disenfranchise people. Does it surprise you, personally, that you’re still dealing with all the same stuff four years after “the Big Lie” and the insurrection? It’s un-fucking-believeable, the fact that we’re having to relitigate all these things. Yes. In 2024, they’re better organized. They have a trial run under their belt. And because of the legal jeopardy Trump is in, they have nothing to lose, so they're just pulling out all the stops. Of all these new laws, what concerns you the most in terms of the potential impact on deciding who wins a key swing state? In Pennsylvania and Nevada, having local county officials before the election threaten to refuse certification if Harris wins — I’ve never seen anything like that. And then in Georgia, Republicans can now seize control over the local election boards in Democratic counties after the election results are in — so they can disqualify results they don't like. Again, we’ve just never seen that before. So those are two things that make me want to have afternoon cocktails. How are you responding? Aside from the cocktails. We took the extraordinary measure of forming this emergency super PAC to put together money to help on the ground and help fund some of these lawsuits and push back on this before the election, and then after the election. So the money is going out now, not just being squirreled away for post-election lawsuits? Yes. State parties are on the ground doing the work. Our job is to listen to what their needs are and make strategic investments so the people on the ground can get the resources they need. Maybe it’s litigation, maybe it’s messaging to combat misinformation. What does this look like over the final seven weeks? People are already voting, ballots are going out. We’re kind of dealing by the hour with all this. These lawsuits are now coming fast and furious from the other side. Pretty soon the campaigns, both sides every night, will have real [early voting] numbers. Trump’s going to freak out when he sees the early voting numbers because he keeps telling people not to do it. So he’s going to put more pressure on early voting and have his people go after it in the courts. You can already see how this is going to play out. Trump has now threatened to somehow jail election workers. What is the impact of stuff like that? Does all this potentially keep people home on Election Day? Or alienate swing voters? Or both? It makes it harder to vote, so it absolutely can affect the election. They want to make it messy, and our job is to make sure the courts make sure it’s not messy. And on your point about swing voters, I was watching dial tests the other night, and swing voters hated when he relitigated 2020 because they think he lost, and they’re sick of it. This is obviously about helping Kamala Harris win this election. But that’s not the only piece of it? The bottom line is that this is about protecting our institutions. This is the biggest threat to our democracy. If we allow people to hold office who disregard free and fair elections, it undermines the trust Americans place in our entire system of government. MESSAGE US — Are you COLLEEN LOPER, White House director of political engagement? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
| 
