| | | | |  | | By Bethany Irvine | | Presented by |  | | | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | | JUST IN — A new set of CNN battleground-state polls shows KAMALA HARRIS maintaining a thin lead in two of the blue wall states, with DONALD TRUMP tying her in the third: Michigan: Harris +5, Wisconsin: Harris +6, Pennsylvania: 48% all. Democratic Senate candidates, meanwhile, are clinging to small leads: Michigan: ELISSA SLOTKIN +6, Wisconsin: TAMMY BALDWIN +2, Pennsylvania: BOB CASEY JR. +3. “The vast majority of blue wall state voters have locked in their choices. Just 8% of likely voters in Pennsylvania, 7% in Michigan and 6% in Wisconsin say they haven’t made a choice or could change their minds before Election Day,” CNN’s Jennifer Agiesta, Ariel Edwards-Levy and Edward Wu report.
|  Kamala Harris took to the cameras today to distance herself from Joe Biden’s remark, while sidestepping a direct rebuke of the president. | AP | APOSTROPHE CATASTROPHE — Democrats continue to play defense today after President JOE BIDEN created a mess for the Harris campaign when he seemingly called Trump supporters “garbage” during a Zoom call last night with Latino supporters. Although the White House quickly clarified his comment, claiming he was referring to comedian TONY HINCHCLIFFE’s incendiary remarks about Puerto Rico at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, Harris took to the cameras today to distance herself from Biden’s remark while sidestepping a direct rebuke of the president. What Harris said: “Let me be clear: I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” she told reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews. “You heard my speech last night. I believe the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not. I will be a president for all Americans.” The VP added that while Biden called her last night, they didn’t discuss the comment. More from Myah Ward Minnesota Gov. TIM WALZ expressed a similar sentiment when asked about Biden’s comment during an appearance this morning on “Good Morning America.” “The president’s clarified his remarks,” Walz said. “The vice president and I have made it absolutely clear that we want everyone part of this." Of course, none of that has slowed Republicans’ efforts to turn Biden’s statement into a furor akin to HILLARY CLINTON’s infamous “basket of deplorables” comment in 2016. From the Trump camp: JAKE SCHNEIDER, Trump’s director of rapid response, blasted Harris and Walz for not disavowing Biden more forcefully: “[T]hey can't explicitly distance themselves from Biden's insult because they agree with it,” Schneider said in a statement to the press this morning. The Trump campaign is raising money off of the mess, as NYT’s Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman note . Last night, a fundraising email from Trump featured this subject line: “You are not garbage! I love you! You are the best our nation has to offer.” And on the Hill: Both the House and Senate campaign arms of the GOP are pushing their Democratic opponents to disavow Biden’s remarks, Jordain Carney reports . “The President of the United States just smeared half of the country — House Democrats can speak up now to disagree, or their silence will say everything voters need to know,” House GOP Chair RICHARD HUDSON (R-N.C.) said in a statement. WHAT DEMS WOULD RATHER BE TALKING ABOUT — In the final snapshot of the economy before votes are counted, gross domestic product grew at a 2.8 percent rate in the third quarter of the year, according to new data from the Commerce Department. Robust consumer spending makes up about two-thirds of all activity, as Americans continue to shell out for a range of goods and services this year. It’s a tick down from the 3.0 percent rate last quarter, but the trajectory could strengthen the case for further interest-rate-cutting. The ripple effects: “The GDP release comes with the Federal Reserve poised to lower interest rates further despite the seemingly strong economy,” CNBC’s Jeff Cox reports. “Markets widely expect the Fed to cut another quarter percentage point off its benchmark short-term borrowing rate when policymakers conclude their two-day meeting on Nov. 7.” Good Wednesday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at birvine@politico.com.
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Click here & learn more. | | | AFTERNOON WATCH — In case you missed this morning’s edition of the Playbook Daily Briefing, you can now watch it on YouTube! Check out Rachael and Eugene breaking down Harris’ closing argument last night — and discussing to what degree the Biden garbage gaffe will matter. NEWS FROM HQ — POLITICO has named Zach Warmbrodt as our first executive producer for Congress, where he will oversee the editors and reporters on our Congress team and work closely with senior leaders across the newsroom to ensure coverage across all platforms. Zach has covered finance and the economy for POLITICO since 2012, starting as a reporter for POLITICO Pro and later as an editor and co-author of Morning Money. More from the top brass
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The Supreme Court ruled today that the state of Virginia can continue to purge it's voter registration rolls. | AP | 1. SCOTUS LATEST: The Supreme Court ruled today that Virginia is allowed to resume purging names from its voter registration rolls in what Republican officials claim is an effort to stop noncitizens from voting, AP’s Mark Sherman reports . The 6-3 decision came after the state appealed a federal judge’s ruling that the state illegally removed 1,600 names from their voter registration system in the past two months: “Such voting is rare in American elections, but the specter of immigrants voting illegally has been a main part of the political messaging this year from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans … [Virginia Gov. GLENN] YOUNGKIN said the Supreme Court’s action was ‘a victory for commonsense and election fairness.’” The deets: “All three of the high court’s liberal justices dissented from the action, announced in a terse one-page order. Neither the court’s majority nor any of the dissenters detailed their reasons,” Josh Gerstein and Zach Montellaro write . “The immediate impact of the ruling is limited to Virginia. While voter list maintenance is routine across the country, most states — including the major presidential battlegrounds — are not running programs like Virginia’s.” 2. LEGACY MODE: As Biden struggles with his diminished role on the sidelines of the campaign, he has his eyes on securing his legacy and establishing his presidential library, WSJ’s Annie Linskey and Emily Glazer report. Some challenges on that front: Biden has encountered issues raising the $200 million to $300 million likely needed to establish a library, and “he has eschewed using some of the gimmicks other presidents have used to woo donors, such as inviting megadonors to stay overnight at the White House.” It’s also unclear where Biden’s library would even go, with Biden previously saying several institutions were competing for the library “including Syracuse University where he earned a law degree and his alma mater, the University of Delaware. … Officials from the University of Pennsylvania, where Biden led a center on diplomacy, foreign policy and national security during Trump’s term, have also had discussions about the library.” 3. MUSK READS: As ELON MUSK faces continued legal scrutiny over his $1 million daily sweepstakes to for registered voters who sign petitions, New York Mag’s Ben Jacobs writes a dispatch from his Pennsylvania Q&A event this weekend, where “Musk was received as a mash-up of TONY STARK and TONY ROBBINS ” as a surrogate for Trump. Standing alongside the latest winner of his sweepstakes on stage in Lancaster, Musk said, “People wonder what’s up with million-dollar prizes. Well, we need to get legacy media to talk about it, and I knew they would be, like, complaining like hell about it.” Angling for the gig … Though Musk’s pledge to work alongside Trump to slash federal spending in a second Trump administration has been met with skepticism from economists, billionaire investor JOHN PAULSON says he’d work to carry out the plan should he be named Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Bloomberg’s Brian Schwartz reports as part of a wide-ranging interview about how Paulson would act in the role. Needless to say: “It is relatively unusual for an ally of a presidential candidate to talk openly about the role he or she might play in a future administration.” 4. KNOWING MARC ELIAS: “Democratic Lawyer Stymied Trump in 2020. Other Efforts Played Into G.O.P. Hands,” by NYT’s Kenneth Vogel: “In his three-decade career, Elias has arguably done more than any single person outside government to shape the Democratic Party and the rules under which all campaigns and elections in the United States are conducted. … Detractors on the left fault him for empowering the ultrarich to exercise disproportionate political influence, and for pushing aggressive initiatives that have backfired at times, playing into the hands of the Republicans he strives to thwart.” 5. GOING LOCAL: “The D.N.C. Targets Regional Newspapers in New Ad Campaign,” by NYT’s Nick Corasaniti: “In 25 local newspapers in the seven battleground states, the D.N.C. has taken out a full-page ad calling the former president ‘unhinged, unstable, unchecked’ and ‘unfit to lead’ … Subscribers to these smaller, regional papers, the D.N.C. says, tend to be moderate voters whom it is targeting in the closing days.”
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