| | | | |  | | By Lauren Egan, Eli Stokols and Ben Johansen | 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 Programming note: West Wing Playbook will begin covering the transition of power on Wednesday, Nov. 6. We’ll deliver daily updates and analysis on the preparations, personnel decisions and policy deliberations that follow the 2024 elections. Have colleagues who will want to get inside the transition? Forward and ask them to subscribe. We’ve hit that point in the election cycle where we’re all just trying to reach the finish line without losing our minds. We’ve given up on any hopes of getting a full night’s sleep. The promise we made ourselves to resist the impulse to only eat takeout now seems quaint. All that leftover Halloween candy? We demolished it while feverishly refreshing polling averages. A quick scroll through X shows we are far from alone. PATRICK DILLON, husband of Harris campaign chair JEN O’MALLEY DILLON, was awake at 2:27 a.m. on Monday going at it with STEVEN CHEUNG after the DONALD TRUMP spokesperson called him a “cuck.” And, well, we will let the very mature back-and-forth speak for itself.
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| Domestic Policy Council director NEERA TANDEN, who had been relatively disciplined on her social media accounts ever since her past posts tanked her shot at leading the Office of Management and Budget, has been chiming in with more frequency about the election, offering critiques of the media coverage and accounts of swing-state door-knocking. Political director EMMY RUIZ hasn’t made us cringe with a tweet in … we can’t even remember how long re-posted a message from Sesame Street’s account on X with an image of GROVER that read: “It’s okay to feel anxious.” An election this close no doubt means nail-biting on both sides. But while Republicans tend to project confidence, Democrats seem to love marinating in their fears. There was a KAMALA HARRIS campaign official who opened up a press call on the Friday before Election Day saying: “Fuck, is it Friday?” (The person apologized for swearing, telling reporters, “I didn’t even realize I did it.”) The Atlantic’s MARK LEIBOVICH, instead of dropping a big political profile at the last minute, penned an advice column about how to prepare for the emotional roller coaster of parsing election results (tl;dr: he says just take a walk). Even corporate PR flaks have been shooting their shot, pitching reporters, including West Wing Playbook, on apps that help combat election season stress-eating. The operatives working for campaigns and supporting PACs are waist deep in whatever fresh data is coming in, but even they may be struggling with the intense realization that the results will soon be at hand. At least most of them have tasks to complete, calls to make, TV hits to do. Those more removed from the action may have less to occupy these final hours, more jangled nerves to try and settle — and watching all three hours of “CNN Newsroom” may not be doing it. One friend of West Wing Playbook relayed that her therapist told her his workload had doubled in the last month, forcing him to extend his hours for patients from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. normally, to 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. now — all to serve clients whose anxiety was spiking due to the election. On Monday afternoon, Democratic data guru and TargetSmart CEO TOM BONIER offered a therapeutic presentation via Zoom — and free of charge! — for the media and his fellow partisans looking for something revelatory or reassuring in the early vote numbers. He pointed to the current battleground ballot returns to note that women are voting in higher percentages than they did in 2020 and that the gender gap seems fairly pronounced across all age groups. Bonier also presented some charts showing that Republicans, who mostly eschewed early voting four years ago but have embraced it this cycle, appeared to be cannibalizing more of their Election Day turnout in the early vote than Democrats are; and he noted that Democrats held a 7.8 point edge across the swing states in terms of early votes cast by new registrants, or those who didn’t cast ballots in 2020. When it came time for questions, he was asked about the ANN SELZER shock poll over the weekend showing Harris ahead of Trump by 3 points in Iowa and whether it could presage her winning states no one is expecting. While Bonier insisted there is no clear indication the election is tipping to Harris, he also described the Trump campaign’s assessment of the early voting data as unserious and not the sign of a confident operation. Trump, he noted, won Iowa by 8 points over JOE BIDEN in 2020. So even if Selzer, with her long record of accuracy, is off by a few points, Harris’ improved position in the state from the last cycle “bodes incredibly well” for her campaign in general. “The impact of Dobbs — it’s impossible to overemphasize and overestimate,” Bonier said. “We have seen Democratic candidates since Dobbs fairly consistently outperform polls.” That may not be enough for Democrats to sleep easy tonight — but combined with a whiskey and a Xanax, it just might do the trick. MESSAGE US — Are you A VERY BUSY PSYCHIATRIST ? 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!
| | What was the largest margin of victory in presidential election history? (Answer at bottom.)
| | | DRINK YOUR ELECTROLYTES. HUG YOUR LOVED ONES. Just like he did in 2020, Donald Trump will close his campaign in Grand Rapids, Michigan, tonight — but not before holding several rallies in both North Carolina and Pennsylvania to shore up those critical states. The former president’s emphasis on North Carolina, in particular, reflects a sense of anxiety within his operation, as our NATALIE ALLISON reported over the weekend. It’s the singular battleground state he won four years ago. One Trump campaign official told Natalie: “If one state could bite us in the ass, it’s North Carolina.” PENNSYLVANIA, HELLO: Harris, meanwhile, spent the entirety of the day in Pennsylvania, the swing state thought to be most likely to tip the election’s outcome. She stopped by Allentown and Pittsburgh before heading to Philadelphia, where she plans on delivering final remarks from the famous steps of the city’s Museum of Art late tonight (serious question: does she still take the stage to BEYONCÉ's “Freedom”? Or swap in the ROCKY theme?). The rally will include performances from LADY GAGA, RICKY MARTIN and THE ROOTS. As our HOLLY OTTERBEIN and MEREDITH LEE HILL report on the final Pennsylvania swing (with Gov. JOSH SHAPIRO in tow), Harris is looking to run up the score in cities and suburbs while holding most of Biden’s support in whiter, working class parts of the state. We regret to inform you that it seems like the TAYLOR SWIFT appearance — speculation largely sparked by people like us — may be out the door. SEE YA IN FOUR YEARS, JON: The go-to guy for politics in the Silver State, JON RALSTON has predicted the correct outcome of every presidential election in Nevada since 2012. On Monday, he released his much anticipated prediction for this cycle: that Harris would carry the state by only 0.3 percentage points — 48.5 percent to Trump’s 48.2 percent. After keeping his deeply devoted group of X followers on the edge of their seats this morning, Ralston wrote in a slightly hubristic explanation in the Nevada Independent that this is a “Unicorn Election” because of its unusual voting patterns. “I just have a feeling she will catch up here, but I also believe — and please remember this — it will not be clear who won on Election Night here, so block out the nattering nabobs of election denialism,” Ralston wrote. “It’s going to be very, very close.” OPTIMISTIC THINKING: In a call with reporters Monday, Jen O’Malley Dillon said the Harris campaign expects near-complete results from Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina by the end of election night and additional results from Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada on Wednesday and beyond. In Wisconsin, she said the campaign is expecting most results by Wednesday morning. 25 ON 1: Transportation Secretary PETE BUTTIGIEG — who competed against Harris in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary — participated in a Jubilee discussion with 25 undecided Michigan voters over the weekend. Buttigieg, one of the more talented Democratic orators within the party, made the pitch for Harris, debating the group on topics such as the economy, crime and reproductive rights. By the end of the discussion, the number of those planning to vote for Harris doubled. WHAT WILMINGTON WANTS YOU TO WATCH: Trump’s dwindling crowd sizes — which the campaign made sure to blast out throughout the day. Harris staffers reposted several reporters’ videos on the ground of Trump’s North Carolina rally today, showing supporters leaving and seats empty. Campaign spokesperson SARAFINA CHITIKA wrote on X, “Americans are over @realDonaldTrump’s revenge rallies.” Crowd sizes are obviously not an indicator of electoral success, but Harris is having no trouble bringing out supporters. Her rally in Allentown quickly reached its 2,225 person capacity. WHAT WILMINGTON DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by JACK HERRERA for POLITICO Magazine. He writes that Donald Trump’s gains with Latinos in Pennsylvania may be enough to withstand the fallout from TONY HINCHCLIFFE’s racist “island of garbage” comment. In the city of Reading — which is 68.9 percent Latino — MICHAEL RIVERA, a Republican who serves as Berks County commissioner, says that part of Trump’s appeal is the cost of living. “Under Biden, the cost of living has pressed many residents — first with inflation, and now with a hostile housing market,” Herrera writes. “That’s left people eager for change.”
| | THE WAY WE LIVE NOW: Ahead of Election Day, authorities are erecting new security fencing around the White House and the Naval Observatory, which serves as the vice president’s residence, our ADAM CANCRYN reports . The barriers are part of heightened security preparations in Washington this week, as officials brace for potential unrest in the aftermath of a presidential contest expected to come down to the wire. “These enhancements are not in response to any specific issue but are part of wide-ranging public safety preparations for Tuesday’s election,” ALEXI WORLEY, a spokesperson for the Secret Service, said in a statement.
| | WELL, IF THIS IS ANY INDICATION ... JUDY DIMON, the prominent political donor and wife of JPMorgan Chase CEO JAMIE DIMON, went canvassing in Michigan over the weekend for the Harris campaign, Bloomberg’s JUSTIN SINK reports. The JPMorgan chief executive has declined to endorse either Harris or Trump this cycle. But in private, Dimon has made it clear he’s backing the vice president and, reportedly, would consider a role in her administration. BUT WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE NEEDLE? And yes, it’s reasonable if you start your morning with your coffee and Wordle and didn’t catch this news. But early Monday, the NYT Tech Guild, which represents workers like software developers and data analysts, went on strike, the paper’s KATIE ROBERTSON reports. The two sides negotiated until late Sunday. Some of the main sticking points in recent days were whether workers could get a “just cause” provision in their contract, meaning they can be terminated only for misconduct or another similar reason; pay increases and pay equity; and return-to-office policies. The guild said it was asking readers to honor its digital picket line by not playing Times Games products, such as Wordle, and not using the Cooking app. In an email to the Times newsroom, publisher AG SULZBERGER criticized the guild for starting the strike a day before the election: “It is troubling that the Tech Guild would try to block this public service at such a consequential moment for our country.” PERSONNEL MOVES: SARAH RAOULA WIENER is now policy adviser for the Office of Gun Violence Prevention and coordinator for the staff secretary. She most recently was policy coordinator for both offices.
| | SURELY FOLKS WILL BELIEVE THIS: A top cybersecurity official said Monday that her office has not seen any evidence of election interference threats that could “materially impact” the outcome of the presidential race, Axios’ SAM SABIN reports. JEN EASTERLY , director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters in a briefing today that “our election infrastructure has never been more secure.” She added that election operators have “never been better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free and fair elections.”
| | | | ‘I Think We’re in Trouble’: Is There a Future for MAGA After Trump? (POLITICO’s David Siders) Kareem Rahma’s American Dream (NYT’s Reggie Ugwu) What Black Male Celebrities Are Saying About Kamala Harris That She Isn’t Saying Herself (POLITICO’s Teresa Wiltz) The Perfect Has Become the Enemy of the Good in Ukraine (Richard Haass for Foreign Affairs Magazine)
| | | | The 1964 presidential election saw a nation still reeling from the death of JOHN F. KENNEDY a year prior, giving LYNDON B. JOHNSON the opening for a landslide victory. Johnson received 486 electoral votes to BARRY GOLDWATER’s 52. Goldwater won just his home state of Arizona, in addition to the Deep South: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. Man, those were the days (says Eli). A CALL OUT! Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents, with a citation or sourcing, and we may feature it! Edited by Steve Shepard and Rishika Dugyala | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
