Politics

Above, a statue of Donald Trump that appearedto be leering at a sculpture of a nude woman at Maja Park in Philadelphia was removed Wednesday morning. (Photo source: Nikki Valli on X)

Mysterious statues poking fun at Trump pop up in U.S. cities

November 1, 2024

In the days leading up to the election, mysterious monuments continue to pop up in cities nationwide in the USA—poking fun at candidate Donald Trump and his supporters, reports The Guardian.

On Wednesday, October 30, in Maja Park in Philadelphia, a large statue of Trump was propped up. Titled “In Honor of a Lifetime of Sexual Assault,” the monument, shows Trump smiling and holding his hand in a suggestive manner.

The monument was quickly removed, reports Philly Voice.

On Sunday, October 28, a similar satirical statue was found in Portland, Oregon. It was beheaded that day and further damaged by a Portland city council candidate and Trump supporter, who filmed himself chipping away at the base of the statue.

Underneath the statues in Philadelphia and Portland is a plaque with Trump’s brag about his status and how it allows him to sexually assault women: “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

The Access Hollywood tape was recorded in 2005 and published by the Washington Post in 2016, a month before that year’s election. The tape’s release shook up the election, with some Republicans withdrawing their support for Trump.

The two statues, in Philadelphia and Portland, were placed behind, and next to, nude sculptures sanctioned by the respective cities.

Research contact: @guardian

Above, Tony Hinchcliffe at the Madison Square Garden rally. (Photo-source: Al-Jazeera).

Trump campaign struggles to contain Puerto Rico October surprise

October 29, 2024

The Trump campaign is struggling to contain an October surprise of its own making, just one week from Election Day, reports The Hill.

A racist remark by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe—one of many warm-up speakers for former President Donald Trump at a rally held on Sunday, October 27 at New York City’s Madison Square Garden—is reverberating hard.

Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats are working to make sure the gibe reaches the ears of as many Latino voters as possible—especially in the swing states that will decide the election.

Republicans, including Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance (Ohio), are trying to minimize the damage—either by distancing themselves from what Hinchcliffe said or by suggesting that a remark made in jest should not spark such outrage.

At the rally, Hinchcliffe referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” He also used other racist tropes, including a reference to Black people and watermelons, and a crude reference linking procreation and immigration.

The comments were slammed as offensive in their own right. But they could also have serious electoral repercussions.

The state is essentially deadlocked, with Trump leading Harris by just four-tenths of a percentage point in the polling average maintained by The Hill/Decision Desk HQ.

There are also tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans in other swing states, including Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.

Democratic operative Chuck Rocha, an expert on the Latino vote, told this column that he and a super PAC he advises, Nuestro PAC, had sent clips of Hinchcliffe’s remarks “to every Puerto Rican voter in Pennsylvania” on Monday, October 28.

Referring to the uproar and its effect on Trump’s campaign, Rocha added, “It’s an unforced error from a campaign that has no strategic vision. Puerto Rican voters are very sensitive about their island and how you talk about their island—whether they, themselves, live on that island or in Allentown.”

Allentown, about 50 miles north of Philadelphia, is described by The Philadelphia Inquirer as “a majority Latino city and home to 34,000 Puerto Ricans — the eighth-largest Puerto Rican community in America.”

Harris has been turning the screws on Trump over the remark. The vice president on Monday cited Trump’s New York event as having “highlighted a point that I’ve been making throughout this campaign. … He is focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself and on dividing our country.”

Her campaign also launched a digital ad aimed at Latino voters that began with Hinchcliffe’s words and asserted that “Puerto Ricans deserve better.”

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), who is of Puerto Rican descent, described the Madison Square Garden rally as a “hate rally” during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday morning.

On social media, Ocasio-Cortez hit back at Hinchcliffe’s defense that “these people have no sense of humor” and that his joke had been “taken out of context to make it seem racist.”

The New York congresswoman accused the comic of “feeding red-meat racism alongside a throng of other bigots to a frothing crowd.”

The reaction from the Trump campaign—and from the GOP, more broadly—suggests they are well aware of the potential damage from the furor. Trump campaign Senior Adviser Danielle Alvarez told media outlets that the comic’s comments did not “reflect the views” of the former president or his campaign.

Research contact: @thehill

Above, a number of Trump’s advisers—and Trump, himself—view background checks for security clearances with deep suspicion. (Photo source: Kenny Holston/The New York Times)

Advisers propose that Trump grant security clearances without F.B.I. vetting

October 28, 2024

A memo circulating among at least half a dozen advisers to former President Donald Trump recommends that, if he is elected, he bypass traditional background checks by law enforcement officials and immediately grant security clearances to a large number of his appointees after being sworn in, three people briefed on the matter told The New York Times this week.

The proposal is being promoted by a small group including Boris Epshteyn, a top legal adviser to Trump who was influential in its development, according to the three people. It is not clear whether Trump has seen the proposal or whether he is inclined to adopt it if he takes office.

It would allow him to quickly install loyalists in major positions without subjecting them to the risk of long-running and intrusive F.B.I. background checks, potentially increasing the risks of people with problematic histories or ties to other nations being given influential White House roles. Such checks hung up clearances for a number of aides during Trump’s presidency; including Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Epshteyn, himself.

The proposal suggests using private-sector investigators and researchers to perform background checks on Trump’s intended appointees during the transition, cutting out the role traditionally played by F.B.I. agents, the three people said.

Once Trump takes the oath of office, he would then summarily approve a large group for access to classified secrets, they said.

A number of Trump’s advisers—and the former president himself—have long viewed background checks for security clearances with deep suspicion. They believe that the process is designed to make challenges to outcomes difficult, and that personal pieces of information submitted during the vetting can be disseminated later for damaging results. Trump has long railed about the F.B.I. being part of a “deep state” conspiracy to undermine him.

But a change that would allow a president with a record of flouting norms and rules for the handling of classified material to further sidestep existing guardrails would raise new questions about the adequacy of the system protecting national security secrets.

It is not clear what positions the altered system would cover, but the people familiar with the proposal said it appeared to apply to a large number of potential Trump appointees in a second administration.

Research contact: @nytimes

Above, in the final stretch of the race, Trump again has zeroed in on immigration. (Photo source: Agence France-Presse)

Trump says USA is ‘like a garbage can for the world’ as he rails against illegal immigration

October 25, 2025

Former President Donald Trump said Thursday, October 24, that the USA is “like a garbage can for the world” as he railed against illegal immigration at a campaign rally in Arizona, reports CNN.

“We’re a dumping ground. We’re like a garbage can for the world. That’s what’s happened,” Trump said at the event in Tempe, as he criticized the Biden-Harris Administration’s handling of the border.

“Every time I come up and talk about what they’ve done to our country I get angry and angrier,” he continued. “First time I’ve ever said garbage can. But you know what? It’s a very accurate description.”

The remark, coming less than two weeks from Election Day, marks the latest escalation in Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric as he’s made border security central to his bid to return to the White House.

Trump, who has used dehumanizing language to describe undocumented immigrants since his 2016 campaign, has sought to paint undocumented immigrants in broad strokes as murderers, people from “insane asylums,” and dangerous, while regularly saying on the campaign trail that there is an “invasion” taking place.

He has promised an immigration crackdown, if reelected, saying earlier this year that he wants to deport 15 million to 20 million people—drastically higher than the 1.5 million deportations during his presidency.

He has also repeated unsubstantiated claims about Haitian immigrants eating the pets of residents in Springfield, Ohio, which were first fueled by his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance. And earlier this month, Trump suggested that undocumented immigrants who commit murder have “bad genes.”

In the final stretch of the race, Trump has zeroed in on immigration—pitching to voters that closing the border and kicking out those who illegally crossed it are the most pressing priorities for the country. And in doing so, he repeatedly blames his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, for the influx of undocumented migrants, including inaccurately casting her as being “in charge of the border.”

The Biden-Harris Administration has seen a record number of illegal border crossings, with the flow only beginning to shrink after the administration in June largely shut off access to asylum for migrants who cross the border illegally, using the same authority Trump tried to use during his time in office.

uring CNN’s town hall on Wednesday, Harris stressed that “American’s immigration system is broken” and argued that a bipartisan agreement from Congress is needed when asked if the Biden Administration should have done more on the issue sooner.

Harris also pushed back on the idea that she was soft on border security and immigration, saying “people have to earn it” in gaining American citizenship and that she wanted “to strengthen our border.”

Research contact: @CNN

Above, John Kelly, who was chief of staff to President Donald Trump, during a cabinet meeting in 2018. (Photo source: Tom Brenner for The New York Times)

As election nears, Kelly warns Trump would rule like a dictator

October 23, 2024

Few top officials spent more time behind closed doors in the White House with Donald Trump than John Kelly, the former Marine general who was the former president’s longest-serving chief of staff, reports The New York Times.

With Election Day looming, Kelly—who is deeply troubled by Trump’s recent comments about employing the military against his domestic opponents— agreed to three on-the-record, recorded discussions with a The New York Times reporter about the former president, providing some of his most wide-ranging comments yet about Trump’s fitness and character.

Kelly was Homeland Security secretary under Trump before moving to the White House in July 2017. He worked to carry out Mr. Trump’s agenda for nearly a year and a half. It was a tumultuous period in which he drew internal criticism over his own performance and grew disenchanted and distressed by conduct on the part of the president that he considered at times to be inappropriate and reflecting no understanding of the Constitution.

In the interviews, Kelly expanded on his previously expressed concerns and stressed that voters, in his view, should consider fitness and character when selecting a president, even more than a candidate’s stances on the issues.

“In many cases, I would agree with some of his policies,” he said—stressing that, as a former military officer, he was not endorsing any candidate. “But again, it’s a very dangerous thing to have the wrong person elected to high office.”

He said that, in his opinion, Trump met the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of rule of law.

He discussed and confirmed previous reports Trump had made admiring statements about Hitler, had expressed contempt for disabled veterans, and had characterized those who died on the battlefield for the United States as “losers” and “suckers”—comments first reported in 2020 by The Atlantic.

Below are excerpts from Kelly’s comments.

Kelly said that, based on his experience, Trump met the definition of a “fascist.” In response to a question about whether he thought Trump was a fascist, Kelly first read aloud a definition of fascism that he had found online. “Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said. Kelly said that definition accurately described Trump.
Kelly said Trump chafed at limitations on his power. “He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government,” Kelly said. Trump “never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world—and by power, I mean an ability to do anything he wanted, anytime he wanted,” Kelly said.
He said he was deeply troubled by Trump’s recent comments about using the military against domestic opponents. When Kelly left the White House in 2019, he decided he would speak out on the record only if Trump said something that he found deeply troubling or involved him and was wildly inaccurate. Trump’s recent comments about using the military against what he called the “enemy within” were so dangerous, he said, that he felt he had to speak out.
Using the military inside the U.S.A. “And I think this issue of using the military on—to go after— American citizens is one of those things I think is a very, very bad thing; even to say it for political purposes to get elected, I think it’s a very, very bad thing, let alone actually doing it,” Kelly said.
He said he believed Trump stood alone in his lack of understanding of history and the Constitution. Kelly said Trump lacked a fundamental understanding of basic American [who] has all but rejected what America is all about, and what makes America America, in terms of our Constitution, in terms of our values, the way we look at everything, to include family and government—he’s certainly the only president that I know of, certainly in my lifetime, that was like that,” Kelly said.

Research contact: @nytimes

Above, during his trip to Pennsylvania, Trump repeated his unsubstantiated claim that Harris lied about working at a McDonald’s in her college days. (Photo source: Doug Mills/The New York Times)

Trump, slinging fries and smearing Harris, takes turn behind a McDonald’s counter

October 22, 2024

Donald Trump walked into one of his favorite restaurants on Sunday and declared he was “looking for a job,” reports The New York Times.

He certainly is, although not the one that he occupied during the photo op that followed. Trump’s stop at the McDonald’s in suburban Philadelphia—which was closed to the public during his visit and where he briefly worked the fryer and handed bags of food to preselected drive-through customers—was a play meant to attack his opponent and give the billionaire candidate some credibility with the working-class voters he needs to win back the White House.

According to the Times, the visit married his two fixations: his well-documented affection for fast food—McDonald’s in particular—and a more recent pattern of accusing Vice President Kamala Harris without evidence of lying about a summer job working at McDonald’s.

Harris’s campaign said she worked at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California, in 1983 during the summer after her freshman year at Howard University. A friend of Harris’s recently backed up that account—telling The New York Times that the vice president’s mother, who died in 2009, had told her about the summer job years ago.

McDonald’s representatives have ignored media requests for information.

Yet Mr. Trump, known for wildly speculating about the backgrounds of his political opponents without proof, repeated the claim as he addressed reporters from a drive-through window in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania

Trump, the son of a wealthy real estate developer, told reporters he long dreamed of working at the Golden Arches and he listened attentively as an employee explained his fryer technique.

Research contact: @nytimes

Above, attorney Chris Anulewicz (foreground) speaks in front of Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox (background). (Photo source: Hyosub Shin/AJC)

Georgia judge blocks hand-count ballot rule requirement for counties

October 18, 2024

A Georgia judge invalidated several new election rules on Wednesday, October 16—saying the measures approved by the state’s Republican-controlled Election Board were “unconstitutional” and in violation of state law, reports NBC News.

The ruling, handed down by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox, applies to seven rules, including a hand-count rule for Election Day ballots and rules tied to certif ying results.

Cox wrote that the five-member board—which includes three officials lauded by by former President Donald Trump—”had no authority to implement these rules” and that the measures were “illegal, unconstitutional, and void.”

The Georgia secretary of state’s office and the State Election Board did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday night.

The lawsuit was filed by a pair of Georgia voters, including former Republican state Representative Scot Turner, who leads the election policy advocacy group, Eternal Vigilance Action, which is also named as a plaintiff in the suit. Their attorneys said in a filing last month that the board’s passage of the rules “risks destabilizing Georgia’s voting, vote counting, and vote certification process.”

Turner lauded the ruling Wednesday night on X.

“This is a victory for the Constitution and the principle of separation of powers,” he wrote. “Every conservative should see this as a win and significant pushback on an unelected board making law. We thank Judge Cox for efficiently issuing his ruling.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented civil rights groups that intervened in the case, called the ruling “a big victory for voting rights.”

The state’s new election rules have also faced significant criticism and legal challenges from the Democratic National Committee and the state Democratic Party, which sued the Election Board over the new rules in August.

Research contact: @NBCNews

Above, Bill Clinton arrives and greets the crowd at the Get Out The Vote Fish Fry in Fort Valley, Georgia on October 13. (Photo source: David Walter Banks for The New York Times)

Harris sends a secret weapon to a Georgia fish fry: Bill Clinton

October 16, 2024

The smell of fried fish was lingering on Sunday afternoon, October 13, and there was Bill Clinton beneath a tree, wearing a Harris-Walz camouflage cap and edging closer and closer to his modest audience the longer he spoke, reports The New York Times.

It was a fittingly intimate setting for Peach County, Georgia, a county where elections are decided by mere hundreds of votes. And for Clinton, who rose to power as “the man from Hope,” drawing on his Arkansas roots, it was a chance to engage in a little homespun politicking before early voting began Tuesday in Georgia, a key battleground state.

“It’s going to come down to whether you are willing to do one more time what you did when you elected not only Joe Biden and Kamala Harris four years ago, but Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff,” Clinton said, referring to the two Democrats Georgia elected to the Senate. “And if you are, we will win. And if you are not, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”

From a church service in Albany, where the former president reminisced about campaigning alongside the baseball great Hank Aaron, to the fish fry in Fort Valley attended by a few hundred people, Clinton used the opening hours of a two-day blitz to try to help Harris bump up her score wherever she can.

The fish fry, in a predominantly rural area about two hours south of Atlanta, suggested few places were too small to seek votes—even for a former president.

Clinton’s tour reflected a Democratic effort to inspire voters well beyond Atlanta and its potentially pivotal suburbs. It’s a strategy that the Harris campaign is using in several swing states, where they are chasing votes—not just in their traditional strongholds, but also trying to drive up their margins in other areas.

Former President Donald Trump will try to strike back with no fewer than three speeches in Georgia over this week and next.

Clinton’s stop in Fort Valley reinforced how tight the tallies could be in some areas. In 2020, Trump won 52% of the vote in Peach County, even as he lost the state. When he carried the county in 2016, he beat Hillary Clinton by 313 votes.

So, Clinton sought to draw a direct line from the fields of Georgia to the West Wing. (In a nod to Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, the Nebraska-born Democratic nominee for vice president, Clinton riffed about how “it will not hurt to have somebody in the vice president’s office [who] follows the price of corn and wheat and soybeans.”)

Clinton made sporadiccally wonkish detours, including a bit about the profit margins of major grocers. But from the first moments at the fish fry, where he congratulated the local college on its victory in Saturday’s homecoming game, Clinton largely pursued a strategy of familiarity, leaning on his own record in the state, naming decades-long allies and talking of long-ago campaigning.

Clinton is scheduled to campaign again in Georgia on Monday—again steering clear of Atlanta—and to headline a bus tour in rural North Carolina later in the week. But, on Sunday, Clinton argued that Georgia could all but lock up a victory for Harris.

“They’ve got one heck of a hill to climb if we do win Georgia,” Clinton said of Republicans like Trump.

“It won’t hurt … Trump to climb a few more hills,” Clinton said to roars of laughter. “I’ll even pray for him, but not to get to the top before we do.”

Research contact: @nytimes

Above, Donald Trump is plotting to overthrow American democracy.(Photo source: Democracy Docket)

‘Totally illegal’: Trump escalates rhetoric on outlawing political dissent and criticism

October 14, 2024

Donald Trump is ramping up his rhetoric depicting his political rivals and critics as criminals, while dropping a long trail of suggestions that he favors outlawing political speech that he deems misleading or challenges his claims to power, reports NBC News.

In a speech on Friday, October 11, in Aurora, Colorado, the Republican presidential nominee blasted the immigration system and lobbed a rhetorical grenade at his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

“She’s a criminal. She’s a criminal,” said Trump, who, himself, was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his New York hush money trial. “She really is, if you think about it.”

It’s a pattern of messaging that has long been part of Trump’s stump speeches, but has escalated significantly in his 2024 candidacy. In the final stretch to the November 5 election, the former president has developed a tendency to claim that speech he disapproves of is illegal, even if it is protected by the First Amendment.

A questionable cut of a “60 Minutes” Harris interview? “Totally illegal,” Trump wrote on X, saying it makes Harris look better and that CBS should have its broadcast license revoked.

The Harris campaign editing headlines in paid Google ads? “Totally Illegal,” he wrote, vowing that Google “will pay a big price” for it.

Democrats are trying to “illegally hide” part of his statement calling on rioters to be peaceful on January 6, he claimed this month.

In August, Trump told a crowd in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, that criticisms of judges who have ruled in alignment with him should be banned. “I believe it’s illegal what they do,” Trump said. “I believe they are playing the ref. They’re constantly criticizing our great—some of our greatest justices and a lot of great judges. … Playing the ref with our judges and our justices should be punishable by very serious fines and beyond that.”

‘This is out of the autocratic playbook’

An expert who studies authoritarianism and fascism said Trump’s rhetoric about criminalizing dissent is familiar, and could carry serious implications for the country if he’s elected president.

“This is out of the autocratic playbook. As autocrats consolidate their power once they’re in office, anything that threatens their power, or exposes their corruption, or releases information that’s harmful to them in any way becomes illegal,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian and professor at New York University who wrote the 2020 book “Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present.”

“He’s actually rehearsing, in a sense, what he would be doing as head of state, which is what Orban does, Modi is doing, Putin has long done,” she said, referring to the autocratic leaders of Hungary, India and Russia, respectively. “Just as there’s a divide now because of this brainwashing about who is a patriot and who is a criminal about January 6, right? In the same way, telling the truth in any area—journalists, scientists, even people like me, anybody who is engaged in objective inquiry, prosecutors, of course— they become criminal elements and they need to be shut down.”

Some Harris voters say Trump is channeling dictators. “He reminds me of Hitler and the rise to power,” said Dan Geiger, a retired Pittsburgh resident. “The more he lies the more it’s accepted by his faithful followers.”

Trump has suggested investigations involving his conduct are illegitimate under the law and vowed revenge against the prosecutors who oversee them.

Upon early revelations of his New York indictment, Trump said the prosecutor Had “ILLEGALLY LEAKED” it. And the probe into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia? “They illegally spied on my campaign.”

Trump voters have mixed views on revenge

Trump rallied a raucous crowd Wednesday in Scranton, Pennsylvania, launching personal attacks on Harris and drawing jeers and boos from a sea of red MAGA-hatted supporters as he spoke of the “enemy from within”—government officials with whom he’s clashed. He mentioned as one example Representative Adam Schiff (D-California), which sparked a “lock him up!” shout from one supporter.

But some of Trump’s own voters told NBC News they disapprove of the revenge-based themes in his campaign while still planning to support him because of their concerns about the economy and immigration.

Walter Buckman, a Scranton native, said he’s supporting Trump because of his views on immigration and the economy. But the self-described Catholic is “absolutely not” on board with his rhetoric about exacting revenge and getting even.

“The way to get even with anybody is to change the economy. Getting even should not be in the playbook,” he said. “Is revenge a good thing? It’s not a good thing.”

Debbie Hendrix, a Pennsylvanian who attended the Trump rally donning a “MAGA” hat, said she’s excited to vote for Trump a third time. But even she is put off by his talk of retribution.

“I don’t agree with that. I think people like ‘Drain the swamp,’” she said, but in her view that doesn’t mean personally going after his critics. “I don’t think he should sink to their level.”

Research contact: @NBCNews

Above, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama. (Photo source: NBC News)

Obama heads to Pennsylvania to give Harris a jolt of Democratic energy

October 10, 2024

Former President Barack Obama will headline a rally on Thursday, October 10, in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, as Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign seeks to use one of her party’s most popular politicians to mobilize the Democratic base, reports The New York Times.

Unleashing Obama is a sign that Harris is moving her campaign into its highest gear with Election Day less than a month away and the presidential race exceedingly close. This week, her operation is turning its focus from fund-raising and defining her message to getting out the vote as quickly as possible.

Obama’s rally on Thursday in Pittsburgh kick-starts that effort. And he is expected to continue rallying Democrats to the polls in several more battleground state events in the coming weeks.

“You bring in someone like Barack Obama to inspire people, to encourage them to participate, and to set the stakes and urge them to vote,” said David Axelrod, a former top strategist for Mr. Obama. “There’s no one better.”

Encouraging early voting is a key campaign strategy. As more Democrats cast their ballots early, it becomes easier for the Harris campaign to find and turn out the voters who are harder to reach.

Early voting has already begun in Pennsylvania, which Harris must almost certainly win to defeat former President Donald Trump. She holds a narrow lead in the polls there, having overcome the significant deficit she inherited from President Biden. Democrats are hoping for high voter turnout in the state’s biggest cities, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

But there are some worrying signs: Harris’s support among Black voters, for instance, is still lower than what Biden received when he won the state in 2020, according to a poll last month from The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Siena College.

Black men in particular have been a weak point for Harris, and the vocal support of Obama, the first Black president, could help her there.

“He’s the biggest gun that Democrats have in their arsenal,” said Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who worked on Obama’s presidential campaigns. “And here at the close, you’ve got to use the biggest gun you’ve got.”

“They’ve got to release the kraken,” said James Carville, a veteran Democratic strategist—adding that the Harris campaign should be using Obama and other high-profile surrogates more aggressively. “He’s got, obviously, tremendous appeal to Black voters. He has tremendous appeal to suburban whites, which is another big part of the coalition. And he drives Trump nuts.”

Only Michelle Obama polls similarly well. The Harris campaign has not yet said if the former first lady will hit the trail in the last weeks of the election. Many Democrats saw Mrs. Obama’s speech as one of the sharpest at their national convention this summer, but she has long been reluctant to spend much time on the campaign trail.

The pivot by the campaign toward exhortations to vote comes as it adopts a far more aggressive media outreach strategy. This week, Harris appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and on the podcast “Call Her Daddy”—and sat down for friendly discussions with Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert, and the hosts of ABC’s “The View.”

Harris also has begun incorporating directives for supporters to not wait to return their ballots. Last Friday in Flint, Michigan, she reminded the audience that nearly two million voters in the state had already received their absentee ballots.

“If you have received your ballot, please do not wait,” she said. “Fill it out and return it today. Early voting starts statewide on October 26, and now is the time to make your plan to vote because, folks, the election is here.”

Research contact: @nytimes