--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Welcome to Red, White, and Who. I'm Ryan Knutson.
--:-- Molly Ball: And I'm Molly Ball.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It's Friday, September 13th.
--:-- Molly Ball: Coming up on the show, a big debate in a major swing state.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And before we get to that, let's talk about cats. I thought you were going to bring your cat. Bring my cat to the recording studio? Yes. He's a little shy. He preferred to stay home today. My cat is 20 years old. Oh, wow. Yeah. What's your cat's name? His name is Heavy. I like the name Heavy. That's fun. So the reason that I'm asking you about your cat is because it feels like we've constantly been talking about cats in this election. First with J.D. Vance's comments that resurfaced about childless cat ladies. And then Donald Trump talking about cats and dogs in the debate this week. And then Taylor Swift said that she was voting for Kamala Harris by posting a photo of herself with her cat. Yeah, you might say it was the through feline of the debate.
--:-- Molly Ball: Got more where that came from, Ryan. Get used to it. It's mostly just a coincidence, but the reason they were really in the news this week is because Donald Trump brought them up at the debate. It seems to have originated in like a Facebook post, basically an urban legend that Trump seized on and brought up in the debate and insisted was true, even though the moderators correctly pointed out it is not true as far as we know. This idea that there's a small town in Ohio that has been overrun with migrants and they are eating people's pets. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: All right, so we didn't just come here to talk about cats and dogs this week. There was also a debate that took place in a very important swing state. So let's get into it.
--:-- [Sound effects: Debate crowd noise]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: From the Journal, this is Red, White, and Who. Our show about the road to the White House.
--:-- Molly Ball: Our show about the road to the White House.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I'm Ryan Knutson.
--:-- Molly Ball: And I'm Molly Ball.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It's Friday, September 13th.
--:-- Molly Ball: Coming up on the show, a big debate in a major swing state.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And before we get to that, let's talk about the debate. I watched the debate, and I was flipping back and forth between the channels afterward, the news networks, and a lot of the people on the panels were talking about how Harris won this debate. Kamala Harris pitched a shutout on almost every subject I can think of.
--:-- Molly Ball: People on the right, of course, are saying that she wasn't that strong, that Trump won, that he was up against the moderators, that it was a three-on-one. ABC moderators targeted Trump with tougher questions, more follow-ups, and nonstop corrections.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: What's your take on how this debate played out for Trump and Harris?
--:-- Molly Ball: I don't think there's any question that Harris won this debate. That seems to be the consensus. That was certainly my take, although, you know, it wasn't a knockout. It certainly wasn't as overwhelmingly obvious as the Trump-Biden debate back in June.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Republicans are pretty openly admitting that Trump didn't do well in this debate, that she successfully baited him and got under his skin.
--:-- Molly Ball: And Democrats are very, very happy with how the debate turned out.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: How much do you think it matters that Trump didn't have a strong performance, given how his supporters feel about him?
--:-- Molly Ball: Well, first of all, his supporters aren't the ones he needs to reach. They're, by definition, already voting for him anyway, right? Both of these candidates are trying to reach swing voters, trying to reach undecided voters.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It was quite a large audience for this debate. The early ratings data that I seen shows about 67 million people tuned into this debate. So it a big audience. This is the audience of general election voters who may not have been paying attention until now.
--:-- Molly Ball: And Harris was trying to paint a picture of him as someone who is too focused on himself to focus on governing, to focus on the needs of the American people.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: She's trying to convince people that he's the one who's fixated on the past and who's fixated on personal grievance.
--:-- Molly Ball: And she's the one who is, in her phrase, for the people.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And so he sort of validated her frame by continuing to talk about the past, to talk about his personal grievances, to talk, again, in largely untrue terms about the things that he's personally obsessed with, instead of talking about the issues where people think he may have a better idea than her, the issues where he's more trusted.
--:-- Molly Ball: And then the other thing that Harris was hoping to illustrate about Trump was just his temperament.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And this is, again, this is the number one qualm that voters have about him, even a lot of voters who might feel inclined to support him.
--:-- Molly Ball: And so that was really on full display in the debate.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And that's part of the reason that Republicans were so dismayed by his performance.
--:-- Molly Ball: A lot of voters were saying that they felt like they needed to see more from Kamala Harris, you know, going into this debate about her policies and how she would govern.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Do you think that she did enough to make voters feel comfortable that they got an answer on that as to what type of president she would be and what her policies are?
--:-- Molly Ball: This to me is the main asterisk on Harris's win in the debate.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: You're right. I and many other people went into this debate seeing it as an important moment for her to fill in the blanks that are still in the minds of a lot of voters about her.
--:-- Molly Ball: And the debate was so much about Trump. She was talking about him. He was talking about him.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And so to the extent that people were tuning in wanting to know more about her, they may have felt like they didn't get those questions answered.
--:-- Molly Ball: Our reporter, Sabrina Siddiqui, reached out to several undecided voters for an article that we published asking them, did you feel like you learned enough from the debate to make up your mind?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And quite a few of these voters who are still on the fence, they said, yes, she won the debate. Yes, she did a better job. Yes, I didn't like the way he came across.
--:-- Molly Ball: But I still don't feel like I got my questions answered. I still don't feel like I know enough about her.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So that to me was the number one missed opportunity for her, was really filling in that definition that for a lot of undecided voters is still a bit of an unknown.
--:-- Molly Ball: So we talked earlier about Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris and the cat photo that she put out.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But I'm curious to get your take on how much do you think this endorsement will matter?
--:-- Molly Ball: I think it matters. I'm not a Swifty, but I live with one.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And she is not old enough to vote, but she certainly listens to everything Taylor Swift says.
--:-- Molly Ball: That's not to say she would do anything Taylor Swift told her to do, but it was interesting the way Taylor Swift worded this endorsement, right?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: She talked about it as being a response to disinformation, specifically the AI images that Trump has promoted that make it look like she supports Trump.
--:-- Molly Ball: And so she's framing this as this isn't me, you know, being an activist and wanting to get involved in politics.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I was sort of dragged into it by people misrepresenting me and my views.
--:-- Molly Ball: And she encouraged people to register and vote.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And it certainly wasn't any surprise which way she was going to go in this election.
--:-- Molly Ball: She endorsed Joe Biden in 2020.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We know that she is a liberal on these issues and cares a lot about particularly gay rights and women's rights.
--:-- Molly Ball: But I think the combination of the incredible following she has and her ability to communicate with a lot of people who might not hear that message otherwise and the way she worded the endorsement has the potential to be really powerful.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And then, of course, there's the cat, which is a very cute cat.
--:-- Molly Ball: And she signed the post childless cat lady, which appeared to be a clapback to something that Donald Trump's vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance said a few years ago when he was criticizing the Democratic Party as being made up of, you know, childless cat ladies.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But it really reminded me in that moment of Hillary Clinton's comment from 2016 about, you know, Trump supporters being this basket of deplorables that really became a rallying cry on the right for Trump supporters.
--:-- Molly Ball: I think that's a really good comparison, actually, because candidates say a lot of things.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But sometimes there will be one thing that people latch on to as the one thing they know about that candidate.
--:-- Molly Ball: And for Vance, who, you know, was new on the national stage when he got picked to be Trump's running mate and who people didn't really know much about, this seems to be the thing that's really penetrated, you know, pop culture, taken off outside the political media to the point where it's something that I think regular people who don't know anything else about J.D. Vance, it's the one thing they know about him.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And it has become a rallying cry.
--:-- Molly Ball: You saw T-shirts at the Democratic Convention, people waving, you know, childless cat ladies for Harris signs.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So let's talk about where this debate took place which is the state of Pennsylvania.
--:-- Molly Ball: Last time we spoke you talked about how important Pennsylvania is in this election that it essentially a must win for both candidates.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Can you say more about why that is? Why is it that Pennsylvania became so important in this election?
--:-- Molly Ball: Well, bottom line is it a big swing state.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And any big swing state is going to be important.
--:-- Molly Ball: James Carville once memorably described Pennsylvania as two big cities with Alabama in the middle.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So you have Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, both Democratic strongholds, and then rural Pennsylvania, which is deep, deep, deep red, very conservative.
--:-- Molly Ball: And the crucial swing counties are all those suburban areas around the two big cities.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And because it's such a large state, it has a lot of electoral votes.
--:-- Molly Ball: So both candidates are going to be focused very, very intensely on the state of Pennsylvania.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And interestingly, I saw some data that said that the ratings for the debate were highest in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, that those were the parts of the country where the most people tuned in to watch the debate.
--:-- Molly Ball: So to the extent that both campaigns are trying to communicate with people in this big important swing state, they got their wish in Pennsylvania with the debate.
--:-- [Sound effects: Debate crowd noise]
--:-- Rachel Humphries: Hi, Ryan. Hi, Molly. Yes. So you spoke to voters in Pennsylvania this week, and the polls show that this state is incredibly tight.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I think Harris has less than a one percentage point lead over Trump at the moment, so basically tied.
--:-- Rachel Humphries: What did you hear from voters there?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Yeah, I talked to voters across the state, some Trump supporters, some Harris supporters, and an undecided voter.
--:-- Rachel Humphries: And I asked them what they made of the debate.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Now, the Trump supporters said they thought he could have done better.
--:-- Rachel Humphries: And one was surprised by how much Harris managed to get under his skin.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But they both made the point that they felt ABC was biased towards Harris and actually made the debate harder for Trump.
--:-- Rachel Humphries: What about the Harris supporters?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Yeah, one that I spoke to, she described herself as being a supporter of Harris, quote, a thousand percent.
--:-- Rachel Humphries: But after watching the debate, she still felt that she wanted to know more about Harris's policies, that she had been a bit lacking in detail on those.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And she's really hoping that we can hear that before Election Day.
--:-- Rachel Humphries: And you also spoke with someone who is still somewhat on the fence.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Yeah, I spoke to Lou Pintarelli earlier this week, and he's from Philadelphia.
--:-- Rachel Humphries: So I live in suburban Philadelphia right now. I come from South Philadelphia.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: South Philadelphia has pockets of pro-Trump places and some pockets of very liberal places.
--:-- Rachel Humphries: From my experience, just driving around and seeing the signs, I do feel more support for Harris this cycle.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And before Tuesday night's debate, did you know who you were going to vote for?
--:-- Rachel Humphries: I was leaning very strongly toward Vice President Harris.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Have you changed how you feel about that after the debate?
--:-- Rachel Humphries: Yeah, I'm going to vote for Vice President Harris.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I liked seeing the contrast between the two candidates really sort of put into perspective.
--:-- Rachel Humphries: I thought she was excellent compared to how former President Trump was not answering questions and rambling about conspiracies and worried about his crowd size and stuff like that.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And that's not, you know, stuff I want in a leader.
--:-- Rachel Humphries: So Molly, as usual, it seems turnout is going to be so important for the Trump and Harris campaigns in Pennsylvania this year.
--:-- Molly Ball: It's going to be about the ground game.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It's going to be about, I remember, you know, in 2016, Hillary Clinton had a rally that was also a concert with Beyonce and Jay-Z.
--:-- Molly Ball: So you're going to see that kind of thing where the campaigns are bringing their most impressive surrogates to the state to try to turn out their voters.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: You know who's from Pennsylvania, though?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Taylor Swift.
--:-- Molly Ball: She is originally, isn't she?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Yeah. Didn't she grow up on a Christmas tree farm?
--:-- Molly Ball: Mm-hmm.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: In Pennsylvania.
--:-- Molly Ball: I do know some swift trivia.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: All right. Thanks, Rachel, so much for speaking to those voters.
--:-- Molly Ball: Molly, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to talk about a different state, Nebraska.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I'm looking forward to it.
--:-- Molly Ball: Today we helped a Latte for Sam coffee shop get an insurance quote simply and easily and made sure a floral delivery van was able to make someone's day.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We're the Hartford, with decades of experience insuring millions of unique small businesses.
--:-- Molly Ball: When it comes to your small business insurance, one size absolutely does not fit all.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Get a quote or find an agent today at thehartford.com slash smallbusiness.
--:-- Molly Ball: Why shop at Burlington? Maybe it's the deals that are new each time you drop by.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Maybe it's the brand names you'll be shocked Burlington has in store.
--:-- Molly Ball: Or maybe it's the quality of the items, the amazing selection, and the newest trends.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: If you like to save but also like to stay in style, Burlington is your answer.
--:-- Molly Ball: And the question you'll be asking yourself is, why go anywhere else?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Burlington. Deals. Brands. Wow.
--:-- Molly Ball: All right. So Molly, are you ready for our listener question?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I am.
--:-- Molly Ball: This one comes from Stephanie Rose in Omaha Nebraska.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Hi Molly I was wondering if a state like Nebraska where it's winner take all could significantly affect the election.
--:-- Molly Ball: Thanks. So just to clarify for some listeners who may not know, Nebraska is one of two states, the other one being Maine, that it's not a winner take all for their electoral votes.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: They split it up.
--:-- Molly Ball: Can you explain what that means exactly? How does that work?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Yes. And can I just say, I love our listeners and I love the questions that they have been sending us.
--:-- Molly Ball: They're always so interesting and an opportunity to talk about stuff that's a little bit not in the news, but super important and interesting.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So, yes, the Electoral College, every state gets a certain number of electoral votes.
--:-- Molly Ball: And in 48 states, they give all of their electoral votes to the person who won the popular vote in that state.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But in two states, they split up the votes geographically based on the winner of each congressional district in the state.
--:-- Molly Ball: So in Maine and Nebraska, they may give some electoral votes to one candidate, but one electoral vote to the other.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Nebraska, a big red state, but there is one congressional district around Omaha that swings back and forth between the parties that Joe Biden won in 2020.
--:-- Molly Ball: So all the electoral votes in Nebraska went to Trump except that one that went to Joe Biden.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So Nebraska could play a big role, and they've been putting up these blue dot signs around the state to symbolize the fact that Omaha has the potential to be a blue dot in a sea of red.
--:-- Molly Ball: And given how close this election is, given how close the electoral map is, it is possible that it could be the deciding vote in the presidential election.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Just that one electoral vote?
--:-- Molly Ball: It's possible.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There are some scenarios, and I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole here, but there's a scenario where if Kamala Harris wins the blue wall states of the upper Midwest, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, but loses all the Sun Belt states, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona, you potentially get a tie and that single electoral vote in Nebraska could be the deciding vote.
--:-- Molly Ball: Wow. So Stephanie's vote in Omaha, Nebraska might really, really matter then.
--:-- Molly Ball: And both campaigns are acting this way.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Tim Walsh was born and grew up in Nebraska.
--:-- Molly Ball: He has been there to campaign.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And this is part of the reason that even though it's a red state that has the potential to help the Democrats, Nebraska still hasn't changed this sort of quirk of its electoral laws.
--:-- Molly Ball: They like the attention. They like that they're politically important in a small and marginal way.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Well, I was going to ask, why would a state even want to split their electoral votes? Like, where does this idea come from?
--:-- Molly Ball: And is there a chance that more states might do it?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I don't know the full political history, and I haven't heard of any other state wanting to do this.
--:-- Molly Ball: Again, because most states are either pretty blue or pretty red, so they don't want to take the chance of potentially taking votes away from the candidate that they support.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We're going to do a whole episode on the Electoral College in the coming weeks, because it is so fascinating and so controversial and I'm getting so many interesting questions from listeners about it.
--:-- Molly Ball: But before we go, I do want to look forward a little bit to the next week and the next coming weeks.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The candidates have now each had their conventions. There has now been the debate.
--:-- Molly Ball: What's left on the to-do list for each candidate over the next several weeks before the election?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We are now in the homestretch of the campaign.
--:-- Molly Ball: Both candidates went from the debate direct to the swing states.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: They're going to be campaigning very aggressively.
--:-- Molly Ball: You're going to see them doing events nonstop.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There's going to be a vice presidential debate on October 1st.
--:-- Molly Ball: So it's going to be an exciting several weeks.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Thanks so much, Molly. It's great to talk to you.
--:-- Molly Ball: I'll let you get home to your cat.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I'm going to go walk my dog.
--:-- Molly Ball: Sounds good.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Meow.
--:-- Molly Ball: All right, we'll see you next week.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Thanks, Ryan.
--:-- Molly Ball: Before we go, I want to ask you a question. Are you planning to vote by mail this year?
--:-- Molly Ball: Do you think it matters at all how people vote?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Send us an email or voice message to thejournal at wsj.com.
--:-- Molly Ball: That's thejournal at wsj.com.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Red, White, and Who is part of The Journal, a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.
--:-- Molly Ball: Our senior producer is Rachel Humphries.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Our producer is Pierce Singing.
--:-- Molly Ball: Our editor is Katherine Whelan.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Production help from Laying Tong.
--:-- Molly Ball: I'm Ryan Knutson.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: This episode was engineered by Peter Leonard.
--:-- Molly Ball: Our theme music is by So Wiley and remixed by Peter Leonard.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Additional music by Emma Munger.
--:-- Molly Ball: Fact-checking by Amelia Schoenbeck.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Artwork by James Walton.
--:-- Molly Ball: Special thanks to Kate Leinbaugh, Sarah Platt, Ben Pershing, and the whole Journal team.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Thanks for listening.
--:-- Molly Ball: We'll be back with another episode of Red, White, and Who next Friday morning.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: See you then.
--:-- Molly Ball: I did not get in nearly as many cat puns as I was hoping, unfortunately.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I'm disappointed.
--:-- Molly Ball: I thought you would have just been... Which other ones do you have, Molly?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Oh, I don't know.
--:-- Molly Ball: I had... Perfect is the obvious one, right? If you can get that one in there.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Yeah, perfect or catastrophe.
--:-- Molly Ball: Feline great, you know.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Yeah. More than one way to swing a cat.
--:-- Molly Ball: Just skin a cat, I mean.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Swing a cat, though. That's right for this election.
--:-- Molly Ball: Yeah, a swing cat.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Are there any swing cats left out in the electorate?
--:-- Molly Ball: You can't swing a cat in the state of Pennsylvania without hitting a swing voter, I've heard.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: [laughs]
--:-- Molly Ball: [laughs]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: [theme music starts playing]
--:-- Molly Ball: [theme music continues to play]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: [theme music fades out]
