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michael barbaro

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OK, that was a lot. I admit it. Thank you for hearing me out. Thank you most of all for listening to this show. Like I said, we’re going to be saying a lot more about this in the coming days. But if you want more information in the meantime, you can go to nytimes.com/podcasts.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

For “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

archived recording 1

You called out former President Donald Trump for spreading misinformation about the federal response to Hurricane Helene.

michael barbaro

In the campaign for president this was the week when back-to-back natural disasters became an inescapable part of the race —

archived recording 2

We are thrilled that joining us right now, for her very first talk show appearance —

michael barbaro

— when Kamala Harris chose to meet the press —

archived recording 3

My fellow Americans, my guest tonight is the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.

michael barbaro

— and when Donald Trump faced new and serious accusations of cozying up to Russia’s president. In journalist Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book, “War,” he details a close relationship between former President Trump and Putin.

We tried to make sense of all of that with three of my colleagues — chief political analyst Nate Cohn, the host of “The Times” campaign podcast, “The Run-Up,” Astead Herndon, and senior political correspondent Maggie Haberman.

It’s Thursday, October 10.

So here we are, round table number three.

nate cohn

Historic. Almost getting routine.

michael barbaro

Almost ritualistic. And with me, three of the greats, Maggie Haberman, Astead, Herndon, Nate Cohn. Thank you all for joining us.

nate cohn

Thanks for having us.

astead herndon

Yeah, thank you.

maggie haberman

Thank you, Michael.

michael barbaro

I just want to start by acknowledging when we’re having this conversation at the outset, something I wish I had done last week, because news changes between the time we tape these conversations and when they run. It is about 1:00 PM on Wednesday, before Hurricane Milton has made landfall.

This is a huge and dangerous storm that, as with Hurricane Helene, will no doubt become a human tragedy and, inevitably, I suspect, enter this campaign. As of right now, it hasn’t made landfall, and that hasn’t happened. But, Maggie, based on how Donald Trump handled Hurricane Helene last week, how quickly should we expect this storm — and I know this is weird to even say — but how quickly do we expect this storm to become political, or politicized?

maggie haberman

I think probably before it hits. And we’re still in the before it hits window. But Donald Trump doesn’t usually wait until events happen to cast his view of how they should play out. Remember, his campaign headquarters is in Florida.

michael barbaro

Hmm.

maggie haberman

He lives in Florida. So I think that he will have all kinds of things to say about it. And he has made very plain that he is willing to say all kinds of things that are not true about the storm response to Helene. And —

michael barbaro

And just remind us what he did because I think maybe past may be prologue in this case.

maggie haberman

So he’s been describing the Biden administration as sending FEMA money to undocumented migrants as opposed to using it for storm relief.

michael barbaro

Any evidence of that?

maggie haberman

There’s certainly evidence that money has been used from FEMA for undocumented migrants, but he is linking these things, and they are not related. He is describing a disaster relief effort as inefficient and poor when the governors involved here in North Carolina and Georgia really are not saying that. He claimed that the governor of Georgia couldn’t get through to the president, which wasn’t true. And so it’s been on and on and on like this. And the point is to see the idea that there is an incompetent response.

michael barbaro

Of which, of course, Kamala Harris, in theory, is a part of.

maggie haberman

Right, and so because he has been trying to tie Harris to Biden and make her own everything that happens in the administration. And so that’s the political advantage, although, frankly, I think he’d be doing it anyway. But I expect you will see more of the same.

michael barbaro

Nate, the two states most directly affected by these back-to-back storms, they matter —

nate cohn

They do.

michael barbaro

— on a map where only a few states matter, North Carolina, Georgia, now Florida. Does this actually, potentially, impact who votes, how many people vote, the outcome?

nate cohn

I think the short answer is yes. In a close election, anything can make a difference. And here we’re talking about a wide swath of a critical battleground state where people still don’t have electricity. They may not be in their homes anymore.

michael barbaro

North Carolina.

nate cohn

North Carolina. It is extremely difficult to measure what the effect of that will be. So, not only do we not know whether the response to the storm has had an effect on public opinion, we also don’t know whether these people will be available to vote in the numbers that many people would have expected in Raleigh and Charlotte and also in the predominantly Black population centers of Eastern North Carolina.

As for Florida, it’s hard to see a huge electoral consequence there. That state has drifted off the top tier battleground state list. Trump won the state comfortably in 2020. The Democrats haven’t contested it vigorously in 2024. And our most recent poll found Donald Trump with a surprisingly large double-digit lead. So it is not likely that any political fallout there will have any bearing on the overall outcome of the election.

michael barbaro

OK, since you brought it up, I want to turn to the latest round of “Times” polling. I think, Nate, it makes sense for you to start with the big top line findings. You described this latest Times/Siena poll as nine polls in one, which seems like a mathematical impossibility. But briefly describe what we found and why it matters.

nate cohn

Briefly, Kamala Harris led the poll nationwide by 4 points. It’s the best showing that Harris has had in a Times/Siena national poll this cycle. Almost everything under the hood looked better for her than usual.

A surprisingly large share of 9 percent of Republicans said that they intended to vote for her. She was doing better, though not necessarily great, among young and nonwhite voters in some of our previous polls. This is one of the best set of results we’ve produced for Harris.

It is worth noting, though, that even if Harris does win the national vote by 4 points, it, in no way, assures her of victory. Biden won by 4 and 1/2 points last time, and he only barely squeaked by in the critical battleground state. So although it’s a good result for her, it’s still fundamentally consistent with a coin flip.

michael barbaro

I found interesting from this poll and am surprised you did not mention it, that Kamala Harris is now seen, or considered, much more than she has been in the past, the change candidate. That seems significant. Astead, to the degree that that’s true — and, Nate, you can fact-check that — how do we think Kamala Harris pulled that off? She’s the incumbent vice president. The challenge always seemed to be to rival Trump as an embodiment of newness and change in this race.

astead herndon

Well, I think Harris benefits from the fact that she hasn’t been president before and she is not 80 years old, nor a man, right? I think that all of those things —

michael barbaro

That’s change.

astead herndon

All of those things represent a change in the office that wouldn’t have been there before. I think the poll is a reflection of a premise that Democrats and the Biden-turned Harris campaign has had for a while, which is that as this election will get closer, people will get more scared about Donald Trump —

michael barbaro

Hmm.

astead herndon

— and that issues like abortion will become more tangible to folks and rise on their priority list, particularly in those battlegrounds that we’re talking about. And so I think if you’re the Harris campaign, that’s been the card that you’ve been trying to play the whole time. I think right now, they’re basically running the playbook they want. And so I think if you look at that poll and you’re them, there are signs that it could be, quote unquote, “working.” But I think it still presumes 51-49.

michael barbaro

And what’s wrong with that presumption or right about it?

astead herndon

I guess we’re talking about differences in the degree. So I don’t really have a great answer for you because I don’t know if she has landed the brand of change candidate. I think as of right now, she is doing better with the electorate on that specific question. But I think that’s the question that this all hinges on.

maggie haberman

No, I agree with that. Astead is absolutely right. We are seeing the Biden-Harris theory of the case congealing, to some extent, right, that, basically, this is the later stage of a general election.

A lot of voters have not been tuned in. A lot of people have tuned out of politics to a great extent since 2020 and are now paying more attention, just in this final stage. But what it means, I don’t know. Nate would be much smarter on this than I am. But —

michael barbaro

He’s smarter than all of us.

maggie haberman

Well, on everything —

nate cohn

No, no.

maggie haberman

— really, but certainly on what I’m about to say. There is a scenario that some pollsters have privately described to me where Harris could win by the popular vote by a smaller margin than Biden or Hillary Clinton did, but still eke out a victory in the battlegrounds. And that is not something we have seen before. But, Nate, tell me if you think I’m wrong.

nate cohn

I don’t think you’re wrong. And I think our Florida poll is part of that.

michael barbaro

Just explain that, because we just talked about how Florida’s no longer a swing state. So why do you keep referring to Florida as if it’s somehow revealing?

nate cohn

Well, Maggie mentioned that Harris might do worse than prior Democratic candidates in noncompetitive states while holding up in the core battlegrounds. If that were to be true, you would expect to see polls where Donald Trump’s doing pretty darn well in a state like Florida, where he will rack up additional votes in the popular vote, but no additional electoral votes.

In the electoral college, it doesn’t matter whether Trump wins Florida by 3 or 14, but if you make a 10-point gain in Florida, if you make a 10-point gain in New York, where the polls also show Donald Trump doing very well, those two states alone shave a whole point off of Harris’s potential lead in the popular vote. And there could be other states out there like that.

One thing that I think we saw in the 2022 midterm election is that the issues of the last few years, starting with the coronavirus, the backlash against woke, crime, immigration, abortion, January 6, all these issues were felt very differently in different parts of the country. We saw Florida go to the right. We saw Pennsylvania go to the left in the midterm election.

And I think we — I, at least, at the time, interpreted that as about the issues that the particular candidates were running on. And I think that as more polls come out in this general election, it seems like it was more than that. It seems like the upheaval in American life after the pandemic and during the pandemic had a lasting impact on different parts of the country.

And that may mitigate Harris’s advantage in the popular vote. And it may not do as much in the battleground states, especially if something like Donald Trump trying to steal the last election left a bigger mark on the people whose votes were trying to be flipped.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm. I just want to make sure I understand what you’re saying. Trump could be doing better and better in a place like Florida and seemingly leave Kamala Harris in the dust. And you’re saying, don’t mistake that for actually meaning she’s struggling in the battleground states. She might still be doing better there because culturally, politically, they are just less likely to drift into some of these more extreme swings.

nate cohn

I think that’s right. And I actually think that some of it’s about the way that these states experienced the pandemic and its aftermath. Floridians came out of that experience apparently being much more skeptical of the views of the establishment left. And the same experience didn’t happen in Pennsylvania. And in fact, they may have had the exact opposite takeaway from their experiences there.

michael barbaro

That’s really interesting.

nate cohn

And I think that all of this may have happened long before the election, given that we saw all of this in the midterms, where the Republicans won the House popular vote, but nearly lost the House.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm. I want to talk about how Kamala Harris is trying to win these battleground states where her chances seem relatively good. She went on a uncharacteristic media blitz this past week.

archived recording (alex cooper)

Daddy Gang, I went to Washington, DC, to interview Vice President Kamala Harris.

archived recording 4

Welcome back to “All the Smoke.” We got a very special guest today. Very excited to sit down and talk to Ms. Madame Vice President —

archived recording (kamala harris)

Thank you.

archived recording 4

— Kamala.

archived recording (kamala harris)

It is so good to be with you.

archived recording 4

Thank you for sitting down with us.

archived recording (kamala harris)

It feels immodest to me to talk about myself, which, apparently, I’m doing right now.

archived recording 4

Right. But you have to, right?

archived recording (kamala harris)

Yeah, you do. You do.

archived recording 4

I mean, this is it. You’re running for office.

michael barbaro

Astead, I want to talk about why she went on this media blitz. A lot has been made of the shows that she chose to go on. Obviously, “The Daily” was not one of them.

astead herndon

Or “The Run-Up.”

michael barbaro

Or “The Run-Up.”

maggie haberman

Her loss.

michael barbaro

Invitations lost in the mail. But I think it’s important to note that each of them had a very specific constituency, but then also to just kind of tackle the totality of what she’s up to.

astead herndon

Yeah, I mean, I think you’re referring to her recent appearances on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast and also “All the Smoke” that she did —

michael barbaro

Not to mention “The View” and “The Colbert Show” and Howard Stern.

astead herndon

“The View,” “Colbert Show.”

nate cohn

Howard Stern.

astead herndon

Howard Stern. I think it is clear that the Harris campaign sees this effort as their attempts to win low propensity voters, those types of people —

michael barbaro

Low propensity, meaning not likely to vote.

astead herndon

Not likely to vote. And so, I think that the media strategy reflects a core belief of what the campaign has been saying for a long time, which is they don’t think traditional and mass media are the ways that they reach those people.

And so, I don’t think it’s surprising that in the final month, they’re really ramping up some of those appearances. I guess I think these things work on multiple fronts. I think some of the journalists whining about it are just being whiny —

michael barbaro

Are you talking about me?

astead herndon

— because of our access —

michael barbaro

Are you talking about me?

astead herndon

— and stuff.

nate cohn

Hardly the first time.

astead herndon

Right. I think we could call some of our people out. It’s been ridiculous. But I also think that we can’t act like this is just a good faith effort on their part. It makes a lot of sense of why they’re doing the shows. But this comes as they’ve done less and less of traditional media.

And so when we see a Harris candidate have electorate saying they don’t know a lot about her or that they wish that her policy was more fleshed out, some of that, I think, is a response to not feeling like they’ve got some of those more traditional answers.

And so I guess I’m saying I understand why they’re doing it, but I also don’t think it solves a core problem. It is an attempt to reach a different type of audience. But turning those people into voters is only one thing they have to do. Answering the core questions about her beliefs and ideology is another thing they have to do. And so I think that the nontraditional stops succeed on the former, but don’t really help the latter.

michael barbaro

Nate, you and I have talked about this concept that for quite some time, Kamala Harris avoided what felt like a lot of opportunities to tell a story of her candidacy. And this clearly seemed like a corrective.

And one thing that you said to me — I think it was last week, we were just chit chatting — you talked about the value of just giving people something to attach themselves to about a candidate, which, of course, Donald Trump has done for years.

In watching some of these interviews that Kamala Harris did, I found what seemed like ample opportunities to grab hold of some humanity. I’m thinking of the moment that Stephen Colbert asked her to look at a portrait of herself with her hand under her chin from the first debate with Donald Trump.

archived recording (stephen colbert)

This moment went viral from the debate. Can you tell us what you’re thinking at this moment right here?

michael barbaro

And he asked her, what were you thinking in this now iconic photo? And she had a very funny answer. She said —

archived recording (kamala harris)

It’s family TV, right?

It starts with a W. There’s a letter in between. And then the end, the last letter is F.

michael barbaro

And that is a changed strategy from the kind of more bunkered Kamala Harris that I think you and I were talking about when we had that conversation.

nate cohn

Yeah, there are a lot of different ways that a candidate can forge a real connection with a voter, much in the same way as we can all have different bases for our friendships. We could like shared activities, or we can enjoy someone’s intellect.

michael barbaro

Or be competitive like Maggie and I, yeah.

nate cohn

A politician can forge a personal tie. They can do it on policy. And I think that it’s worth giving Harris some credit for having a lot of the softer and more superficial aspects of appeal down, all the way to not having a major scandal against her.

michael barbaro

Hmm.

nate cohn

These are things that we often take for granted, but a lot of politicians have a lot more personal baggage hung around their necks by now. If you want to convince yourself that Harris is a bad person, the Trump campaign hasn’t really given you a lot of material. And I think it makes sense for Harris to lean in to her personal attributes, because that’s a strength for her.

astead herndon

And it’s a big change from four years ago. They really had to convince her. It’s clear that there has been some success in convincing her to do more of the kind of opening up personally.

But I would just say, from my perspective, I don’t run into people who don’t think Kamala Harris is not a nice person or a good person. The question I always get is about substance.

michael barbaro

A question she has left somewhat unanswered.

nate cohn

Yeah, I think a key question to me is when we ask voters whether they have a favorable view of her, and they often say, yes. A majority of voters in this poll say they have a favorable view of her, but they don’t support her. Is that a “I like Kamala Harris and I’m just going to wait for more, and she’ll seal the deal,” or is there a but there, where I like her, but she’s a lightweight, and I don’t buy that she can handle the job?

And I don’t think we’re going to know the answer to that till the end. But I think it’s fair to say that no one really thinks she has a great angle for tackling that specific question down the stretch.

maggie haberman

I mean, just to state the obvious here, it’s number one in our poll. She has closed the gap somewhat with Trump on the economy issue. It is not as pronounced as it was before. So she is making some headway, number one.

But number two, the but that Nate is talking about, the unstated variable there is she is a woman. And I don’t know how much this factors into people’s thinking, whether they would ever voice that or not. In some cases, they obviously would.

But there’s also this basic asymmetry going on where we’re sort of talking about how she needs to provide more substance, and she needs to be clearer. And I think all of those things are true. But she’s also running against somebody who rants for an hour and a half at a rally three days a week about sharks or this or that or the other. And it’s the challenge for anybody running against Trump is to have it sort of look level.

nate cohn

Yeah, this is the sort of thing that’s so hard to measure in a poll. We can’t ask people, well, do you have doubts about Harris because she’s a woman?

maggie haberman

Just because she’s a woman, right.

nate cohn

What are they going to say?

maggie haberman

Right.

nate cohn

But I think it’s very hard to avoid the conclusion that the burden on her to perform in this area is higher because she’s a woman.

michael barbaro

There’s one constituency that I didn’t see represented in the media outlets that Kamala Harris went to, and that was young men. That’s an area where — Maggie, correct me if I’m wrong — Donald Trump and JD Vance spent a lot of their time, especially in the podcasting world and in their media selections. Is Kamala Harris ceding that group of voters to Donald Trump?

maggie haberman

I think she’s maximizing her time and efficiency, and I think those are just, A, those are low propensity voters, who the Trump campaign is pretty clear in private conversations, yeah, that they need to turn these people into voters, as opposed to just people who listen to podcasts, number one.

But number two, the chances that she’s going to peel them away when you have 20 some odd days left, it’s just not clear that that’s a valuable use of her time. The gender divide is massive in this election, but this makes sense to me that this is not something she’s doing. I just don’t think it’s an area where she can have massive success.

astead herndon

It’s also, if you have one side of the gender gap, I would rather take women than men.

maggie haberman

Well, right.

michael barbaro

Can you explain that? Obviously, that’s not just a personal propensity.

astead herndon

Yes. I’m saying, like, women vote more often. I think it’s a harder task to turn that group into voters other than the one that she is doing better with. And I think that side of it is just as important.

michael barbaro

For all the reasons everyone seems to be establishing here, Nate, is it wise for Trump to be so focused on young men, given what Maggie and Astead just said?

nate cohn

I mean, you don’t get to choose your opportunities in an election. I’m sure that he would love to have an opportunity to do much better among white college graduates who are 65 and older, who are all but sure to vote in this election. But that’s not who Donald Trump is. He alienated that vote a long time ago. They show up in special election and special election. Democrats are winning all of them. For him to win this election, he does need to turn out a group of irregular voters. He’s not going to get all of them to the polls. But if he can go from 30 percent to 40 percent of those people voting, that can be decisive in a lot of these states. And that’s the hand he has to play.

michael barbaro

We’re going to take a break. It’s now ritual, Maggie.

maggie haberman

We’ll be right back.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

michael barbaro

OK, so we tend to think of this race as having a pretty defined issue set, which is the economy, immigration, abortion. So I found myself —

nate cohn

I’d add democracy, by the way, the fourth.

michael barbaro

Yep, OK, good. I found myself as a result of this fascinated by an ad that the Republicans supporting Trump — and I believe Trump himself — have apparently put the most money behind, according to a “Times” analysis that came out within the past few days. It’s an ad about trans people. And I want to talk about what the Trump campaign is up to in putting this out in the world.

archived recording 5

It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Even the liberal media was shocked. Kamala supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal aliens.

archived recording (kamala harris)

Every transgender inmate would have access —

archived recording 5

Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.

archived recording (donald trump)

I’m Donald J. Trump, and I approve this message.

michael barbaro

Maggie, what’s your reaction to this ad? And are you surprised that this is the ad that the Republicans and Trump are putting the most money behind, or close to it, in many of the swing states?

maggie haberman

So it’s a really in-your-face ad.

michael barbaro

It sure is.

maggie haberman

And it focuses on something that Harris said in her last campaign, which was that she supported — and I think it was in response to a survey — she favored allowing transgender people who were undocumented immigrants, I think — and I guess the ad also refers to the prison population — to have access to medical care.

And in the Trump campaign’s mind, this is something radical, and this is something that they can use to get voters’ attention, to try to give them a segue into other issues where they might have doubts about Harris on. So this is really basically jumping through the television screen and grabbing people by the lapels. That’s the idea, to get voters’ attention.

michael barbaro

Does an ad like that, Nate, influence swing voters, or is it really meant, as Maggie said, to shore up Republicans who see this and may end up thinking, well, wow, that’s something I didn’t know. It’s something I don’t like. I got to go vote against that.

nate cohn

I think the short answer is that it does affect swing voters. This particular issue is not the one that I would have guessed they would put their chips behind. But it is worth working through the various ways that it can potentially help them.

michael barbaro

Please do.

nate cohn

It does reinforce one of their core critiques of Harris, which is that she’s too far to the left. I do think that there’s almost a risk that this one will feel almost a little too crazy to people. It’s such a niche topic that it will feel out of left field for a lot of people.

michael barbaro

Hmm.

nate cohn

But if that’s not how they take it, if they say, wow, Harris believes this thing that I think is really extreme and crazy, those are the lines that can make a big difference to voters and can lead them to think this candidate is not for me in some basic way.

It’s also worth noting, by the way, I do think these issues resonate a bit among a demographic group we were talking about — younger men. I think that the backlash against, quote, “woke” is a major factor that helps explain some of the shifts we’ve seen in recent years.

michael barbaro

Astead, is this something that Kamala Harris, do you think, is worried about? And how much for you, as someone who covered her last campaign closely, thinks about it a lot, is this just a reflection of how much she’s changed as a candidate? Because the candidate of Kamala Harris today who wants to talk about having a Glock in her closet and being ready to use it doesn’t seem or sound like the candidate who would have said that on a stage.

astead herndon

Well, yeah, when I hear that, I think about just how the 2019 primary was its own world. And that world, unto itself, right?

michael barbaro

It really was.

astead herndon

That world was completely disconnected from most of the Democratic electorate, much less the general election. I remember —

michael barbaro

You’re talking about the moment where she’s in the Democratic primary four years ago —

astead herndon

Yeah, four years ago when she says this —

michael barbaro

— trying to become the nominee.

maggie haberman

Mm-hmm.

astead herndon

And I think it says a lot of the things that Republicans are still holding on for her and she’s had to walk back or issue statements saying she no longer supports, the biggest one, I think, being single-payer health insurance and signing on the Bernie Sanders bill. But I remember that time, and I was like, what do these people think this election is going to be about? Like, there’s no way this election is actually about the type of stuff they’re fighting about right now.

And so when I hear that, I think about just how there was a period in 2019 and I think early 2020, where progressive activist language had taken over the top levels of the Democratic Party. And I think they’re still paying for that in some senses. But I think that all adds up to the kind of unserious caricature they’re trying to paint a fire.

nate cohn

And it’s obviously a hard problem to solve when you, for six months, say a lot of things that you wish you hadn’t said. But they don’t have a way of pivoting past that.

michael barbaro

OK, I want to switch to something that happened over the past few days to Trump. Maggie, we get this last minute claim over the past few days, and it’s feeling very significant — it’s generating a lot of news cycles — via the journalist Bob Woodward that Trump has been having secret phone calls, and not just one or two or three, but up to seven, with Russian President Vladimir Putin since he left office.

This raises all kinds of issues, of course, given Russia’s history of interfering in our elections, favoring Trump in that interference, but also just because Russia is an adversary. And the US is supplying weapons to Ukraine that are, in some instances, killing Russian soldiers in a war that Putin started.

So the idea that Trump is frequently checking in with Putin is very, very notable. As far as you can tell, Maggie, is that happening? And is this going to become another case where the issue of Russia, weeks before an election, starts to matter again?

maggie haberman

So a couple of things. It is the definition of, “whoa, if true,” and the “if true” is doing a lot of work. It could be true. We have not been able to confirm this. If it is true, it is objectively a big deal for all of the reasons you said. I would just asterisk that I don’t know that Donald Trump needs to be having secret conversations with Putin to say the things that Trump says that are praising of Russia or praising Putin.

Trump is pretty out there, describing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as smart and suggesting that Ukraine may need to give up some of its territory, which is, obviously, the Russian objective and what Russia favors. So I think that for the vast majority of undecided voters, maybe this will end up being another brick in a much larger wall. But I don’t think it’s going to be the decisive factor.

michael barbaro

Astead, I want to end our conversation with you. It is truly a gift to have you in the studio because you have racked up, I think, the most frequent flyer miles of anyone, at least on the audio team, maybe the whole newsroom.

astead herndon

I just crossed a Delta diamond medallion this week, and it’s the biggest thing that’s happened in my life.

nate cohn

Oh, wow.

maggie haberman

Wow.

nate cohn

Congratulations.

maggie haberman

Did they give you a card? Was there confetti?

astead herndon

Literally, I got the email yesterday.

maggie haberman

Oh, the captain didn’t come greet you on the plane up in the air?

astead herndon

Oh, no. I’d be like, ah. I’m waiting for that, though. We’re going to Georgia this weekend. I’m going to walk into the flight, like, do y’all know? Do y’all know?

michael barbaro

All to say you’ve been talking to voters nonstop this entire campaign season in a unique and admirable way. And I want to know, over the past week or so in your travels, which have been extensive, what conversation you’ve had with a voter that stands out to you and why. And let’s perhaps get the last word to that voter.

astead herndon

I think about a guy named Jake. I talked to him in Minnesota last week. We went to Tim Walz’s old congressional district to watch the VP debate between Governor Walz and JD Vance.

And this is, of course, in Southern Minnesota, where it’s more rural. We are focusing on rural voters. And it’s a district that’s moved from, obviously, when Walz was representing it, represented by Democrats, to now being represented by a Republican, and reflects some of the shifts happening outside of the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

And I was talking to this guy who was 25. He did not vote in the last election, just felt it was kind of inconvenient, and was planning on voting on this one and said he was torn because he agreed with Trump on the economy and immigration but didn’t like him. And he thought Harris was a much nicer person, and he cared about abortion rights. And he felt —

michael barbaro

astead herndon

And I was like, you know we look for you.

nate cohn

You are the one.

maggie haberman

We found you.

astead herndon

Jake, you’re like America’s most powerful voter.

michael barbaro

Yeah, the unicorn.

astead herndon

Yeah.

maggie haberman

Right.

astead herndon

And I was trying to ask him how he prioritizes one issue over another. You know how you feel about these two. So what is going to come down to the end? And he was really explicit in the way that I think a lot of undecideds have been with us, which is like, it’s just what’s going to matter most to me as I’m driving there.

michael barbaro

Wow.

astead herndon

And —

maggie haberman

Wow.

astead herndon

— I thought it was, to me, a great reminder of, those are the type of people —

michael barbaro

Day of, day of what I consume, what I care about, what do I feel.

astead herndon

Those are the type of people we’re talking about here. He had watched the previous debate. He had just watched the VP debate. And he was actually — he was fairly issue knowledgeable. But still, it was just a matter of the randomness of what he chose to prioritize.

And I think all votes count the same. And I believe that, right? And so I like talking to those type of people because they remind me that not everyone is as deep in this as we are. And for the people who decide how this goes, he’s a lot closer to them than I am. So shout out to Jake.

nate cohn

I love Jake.

astead herndon

[LAUGHS]:

michael barbaro

And Jake is representative of undecided.

nate cohn

Jake is the one. Jake is —

maggie haberman

You found him.

nate cohn

He captures everything. Both candidates in this election have real strengths on issues that are extremely important and that in other races could yield decisive outcomes. There’s a hypothetical world where the economy is good right now, and Harris is cruising.

There’s a world where Donald Trump did not attempt to steal the last election and where the Supreme Court didn’t overturn Roe versus Wade, where maybe he’s cruising to a decisive victory. But both of these candidates have real strengths.

We will see, over the next month, what issues are talked about most in the media, what the candidates choose to close the campaign on, and see whether either bundle of issues that work to the advantage of one candidate will dominate the conversation in the end and cause Jake and other undecided voters to be thinking about either the economy or January 6 or abortion or whatever it may be that could ultimately move them as a group, one way or the other. I think that’s going to make a big difference.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm. Well, guys and gal, thank you very much, Nate, Maggie, Astead.

nate cohn

Michael, a pleasure.

maggie haberman

Michael, thank you.

astead herndon

Thank you for having us. Yeah.

michael barbaro

We’ll do it again soon.

maggie haberman

Probably.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

michael barbaro

To hear a deeper conversation about polling and the state of the race between Astead and Nate, listen to this week’s episode of “The Run-Up,” which is out today. And you can watch a video version of this episode at nytimes.com/thedaily, or on the YouTube channel for New York Times podcasts. We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to know today.

archived recording (ron desantis)

So the storm is here. It’s time for everybody to hunker down.

michael barbaro

On Wednesday night, Hurricane Milton made landfall just south of Tampa in the city of Sarasota as a category 3 storm. Flooding was quickly reported across the state, along with a series of tornadoes.

One of those tornadoes killed multiple people when it touched down at a retirement community on Florida’s East Coast. A full picture of the storm’s damage was still emerging, but as of early Thursday morning, more than 100 homes had already been destroyed.

And Kamala Harris has raised more than $1 billion in campaign donations in less than three months as a presidential candidate, more than Donald Trump has announced raising for all of 2024. No presidential candidate is believed to have raised so much money so fast after entering a race.

Today’s episode was produced by Diana Nguyen and Mooj Zadie. It was edited by Paige Cowett, contains original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.