Notes from the field.

November 2, 2024

Hi, all! This very short note is a check-in for Saturday and opens the Comment section. We spent the day traveling to Charlotte, North Carolina, and then attended a gathering of out-of-state canvassers sponsored by the Democratic Party of Mecklenburg County. My wife posted a short video on her blog, Every Day With Jill, about our first meeting with MeckDems in Charlotte.

On Friday, the US Supreme Court refused to overturn an order of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court requiring the state to accept provisional ballots from voters whose early ballots were voided due to technical errors. The decision is significant in two ways.

First, it will allow several thousand Pennsylvania voters to effectively cure deficiencies in their ballots. That may prove to be decisive if the Pennsylvania race is extremely close.

Second, the case represented another invitation by Republican lawmakers for the Supreme Court to adopt the Independent State Legislature doctrine. The Court rejected that theory in Moore v. Harper in 2023 on a 6-3 vote with an opinion authored by Justice Roberts. It would have been shocking if the Court reversed its one-year-old precedent to adopt the Independent State Legislature doctrine.

Although the Court’s order released on Friday was nominally unanimous, Justice Alito wrote for himself and two other justices (Thomas and Gorsuch) that they were joining in the majority order only on narrow procedural grounds. The implication of Alito’s concurrence is that those three justices would like to re-consider the Independent State Legislature doctrine if given the chance. That means the 6-3 split in Moore v. Harper against the ISL doctrine remains in place. See Ian Millhiser, Vox, The Supreme Court hands Republicans a rare and significant loss, in RNC v. Genser.

The continued disfavor of the ISL doctrine in the Supreme Court is significant because that doctrine (a made-up theory with no support in the Constitution) was a cornerstone of the Fake Electors’ Plot on January 6. It may also be part of the fever dream of Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson to re-run that same strategy in 2024. The Supreme Court’s ruling today threw a bucket of cold water on Trump and Johnson’s “not-so-secret” plan to interfere in the election to the extent that it involved the legislatures acting as independent agents under the Constitution.

On the campaign trail, VP Harris and Walz will be in North Carolina on Saturday. Trump will also visit North Carolina over the weekend. Although his official schedule is difficult to find, Twitter users claim he will make four stops in NC—a clear sign that he is worried about the state that he must win.

My final thought is this: The information environment is still very noisy, so discerning a clear narrative is difficult. But the trends that should materialize for a Harris victory are appearing in exit polling from early voting—a strong gender advantage among females and a predictable backlash against Trump among Puerto Ricans and voters of Hispanic descent. Whether those trends will be enough to overcome Trump's advantage among non-college-educated white men is not clear. But the path to victory for Kamala is open, viable, and consistent with early signs in the data.

To be clear, Trump's campaign has been saying for the last several days that his internal polling shows that he leads in nearly all the swing states. Since Trump lies about everything, we should put little credence in his statements.

It feels good to be out of my blue bubble, Los Angeles, and among people working to flip a red state blue. The energy and confidence are fantastic. I am hearing from readers nationwide who are working to drive turnout—including Las Vegas, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Florida. In whatever way you are helping, keep up the good work! At this point, the only thing that will make a difference is driving voter turnout. And the grassroots army that arose after 2016 is doing just that!

We have every reason to be hopeful but no reason to be complacent!

Talk to you tomorrow!

Daily Dose of Perspective

The Rosette Nebula, below, is one of my favorite images. The nebula is 6,500 light-years from Earth and 65 light-years in diameter.

Enjoy!