Welcome to the online version of From the Political Bureauan evening newsletter featuring the latest reporting and analysis from the NBC News Politics team from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.
In today’s edition, political reporter Allan Smith looks at how Elon Musk could help (or hurt) Donald Trump during his campaign. Additionally, national political correspondent Steve Kornacki lays out the different paths to victory that Kamala Harris and Trump are trying to chart in Pennsylvania.
Sign up here to receive this newsletter in your inbox every weekday.
Elon Musk is taking action as a Trump surrogate – but it is unclear how he will land
By Allan Smith
Former President Donald Trump’s first rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, featured one of the most iconic and viral images of his entire political career: a bleeding Trump, who had just survived an assassination attempt, raising his fist in the air under an American flag as Secret Service agents escorted him from the stage.
Yet the most striking image of the former president’s return on Saturday wasn’t even that of Trump. It was of billionaire benefactor Elon Musk who jumped up and down on stage before being offered the chance to speak to rallygoers.
The diverse images helped paint a picture of both the pros and cons of Musk being in Trump’s corner. Musk, the world’s richest man, could boost Trump’s bid thanks to his vast resources and ability to command attention that outweighs other surrogates. On the other hand, that attention can often be the result of actions that voters find ridiculous — and that the former president and his campaign may find futile.
Musk’s appearance at Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania this weekend was the culmination of a years-long rightward drift for the eccentric billionaire, accelerated by his purchase of Twitter in 2022. In recent months, he has routinely spread conspiracy theories about election fraud, undocumented immigrants and even the federal government. emergency relief after Hurricane Helene.
From the podium, Musk identified himself as “Dark MAGA” and warned ominously that if Trump loses “this will be the last election.”
“That’s my prediction,” he said. “Nothing is more important.”
Musk has tried to support Trump and other Republican candidates behind the scenes through his America PAC, which is picking up much of the former president’s get-out-the-vote efforts. After his appearance in western Pennsylvania, Musk began offering people $47 if they managed to get a swing-state voter to sign a petition in support of the First and Second Amendments.
Musk also plans to hit the road for Trump during the final month of the campaign, according to a source familiar with the effort, confirming an earlier Politico report.
Overall, Musk is viewed negatively rather than positively by the voting public: a September NBC News poll found him with a net approval rating of -11. But Musk did slightly better among men under 50 — a key group Trump is targeting — as well as among men in general, the only subgroup in which his numbers were above water.
With the numbers looking unfavorable across the board, it could be difficult for Musk himself to get more voters on board the Trump train. But the combined influence of the social media site he owns and runs, plus his increasingly powerful PAC, could have him jumping for joy come November.
Dasha Burns contributed reporting.
🔀 Across the aisle: Meanwhile, Dasha Burns also reports that Musk called Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who was on Kamala Harris’ vice presidential shortlist, during the Steelers game on Sunday to talk about investing in the Pittsburgh area. Read more →
Trump and Harris see two very different paths to victory in Pennsylvania
By Steve Kornacki
The paths to victory that any campaign sees in the all-important battlefield of Pennsylvania are clearly visible as some big names will perform over the next two days.
For Donald Trump, the mission is to expand support to the state’s growing Latino electorate and regain the ground he surrendered to Joe Biden in the northeastern part of the state.
One of Trump’s two stops in Pennsylvania on Wednesday will be in Reading, a city with a population of about 100,000 and the state’s highest concentration of Latino residents. It is the largest of a series of cities in eastern Pennsylvania that are part of what has been called a “Latino Belt,” characterized by a rapidly growing Hispanic population — and political growth for the Trump GOP.
Trump’s goal is not to win over Reading, which remains a deep blue city. But it has turned a somewhat lighter shade of blue since he emerged as the face of the Republican Party. Barack Obama won Reading by 64 points in 2012, while Biden won by 45 points in 2020.
This move away from Democrats comes as the Latino share of the city’s population has grown from 37% in 2000 to 58% in 2010 and to 69% in 2020, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
National polls show Trump making further progress with Latinos since 2020. Taking another giant bite out of the Democratic advantage in Reading and similar cities would go a long way toward reversing Trump’s 80,000-vote loss in Pennsylvania four years ago.
Trump’s other stop on Wednesday will be Scranton, the heart of northeastern Pennsylvania. Scranton is the seat of Lackawanna County, a longtime Democratic bastion that Obama won by 27 points in 2012 but swung emphatically toward Trump in 2016, when Hillary Clinton won by just 3 points. Biden, a Scranton native, regained some ground for Democrats in 2020, taking the county by 8 points.
Lackawanna is whiter (82%) than Pennsylvania as a whole (74%), and the share of its white population that does not have a four-year college degree (69%) also exceeds the statewide average (63%). The median income ($63,739) is also about $10,000 below the statewide figure. Demographically, these are often signs of electoral success for Trump.
On the Democratic side, Obama will campaign for Kamala Harris on Thursday in Pittsburgh, the state’s second-largest city. And former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney will boost Harris on Wednesday in Montgomery County, suburban Philadelphia.
These events can be seen as part of the Democratic strategy to maximize support in a geographically compact but densely populated set of counties where they have gained the most ground in the Trump era. In fact, there are only five counties, out of 67 in Pennsylvania, where Biden did at least 5 points better in 2020 than Obama did in 2012 – and Montgomery and Allegheny (where Pittsburgh is located) are two of them:
All of these counties have a significantly higher share of white voters with a four-year degree than Pennsylvania as a whole, and all have higher median incomes than the figure for the entire state. These were signs of Democratic electoral success in the Trump era.
If support and turnout in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia (and in a few other parts of the state with suburban characteristics) were to rise even higher, the Harris campaign would have a chance to offset potential Trump gains elsewhere and boost the is able to keep in the Democratic column.
🗞️Today’s top stories
-
🌀 Hurricane Preparation: Biden postponed his trip to Germany and Angola this week because Hurricane Milton is expected to hit Florida. Harris also criticized Trump as “extremely irresponsible” for spreading misinformation about hurricane relief. Read more →
-
📕 Book report 1: Trump has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin no fewer than seven times since leaving the White House, including this year, according to a forthcoming book by Bob Woodward. Read more →
-
📕 Book report 2: Former first lady Melania Trump details her support for abortion rights in her new memoir, due out Tuesday. Read more →
-
📺 In the air: Anti-trans ads criticizing Harris are Trump’s two most-seen ads during professional and college football games, according to AdImpact. Read more →
-
🎥 Primetime appearance: After being criticized for not participating in media interviews, Harris faced a slew of tough questions Monday in an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” Read more →
-
⚖️ SCOTUS watch: The Supreme Court has indicated it will likely support the Biden administration’s initiative to regulate “ghost gun” kits that allow people to assemble deadly weapons at home while circumventing existing regulations. Read more →
-
⚠️ Election Alert: Foreign adversaries will try to sow doubt about the election results after Nov. 5 by making false claims or spreading their own disinformation, U.S. intelligence officials said. Read more →
-
🗳️ Down mood update 1: Montana Senate candidate Tim Sheehy said in newly surfaced audio that the Republican Party needs to do a better job at winning over young women, who he said have been “indoctrinated” about abortion for years. Read more →
-
🗳️ Down vote update 2: Democrats are trying to stoke fears about Republican candidate Bernie Moreno’s Colombian family and heritage in the Ohio Senate race, accusing Republicans of racism. Read more →
-
☑️ The call has come in: Members of the NBC News Decision Desk explain how they determine when to announce winners on election night. Read more →
-
Follow live coverage from the campaign trail →
For now, that all comes from the Political Bureau. If you have any feedback – like it or not – please email us at politicsnieuwsbrief@nbcuni.com
And if you’re a fan, share it with everyone and anyone. They can register here.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
