Welcome to the online version of From the Political Bureauan evening newsletter featuring the latest reporting and analysis from the NBC News Politics team on the campaign, the White House, and Capitol Hill.
In today’s edition, national political reporter Alex Seitz-Wald reports from Maine on a House Democrat who is keeping his distance from the party convention. Plus, national political reporter Steve Kornacki puts the gender gap in the 2024 polls into historical context.
Programming note: Stay tuned for a special edition of the From the Politics Desk newsletter, which will be released each evening following this week’s Democratic National Convention. It will bring you the latest news and analysis from our Chicago team.
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Far from the convention, a Democrat runs from Harris and hands out beer in rural Maine
By Alex Seitz-Wald
PHILLIPS, Maine — As most of his party colleagues prepared to rally in Chicago, Rep. Jared Golden searched for empty hands to shake or cold beer to sip along a parade route through a small town.
“You got my vote!” a man in a “F— Biden” baseball cap shouted on Friday after Golden handed him a Bud Light wrapped in a campaign-branded koozie. An aide pulled a rusty kiddie cart filled with ice, beer and flavored seltzers.
Golden, a 42-year-old, tattooed former Marine who says he “almost always” carries a concealed firearm, announced last week that he will not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris or even say how he plans to vote in November, as the Democrat seeks a fourth term in a district he confidently predicts Harris will lose.
Golden has always kept his distance from his party, both in Congress, where he votes with Republicans more often than any other Democrat, and at home, where he rarely appears with other Democratic officials outside of official events.
His TV ads tout how he fought against President Joe Biden’s administration and worked with then-President Donald Trump. He hasn’t attended a House Democratic caucus meeting since 2021. And he’s called on his party to stop its apocalyptic “pearl-chat” about Trump’s perceived threat to democracy. He’s condemned the “toxic” influence of “lifestyle leftism” that he says has driven his party away from its working-class roots.
Golden will need more than a few Trump voters to split his ticket — an increasingly difficult task in this polarized era when all politics feels national — to once again win one of the whitest and most rural congressional districts in the country, and the only one in New England to support Trump in 2020.
While not every Democrat needs to woo Trump voters as zealously as Golden, he and his allies worry that the party could lose touch with corners of the country by dismissing efforts like his. And with Democrats just four seats shy of a majority in the House, every district counts.
Back at the parade, Linda Ross, wearing a Trump hat and spotless white “Trump 2024” sneakers, shouted to Golden from the tailgate of a red pickup truck as she surveyed the line of homemade floats, tractors and vintage cars.
“You’re bipartisan and you’re doing well!” Ross said.
Read more from Alex →
🎙️The line-up: Back in Chicago, a host of other prominent Democrats will speak on the second night of the party convention.
They include: former President Barack Obama; former First Lady Michelle Obama; Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff; Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer; Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois; and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Two Republicans are also on the agenda: former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham and Mesa, Arizona, Mayor John Giles.
🛣️ On the path: Meanwhile, Harris and Tim Walz travel north tonight for a meeting in Milwaukee.
And Trump campaigned this afternoon in Howell, Michigan, while JD Vance campaigned in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
5️⃣ In figures: NBC News’ Kristen Welker and Mark Murray analyze the five polls that tell the story of the Democratic convention. Read more →
Follow the latest developments surrounding the 2024 elections on our live blog →
How the Gender Gap in Harris-Trump Polls Compares to Recent Elections
By Steve Kornacki
The gender gap in this presidential race is quite large. But whether it’s a normal gap or an extraordinary one depends on where you look.
The last five major national polls all show Harris ahead among women, and all but one also give Trump a lead among men:
In the context of modern politics, there is nothing unusual about these figures. The gender gap has been a feature of American elections since 1980, when Ronald Reagan won the Republican nomination and moved the party — which had long featured prominent leaders with moderate and even liberal social views — to the cultural right.
That fall, Reagan crushed Jimmy Carter among men by 17 points, while winning by a one-point margin among women. This kind of gender gap was a clear break from the past, but has been the rule ever since:
In the latest national polls, the gender gap ranges from 7 to 22 points, broadly consistent with recent election results. From this perspective, Harris’s presence in the race has not changed what has long been the norm when it comes to gender and voting behavior.
But then there are the swing state polls — specifically, surveys from The New York Times and Siena College. The latest batch shows a gender gap that has ballooned since Harris became the Democratic nominee, to 30 points in Georgia, more than 40 in Wisconsin and Arizona, and nearly 50 in Michigan:
There are caveats here. The new numbers represent one set of numbers from one pollster — a pollster that, even before Harris’ candidacy, was finding unusually high gender gaps. And with subgroup results like these, where the margin of error is higher, there’s more room for statistical noise. That could help explain Pennsylvania’s outlier status, where the gap is actually 20 points lower than it was before Harris entered the race.
Still, the overall trend in the NYT/Siena poll is striking. It suggests that there may be state-specific effects (from the huge ad spending in the hardest-hit states, or perhaps the details of a state’s abortion policies) that could be driving extra-large gender gaps in some places.
If this happens consistently in future polls, the gender gap could move into the extraordinary category by 2024.
🗞️ Today’s top stories
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🤔 Tough choices: Nicole Shanahan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate, said in a new interview that her campaign faces a choice between staying in the race — which would be a “risk” to help Harris win — or withdrawing to “join forces” with Trump. Meanwhile, the campaign reported that it had just $3.9 million in the bank as of late July. Read more →
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🔵 Policy angle: Harris’ gradual unveiling of her policy agenda has underscored a key dynamic: She would need Democrats to win control of both chambers of Congress to give many of her biggest goals a chance. Read more →
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🗣️ Word battle: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, suggested that Vance might become more empathetic to those advocating for abortion access amid tragic circumstances if he were to go through a similar ordeal, comments that sparked a storm of protest from Vance and other Republicans. Read more →
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☀️ If it’s Tuesday: It’s primary day in Alaska, Florida and Wyoming. In the Sunshine State, Rep. Matt Gaetz faces a primary candidate backed by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, while the Senate race is officially set. Read more →
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🗳️ Ballot paper: NBC News’ Donna M. Owens dives into Democrat Angela Alsobrooks’ bid to become the first Black woman to represent Maryland in the U.S. Senate. Read more →
That’s all from the Politics Desk for now. If you have any feedback — likes or dislikes — please email us at politicsnieuwsbrief@nbcuni.com
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This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
