The Race to Court Swing-State Voters

Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here.

With just over two months to go in the presidential election, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are campaigning for voters in crucial swing states. Also this week, Harris and Tim Walz sat down for their first joint interview and members of Trump’s campaign staff got into a verbal and physical altercation with an official at Arlington Cemetery. Last night, panelists on Washington Week With The Atlantic discussed what these events could mean for the candidates.

Both Harris and Trump face the question of where their campaigns can most effectively allocate time and energy in swing states. The Trump campaign, however, faces a particular challenge, McKay Coppins said last night: While campaign strategists are trying to emphasize policy proposals that are plays for moderate and undecided voters, they’re also working with a candidate who is not always interested in following suit. With “a more disciplined candidate they could engineer the entire campaign-communications apparatus,” Coppins said. “But instead, you have Donald Trump on Truth Social melting down.”

Meanwhile, in a live interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Harris and Walz used the discussion to chase after key groups of voters. The campaign is specifically targeting Black voters, disaffected Republicans, suburban women, and independent men, Francesca Chambers said: “They feel if they can cut into Trump’s margins … then they can make up the differences.”

Although Harris discussed policy measures in the interview, the evening also served as an attempt from her campaign to further establish a contrast with Trump, Domenico Montanaro said: “Democrats really want to set up the split screen between … boring and calm and competent versus the tumult of Trump.”

Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to discuss this and more: Francesca Chambers, a White House correspondent for USA Today; McKay Coppins, a staff writer at The Atlantic; Jeff Mason, a White House correspondent for Reuters; and Domenico Montanaro, a senior political editor and correspondent at NPR.

Watch the full episode here.