The Home Stretch: Here’s the election news for October 27
6 mins read

The Home Stretch: Here’s the election news for October 27

The campaign is in overdrive, even on a Sunday, as we enter the final full week leading up to Election Day. Here’s what’s happening with the race for the White House.

Where is everyone?

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, will hold a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City today. Speakers hired for the event include House Speaker Mike Johnson, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson and several others. That list also includes his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, who will join him in New York after doing interviews on three Sunday morning talk shows.

Democratic Vice President nominee Kamala Harris will be in Philadelphia today, attending a morning church service, speaking to voters at a barbershop and a Puerto Rican restaurant and holding a rally in the evening.

Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, will have a busy day. He will gather in Las Vegas with first a reproductive rights event, then a Native Americans for Harris-Walz event and finally a “Latinos con Harris-Walz” event. In between, he’ll hop on the video game streaming site Twitch to play “Madden NFL” head-to-head against reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.).

Any new information?

Things are still close.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll released this morning surveyed likely voters Oct. 18-22 and found Harris with a four-point lead, beating Trump 51-47. A CBS News poll of likely voters from October 23-25 ​​found Harris with a one-point lead, 50-49.

CNN’s final poll of the election cycle has Harris up one point, 47-46, with registered voters, but 47% (a common theme) with Trump among likely voters, usually the more influential measurement in the poll. Similarly, an Emerson College national election poll has the two candidates dead-locked at 49% each.

As for Pennsylvania, Redfield & Wilton released a number of swing state polls and found that Harris is up one point, 48-47, here.

FiveThirtyEight Trump has won in 54 out of 100 of his simulated scenarios, while Harris has won 45 out of 100. What about the last scenario? It’s the dreaded 269-269 Electoral College tie.

What’s going on?

Here are some of the stories dominating the political newssphere today.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance did interviews on Sunday morning shows today, including with Jake Tapper for CNN’s “State of the Union.” Tapper persistently questioned Vance about his running mate’s desire to use military force against political rivals defined as “the enemy within.” Vance insisted Trump was talking about “far-left lunatics running riot.”

New York Post reports that Trump supporters have been lining up for his upcoming Madison Square Garden rally since as early as 10 a.m. Saturday morning.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama made her campaign debut when she spoke to a crowd at a Harris rally in Kalamazoo, Mich., on Saturday. In part, she tailored her remarks to male voters on the fence. “If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women, will be collateral damage to your anger,” she said.

The Harris-Walz campaign announced that, in the final push toward Election Day, the presidential and vice presidential hopefuls will visit all seven battleground states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona) between Monday and Thursday.

The winner of Elon Musk’s daily million-dollar swing state sweepstakes for signing a petition “in favor of free speech and the right to bear arms” on Saturday was from Lancaster.

More than 40 million Americans have already voted in person early voting or by postal voting across the country.

What is everyone thinking?

Here are some opinions from around the web.

• In National Review, Jack Butler introduces “The “conservatives” of the Harris Time Warp” where he says “Liz Cheney’s support for Harris has gone beyond weighing her as the lesser of two evils. It has gone beyond praising her character over his. It has settled on a view on abortion that is more in line with Harris than with what was recently Cheney’s own. It’s a transformation that once again illustrates the truth of — and the central flaw in — the left’s Trump-era effort to persuade conservatives to abandon Trump: “‘Saving democracy’ conveniently means giving in to the left.”

• “To understand America’s economic success is to love Harris’ plan,” claims Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post. “The successful formula explains why Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic plans, based on the successful approach, are highly preferable to Donald Trump’s formula (protectionism, massive tax cuts for the rich, repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act, etc.). Many economists agree .”

• Sam Walker writes for the New York Times, “What football can teach politics.” He tells us how much we could gain from having a coach in leadership. “Think about the benefits of a head coach. The great coaches I know are obsessed with strategy, but they also know how to delegate. They use emotion to inspire people, but it’s almost never at the expense of projecting consistency and composure. They tend to overcommunicate and they avoid trafficking in fear. They understand that there are no style points in football – all that matters is the end result. And they know that anything can happen on the field, so you have to be ready to swing and be willing to compromise, and you can’t be too precious about your principles. When you win, you should step back and let the players own it.”


Alexis Papalia is a TribLive staff writer. She can be reached at [email protected].