Welcome to October Surprise, the Daily Beast’s daily countdown to the biggest election of our lifetime. It’s only 26 days until Election Day and here’s what’s happening in the race to the White House between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
THE DOWNLOAD
Kamala Harris is bringing in the biggest of big guns—her old friend, Barack Obama—as she battles for victory with just three weeks until Election Day.
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The former president is set to rally for Harris Thursday evening at the University of Pittsburgh in the nation’s largest swing state, which could decide the winner of the 2024 presidential race. Other “special guests” are also expected to attend, the campaign says.
A spokesperson for Obama told the Daily Beast that he will be focused on the high stakes of the election and on reelecting the state’s Democratic senator, Bob Casey, for whom he put out an ad on Thursday. Obama’s team will announce more campaign stops he'll make for Harris in the coming days.
The pair have been in regular touch since 2020, the Obama spokesperson shared. And over the past few months, Obama has helped raise $80 million for the Harris campaign, cultivating relationships with online creators and filming dozens of digital ads.
Donald Trump on Thursday addressed business leaders in Detroit, where he insulted their city and big companies.
“You want to know the truth?” Trump told members of the Detroit Economic Club as he painted a picture of what his opponent would do to America. “It’ll be like Detroit. Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. You’re gonna have a mess on your hands.”
The former president has insulted Democratic-leaning urban areas before, especially by claiming they are hotspots of voter fraud. But three weeks before the election in a crucial swing state, the derision of the city was shocking. (He also attacked large, powerful companies, saying, “We allowed them to come in and raid and rape our country.”)
POLLS OBSESSED
Harris is winning over suburbanites. She has erased Trump’s lead with suburban and middle-income voters, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. Harris leads Trump among suburban voters 47 percent to 41 percent, the poll finds. And she has a slight advantage with middle-income voters over Trump, 45 percent to 43 percent. Before Joe Biden dropped out of the race, he led Trump among suburban voters, 43 percent to 40 percent in another Reuters/Ipsos poll.
In national polling, Harris is ever-so-slightly ahead.
ON THE MOVE
Trump addressed the Detroit Economic Club, where he insulted the city and big business in the vital swing state of Michigan. Harris was making a play for Latino voters in Las Vegas in the key battleground state of Nevada. Obama made his debut on the campaign trail for Harris in Pennsylvania.
THROWBACK THURSDAY
Much of the country still lived in fear of Covid but on Oct. 10, 2020, Trump had recovered enough from his hospitalization to try a dry run of his rallies. He hosted 2,000 people at the White House and addressed them for 18 minutes. The event was organized by Candace Owens, at the time a Trump ally, and her “blexit” campaign to encourage Black people to vote Republican. She has since garnered controversy for her antisemitic views.
BEAST OF THE DAY
Whoopi Goldberg is wondering just “how dumb” Donald Trump is for calling her standup “dirty,” after he attacked her for hosting Kamala Harris on The View.
“I was filthy, and I stand on that fact—I have always been filthy,” Goldberg said of her comedy on The View Thursday after Trump complained at a rally that her “mouth was was so foul, she was so filthy, dirty, disgusting, [that] half the place left” a gig he’d hired her for. “And you knew that when you hired me,” Goldberg continued. “You hired me four times!” she quipped. “And you didn’t know what you were getting? How dumb are you?”
“You know how dirty I wasn’t?” she added later, “I never grabbed anybody by their genitalia.”
SHAMELESS PLUG
The New Abnormal podcast has plenty to digest in its latest episode which drops tomorrow. Join co-hosts Danielle Moodie and Daniel Levy for their verdict on the week. Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, and Stitcher.
