Florida has become the state where elements of a future, second-Trump-presidency America already come into view. We’re seeing some of these things happening right now in Florida. The example I’m about to share with you legitimately shocked me. (That’s a high bar.) It’s about the pro-choice ballot amendment which would restore Roe protections in Florida if it gets the support of 60% of voters. As in most other states, getting to 50% isn’t that difficult. 60% is much harder. To head off even the chance that the ballot initiative might hit that challenging high bar, the state of Florida is already spending a substantial amount of tax payer dollars campaigning against the initiative. Now we learn that the state is quite literally threatening jail time for the employees of stations that agree to run one of the ads for the pro-choice amendment. You heard that right — not sue under some claim of defamation but actual criminal charges.

When I first read this I thought it was one of those civil suits. Opposing campaigns will occasionally do this to scare stations out of running their opponent’s ads. I’ve never seen a state government do it, but particularly litigious campaigns occasionally do. But it’s not a civil suit. They’re threatening criminal charges.

A few fact points to explain what’s going on.

In this morning’s piece I mentioned going back to read articles I’d either missed on publication or read without focusing on these issues of ground game. One of the most interesting pieces in this category is the piece Tim Alberta wrote for The Atlantic which appeared just after the June debate disaster but a couple weeks before Biden’s departure from the race. The article is based on what seems to have been many months of reporting with a lot of access to the team running Trump’s campaign — Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. There are a number of really quite interesting storylines in the piece. I’m going to focus on the question of ground operations. Even back before the events of the summer, this was a big enough deal that it is one of the two or three dominant issues the piece grapples with.

Let me start by explaining, based in large part on Alberta’s piece, what the Trump campaign’s argument and theory of the election is on its own terms. It goes like this. The suburbs are heavily polarized. There’s not that much being accomplished by traditional door-knocking and canvassing there. And it tends to be a mass game: How many doors you knock, how many conversations you have, etc., with not enough focus on whether you’re zeroing in on the high-value contacts. The campaign points to Iowa, which was a key early test for Trump’s fight for the renomination and also a sore spot from back in 2016 when Ted Cruz got a jump on Trump and actually beat him. In 2024, the campaign tried something different. The key premise of its approach is the belief that there is a substantial population of people who are really into Trump or at least very down with the Trump worldview but just don’t vote. They’re just totally disaffected from politics and the political world. But if they did vote they’d be certain to vote for Trump. This isn’t a crazy idea since disaffection from elite institutions and elements of mainstream culture is sort of inherent in Trumpism.

I’m a broken record on this. But I’m struck by the relative stasis of the Harris-Trump presidential campaign. It hasn’t always felt like that of course. It’s hard on the nerves. And it’s not like nothing has happened. We’ve had a sitting president drop out of the race, a mind-boggling two assassination attempts, a smackdown of a debate, two conventions. And yet stability in the polling numbers has been the calling card of this race. Joe Biden was behind. He fell further behind starting about two weeks after the June debate. After he dropped out Harris immediately moved the race into a tie. Then over a couple weeks she opened up a lead of roughly three points. It’s basically stayed right there for the last two months. The minor undulations have been so small as to likely represent little more than churn and statistical noise.

This note from TPM Reader DK doesn’t answer for us the questions we discussed yesterday about Republican GOTV efforts. But it does point to key questions to ask to find out more. And I found it just a fascinating window into the nuts and bolts of campaign field operations.

I’ve done GOTV for two decades, including my own campaign long ago. A few observations:

So I think this debate was basically a draw. Vance was smooth and organized. He approached normality. He was often clearer than Tim Walz was. Tim Walz is not a terribly articulate debater. That’s something the Harris campaign tried to telegraph last week. And I think it was a good idea to do that. On those fronts, Vance did better. Vance was also on message. He literally tied everything to inflation and immigration. Even the most preposterous things he brought back to those issues. Vance definitely did well on that front too.

But Walz did better than I think some people may realize because with all the jumbliness and clackity clink he got in the story of the women whose lives were lost or endangered by Trump state abortion bans. Again and again, there were key points, key stories that the Harris campaign clearly wanted him to say from the stage and he did, even if they were surrounded by Walzian word fugue. And that really matters more than how focused he was as a speaker. He got those things. That matters more.

10:41 PM: Walz is just bumbly and floppity again and again. But on a number of these issues Vance is just so obviously full of it Walz still wins on points. And that’s happening more as the debate goes on. That happened on Obamacare and on democracy and Jan 6th. Abortion too.

10:17 PM: I just cannot believe that Vance is actually claiming that Trump made Obamacare work.

9:57 PM: There’s an odd dynamic in this debate. Vance is doing well. He’s smooth. He’s hitting his points. Walz is kind of jangly. Not nearly as smooth. He stumbles over sentences. If you look at this and say, who’s smoother? Who’s clearer? I think that’s Vance. But what Walz is doing is hitting the key lines the campaign wants him to say. Often he gets to them in response to questions about other things. But he hits them. The stories of these women who died or almost died from Trump abortion bans. So I think he’s hitting his marks too.

9:46 PM: Sidled up to JD’s menstrual surveillance racket. Appreciate that.

9:44 PM: I really wish Walz would have been more clear on the the fact that for all Trump’s chatter about bringing jobs home it’s actually Biden and Harris who are doing that with the IRA.

9:27 PM: It’s fascinating how both these guys are basically saying each other is great.

9:20 PM: It’s interesting that Vance was not remotely willing to defend mass deportation. Basically wrote it off.

9:16 PM: Okay, I don’t expect Republicans to make a lot of sense on climate but someone’s got to dig into JD’s argument about climate which if I understand it is basically that the best thing for the climate is to do all our manufacturing in the U.S. and also to drill a bunch more oil.

9:14 PM: Okay, I’m not sure JD’s climate answer made any sense. I mean, creative, but not a lot of sense.

9:06 PM: It’s interesting. Just in the first two answers I’d say both guys answered pretty well for their campaigns. Very different answers. But each hitting their marks.