Can Kamala Close? Is Political Betting Bad? Is Crime Up or Down? Plus. . .

It’s Wednesday, October 30, and this is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Coming up: The upside-down politics of Kentucky’s school-choice referendum; in defense of election betting; what’s the truth about crime in America?; Steve Bannon is free; the president calls half the country “garbage”; Emily Oster on whether marriage matters to kids; and more. 

But first, let’s start with Kamala Harris’s big speech in Washington last night. 

Delivering her “closing argument” in an address from the Ellipse, in Washington, D.C., last night, Kamala Harris said this election will “probably be the most important vote you ever cast.” 

And that wasn’t all. “This election is more than a choice between two parties and two different candidates,” she said to a large crowd. “It is a choice about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American, or one ruled by chaos and division.” 

With Harris standing in the spot from which Donald Trump addressed a crowd on January 6, 2021, and with the White House in the background, the symbolism wasn’t exactly subtle. 

The strategy behind the vice president’s speech is straightforward: Harris wants this election to be about her opponent, not her. 

It’s easy to knock this as an entirely negative approach, resting as it does on a caricature of her opponent and a cynical attempt to deepen the divisions the Democrats claim to want to heal. But it worked for Joe Biden in 2020, and you don’t need to think Trump is a fascist to be sick and tired of his show. 

But if Kamala Harris loses next week, it will be because she failed to define herself. And if that happens, her “closing argument” last night will be no more than a footnote. Instead, analysts will likely revisit the clips of the interviews she granted during the campaign—interviews in which, time and again, she failed to give straightforward answers to basic questions.

A few examples. When The View’s Sunny Hostin asked Harris if there was anything she would have done differently from Joe Biden, she replied, after an awkward pause: “There is not a thing that comes to mind. I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.” Stephen Colbert asked her a similar question a few days later: “Under a Harris administration, what would the major changes be, and what would stay the same?” The late-night host was served a great big word salad. 

More recently, at a CNN event, Anderson Cooper asked if she had ever made a mistake she had learned from. The vice president flubbed her response to the kind of question people get asked in entry-level job interviews. “I’ve made many mistakes,” she said, pausing awkwardly (again) before continuing: “They range from. . . if you’ve ever parented a child you make lots of mistakes. . . to in my role as vice president, I mean, I’ve probably worked very hard at making sure that I am well-versed on issues, and I think that is very important. It’s a mistake not to be well-versed on an issue and feel compelled to answer a question.” 

And when Bret Baier, the Fox News host, asked her, “When did you first notice that President Biden’s mental faculties appeared diminished?” The most specific she got was: “Joe Biden is not on the ballot.” 

No wonder Democrats are jittery and Republicans are bullish—even though the polls show the race is a coin flip.

The 101 days since she launched her presidential campaign are evidence Harris is a politician of limited skills. But they’re also evidence of the many problems with her campaign. The gaps and contradictions in her pitch to voters. Run as an incumbent or a breath of fresh air? Tack right, but how far? Throw the president under the bus or not? 

Instead of resolving these tensions, her campaign has papered over the cracks with slogans like “Turn the page” and “We’re not going back.” These are just change-y enough to suggest a brighter future without implying a real departure from the current administration. 

And so, in the home stretch, Harris and her campaign have given up trying to answer any questions. As last night’s speech made clear, this campaign is and always has been all about Trump. And it will be all about Trump all the way to the finish line now. 

Photo illustration by The Free Press, images via Getty

Today we bring you three stories about the election. First, a ballot measure that’s scrambling the politics of Kentucky parents; second, a key campaign issue that has radically divided the two parties; and finally, why election betting is good for democracy. Yes, really.

School Choice Is Usually a Conservative Issue. Not in Kentucky.

This election, Kentuckians aren’t just voting for president. They’re being asked to vote on Amendment 2, a measure that would allow tax dollars to go to private schools—and enshrine school choice in the state’s constitution. 

Just over a dozen states in the U.S. have laws that allow school choice. Most of them are red states—including Alabama, Oklahoma, and Florida—because in the national debate over education, the issue has long been championed by conservatives, who see school choice as a means of pushing back against culture war issues such as library books with LGBTQ content or how race is taught in schools. Liberals, especially the big-city teachers unions, argue that any law that diverts public dollars would essentially defund public schools.

But in the Bluegrass State, Free Press reporter Frannie Block found that the issue of school choice in Kentucky doesn’t break down along neat political lines. While inner-city Democrats say state money for private education will “save their kids,” rural Republicans claim it will “devastate” them. Meet the parents crossing party lines over the ballot in Frannie’s dispatch from Louisville: “School Choice Is Usually a Conservative Issue. Not in Kentucky.” 

Trump Says Crime Is Up. Harris Says It’s Down. Who’s Right? 

Ask voters which issues matter the most this election, and red and blue America will give you very different answers. One of the biggest partisan gaps is over crime, which Republicans put close to the top of their list of important issues and Democrats do not. That’s no surprise given the two candidates for president present radically different pictures of public safety in America. Kamala Harris boasts that crime rates are at a 50-year low. Donald Trump, meanwhile, has made rising crime one of his key platform issues.

So what’s the truth about crime in America? We asked Rupa Subramanya to investigate. Read her piece, “Trump Says Crime Is Up. Harris Says It’s Down. Who’s Right?”

Is Election Betting a Threat to Democracy? 

A recent court ruling gave the green light to betting on political elections. And just in time for the big day. You might be thinking: Great! Let’s add rampant speculation into the political mix. What could possibly go wrong? Relax, says Charles Fain Lehman, who thinks the risks of political betting are overstated—and that there’s a real social benefit to the predictive power of these markets. Read his full defense of political betting here.

Raising Parents with Emily Oster: Does Marriage Matter? 

The share of children in America growing up in single-parent families has tripled since 1950—from 10 percent to 30 percent. In a crowded field, it was one of the biggest changes to family life in the second half of the twentieth century. On the latest episode of Raising Parents, Emily Oster asks: What happened to marriage in America? Is having two parents better for kids than a single parent? And what advantages does growing up in a married family actually bring for children? 

For answers to those questions, hit the play button below, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to catch up on the rest of the series. 

Steve Bannon holds a press conference after his release from prison. (David Dee Delgado via Getty Images)

• Speaking of a comedian at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden event, Joe Biden said Tuesday: “A speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. . . . The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.” From “basket of deplorables” to “garbage.” No wonder the Kamala campaign wants to keep Biden as far from the campaign trail as possible. 
  

• The two presidential candidates may be intensely relaxed about the size of America’s public debt, which sits at $35 trillion. (That’s 1. a lot of zeros, and 2. higher as a proportion of GDP than at any time in the country’s history.) But while politicians have thrown budgetary caution to the wind, the bond markets appear to be saying: Not so fast. Recent turbulence suggests that whoever wins next week may have to live with the return of bond vigilantes—and rapidly increasing borrowing costs. Unfashionable fiscal conservatism may be due a comeback.
  

• On Tuesday, Steve Bannon was released from prison. The former Trump adviser served time for contempt of Congress, after he defied a subpoena from the January 6 congressional committee. “I’m finally out of being a political prisoner by the Merrick Garland, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi regime,” Bannon said at a press conference. “I am far from broken,” he added. “I have been empowered by my four months at Danbury federal prison.” Bannon wasted no time unleashing that power: He hosted an episode of his War Room podcast on the day of his release. “This is a fight not simply for the direction of this country but what this country stands for,” he said.
  

• On Monday, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terror group, announced that its deputy head Naim Qassem, known for his profuse perspiration, will succeed Hassan Nasrallah as the group’s official leader. Qassem has been the group’s acting leader since September, when Nasrallah was killed by an Israeli air strike. Hashem Safieddine was supposed to be Nasrallah’s official replacement as secretary general, but he too was killed earlier this month. Israel says Qassem’s tenure “may be the shortest in the history” of Hezbollah. Now he has even more to sweat over. 
  

• The Pentagon is running low on missile interceptors, according to U.S. officials. Standard Missiles, used for air defense, are critical in fending off the Houthis in the Red Sea as well as protecting Israel from Iranian missile attacks. But production hasn’t kept up with the number of missiles being deployed in the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. “We’re spending a year’s worth of Standard Missiles” which are “supposed to be part of rearming ourselves for China,” a retired U.S. rear admiral told The Wall Street Journal. Relaxing!
  

• Meanwhile, Donald Trump thinks his personal charms are all that’s needed to keep the world safe. “If you have a smart president, he can deal with Russia. He can deal with all of it,” the former president told Joe Rogan last week. But as the Wall Street Journal editorial board notes, the dictators Trump “says he got along with” in his first term “are on the march now and they’re working together more than they ever have.” As the Journal puts it: “It would be reassuring if Mr. Trump said, at least once in a while, that these dictators are dangerous and the enemies of liberty.”
  

• China’s emissions may have peaked in 2023 after new data suggests they are on track to fall slightly this year. But China remains the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Hey, eco-warriors, maybe a little less museum vandalism and a little more petitioning the CCP is in order. 
  

• A PhD student has accidentally discovered an entire Mayan city hidden beneath centuries of vegetation in Mexico. While browsing online mapping data, Luke Auld-Thomas stumbled upon a remote area hiding in plain sight, only a 15-minute hike from a major road. He found “pyramids, sports fields, causeways connecting districts, and amphitheaters” in an ancient city with almost 7,000 buildings. One expert says the lost city, dubbed Valeriana, has “the hallmarks of a capital city.”
  

• England is reeling after “the grate cheese robbery.” Impostors pretending to represent a French supermarket chain stole 22 tons (48,500 pounds) of cheddar worth almost $400,000. Neal’s Yard Dairy, a London-based fromagerie, delivered two massive shipments in September. But the payment, due October 7, never came through and the contacts went cold. (Feeling blue, they alerted the police.) The robbers really got the goat of British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who made a public appeal on Instagram to “find these cheese stealers.” He wrote, “Remember, if the deal seems too gouda to be true, it probably is!” As far as dairy crimes go. . . this one is crackers. 

Oliver Wiseman is a writer and editor for The Free Press. Follow him on X @ollywiseman. 

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