AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
To evaluate the state of the presidential race, we could rattle off some battleground stats or polls. But let's just quote NPR's Domenico Montanaro, who summed it up this way - basically, it's close. Now, we know there's a lot more to say, and thank goodness, NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson is here. Hi, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi. How you doing?
RASCOE: So I'm doing all right. So just how close is it?
LIASSON: The race is tied. Domenico is right. What's happened is not that former President Donald Trump has lost ground, but Vice President Kamala Harris has gained ground. She's brought Democrats home, Democrats like young people and minority voters. That was job No. 1 for her, to get her party unified. Prior to President Joe Biden's dropping out, Democrats were really curled up in the fetal position on the floor. Now they're dancing the "Macarena." Harris has energized her party. She's raised big money. She's attracting big crowds. She pulled off a mistake-free convention.
But she hasn't done job No. 2, and that is to develop a clear lead over Donald Trump. By this time in 2020, Joe Biden did have a lead. And the thing to remember is for a Democrat to win the Electoral College, they generally have to be ahead four to five points in the national popular vote. Structurally, Republicans have the advantage in the Electoral College. They don't have to get a majority of the popular vote in order to win the election. Donald Trump got 46% in 2016, and he won.
So the Harris campaign understands this. They issued a state-of-the-race memo this morning that says Harris and Walz remain the clear underdogs. And they reminded everyone that in 2020, a flip of 40,000 votes across the battleground states would have given the election to Trump.
RASCOE: Mara, let's listen to a statement Trump made Friday in Pennsylvania.
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DONALD TRUMP: Somebody said women don't like Donald Trump. I said, I think that's wrong. I think they love me.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: I love them.
RASCOE: So is the Republican ticket struggling with women voters?
LIASSON: Well, it certainly is. The gender gap right now is historically very big. Kamala Harris's advantage with women is bigger than Trump's advantage with men, and we know there are more women voters in America than male voters. Reproductive rights is the reason.
And because of the abortion issue, Donald Trump has started to do something new. He has tried to move to the center on this issue. He's trying out different positions. He knows that 65% of American voters want abortion to be legal before viability. And in the last couple of days, Donald Trump has come out with a series of confusing and contradictory statements on this issue.
First, he said he's going to be great for women in their reproductive rights. He also repeatedly brags about being responsible for getting the conservative majority on the Supreme Court that ended Roe v. Wade. He's also suggested, for a moment, at least, that he would vote for an abortion rights referendum in Florida that would make abortion legal up to viability. Then his campaign said, no, he hasn't decided what to vote and how to vote on that. And then he gave an interview saying, in fact, he would vote no on that referendum, in effect leaving the ban on abortion in Florida after six weeks in place.
He's also said he'd make the government or insurance companies pay for IVF, which is a very expensive and popular fertility treatment. His running mate, JD Vance, who favors a national abortion ban, said Trump would veto a ban. So it's very unclear where he stands. He just knows it's an issue that hurts him, and he's trying to neutralize it.
RASCOE: Mara, Vice President Harris had an interview with CNN last week. Let's listen to the moment that Dana Bash asked Harris to respond to disparaging comments Trump made about her racial identity.
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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Same old tired playbook. Next question, please (laughter).
DANA BASH: That's it?
HARRIS: That's it.
RASCOE: So how did Harris do?
LIASSON: Well, as you heard in that clip, she is continuing her strategy of not engaging with Trump when he makes disparaging remarks about her race and her gender. She doesn't want to make her racial and gender identity central to her campaign. She understands voters are not going to vote for a candidate just because they'll be the first woman or the first woman of color president.
Instead, she used that interview to continue to present herself as a centrist, common sense leader who would work to find consensus. She'd put a Republican in the cabinet. What she didn't do in that debate - in that interview was answer questions about why she has changed her mind on issues like decriminalizing illegal border crossings or banning fracking, even though Dana Bash pressed her repeatedly on this.
RASCOE: What are you watching for next?
LIASSON: Well, what I'm watching for next is events, obviously, like the death of the hostages. Those are things that can't be predicted. Harris released a statement today saying that Hamas was an evil terrorist organization, and its depravity is horrifying. I'm also watching for the September 10 debate. Both sides have agreed to debate. They still haven't settled on the ground rules. Harris wants the mics on all the time. The Trump campaign wants them off when Donald Trump has finished his time speaking. Trump says he's open to anything. So it still is not clear whether they'll have a debate and what the rules will be.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Mara Liasson. Thank you so much.
LIASSON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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