The long slog of an election turned into a race to the finish. Now, with 18 days until final ballots are cast, it’s an all-out sprint that Democrats are increasingly worried Harris isn’t going to finish standing up, White House Reporter Naomi Lim wrote for us this morning. 

There was a boom in excitement, voter registration, volunteer numbers, and fundraising — Harris has racked up an astonishing $1 billion in donations across her networks — that hasn’t put Harris comfortably ahead in the contest. She closed the gaping maw left between Biden and Trump as the country grew more and more concerned about the president’s ability to finish his term, much less get signed up for another four years of work. But the contest is still within the margin of error in essentially every swing contest, and there are few, if any, persuadable voters left. 

And even if there is a silent majority of persuadable voters waiting to be wooed by Harris, she is also struggling to connect with voters who should already be in her column. 

“Harris is encountering difficulties connecting with members of the traditional Democratic base, including black and Latino men, and those undecided voters could decide the election,” Naomi wrote. 

If she’s on the road to defeat, it isn’t for lack of trying to expand her coalition. Harris went deep behind enemy lines on Wednesday night to do an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier. It wasn’t a sparkling performance, but it was designed to tell voters she is the tough prosecutor who is willing to get into a dustup with the opposition she’s been describing herself as for years.

She tried to show, not tell. 

But her problem could be as much voter loyalty to Trump as it is her own weaknesses as a candidate. Regardless of how long she has been in the race or how much money she is spending on travel, promotions, and get-out-the-vote efforts, Trump’s base is loyal and unmoving. 

“I mean, what could Trump do to lose supporters at this point in time that he hasn’t, right?” Democratic strategist and pollster Stefan Hankin told Naomi. “Harris’s job for the next three weeks is just to remind all the less likely or on-the-fence voters how important this is.”

Click here to read more about Harris and Trump’s sprint to the finish.

Culture war clash

Republicans haven’t always been successful in leaning into culture war fights, but they are banking on winning this one. Decades after juicing turnout by running in opposition to gay marriage, and after a year of getting pummeled on running against expanded abortion rights, the GOP thinks it has found a winning opposition message when it comes to transgender issues. 

Broad support for transgender people has spilled over into demands that even Democrats who are broadly in favor of expanding LGBT rights and protections are hesitating to sign on to. Republicans, picking up on their concerns, are now investing tens of millions of dollars into races that highlight extremism to position themselves as the obvious choice to handle such sensitive issues, Congress and Campaigns Editor David Sivak and Congressional Reporter Samantha-Jo Roth wrote for us this morning. 

“Former President Donald Trump has given the issue oxygen in the election’s closing weeks. At a women-focused town hall on Wednesday, he promised to ban biological males from competing in girls sports through executive action,” they wrote.

“Meanwhile, his campaign and allied groups have flooded the airwaves with an ad highlighting Vice President Kamala Harris’s past support for sex reassignment surgeries for prison inmates,” they added. 

And the pressure campaign is squeezing downballot candidates, too. 

The Mitch McConnell-linked Senate Leadership Fund has forced vulnerable incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to spend time and money distancing himself from sweeping support for allowing transgender men to participate in women’s sports. 

Kari Lake is struggling to close the gap between her and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) in a high-stakes Senate contest. Gallego is a progressive who is running a successful campaign appearing as a centrist. But Lake has used Gallego’s being named a “trans equality champion” as a cudgel to tell voters that he is “too far left to be our senator.” 

Pinning a plan on hot-button culture war topics is risky. Republicans have largely abandoned their previous opposition to gay marriage and have run into walls at every turn since Roe v. Wade was overturned and the ability to legislate abortion access was sent back to the states. 

And unlike abortion access, David and Samantha-Jo wrote, transgender issues don’t rank in the top 10 of voter concerns.

The strategy might be good for getting their own voters to turn out. And it could have a marginal effect on pulling skeptical Democrats away from their candidates, but it’s not a surefire winner in every circumstance. 

“This is trying to inflame people who have very strong negative feelings about people who are transgender,” Daniel Fee, a Democratic strategist in Pennsylvania, told them. 

Click here to read more about the GOP’s big bet on the culture war.

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For your radar

Harris will speak at several events in Michigan, starting in Grand Rapids at 2:35 p.m. before speaking in Lansing at 5:30 p.m. and in Oakland County at 8:10 p.m.

Trump will hold a rally in Detroit at 7 p.m.

Biden is meeting with several world leaders in Berlin, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, French President Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Wisconsin Senate candidates Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and GOP challenger Eric Hovde will debate at 7 p.m.