Politics
Hold the 'blue wall,' or light up the Sun Belt? Harris eyes path through U.S. battlegrounds
Vice President Kamala Harris’ late entry into the presidential race against former President Trump reset the political playing field in important ways, giving Democrats a promising boost in polling and a huge infusion of cash and volunteers. But it didn’t change everything.
In a nation of more than 330 million people, the 2024 election — just like the 2016 and 2020 elections before it — will almost certainly be decided by a relatively small number of voters in a handful of battleground states, political experts said.
When Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016, it was by fewer than 80,000 votes across Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania combined. When President Biden beat Trump in 2020, it was by fewer than 50,000 votes across Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
Now, Harris is in a high-speed race to start executing her own path to victory through the nation’s battlegrounds, which include Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — three of the “blue wall” of states that lean Democratic — and Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona, in the nation’s Sun Belt. This week, she is expected to pick her running mate — possibly from one of those states — and begin holding major rallies in places such as Philadelphia, Detroit, Raleigh, N.C., and Savannah, Ga.
Amid the high-stakes number-crunching that campaigns always do to determine their best path to victory, the Harris campaign is citing polls showing her closing the gap with Trump in nearly every battleground, and seeming more bullish than Biden’s campaign ever did. On the question of whether Harris might focus on the blue wall or the Sun Belt, her campaign’s answer has been both.
Harris speaks at a Black sorority gathering in Houston last week. One expert believes her campaign will also invest in voter turnout in the South to put Donald Trump on the defensive even in red states.
(LM Otero / Associated Press)
In a call with reporters last week, the campaign’s battleground states director, Dan Kanninen, said the flood of support for Harris across the country included 360,000 new volunteers and $200 million in donations during the first week of her candidacy — two-thirds of which was from new donors.
On Friday, the Harris campaign said that it had $377 million in cash on hand — compared with $327 million for Trump — and that it would be spending hard and fast to ramp up the fight.
Kanninen said the campaign is rapidly expanding an already large network of Biden-Harris field offices and volunteers across the battleground states. He said that there were 600 staffers “on the ground in the blue wall,” and that 150 more would be added by mid-August. Aides also planned to double the size of the campaign’s teams in Arizona and North Carolina, and were opening new field offices in Georgia.
Volunteers were fanning out to knock on doors, and being trained on how best to spur pro-Harris conversations online.
“We’re making these investments across the entire map because the data is clear: We have multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes,” Kanninen said. “The vice president is strong in both the blue wall and in the Sun Belt, and we are running hard in both.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on its strategy for battleground states.
In the American electoral system, voters cast ballots to elect the president, but the candidate who receives the most votes nationally is not necessarily the winner. Clinton, for example, received about 2.9 million more votes than Trump, and still lost.
That’s because the candidate who wins the most individual votes in a state receives all of that state’s electoral votes, in what’s known as the electoral college. The number of electoral votes per state is determined by population, with the most populous states — such as California — receiving the most.
In order to win an election today, a presidential candidate must secure 270 electoral votes, and different presidents have gotten there through different pathways. Barack Obama famously pulled together a broad coalition of voters, flipping nine previously red states to blue in 2008.
Clinton was confident going into the 2016 election, riding polls that appeared strongly in her favor, only to have her campaign’s swing-state strategy — she never campaigned in Wisconsin — ridiculed by some political analysts after her stunning defeat. In 2020, Biden managed to undo some of the damage to the Democratic Party, taking back several key battleground states while flipping Arizona and Georgia — but by closer margins and via a narrower path to victory than Obama‘s in 2008 and 2012.
Political experts, pollsters and other veterans of presidential races said that given Harris’ resources, it makes sense for the campaign to cast a wide net and fight in as many swing states as possible. But they have different takes on how she might get to 270 — or fall short.
Robert Alexander, a professor of political science at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and author of “Representation and the Electoral College,” has long studied presidential paths to victory on the electoral map.
“Harris’ entry has changed the complexion of states up for grabs, I would say, from where Biden was — and it’s made it more amenable for Democrats. Certain states seemed to be slipping away [under Biden], and some of the early polling would say that they are now back in grasp for a Harris-led ticket,” Alexander said. “That’s a pretty significant shift in a pretty quick time period.”
He said that Pennsylvania — with 19 electoral votes, which Clinton lost and Biden won — is a “pretty key state in all of this right now,” and that there will no doubt be “money dumped” into campaigning there.
But he also expects Harris, buoyed by new energy and enthusiasm, to invest in driving up turnout in the South, in part to force Trump — who had been preparing to “run up the scoreboard” on Biden — back into a defensive posture.
Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said both Harris and Trump appear focused, correctly, on the seven states that were decided by 3 percentage points or less in the last election: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in the blue wall; Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona in the Sun Belt; and Nevada.
In 2020, Biden won six out of the seven, while Trump took North Carolina — and all of them are up for grabs in 2024, Kondik said.
Before Biden dropped out, Kondik had been watching the president’s numbers falling fast in the blue wall swing states, and considered the decline a deadly sign for the Biden campaign. “If he lost in any of them, he wasn’t going to win,” Kondik said.
He said the same probably holds true for Harris, but that may change if her numbers keep going up in North Carolina and Georgia.
“The jury’s out on that,” he said.
This colorful endorsement of Harris went up recently in Madison, the capital of Wisconsin. The crucial swing state helped Trump win the presidency in 2016 — and lose it in 2020.
(Kayla Wolf / Associated Press)
Cornell Belcher, a pollster who worked for both Obama campaigns, said Harris may not be able to restore Obama’s broad coalition. But it “makes all the sense in the world” for her to follow Obama’s strategy of “pressing for expansion” on the electoral map, he said — “going more places and making Republicans play defense more.”
Harris has to “secure the blue wall, hard stop,” Belcher said, and will definitely be paying attention to — and spending time in — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
But given her brimming campaign coffers, he said, she also has the “opportunity to go on the offensive” in other vulnerable places.
North Carolina, which Obama had flipped blue, more recently elected a Democratic governor in Roy Cooper, and may see diminished Republican turnout given GOP primary voters’ selection of far-right candidates in down-ballot races, Belcher said.
“It’s absolutely an opportunity if you have the resources,” he said of the Harris campaign. “And again, they have the resources.”
Georgia, he said, is also in play, with a “well-educated, upwardly mobile population and a growing segment of minority voters” who flipped both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats blue in the last election.
“For Democrats to not tap in to these changing dynamics within these states,” Belcher said, “would be malpractice.”
Harris doesn’t have a lot of time, but Belcher and others said it’s unclear how relevant that is. This race has been moving at lightning speed, the trajectory of polling in several states turned on a dime in the last couple of weeks, and Harris’ favorability ratings shot up in record time after Biden endorsed her.
“We’re in uncharted waters,” Belcher said. “There are no road maps for all of this.”
Alexander, of Bowling Green, said he still believes that Harris has a “tougher path” to winning than Trump due to the nature of the electoral college system — and he worries 2024 could be another “misfire election,” with Trump winning the electoral college despite Harris winning the popular vote.
“In a different time,” Alexander said, “it would be seen as a constitutional crisis.”
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Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner has emerged as one of the party’s fastest-rising political figures, drawing national attention for his populist message and outsider image.
But as his profile has grown, so has scrutiny of his past conduct, with controversies ranging from sexually explicit messages and offensive social media posts to a Nazi-linked tattoo and campaign staff upheaval.
PLATNER CONTROVERSIES FUEL SPECULATION ABOUT LITTLE-KNOWN MAINE BALLOT REPLACEMENT PROVISION
In continued clean-up of those scandals, Platner came to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to huddle with party figures at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee headquarters just one week before his primary election.
The Marine veteran and oyster farmer has defended himself against the criticism and retained the support of prominent Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Still, some have questioned whether the allegations could complicate Democrats’ efforts to unseat Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races.
Here’s a look at the major controversies that have engulfed Platner’s campaign.
Explicit text messages and sexting allegations
Senate candidate Graham Platner is under fire, but it was his wife Amy Gertner coming out with a controversial five-minute social media post by the campaign to denounce the ‘attacks’ while she did not deny the allegations of infidelity in a new marriage. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The most recent controversy surrounding Platner stems from reports that he exchanged sexually explicit messages with multiple women during his marriage, an issue that campaign aides were reportedly aware of as his Senate bid was taking shape.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, informed a campaign aide about the text exchanges shortly after he launched his Senate bid as staffers were assessing potential political liabilities.
According to the report, Gertner discovered the messages months after the couple married in 2024 and disclosed their existence before her husband held a campaign rally alongside progressive Sen. Sanders. The campaign told Politico that the aide viewed the matter as a private issue between the couple and did not raise concerns about it publicly.
SENATE CANDIDATE GRAHAM PLATNER SENT EXPLICIT TEXTS TO MULTIPLE WOMEN WHILE MARRIED, WIFE SAYS: REPORT
Platner’s campaign later confirmed the existence of the text exchanges to Politico.
He also told Fox News Digital in a statement: “Amy and I went through something hard — because of me. We did the work, and I’m grateful for her every hour of every day.”
“I’ve learned throughout this campaign is that people don’t care about gossip or headlines, they care that you’re fighting for their hospitals, their paycheck, their kids… Our opponents want politics to be empty of content and empty of actual change — and beating that is exactly what our movement is about,” he added.
In a statement to the Journal, Gertner criticized the disclosure of the information, saying she had shared “deeply personal details” about her marriage with someone she considered a friend, only to see those details become public.
She revealed that the two attended couple’s counseling, worked through the issues in their marriage and have since emerged as a stronger couple.
“I know who Graham is. I know the man I married and the husband he has been to me on the best and the worst days of my life,” Gertner said. “That hasn’t changed, and it won’t.”
Nazi-linked tattoo
Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine, points to a covered tattoo that was previously recognized as a Nazi symbol during an interview in Portland, Maine, on Oct. 22, 2025. (WGME via AP)
Platner’s campaign also faced intense scrutiny after it was revealed he once had a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest closely resembling the “Totenkopf” symbol used by Hitler’s SS paramilitary forces.
The Maine Democrat said he got the tattoo during a “night of drinking” while on leave in Croatia in 2007 as a Marine and claimed he was entirely unaware of its meaning at the time.
In an Instagram video posted in May, Platner elaborated on the tattoo’s origins. He explained that he merely selected the design from a flash tattoo wall while “carousing” with fellow Marines in Split, Croatia.
“We thought it looked cool,” he downplayed.
Platner said he was later “appalled” to learn the image resembled a Nazi symbol, arguing that his life and career have been defined by opposition to fascism, racism and Nazism. He also noted that he was never questioned about the tattoo during his military service.
MAINE DEM SENATE HOPEFUL BACKED BY BERNIE SANDERS APOLOGIZES FOR NAZI-STYLE TATTOO, VOWS TO STAY IN RACE
Rather than undergo removal, Platner said he chose to cover the tattoo because tattoo removal services were not readily available near his rural Maine home.
“Going to a tattoo removal place is going to take a while,” he told The Associated Press. “I wanted this thing off my body.”
The symbol was ultimately covered with a tattoo featuring a Celtic knot and images of dogs, which Platner said were meant to honor his family pets.
Deleted Reddit posts reveal offensive comments
U.S. Senate candidate from Maine Graham Platner speaks during a campaign event on May 17, 2026, in Portland, Maine. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The keystone scrutiny Platner has faced during his bid stemmed from thousands of now-deleted Reddit posts that resurfaced after he launched his Senate campaign.
In posts first reported by CNN and Politico, Platner referred to himself as a “communist” and “socialist” and endorsed the slogan “all cops are b—–ds.”
In other posts, he argued that those who “expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history” and said that “an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice.”
DELETED POSTS URGING VIOLENCE HAUNT DEMOCRATIC SENATE HOPEFUL IN MAINE RACE
The posts under his since-retired username “P-hustle” were deleted before Platner announced his Democratic Senate bid in August.
The candidate has since addressed the posts multiple times, telling CNN and Politico that he was “f—ing around on the internet” during a period when he felt “lost and very disillusioned with our government who sent me overseas to watch my friends die.”
“I made dumb jokes and picked fights,” Platner said. “But of course I’m not a socialist. I’m a small business owner, a Marine Corps veteran, and a retired s—poster.”
In the posts Platner made crude comments about masturbating in port-a-potties and claimed a U.S. service member who took enemy fire in Afghanistan “didn’t deserve to live.”
GRAHAM PLATNER VOWS TO ‘COME AFTER’ BEZOS AS SENATE HOPEFUL ESCALATES BILLIONAIRE TAX FIGHT
The controversies have done little to erode Platner’s standing within the Democratic Party as he has continued to attract national attention and grassroots support in the Democratic primary bid to challenge Sen. Collins for her seat.
Since former Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills halted her campaign in April, much of the party establishment has consolidated behind Platner, and national Democrats have continued to support his candidacy despite the flurry of scandals.
The steady stream of allegations and past controversies has also drawn attention to a little-known provision in Maine election law that allows political parties to replace a nominee under certain circumstances after a primary election.
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Under state law, a candidate who wins a primary and subsequently withdraws by 5 p.m. on July 13 can be replaced by a nominee selected by party officials. Any replacement candidate must then be chosen by 5 p.m. on July 27.
There is currently no indication that Platner plans to withdraw from the race, and the Democratic hopeful has repeatedly vowed to continue his campaign. Still, the provision has drawn renewed interest as questions persist about whether additional revelations could complicate his candidacy.
Platner’s campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Politics
Commentary: Bass clears first hurdle, but if Pratt holds off Raman, the mayoral race could be a holy war
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass made what sounded like a victory speech Tuesday night.
Councilmember Nithya Raman made what sounded almost like a concession speech.
And former reality TV star Spencer Pratt relayed a message from the heavens.
“Well, obviously God wanted five more months of me exposing all the failures of our mayor, so it’s gonna be a fun ride,” Pratt said. “I hope she’s ready.”
Assuming Pratt holds on to one of the two spots in the Nov. 3 general election as the final votes are tallied in the next few days, the smart money will be on Bass, for reasons I’ll get into in a moment.
But the supreme being and patron of all pontiffs has to be considered a wild card. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that an incumbent mayor in the City of Angels would be running against a challenger whose campaign manager is God Almighty.
So here we go. We could be in for one of the more remarkable electoral adventures in city history, with a complete novice and MAGA conservative going up against a liberal career politician in a deep-blue city and state full of people who are tired of hearing excuses from Democrats. (If Raman ends up ousting Pratt, my apologies for jumping to conclusions. But it’s not my fault. The devil made me do it.)
If you intend to follow closely, as of course you should, maybe you can help me count the number of times Pratt plays the faith card. I went to St. Peter Martyr School and attended the church by the same name, and I don’t recall ever hearing a nun or a priest drop God’s name as often as Pratt does.
In fact, I just watched a clip of Pratt talking to Fox News TV host and Donald Trump disciple Kayleigh McEnany, and over the course of 1 minute and 52 seconds, he mentioned God or Jesus 10 times.
“Thankfully, I married an angel who was very connected with Jesus and has brought me to the light,” Pratt said of his wife and former reality TV co-star Heidi Montag. “It’s been very empowering to just pray and just be on his path and just say, ‘God, if you want me to save these animals, save these humans and protect my city, just keep putting me in the place where I can do that.’”
Is he running for mayor or cardinal?
Look, I totally respect your average true believer. But I’m not entirely comfortable with a mayor who might be sitting around City Hall waiting for signs and smoke signals rather than knowing what to do on his own.
God has a lot on his plate. He might be busy multiplying fishes and loaves so people don’t go hungry thanks to the president’s tariffs and warmongering. Is he going to rush to answer a prayer for guidance about underfunded parks or broken sidewalks in Los Angeles?
How did we get here, you ask?
Well, Pratt is an AI creation, in a way. A composite of sorts. You combine the forces of social media, political rebellion, second-rate celebrity obsession and the Peter Principle, and here’s a little Trump puppet walking around L.A. like he’s the chosen one.
Add to that the very real essence of his appeal to some voters:
Los Angeles has problems. Big problems that don’t get fixed quickly enough or at all, and Pratt represents the angry voter who wants to know why City Hall can’t do better and where all the money went. He’s absolutely right when he says we shouldn’t have people living on the streets, using drugs on the streets and dying on the streets.
But if Pratt is in the general election rather than Raman, we’re in for a national media circus rather than a summit on solutions. Raman is well-versed on matters of relevance and could have pushed back against Bass in substantive, detailed ways. On the other hand, as Pratt has fairly argued, Raman headed City Council’s homelessness committee, so isn’t she partly to blame for the failures she tried to pin on Bass?
As for Pratt’s policy chops, he has not responded to my offers of a get-together. Absent that, and given his careful avoidance of local reporters who know their stuff, I read his platform on his campaign website and I can tell you that while he touches on many of the right issues — public safety, fiscal integrity, homelessness — attention to detail and depth of knowledge are not God-given strengths.
Maybe Pratt can actually deliver on his promise of a “treatment-led recovery model that addresses mental illness and addiction as the primary drivers of chronic homelessness.” But that would require an act of God (which I suppose is possible given their relationship), because those matters are primarily under the direction of the county, not the city.
This is the main problem here. Bass was beatable, and could have been pushed by a serious challenger to do better.
In the last election, Rick Caruso gave her a scare. That was partly because he had some depth on the issues, he was a successful businessman and philanthropist, he had served on the police commission and the water and power board, he had built relationships across the city and, along with his family, he had poured time and millions of dollars into underserved communities.
In this election, it looks as though Bass could get lucky and face off against a guy who lost his house in the Palisades fire, saw a few homeless encampments through his car window, and decided he wanted to be mayor. Some might have questioned his hubris, but only before learning that he was on a mission from God.
If you’re keeping count, that’s nine mentions of God so far in this column.
One more for the tie, with an eye toward five more months of campaign fodder.
Thank you, God.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
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Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., suddenly found himself on the defensive at a budget hearing on Wednesday when, amid levying accusations of the Trump administration’s “corrupt” dealings, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent fired back by bringing Wyden’s son’s investments into the exchange.
“We would like to hear what Adam Wyden and Jeffrey Epstein talked about,” Bessent said, referring to unearthed emails drawing a connection between the senator’s son and the disgraced financier.
“Did your son and Jeffrey Epstein talk about pole dancing as he begged him for money?”
The moment continues the political fallout for the many names associated with Epstein that — despite not amounting to proof of wrongdoing — continue to prompt embarrassment and scandal at even the smallest mention.
TOP FIERY MOMENTS AS DEMOCRATS CLASH WITH TREASURY SECRETARY BESSENT IN CHAOTIC HILL HEARINGS
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, left, pictured along Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore, right. (Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Epstein, a former financier, died while in prison on charges of sex trafficking minors in 2019, leaving behind questions of whether he facilitated illegal sexual encounters for his vast network of rich and powerful figures.
Amid public demands for transparency on the matter, the Department of Justice released troves of documents on Epstein late last year, unveiling a slew of new names with all manner of ties to the infamous figure ranging from purely innocuous to alarming.
Among them, emails surfaced indicating that Adam Wyden, Ron Wyden’s son, went to Epstein, hoping to gain his support for a business venture.
UNEARTHED EMAILS REVEAL DEM SENATOR’S SON WANTED EPSTEIN TO JOIN HIS FUND: ‘ENJOYED OUR CONVERSATION’
Sen. Ron Wyden leaves a Senate Democratic meeting at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 3, 2025, as the federal government shuts down after Congress and the White House failed to reach a funding deal. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“Jeffrey, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and hope my passion and dedication for my business came through in the meeting. I live and breathe this business and take my returns, integrity and reputation quite seriously,” the younger Wyden said in an email in April 2016.
“I intensely appreciate like-minded individuals and would very much look forward to having you join us at the fund.”
The emails came after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida in 2008.
It’s unclear what the business venture discussed by Adam Wyden and Epstein may have been or what, specifically, had been discussed in their conversations.
Even so, Bessent reminded viewers that the younger Wyden had a history of investing in off-color markets at Wednesday’s hearing.
DEMOCRATS ARE HAMMERING REPUBLICANS ON EPSTEIN, BUT ONE SENATOR BRUSHED OFF THE ISSUE YEARS AGO
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent addresses a press conference in Rosenbad after trade talks between the U.S. and China concluded in Stockholm, Sweden, on July 29, 2025. (Magnus Lejhall/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)
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“Your son’s largest investment position was Rick’s Cabaret,” Bessent said, referring to a series of strip clubs.
Wyden, who has widely panned the Trump administration and its many officials for their own connections to Epstein, didn’t respond to Bessent’s jabs.
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