BOY MATH

• It was obvious to most people with ears and eyeballs that former President Donald Trump flopped hard in the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris last week, a victory Democrats hoped would propel their candidate ahead with voters. But she hasn’t opened a decisive lead yet. A new set of polls from the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College found that the race is deadlocked nationally. Harris is maintaining a slight lead in Pennsylvania, but the polls are tight in all of the swing states. The Economist says Harris has seen a “small but potentially significant” bump in the polls since the debate.

• Trump isn’t doing super well among people that aren’t white… probably because he has a nasty track record of racism and endorses harsh anti-immigration policies and other measures that would worsen equality. He’s also trailing Harris among likely women voters, while leading her among men (come on guys) so his campaign is targeting young men in hopes of a big payoff: “That is beyond smart because they’re talking about a population that is underrepresented in actual votes on Election Day,” Josh Holmes, a Republican strategist, told the Washington Post. “To the extent they can capture and motivate them, that is a significant demographic.” Notably, Trump has appeared on podcasts hosted by influencers Logan Paul and Adin Ross.

• Democrats have their own plans — bolstered by mountains of cash — to woo that crucial voting bloc, and Caucasian men of all ages. On Thursday, White Dudes for Harris released a new ad campaign worth $10 million that’s airing in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on social media platforms. Speaking over images of Trump allies yelling, the narrator (who has a New York/New Jersey accent for some reason) makes a compelling case: White men are “pretty sick of hearing how much we suck. Every time you go online, it’s the same story: We’re the problem. And yeah, some white dudes are. Trump and all his MAGA buddies are out there making it worse, shouting nonsense in their stupid red hats and acting like they speak for us when they don’t.”

• Since Biden dropped out in July, the Democratic ticket saw a major bump in support among young, nonwhite and female voters. Harris has made inroads among Latino voters — a demographic also expected to be key to winning the election — earning one major Latino voter group’s first-ever general election endorsement. In battleground states, 82 percent of Black voters favor Harris, while only 12 percent back Trump, according to a new poll, which is in line with exit polling on Biden’s support among the same group in 2020.

• But there’s another sign of trouble for Democrats in Michigan, home to a large Arab-American population. Forty percent of Arab-Americans and Muslim voters in the battleground state are backing Green Party candidate Jill Stein, fueled by their frustration with the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, according to data released this month. (Trump has 18 percent of that group’s support in the state, while Harris has 12 percent.) Stein is also ahead of Harris among Muslim voters in Arizona and Wisconsin. It’s worth reminding the Stein-curious people that she mathematically has no way to win or directly influence U.S. policy toward Israel. In a recent interview with Mehdi Hasan, she was asked, “Lay out for me the steps whereby I go into a voting booth and vote Green and the genocide stops,” and it will not shock you to learn that she couldn’t give a coherent answer.

• What’s more, the Uncommitted movement — which drew over 100,000 votes in Michigan during Super Tuesday in protest of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war — announced on Thursday that it won’t endorse Harris, while also warning against voting for Trump or a third-party candidate. “We feel sorry for Vice President Harris, who has missed a crucial opportunity to unite the party and the country around a common sense policy of no more American bombs killing civilians,” Uncommitted co-chair Lexis Zeidan told What A Day. “This isn’t just a failure to lead; it’s a dangerous disconnect from the values most Americans hold, and we can’t afford the consequences.” The group’s delegates were denied a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention, frustrating the members, many of whom noted the number of Republicans who were invited to speak there.

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