The Final Weeks

With Election Day just over two weeks away, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are looking to motivate their bases—while also persuading any remaining voters in key battleground states. On Washington Week With The Atlantic, panelists discussed the candidates’ final campaign strategies and how their rhetoric is being perceived among voters.

As Election Day looms closer, Democrats are exhibiting a marked shift in tone compared with what was the “summer of joy” in American politics, Susan Glasser said last night. “Kamala Harris is no longer making fun of Donald Trump and saying he’s weird,” Glasser continues. “Instead, the vice president is campaigning on the ways in which Trump is a threat to democracy.” And in response, “Trump has escalated his rhetoric in a way that seems determined to prove the point that she’s making.”

The Harris campaign’s reemphasis on Trump’s threats is a return to an argument that, previously, proved less effective among voters, Franklin Foer said last night. “Is there any reason to believe that the democracy argument is going to catch now?” he asked panelists. This is why, in part, the Harris campaign continues to ramp up efforts among undecided voters, especially disaffected Republicans. And though a similar line of campaigning “wasn’t working for Joe Biden,” Francesca Chambers said, “perhaps they think that it was the messenger and not the message that was the problem.”

Also this week, Israel’s killing of the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar opens a new turning point for the war in Gaza. The panel discussed what this could mean for tensions across the Middle East and the future of U.S. foreign policy.

Joining staff writer at The Atlantic and guest moderator Franklin Foer to discuss this and more: Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent at The New York Times; Francesca Chambers, a White House correspondent at USA Today; Susan Glasser, a staff writer at The New Yorker; and Vivian Salama, a national politics reporter at The Wall Street Journal.

Watch the full episode here.