AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Donald Trump is holding a rally in Erie, Pa., today while Kamala Harris will hold a rally in Las Vegas. That's after Harris kicked off the weekend with a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, and Trump attended the Alabama Georgia game last night. And that's where we'll start with NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning.
RASCOE: So let's see. We had Pennsylvania, Nevada, that border visit that was in Arizona and Georgia football, though they played in Tuscaloosa. So lots of what we call key states - what's your read on the race this weekend?
LIASSON: My read is that the race is tied. Neither candidate has a clear lead outside the margin of error. Harris does have a slight advantage in the so-called blue wall states. That's Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump has a slight advantage in the Sunbelt states. That's North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia. I can't think of a race that's been this tight at this point. Harris does have a one- to two-point lead nationally. Of course, we don't elect our presidents by national popular vote. We elect them by a winner-take-all state-by-state system. And in the past, a Democrat needed four to five points of a national popular vote lead to overcome the Republicans' structural advantage in the Electoral College. Whether that holds true this election, we won't know till after Election Day.
RASCOE: Ohio Senator JD Vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz debate on Tuesday. Now, debates have proven to be a big deal over the course of this campaign. But do you think that will be true for the VP nominees?
LIASSON: Yes, I do. In a race this tight, it's a game of inches. Every little thing can make a difference. I think Walz and Vance are both big personalities. They're top surrogates for their candidates. I don't think this vice presidential debate will be an afterthought. I think that on Tuesday night in New York - they'll be in a CBS studio - you can expect to hear Vance accuse Walz of misrepresenting his National Guard duty.
I think you can expect Vance to be pushed to answer for all the negative things he's said about Trump as - in the past, as recently as 2020. At the end of Trump's term, Vance said that Trump thoroughly failed to deliver. I think you can also expect Vance to be pushed to answer for Trump's recent comments, like how he's going to be a protector of women, and they won't be, quote, "thinking about abortion if he's elected," or if he's not elected that the Jewish people would be to blame.
So I don't think either of these candidates come into this debate with a clear advantage. Vance is a practiced, combative cable news fixture, but Walz has higher favorability ratings with voters.
RASCOE: You know, I want to go back to the border visit that Vice President Harris made Friday. Immigration is definitely a strength for Trump polling-wise. Talk to me about Harris' calculus in going there.
LIASSON: There's no doubt that Trump has an advantage on immigration. That's one of the reasons she went to the border. That gap, though, has been closing. Trump has been seen as better on immigration but not as well as he was doing against Biden. And Harris has come a long way from criticizing Trump for putting kids in cages or, as she did in 2019, promising to decriminalize illegal border crossings. Now she's accusing Trump of not solving the problem while in office, for rejecting a recent bipartisan border security bill because he wanted to maintain immigration as an issue for him in the campaign.
They both have very, very different approaches to this issue. Harris says she wants to end the flow of illegal immigrants but also pass comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship for the DREAMers. Those are undocumented immigrants who were brought here as very young children. Trump, on the other hand, wants to end birthright citizenship and conduct mass deportations. And in terms of the policy debate, comprehensive immigration reform and mass deportations are both very popular with voters.
RASCOE: That's an interesting disconnect there. Pew Research finds that the economy ranks highest on the issue list for all voters, even higher than immigration for Trump supporters. So what economic promises are you seeing from the two candidates?
LIASSON: Very different promises - Trump's magic bullet is across-the-board tariffs, especially high ones on Chinese goods. He says that will bring in so much money, it will solve all our problems. Although economists disagree and say that tariffs increase the cost of ordinary items for average Americans. Harris is offering a whole bunch of tax credits for starting a family, starting a business, buying a home. She wants to finance that by taxing corporations and people who make more than $400,000. So like immigration, Trump has an advantage on the economy, but that advantage is narrowing. He had a 15-point advantage over Biden but now only six points over Harris on who's better on the economy.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Mara Liasson. Thank you, Mara.
LIASSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
