JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
It is less than a month until voting ends in this election, and it is going to be close. For the next few weeks, we'll be talking with NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro on Mondays to look at the week ahead in the campaign. And Domenico joins us now. Hi there.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Great to be with you.
SUMMERS: So, Domenico, we know it's going to be close. No one needs to tell either of us that. But, I mean, for people out there who are perhaps a little nervous sitting down, reading the news, scrutinizing every single poll, what would you say to them?
MONTANARO: Stop doing that. I mean, the fact of the matter is 95% or so of people have made up their minds. And that's where they're at. I mean, we're within a month now to the election. And everybody is wondering, you know, how is this election going to break? Where's it going to go? The fact is the polls are not designed to be that specific. You know, if a national poll has a 3 1/2-point margin of error, that means it's a seven-point range. So, you know, if it says it's close, there could be a group that's undercounted. There could be another group that's overcounted. You don't know. The fact is it's close. People need to have their heads down, organizing, doing the work 'cause this is now all about mobilization.
SUMMERS: Right. And there's a couple of other major events on the horizon that I want to get into with you. And the first is some of the severe weather we've been seeing. There's been a lot of talk on the campaign trail about Hurricane Helene and the federal response to it. And it's become quite politicized, particularly on the Republican side, as Republicans have been out there criticizing the Biden administration's disaster recovery efforts. How do you think this is going to play out in terms of the presidential race?
MONTANARO: Right. And we've seen a lot of misinformation also play out on this where you have some Republicans saying that the money's not going to the areas that need it, where FEMA says that it is - the Federal Emergency Management Agency. So, you know, this is going to potentially play out. We've seen in past storms that turnout has been down in some of those counties.
And I know the Trump campaign in particular is very concerned about some of these areas in the northwestern part of North Carolina, for example, where some of those counties Trump won 61% of the vote overall, according to one analysis in those counties - in Georgia, about 54% of the vote of the affected areas. So this could have an effect. We're going to see just how much those counties are able to get their voting apparatuses back up. But it's something we need to be watching very closely, especially with another storm on the horizon here.
SUMMERS: That's right. Now, as we talk, it is October 7. It's been one year...
MONTANARO: Yeah.
SUMMERS: ...Since the Hamas attack on Israel, which, of course, launched the war in the Middle East that is continuing today. We know that, traditionally, foreign policy isn't something that moves a ton of votes in elections. And yet this is something that, as I've been out talking to voters, I hear about quite a lot. Do you think that this is an issue that could be resonant among voters?
MONTANARO: Well, I think that any time that Gaza and the Middle East, you know, Iran, any of that is brought up, it's not a great day for the Biden administration and, by proxy, for Kamala Harris because this is something that when we look at polls, people say that they trust Trump more to handle Gaza and the Middle East. And we know that there is a part of the Democratic base that doesn't like this issue and how the Democrats have been handling it when it comes to President Biden or Vice President Harris.
So the Biden administration and Harris really don't want this to be front and center. They would like a cease-fire deal to be enacted. They haven't been able to get one yet at this point. And the longer that this is out there as the main thing people are talking about, it's worse for them. But people are very, very locked in on who they're going to be voting for at this point.
SUMMERS: So, Domenico, last thing - in the next two weeks, Univision will hold two separate town halls with former President Trump and Vice President Harris, and those will have Spanish-language translations. Tell us what you're watching for here and the types of key questions each candidates are going to need to field.
MONTANARO: Yeah. I'm really excited to see this because I feel like Latinos are a really crucial voting bloc in a lot of different parts of the country but Arizona and Nevada in particular. And for me, I would ask Donald Trump about his past statements about Latinos, about Mexico sending drugs and rapists to the country and what he's going to be doing to pledge to, you know, not speak that way about a key portion of citizens in this country. And for Kamala Harris, it's got to be all about the economy. The fact is that working-class voters who are Latino in places like Nevada need help. And, you know, what could she do differently that she didn't do in her first four years as vice president? What would she be able to do differently to help people on the economy?
SUMMERS: NPR's Domenico Montanaro. Thank you.
MONTANARO: Hey. 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.
