SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Election Day is 20 days away. And in many states, Americans are already voting. The race appears close, dead even. Vice President Harris is campaigning in Pennsylvania today, trying to appeal to moderate Republicans. And former President Donald Trump is talking to undecided Latino voters in a Univision town hall. We want to take a big picture look at the state of the race, so we asked just the person to do that with, NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, to come join us. Hey, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: Let's start with Trump. What's he saying today?
KEITH: So that Univision town hall doesn't air until later tonight. But earlier today, another town hall he did with women voters aired on Fox News. And, you know, Trump has for a while now been worried about losing support from women. And this town hall was meant as a direct appeal to them, though the content was pretty standard MAGA red meat - a lot of immigration. And he even doubled down on some of his extreme language from recent days talking about Democrats.
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DONALD TRUMP: It is the enemy from within, and they're very dangerous. They're Marxists and communists and fascists, and they're sick.
KEITH: Trump also recently suggested using the military against the enemies from within. This is the kind of language that even some of his supporters say is a mistake.
DETROW: So to put it mildly, he's not exactly moderating his tone to seal the deal with undecided voters at this point. What, in contrast, is Harris doing?
KEITH: She is trying to expand her base, trying to stitch together an anti-Trump coalition that includes people in suburbs who in the past would have voted Republican. So at this event today in the Philadelphia suburbs, she was joined by more than a hundred Republicans - former elected officials, former Trump aides - who have endorsed her. And that's not all. She's doing an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier tonight. It is her first ever Fox News interview, which shows the lengths that she is going to, to try to reach people.
DETROW: We're hearing this language from Trump in recent days, this, you know, antidemocratic at times, violent language. How has Harris been responding to that?
KEITH: You know, I've noticed a shift in her campaign. Earlier on, she was really focused on introducing herself to voters and telling her own story, happy warrior stuff. It was a much more positive message than the dire predictions that President Biden had been making all along about what another Trump administration would mean. But now Harris is making some of those very same dire predictions, responding to the things Trump is saying. And today at her event in Pennsylvania, she talked about Trump's threats to use the military on the enemies within. She said she could see him going after the press or election officials and judges.
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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: It is clear Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged.
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HARRIS: And he is seeking unchecked power.
DETROW: Tam, we might have set a world record here about talking about this election for several minutes without talking about polls. Let's do it now.
KEITH: Let's do it.
DETROW: Still incredibly close?
KEITH: Yeah, you know, it is even closer than it was a few weeks ago. Based on an average of recent polls, the race has tightened in Trump's favor. You know, it's been close, as it has been the whole time. But if you look back at this point in the race in 2016 or 2020, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden were doing a lot better in the polls versus Trump than Harris is doing now.
DETROW: And of course, we found out that those polls underestimated Republican support. Any sense whether that's still happening?
KEITH: Short answer? We don't know. In 2022, after the Supreme Court's decision on abortion, the polls overestimated Republican support. So is there a polling error now, and who is it in favor of? We will have to wait and find out what the voters tell us.
DETROW: That is NPR's Tamara Keith. Tam, thanks so much.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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