WSJ What’s News - Trump and Harris Tied in Swing States, WSJ Poll Shows

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

A.M. Edition for Oct. 11. Voters in the nation’s seven battleground states see Donald Trump as better equipped to handle the issues they care about most, yet are divided about evenly over who should lead the nation. The WSJ’s Aaron Zitner breaks down our latest poll. Plus, Tehran threatens to target U.S. allies in the Middle East if they aid an attack on Iran. And, Elon Musk unveils not one, but two new vehicles at the long-anticipated Robotaxi event. Kate Bullivant hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3, 2, 1. What will the world look like 10 or 20 years from now? The Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything podcast is here to give you a peek. And we can't wait to show you what's coming. Subscribe now. The battle for swing states is tied. Politics editor Aaron Zittner breaks down the results from our latest poll. Trump leads by 10 and 11 points on the economy and on inflation and by about 16 on handling

immigration and border security. And yet we see all these states as tied. Plus Iran sends back channel threats to US allies in the Middle East. And Elon Musk unveils Tesla's driverless robo-taxi. It's Friday October 11th, I'm Kate Bullivant for the Wall Street Journal filling in for Luke Vargas. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. Voters in the nation's seven battleground states are divided almost evenly over which

candidate should lead the nation. That's according to a new journal poll which found that the race in every one of those states and therefore the presidential election is too close to call. My colleague Anthony Banzi spoke to Journal Politics editor Aaron Zittner about what these battles are being fought over. This poll shows the presidential race in the seven swing states and every single one of the seven swing states to be really, really tight. We surveyed seven states and in none of them can we say that either Vice President Kamala

Harris or Donald Trump has a clear lead. We can tell you that in four of these states, Harris is getting more support in our poll than Trump and in three of these states, Trump has the most support. But in every case, that lead is well within the margin of error. It's one or two points in every state, except for Nevada, where we find Trump with a five-point lead, and even that is within the margin of error. Is there enough time for Harris to beat Trump in any of them? Oh, absolutely. If Harris today were to carry the states where she has these, quote-unquote,

leads, she would have enough votes in the electoral college to win. This poll shows there are more paths to victory available to her because she's doing better than Joe Biden in really all seven of these states. Pete Well, speaking of paths to victory, on what issues do voters seem to be focusing and how are the candidates performing on those issues? John Well, that's one of the puzzles here and really one of the headline findings Voters say that they care most about the economy and about immigration but if we take the finding that the economy and

Border security and immigration are the most important issues to people Well Trump has double-digit leads on those things as well as on handling inflation He leads by 10 and 11 points on the economy and on inflation, and by about 16 on handling immigration and border security. And yet, we see all these states as tied. Why is it that if voters trust Donald Trump more on the issues they care about most, why isn't he ahead in all of these states? The poll has a couple of clues to that. One is people do also care about abortion,

and there Kamala Harris is heavily favored as better able to handle that. Another is that views of the economy are somewhat nuanced. Yeah, if we ask who's better on handling the economy, people say Trump more than Harris. But Harris has a mild lead on housing affordability. She has a lead on handling healthcare. And when we ask who will stand up for the American worker, the two are tied. And when we ask who cares about people like you, Harris has a mild lead. So these are all kind of different facets of economic stewardship and on some Trump has a clear lead. So these are all kind of different facets of economic stewardship and on some

Trump has a clear lead, but this is a multi-dimensional view that people have of leadership and in some ways Harris is holding her own. What groups of voters do Trump and Harris most need to convince in order to sway some of these swing states in their direction? We're down to a very small share of voters who are up for grabs here. If you look strictly at those who are undecided, you're down to 6% of people in our poll. These people tend to be pretty lightly engaged. A lot of them aren't going to vote.

About three quarters of them are independent and don't affiliate with either party. And they have very mixed views of these candidates. They give Trump higher job approval ratings than Harris. But when we ask more generally, what do you think of this person? Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of this person? They have a more favorable view of Harris. How are they going to land?

We don't know. And that's partly what the rest of the last three weeks of this election are going to be fought out over. So what do these numbers tell us about these campaigns and what they need to do in their final weeks leading up to the election? There are millions of dollars in ads out there right now. And these ads are aimed at two things. One is shaping views of the candidates, and the other is trying to shape the issue environment. People generally kind of know what they think of Donald Trump.

So I think these polling numbers suggest that it's really Kamala Harris's image that is most in play. That's one thing. The other is what issue is most important? The other is what issue is most important? Donald Trump is going to argue that you should think about the border and the border being insecure and that you should think about the economy not being in good shape when you go to vote. Kamala Harris is hoping that you think that she's going to fight for you and that she cares about you, that she comes from the middle class and that she's been a

tough prosecutor and will go after price gougers and inflation and that you have something to lose in abortion rights, voting rights and potentially gay rights. And the two parties are going to try to make the issues that are favorable to their candidate the ones that are most salient in the voters mind when they cast a ballot. That was politics editor Aaron Zittner speaking to my colleague Anthony Banzi. Coming up, Elon Musk finally unveils his robo-taxi, and Iran issues a secret warning to the US's Arab allies. Those stories and more after the break.

What then will the future reveal? There's one thing we know about the future. It's being built now. We all have a stake in the future. The future. The future. The future. And the Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything podcast is here to give you a glimpse of what's

on the way. I'm Danny Lewis. Join us as we dig into how science and technology are shaping the future. That is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We're exclusively reporting that Tehran is threatening through secret diplomatic back channels to target the oil rich Arab Gulf states and other American allies in the Middle East if their territories or airspace are used for an attack on Iran.

That's according to Arab officials who said the countries that Iran has threatened include Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, all of which host US troops. The threats have prompted these states to tell the Biden administration that they don't want their military infrastructure or airspace to be used by the US or Israel for any offensive operations against Iran. Iran's threats come as Israel weighs how to respond to a volley of about 180 missiles fired from Tehran earlier this month. Meanwhile, Israel continues to wage its offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Last night, Lebanese authorities said Israeli strikes in densely populated parts of Beirut killed 22 people, making them the deadliest attacks in the heart of the capital since the start of the war. We can exclusively report that US officials are racing to understand the full scope of a China-linked hack of major US broadband providers. A group tied to Chinese intelligence known as Salt Typhoon is believed to be behind the attack which we first reported on last month. Federal authorities and cyber security investigators are probing the breaches of

Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, with members of Congress worried that they could amount to a devastating counter-intelligence failure. Among the concerns are that the hackers may have essentially been able to spy on the US government's efforts to survey Chinese threats, including the FBI's investigations. Within the last week, hackers still had access to some parts of US broadband networks and more companies were being notified that their networks had been breached. According to people familiar with the response, investigators are still in the dark about precisely what the hackers were trying to do.

Spokespeople for AT&T, Lumen and Verizon declined to comment on the attack. A spokesman at the Chinese embassy in Washington has denied that Beijing is responsible for the alleged breaches. And the Nobel Peace Prize has just been awarded to the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo. Here's the announcement from the Norwegian Nobel Committee. This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts

to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again." Elon Musk unveiled two new Tesla vehicles last night, including the CyberCab, which would operate as the fully autonomous robo taxi he's been hinting at for years. The two-door vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals, and Musk said it could cost less than $30,000 to buy. He also showed off the robo van, which can transport up to 20 people at a time or move cargo. Journal reporter Becky Peterson covers

Tesla. She says last night's long anticipated launch was a key moment for Musk who has bet the company's future on a pivot to robotics and AI. Elon's pitch was basically there's a lot of things in our life that have been automated. He compared passenger vehicles to elevators which used to have human operators, and they just don't anymore. The pitch was convincing because they took people on rides. They showed that this car actually works.

For years, Elon's been trying to convince us that Tesla was just a couple of years away from having fully autonomous vehicles. And it's possible that it's just around the corner. But these vehicles are not yet being made and they are certainly not on the road. The event was a very controlled environment. That's not what it will be like in cities like San Francisco and Austin,

where its competitor Waymo has a thriving business. Before the cyber cab hits the road, Tesla plans to deploy a fully autonomous version of its driving software, which will run on two existing car models in Texas and California next year. Musk said Tesla plans to start producing the cyber cab before 2027, but acknowledged he's often optimistic with timeframes. Tesla shares fell in off-hours trading. And in news moving markets today, home viewings and sales of new and previously owned homes have jumped in China's biggest cities over the past few days. That's according to Chinese

state media and follows a flurry of stimulus measures, partially aimed at boosting confidence in the troubled housing market. And investors have high expectations that China's finance ministry will announce more steps to help the economy in a press briefing scheduled for tomorrow. Carlos Tavares, the CEO of Jeepmaker Stellantis, will retire in early 2026 when his contract expires. High ranking execs, including the company's CFO and North America chief operating officer, will step down from their posts. The search for a successor to Tavares is already underway. The carmaker is reshuffling its ranks as it battles tumbling profit and market share. Its shares are down more than 40% this year. And earnings season kicks off today with results

from JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and Bank of New York Mellon. All three banks are set to report before the market opens. BlackRock will also post earnings ahead of the bell. And that's it for What's News for Friday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach with supervising producer Christina Rorke. And I'm Kate Bulevant for the Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas.

We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, have a good weekend and thanks for listening.