CNN’s John King breaks down polling showing some momentum for Kamala Harris, but some headwinds too Tonight. Harris's momentum a new CNN poll showing Harris picking up support in some very important states swing states. Let's just show you what we're looking at. Harris is ahead of Trump in the key blue wall states of Michigan and Wisconsin. In Arizona, though, Trump is in the lead. Georgia and Nevada are both within the margin of error, although Harris is technically up a point in each. In Pennsylvania, that is a dead heat right now, and we're gonna have a lot more on all of these numbers with John King in just a moment. A deep dive on them at the wall. You know, it comes, though, as Vice President Kamala Harris is now trying to talk more about policy and to define herself as different than Biden for the first time, announcing some differences from the president on taxes in New Hampshire today, Harris announcing she would tax investment income at a lower rate than President Biden has proposed in. If you earn $1 million a year or more, the tax rate on your long term capital gains will be 28% under my plan, because we know when the government encourages investment, it leads to broad based economic growth and it creates jobs, which makes our economy stronger. To be clear, she would increase taxes by a lot less than Biden on capital gains, but still increase them more from where they are now. Former President Trump firing off nearly a dozen online videos around the time that Harris was speaking about her economic policies, one after the other. He was talking about the border, communism, crime, Biden and also the economy. Trump cash versus Kamala crash. We're going to have a crash like 1929 if she gets in. It will not be pretty. That line of attack actually is reminiscent, in fact, almost identical to what Trump was warning about the last time around. If Biden wins, you're going to have a stock market crash the equivalent of 1928 and 1929. Of course, that has not happened despite Trump's prediction. It is clear, though, that both of sides know that the economy is key in the election, right? It is the focus for voters more than anything else. So John King, now at the Magic Wall, as promised. So, John, as you look at ItrillionIGHT now with all the latest, you know, polling data, all that you've got, where and what are the paths right now to 270 tonight? Erin, strap in our new polling shows, yes, some Harris momentum, but the big headline is this is a very, very, very, very I could add a few more very close races. Let's just look at the data. What it says is this is where we are right now. The yellow states are our toss up states. They include North Carolina. We did not poll in North Carolina. This time I'm going to lean it. Red Democrats will get mad at me, but I'm going to lean that one red until I see data that proves otherwise, because it has gone red in every election since 2008, when Obama won it was Republican before that. Here's our new polling. Harris ahead in Wisconsin outside the margin. Harris ahead in Michigan just outside the margin. That gets her to 250 right. Donald Trump ahead in Arizona outside the margin that let me make that red. That would move him up to 246. Pretty close right. And then you mentioned these other states are too close to call Pennsylvania a genuine tie. Let's just say Harris's exact is really plus one in Georgia and plus one in Nevada. This is just one poll. This is a hypothetical here. That alone, though, if she could held that would get her to 272 and she could win the presidency without Pennsylvania. But again, she's plus one in the polling. It's just as plausible. And we've seen other data that Donald Trump could win Georgia and Donald Trump could win Nevada as well. That would get him to 268. So what happens then? You're looking at Pennsylvania, right. Let's assume Harris exit out. It's a tie right now. If Trump won it he'd be in the United States if Harris won it under this scenario. And again, it's a scenario that gets you to 269 to 68. And it all comes down to Nebraska's second congressional district. Either a tie or it puts Harris over the top at 270. I'm not saying that's going to happen. What I'm saying is, if you look at this data, here's where we start today. Those polls tell us, Erin, look, we are eight weeks and six days away from counting votes. It's competitive 269 to 268. that's a nightmare scenario. I think for so many in this country, no matter which which which side of the political spectrum you may be on. but, you know, John, when I was just mentioning right before you came on talking about the economy, which both Harris and Trump were focused on today, it is the number one issue, and Trump still has, at least from the polling you're looking at. He still has the edge there, right. This is Trump's biggest advantage, which is why he wants to hold it and why you see the vice president out doing economic speeches. Her ads are also tilting now heavily toward the economy in Arizona. Trump's up five overall voters view him as the better candidate by 15 points on the economy in Georgia, where Harris is tied, maybe plus one. Trump has a slight revenge. So you can see the trend here. In places where Harris is competitive or ahead, Trump's numbers are lower. Nevada is the outlier. It got thrown. This economy got thrown in the trash during Covid. But the key for Harris is to bring this Trump advantage down where she's winning in Wisconsin. She's up six in the state. Trump only plus two on the economy. This is her biggest challenge. Try to if she can't catch Trump on the economy, at least make him plus two or plus four. Not plus 816 or more. The economy right now is Trump's biggest advantage by far. All right. Well now you go down deep in the polling today, there were some warning signs for Harris in specific vulnerability with with key voting groups. What are they. So let's look first the gender gap gets talked about a lot. Let's look at women voters. If you look at these numbers Harris is essentially tracking Biden a little better in some places. She would probably like to improve these numbers. But when it comes to women, look at Harris now and Biden 2020 and they're relatively good right there. She would like to improve them, obviously, because she's struggling. One reason you want to improve them is because she is struggling a bit among men, voters, male voters, especially when you look out in the western states in 2020, Trump won it by two points in Arizona. He's up 14 in 2020, 12 and ten. That's about the same. But if you if you look at Nevada eight plus 18 plus five. So this is a problem for the vice president. Without a doubt. She needs to try to improve her standing among male voters. And again you can trace a lot of that back to the economy. And people just don't know a lot about her. Here's one other thing. Quickly, I want to show you, though Hispanic voters are critical in both Arizona and Nevada. And look at this. Biden won by 24 points. Harris only by six in Arizona right now. Biden won in Nevada by 26, Harris by 20. Smaller subset of voters here. So the margin of error is a little higher. So this might not be as bad as it looks, but it's still bad. And one of the places the vice president has to do some improvement among men, among Latinos, most of all, that would help itself on the economy. And what about independents and moderates? So this is fascinating to me. And this just raises the stakes for the debate outside the chart here. Watch this. When you bring it up, independents and moderates, this this is into just independent voters. But the trend lines are similar with moderates. Look at how Trump is now winning in Arizona, in Georgia, in Michigan, among independents. Right. Biden won all of these battleground states among independents back in 2020. This is an area the vice president needs to improve. Are standing voters in the middle. These are people who self-identify as independents. You see very similar numbers among people who self-identify as moderates. She's struggling in the middle. She is viewed as more liberal than moderate Joe Biden. And so she's struggling a bit in the middle. But here's the opportunity. A lot of people don't know a lot about the vice president, which is why she's out there giving these speeches. Right. Look at this. The percentage of voters in each of these battleground states who say they might change their mind. It's in the teens. 11% in Georgia tends to be in the low to mid teens in all these other battleground states. But look at the independents 24%, 23%, 27%, 23%, 29%. They are open to changing their mind. If Kamala Harris can prove herself on the economy and on leadership, these are the independent numbers. They're very similar among moderates. We don't talk much more about in this polarized climate, about the middle of the electorate. There is room for her to grow in the middle if she makes her case. Yes. And you look at a numbers of 268 to 69 at the end of the day, right. Any tiny margin of these groups matter so much. All right, John, thank you so much for all of that. So, let's go now to, Scott Jennings, Kate Bedingfield. CNN’s Erin Burnett talks to former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield and Republican commentator Scott Jennings about recent polling on the 2024 race So Kate Harris is up in Wisconsin and Michigan. Let's just start with that where John started. and these are massive turnarounds over the past weeks from Biden. And now outside the margin of error. Do you feel great about this? I feel good, I feel encouraged. I wouldn't say I feel great because I think the totality, the numbers show that this is still and is going to be an incredibly, incredibly close race. We just heard John go through it. I think what the numbers today show is that Kamala Harris has more pathways, more conceivable pathways to 270, than Trump does, or at least than Trump felt like he did six weeks ago when Joe Biden was at the top of the ticket. I think there's no question his path has narrowed. So I think these numbers should give Democrats. They should be heartened. I think it's showing that she, you know, continues to build strength in the coalition that she needs to win. And as John was just saying that she has room to grow. Trump, I think, probably has a little bit less room to grow, in part because he is so well defined. so, you know, I think it it is encouraging. I don't think by any stretch the Democrats should view this as a slam dunk, though. There is a long way to go in this race. And it's clearly very, very close. I mean, it's got, you know, obviously a few weeks ago, pretty much all those swing states, Trump thought he had it locked up. He was talking about New Hampshire. Right. So it is it is, you know, a small solace to say, oh, well, she's only up 1%. Georgia, you know, we can still do I mean, it's still got to be pretty grim to look at these for, Trump's team, isn't it? I don't know, I mean, he was underestimated badly in several of these states by a lot of polling in 2016 and 2020, including in some CNN polling. I might add. I agree with Kate. I think it's an incredibly close race. Either of these candidates could win any of these states we're talking about. And I also agree with John that the ticket to victory for the middle and for some of these, male voters that they're competing for is really to talk about the economy. I had to chuckle a little bit today listening to her talk about her tax policy. I mean, she's like Joe Biden's tax policy is only going to kill you as much as, you know, Jason Voorhees. But I'm more like Mike Myers sees it. That better? No, it's not better. They're both scary as hell. And either way, you're going to be dead. And so I think she's going to have to come up with something a little better. Then I'm going to raise your taxes a little less than Joe Biden is if she wants to do it. And that's the cash on the capital. On the main tax policy there, at least as of now, has been no difference between the two. Let me just ask you, though, you know, one thing that John mentioned there when we're talking about these different voting groups and Scott just brought up men, but I want to ask about independents and moderates, right. Those independents that he was looking at in swing states, 25 to 30% of them are open to changing their mind at this point. All right. Is this is this something that worries you, or is this something that actually makes you feel good because you are supporting the candidate about whom people know less? Well? I think it's certainly shows that she has more room to grow. And so I think that as she is continuing to define herself out on the campaign trail, also, we've now past Labor Day. So you have voters really starting to tune in in a way that, you know, historically they don't pre Labor Day. So this is really a moment for her to make her case. And she also has Donald Trump out there, her opponent you know, continuing to try to throw everything at the wall against her to see what sticks. He's not really making a coherent and cohesive, argument against her. And, he's continuing to use some of these same, you know, tired, ugly personal attacks, which we know that moderate and independent voters are tired of. They rejected it in 2020. And we've seen in all of the polling since this race started to, to come together about a year ago when it was going to be Trump versus Biden. We saw that people said, we don't want this rematch. We don't want more of this. So we're getting more of the same from Trump. They're hearing something new and different from Kamala Harris that they're excited about. So stoked on the change in their minds or at the point, that one point that Kate just raised was so the way Trump talks. All right. So if they're going to listen to what's going on we're going to watch this debate. They're going to listen to interviews. He does the question Scott, is are they going to take into account and do they care when he comes out and says personally pejorative things like he often does today on a radio show in New Hampshire, he's talking about how Harris ended up on the Democratic ticket. And here's what he said. They didn't want her, but they were politically correct. They wanted to be politically correct, as so many people do nowadays. And they chose somebody that they didn't want. We can't go another four years with a dumb president. Scott. That's what I want to ask you about calling her dumb, just coming out and doing that. Are you worried about what independents and moderates will do when they are confronted with sound bites like that? Or if that is the kind of stuff that we get a whole lot of next week at the debate. Yeah. I don't think it would be wise to do that at the debate. And yes, of course there will be some voters turned off by that. On the other hand, Trump has some appeal and some need to talk to politically disengaged people who are probably not all that offended by crass, blunt, talk like that. And, you know, trying to draw them in, trying to, you know, make memorable content, trying to get them to consume this in in short soundbites, as we know, there are a bunch of voters in this country or maybe Nonvoters, who he wants to make voters that might pick up on something like this. So I think there's a method to the madness. But you do, you know, when you squeeze the balloon on one end, it pops on the other. And so, there is a trade off. So some will not like it. There may be a cohort out there that like the the blunt talk and, that's what he's betting on. Well, and and we'll see with something this close, every single vote, matters in a way perhaps never has before. all right. Thanks very much to both of you. Kate and Scott. Tonight, K file investigates A CNN KFile review finds instances of Kamala Harris slamming Donald Trump’s border wall that is now featured in her campaign ads in a new report. You'll see. First out OutFront, the K file team scour Kamala Harris's tweets and statements going all the way back to 2017. And what they found was more than 50 instances of Harris slamming Trump's border wall. But now new Harris campaign ads actually showcase that very well. As a border state prosecutor, she took on drug cartels and jailed gang members for smuggling weapons and drugs across the border. And on top of critical tweets, Harris also wrote in her 2019 book, quote, there was a bigger reason to oppose the border wall, a useless wall on the southern border would be nothing more than a symbol, a monument standing in opposition to not just everything I value, but to the fundamental values upon which this country was built. How could I vote to build what would be little more than a monument designed to send the cold, hard message? Keep out. Well, K files, Andrew Kozinski joins me now. So, Andrew, I mean, you you and you all have gone through I mean scoured an incredible amount of material. Tell me more about what you found. Yeah, that's right. We found more than 50 of those those tweets criticizing the border wall before she used that in her ad. And I want people to take a look at just a few of what she said here. She called it wasteful, useless, a waste of taxpayer money, a vanity wall project, a wasteful border wall, a stupid wall, a medieval vanity project and an unnecessary wall. And those are really just I mean, there were more of this just like ten or like 50. but there was really there was really a lot of this was the common refrain during the campaign. You read that quote where she said it was against everything, that not only that she stood for everything. America stood aboard, but then she brought this up a lot. Take a listen to just one instance of that. In 2019. It's the president's vanity project. His multibillion dollar vanity project, called A wall, is nothing more than a distraction from the fact that he actually hasn't focused on working people in America. He contrived a national crisis around his big distraction. All right, so you go through all of that, you've got all the tweets, and yet all of a sudden in the ads, there's pictures of the wall. And then you went through to look at that wall like, what is that specific wall that's in her campaign ads now? And you found something very interesting about this specific portion of the wall. And what's I think what's also really remarkable, this is like I mean, you heard her talking about it there, the Trump's wall in his campaign during his presidency, there was really no greater symbol of Trump's presidency than the wall in the way that Democrats were attacking him over the wall and his restrictive immigration policies. So we looked in that ad, and if you look at it, that exact area of wall is in us. The SOB are supposed to be Arizona, and that is a portion of wall that was actually built by Donald Trump. It was built in an area where there was not previous wall was actually pretty controversial when they were building it at the time. So just to see that and then there are other pictures using his wall that he built to say, look at what I did. And basically and the other images of the wall, we weren't able to pinpoint, but there's, there's telltale signs that that was a Trump wall because there's an anti climbing plate on top that became popularized during the Trump years. It's really incredible reporting. And in Fortnite Andrew Kaczynski and K file. Thank you very much. CNN’s David Chalian breaks down polling showing which battleground states will prove to be a tight race Tonight's breaking news that Liz Cheney is voting for Vice President Harris might change some minds, but we won't know about her for a while if it does. What we do know right now is how the race is shaping up in key battleground states, thanks to the latest batch of CNN polling, the latest on that from CNN political writer David Chalian at the Magic Wall. It's like a political fantasy of mine to wake up with David and and the day with David. So how tight are the races in the battleground states? Very tight. John, this battle for 270 electoral votes. Take a look at this. You will see how title race. This is our brand new polls across six states. Now, in two of them we see a slight lead for Kamala Harris in Wisconsin, 5040 for Michigan. She's head of a 4,843% advantage there. Those are outside the margin of error in Arizona. We see the reverse. We see Trump outside the margin of error. And in Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Look at that. In Pennsylvania a dead tie. These states have no clear leader well within the margin of error. And they could determine which candidate gets 270 electoral votes. Why so tight? Look at this gender gap, John. This is going to be one of the things we watch all the way through November. You see here where Kamala Harris extends her advantage with female voters. And Trump doesn't extend his with male voters in a place like Michigan, she has a 16 point advantage. She only has an eight point advantage with male voters in Wisconsin, 17 percentage point advantage among women for her nine percentage point advantage for men. For him, those are the states where she's leading. So that's what she's looking to do extend advantage with female voters in places that he doesn't overperform with male voters. That's key. And then take a look at who's left here. I'm surprised by these numbers, but there's a swath of the electorate in these battleground states that is still movable 16% in Pennsylvania, 16% in Michigan, down to 12% in Georgia. Obviously, most people say their mind is made up, but among these likely voters, there is a chunk of vote here who say they could change their mind or they're not yet willing yet to commit to a candidate. That's absolutely enough to change the outcome here. All right. What's the top issue in these states and who you are? The voters trust more to handle it. It's economy across the board. That may not surprise you. We've been talking about it all year long. But take a look here. Pluralities in all six states among likely voters, they rate the economy as the issue number one, driving their vote. When you take a look at this broken down by candidate supporters among Trump supporters, the economy is off the charts are driving their support. That is not true for Harris supporters. In fact, protecting democracy is the issue among her supporters that rates number one again. Overall, the economy is. But take a look at this Trump advantage on the economy. This is why it is so close right now. I mean, in Nevada and Arizona, he's overwhelming Harris on the economy in places like Wisconsin, Michigan, it's a little bit closer. She's narrowed the gap on this issue. Number one, from where Joe Biden stood when he was the top of the ticket. But this is still a Trump advantage category and it's issue number one. So one of the things that Tim Walz did, even before he was running mate for vice president Harris in the Harris campaign, picked up on, is calling Donald Trump weird and that his ideas are not aligned with mainstream voters. What are the polls have to say about that? I think this is one of the most interesting things in our poll. So take a look here. Among likely voters across all these states, majorities say that Harris's policy views are in the mainstream. Fewer say that her policy positions are too extreme. It is the reverse for Trump in all six states, a majority or an Arizona 50%, but a majority elsewhere say his views are too extreme. Fewer voters, likely voters, say that they are generally in the mainstream. That's why you're going to hear Kamala Harris still talk about project 2025, and label his plans as extreme to try to press that advantage. John, that is very interesting. David Chalian, great to see you get some rest. Thanks. Back now with our panel, Maggie Haberman, Ashley Eaton, and Erin Perrine. CNN’s John Berman talks to his political panel about the battleground states#cnn Maggie, let's talk about Pennsylvania, shall we? Because it is the state, honestly, that I hear most about from Republicans and from people in the Trump campaign. How important is it to them? How do they feel about it? It's vital to them, in fact, that the super PAC, the main super PAC backing Trump, its top official, put out a memo several months ago describing it as the ball game. And so that you can't overstate the degree to which they are focused on Pennsylvania. They're feeling good about it, and they have been feeling good about it for some time now. Depending on which side you talk to, you hear different things about their polling. But I do think that the Trump team feels stronger about their position in Pennsylvania right now than the Harris team does. Actually, that number that David pointed out about how many people are still changeable voters, about 15% of likely voters around it in all those six states. You're the Harris campaign. How do you reach those voters? Well, I mean, they're doing it in very traditional and nontraditional ways. I mean, the the nontraditional ways I find to be the most impressive at the convention, they had 250 influencers that reach more than 350 million eyeballs, pushing out their message. And they're going to utilize that army online to not just push back on disinformation, but to proactively push out her messaging and meeting voters where they are. So that's one way that I think they're doing it in a way that we've never seen a national campaign. Can I just say one thing that I think is very interesting in this polling and that is she's winning on this question about who cares about me, who cares about you? And you can see that theme now starting to run throughout her campaign, even in her most recent ad, she opens up with, I am focused on you. And Donald Trump is not. I mean, January 6th was about Donald Trump. His efforts to try to cheat the election were about Donald Trump. Even his failures on Covid were about Donald Trump. So that's going to be the greatest contrast. And she's winning on that question. And I think she can enter into these other policy issues through that lens that he could care less about. Yeah. Cares about people like you might be a back door into some of the economic issues as well. We'll have to wait to see how much ground she can make up there. Erin, the gender gap here in Vice President Harris's lead among women voters. How do you think the Trump campaign will try to cut into that? Yeah, you've seen Trump so far try to make overtures to female voters. You saw a little bit of that last week when he started talking about IVF and reproductive rights. This is a really major voting bloc in the United States, and it's one that has been trending more toward the left, especially on persuadable voters. But women are not a monolithic voting bloc. No voting bloc is. So this is one about identifying your persuadable voters. And this is kind of the fun, the science and and the business of politics is to sit here and say, who are your persuadable voters? Where are they? What counties do they sit in? Are these swing counties? How are we going to be able to talk to them? How many times do we need to talk to them? Is that a mailer? Is that a phone call? Is it a text message? Is it a TV ad? Is it a message to their phone? What are you doing to talk to them and then getting them on their message to turn out in the fashion they like it. This is like where the political science nerd in everybody who works in politics is really gearing up, because it's targeting the message to the voter right now to all to get them to start voting, because ballots are going to start moving very soon in the United States. I mean, they're starting to move within the next 48 hours. Maggie, persuasion for women voters for the Trump campaign or turnout, the men voters just lean into the advantage you have with men. I don't think it's either or. I mean, I think that they primarily are looking at boosting their turnout with men. There's no question about that. And you can see it across the board. you do see Trump himself clearly concerned about how abortion is playing as an issue. He has been incredibly reactive on it. He has been all over the place, in the last two weeks alone. And frankly, over the last couple of years, and you saw him, do, you know, sort of discreet events, like, I mean, discreet, just, you know, little narrow slice within a within a larger subsection, like moms for Liberty. So you're going to see them do things like that. But no, I don't think that anybody on the Trump campaign reasonably thinks they're going to massively increase his numbers with women.