Happy Friday! We can confirm that none of the Dispatch Politics team are being paid by the Russian government as part of a propaganda messaging scheme that violates the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Just in case anyone was wondering.

• Sen. Rick Scott this week declined to take a position on Donald Trump’s proposal to either have taxpayers cover the cost of in vitro fertilization or require health insurance companies to cover the procedure. “I’ve got a daughter going through IVF right now. Women who go through IVF, as you’ll learn—it’s tough on them. We’ve got to figure out how—it needs to be accessible, it needs to be affordable,” the Florida Republican said during a brief news conference on the sidelines of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual fall conference in Las Vegas. Scott, who is up for reelection, said his preference is to finance IVF through health savings accounts. But pressed by Dispatch Politics to take a position on the former president’s proposals, the budget hawk and longtime Obamacare critic declined to answer. “I’m going to look at all the options,” Scott said. “We got to make sure women have access to IVF and [that] they can afford it.” IVF has become a hot-button issue in the presidential campaign, with Vice President Kamala Harris claiming it would be more difficult for women to access the widely used fertility procedure if Trump wins in November.
• Harris’ campaign agreed to rules that would mute her and Trump’s microphones when the candidates are not speaking during ABC’s presidential debate Tuesday. “Notwithstanding our concerns, we understand that Donald Trump is a risk to skip the debate altogether, as he has threatened to do previously, if we do not accede to his preferred format,” the vice president’s campaign wrote to ABC News in a letter reported by CBS News. “We do not want to jeopardize the debate. For this reason, we accepted the full set of rules proposed by ABC, including muted microphones.” The campaigns had bickered over the rules in recent weeks, with Harris’ team arguing for the microphones to remain on during the entirety of the debate and Trump’s representatives asking that the rules be the same as in CNN’s June debate with President Joe Biden.
• Harris is breaking with Biden in her plan to raise the capital gains tax, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Harris would raise the all-in top rate from 23.8 percent to 33 percent, a smaller increase than Biden’s proposed 44.6 percent. The proposal represents the first time the vice president has publicly diverged in policy from her former running mate since she moved to the top of the ticket in July.
• Harris raised $361 million in the month of August, her campaign announced in an email memo to the press this morning. The Democratic nominee’s reported haul is significantly higher than the $130 million that Trump’s campaign announced it brought in during the same time period. The Harris campaign says it has $404 million in cash on hand, with Trump finishing the month with close to $300 million in his war chest. Harris has posted impressive fundraising numbers since she became a presidential candidate, and her campaign announced during last month’s Democratic National Convention that it had brought in $500 million since her entry into the race. 
• Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney endorsed Harris at an event at Duke University on Wednesday. “Because we are here in North Carolina, I think it is crucially important for people to recognize: Not only is what I’ve just said about the danger that Trump poses something that should prevent people from voting for him, but I don’t believe that we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states,” she said on a panel at the university’s Sanford School of Public Policy. “And as a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this, and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.”
• Montana Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy led incumbent Democrat John Tester by 6 percentage points in a head-to-head race and by 8 points in a ballot with third-party candidates in an AARP poll released Thursday. The seat is one of the Republicans’ top Senate targets this cycle, and Sheehy has led Tester in all but one poll in the past month. 

LAS VEGAS—The Republican Jewish Coalition is once again friendly territory for Donald Trump, with rank-and-file members putting aside misgivings about the GOP nominee for the sake of party unity and defeating Vice President Kamala Harris.

During a conference last October, a significant portion of RJC activists and donors were hopeful the Republican Party would move beyond Trump and nominate one of his 2024 primary competitors. Yes, the group’s members were grateful for the former president’s robust support of Israel during four years in the White House. But there was exhaustion with Trump’s antics, and a desire for a younger candidate who would run stronger against the Democrats.

Less than two months before Election Day, the former president’s RJC critics here have made peace with his nomination. They still find Trump confounding at times: Naming Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an apologist for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and Tulsi Gabbard, an apologist for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, to his transition team is the latest cause for heartburn among some members. But beating Harris is all that matters, they told Dispatch Politics in interviews.

“It’s a binary choice,” said Eric Levine, a Republican donor and attorney from New York City. Levin, an outspoken Trump critic, backed Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina in the Republican primary. When Scott exited the race, Levin shifted his support to Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ex-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

“It’s well known that Donald Trump was not my top choice but he is far, far better than Harris and I think the country will be better served,” Levine said. “I’m a big believer [that] the best way democracy works is if each individual votes their interest, and I think Donald Trump advances my interest.”

The RJC, which typically gathers here in late October, moved up its annual fall conference because of the upcoming election, developing as a nailbiter between Trump and Harris. The approximately 1,000 attendees who packed a convention center hall at the Venetian Resort heard from several prominent Republicans, including the aforementioned Scott and Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Steve Daines of Montana, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Rick Scott of Florida, plus Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley.

Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana both addressed the conference remotely.

In the hall, there was no visible discomfort with Trump as the nominee. Quite the opposite. He received several standing ovations during his speech, and some attendees wore red yarmulkes emblazoned with “Trump.” Indeed, a veteran RJC member who has attended the group’s conferences for decades said that any concerns about Trump have been sidelined. Like any committed Republican activist, members of this group are singularly focused on Harris.

“People may have lingering concerns or they wish maybe their preferred primary candidate would have prevailed,” the longtime RJC member said, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. “But everybody here I think is—not everybody, but the vast majority of people are—practical, living in the real world, and they understand that it’s a binary choice and most people think that’s a very easy choice.”

Apprehension about Trump among RJC members had been multifold. He lost to Biden in 2020, refused to concede his loss, claimed the election was stolen, and fomented a riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Candidates he endorsed led the Republicans to a disappointing finish in midterm elections two years later, and some of his positions on domestic and foreign policy issues important to this group (which generally identifies with the Reagan wing of the GOP) left members wanting.

But on Israel and the Middle East, priorities for Jewish Republicans, Trump delivered. He moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem; negotiated the Abraham Accords, facilitating peace between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors; and kneecapped Iran. Especially after Hamas’ invasion of southern Israel last October 7 that left more than 1,200 dead (mostly civilians) and with Democratic support for Jerusalem less certain than in past years, RJC members view Trump’s return to the White House as imperative. 

“I felt comfortable supporting [Trump] as an incumbent. I was generally quite pleased with this first-term record. In ‘24, I felt it was time to move on,” said Neil B. Cooper, an RJC member from Manhattan. So, how did he make peace with Trump? “It really is a binary choice. I think Harris’ policies are significantly destructive to the well-being of the United States, and therefore—the stakes are that high—to the world.”

A new study of public opinion on abortion restrictions indicates that majorities of Americans, both nationally and in six swing states, are opposed to making the procedure a serious crime.

The research from the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation, released Wednesday, found that 64 percent of respondents nationally and 57 percent or more of respondents in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin say they would prefer not making abortion illegal at any stage of pregnancy. Around a quarter of respondents both nationally and in those swing states said they preferred criminalizing abortion after fetal viability outside the womb, while just 12 percent nationally said they backed making abortion a crime at any point in a pregnancy. In the swing states, the percentage preferring criminalizing abortion at any point in pregnancy ranged from just 7 percent in Nevada to 14 percent in Georgia.

Furthermore, the results—taken from a survey of nearly 5,000 people, the majority of whom were in the six swing states it polled—showed that both nationally and in the states surveyed, majorities of both Republicans and Democrats said they preferred decriminalizing abortion at least up until the point of viability.

“The central finding is that large, bipartisan majorities do not support criminalizing abortion—making it a crime to give or receive an abortion—before fetal viability,” Steven Kull, the program’s director and a senior research associate at the University of Maryland, told Dispatch Politics.

The survey comes as Republicans attempt to grapple with how to campaign on the issue of abortion. In the past few months, former President Donald Trump has insisted that the decision to legislate on abortion should be left up to the states, and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, reiterated recently that Trump would veto a federal abortion ban.

Although the poll indicated there is little appetite among Americans for abortion restrictions, majorities of respondents to the survey said they wanted lawmakers to craft policy at the federal level rather than in the states—regardless of whether they supported criminalizing the procedure.

Even prohibiting the use of federal funds for the procedure, which is the government’s current practice under the so-called Hyde Amendment, was unpopular among the survey’s participants. Across the country, 55 percent said they disapproved of this policy, and only in Michigan and Georgia did 50 percent or more approve of it.

However, part of the survey’s methodology linked restricting abortion with punishing women who undergo the procedure with prison time, a major fine, or both, an approach that is leading one pro-life group to question the results.

“When you ask a question like that, you’re going to get pro-life people who say they’re in the same boat as pro-abortion, pro-choice people, because they’re not going to support criminalizing women,” Kelsey Pritchard, director of state public affairs for the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America political advocacy group, told Dispatch Politics. “So that, I think, is deceptive, and I don’t think there’s a lot to learn or glean from that top kind of headline question. I think it just shows some ignorance of the pro-life movement.”

While many state laws do punish doctors who perform abortions, the vast majority of them specifically exempt women from prosecution or civil liability. Though Florida’s “heartbeat” law does not contain an explicit exemption, Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed it, has said it is directed at physicians who perform abortions.

Kull noted that legislators in states including Missouri, South Carolina, and Arkansas had proposed bills that would subject women who receive abortions to criminal penalties, though none have yet become law.

The study “did not describe criminalization of abortion as inherently requiring fines or prison time for women,” he argued. “Rather, respondents were informed that making abortion a crime means fines or prison time for doctors, or for women, or for both. Respondents were told that, if they choose to make abortion a crime, they would be able to choose whether the doctor, the woman, or both should face fines or prison time. We included the option of making women who have abortions criminally liable because state legislators have actively proposed that option.”

Pritchard said she does not believe that the study offers much insight, citing other surveys such as a November 2023 Harvard-Harris poll in which 73 percent of respondents said a woman should not have the sole right to decide to have an abortion beyond 15 weeks into the pregnancy. Similarly, in a Marist poll from January, 58 percent of respondents say abortion should not be available to a woman after the first three months of pregnancy.

More recent polls have indicated that most Americans want abortion to be legal in all or most cases, though the percentage varies. A Pew Research poll conducted in April saw 63 percent of respondents say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 36 percent said it should be illegal in all or most cases. In a Gallup survey the next month, 51 percent of respondents said they wanted the procedure to be legal “under any” or “in most” circumstances, while 33 percent said they wanted it to be legal in “only a few” circumstances. Twelve percent said abortion should be “illegal in all” circumstances.

• Donald Trump is holding a press conference at noon today at Trump Tower in Manhattan. The Republican nominee is in the city to attend arguments in his appeal of a May 2023 civil decision that found him liable for committing sexual abuse against writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s.
• Kamala Harris, meanwhile, is off the trail, immersed in preparations for next week’s presidential debate with her team in Pittsburgh. She’ll be there until Tuesday’s debate, which is taking place on the other side of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
• Doug Emhoff, Harris’ husband, will speak at a fundraiser this afternoon for the Harris Victory Fund in Chicago.
• On Saturday, Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will deliver the keynote address at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner in Washington, D.C. The HRC is the country’s largest LGBT advocacy organization. 

“What is frustrating me is I firmly believe that House Republicans are going to lose the majority, and we’re going to lose it because of ourselves.”

—Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas during a discussion at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, September 5, 2024