As election night looms, insiders are dissecting every clue and whispering about how each side is preparing for the final hours.
On a 2WAY livestream on Tuesday with Mark Halperin and Dan Turrentine, Sean Spicer presented a cautiously optimistic outlook for Republicans, particularly in light of the early vote numbers, which he drew from conversations gathered during the campaign trail.
Reflecting on Pennsylvania, Spicer highlighted the 400,000-vote lead that Kamala Harris has — a stark contrast to the 1.3 million votes Biden had banked at this point in 2020. “That’s gotta feel good for us,” he remarked, adding that Republicans are seeing promising trends in states like Ohio, Montana, and Nevada.
Halperin also weighed in, noting that the Harris-Walz campaign is banking on women voters to tilt the scales. Early vote data reflects a rural surge in turnout for Republicans, whereas urban areas have seen lower numbers, which raises questions about Harris’s ground game. Of course, the Harris campaign denies seeing any problems in the early vote for Kamala.
Outside the campaign is a different story. Halperin pointed out that Democrat insiders like Doug Sosnick and Jim Messina have voiced worries on national media. Halperin remains skeptical, pointing to a real “concern there” that hasn’t been fully addressed.
“Do you get that sense from their side when they’re telling you they feel good that it’s, like, nervous good, or it’s like, hey, we’re kicking back with their feet up today?” Spicer asked.
Halperin responded that while Democrats are projecting a win, their confidence appears guarded. He explained that Democrats say, “We're gonna win. We're gonna win. It's gonna be close, but we're gonna win.”
This raised a red flag with Halperin: “I don't know how you can say, if you think it's gonna be as close as they do, I don't know how you say you're gonna win.”
According to Turrentine, Democrats aren’t disputing the early vote turnout numbers, but instead are emphasizing that “independents and late breakers” are going to break their way.
Spicer added that this approach reminds him of past Republican campaigns where early deficits were explained away with complex, often hopeful, scenarios about Election Day turnout. The comparison underlines how Democrats today seem to be managing expectations cautiously.
Turrentine noted that those closest to the Harris-Walz campaign higher-ups “are very cautious,” stressing that while optimism remains, it’s tempered with a dose of realism.
Inside Kamala Harris’ campaign in the last 24 hours, “those closest to the high command are very cautious,” says @MarkHalperin, a sharp contrast to Mar a Lago’s braggadocio. “Not one Democrat has emailed me their electoral college predictions. Not one.”#HarrisWalz #Trump… pic.twitter.com/9I9CUnu2nE
— 2WAY (@2waytvapp) November 5, 2024
Halperin underscored this by pointing out the absence of any Democrats reaching out to him with confident electoral college predictions — a noticeable silence in the final hours.
"So the confidence gap remains. Republicans I talked to are just sending me their electoral college guesses. They're all above 270, some as high as 320 or 322, I think. I don't have a single Democrat emailing me an electoral college map," he said. "They say they think they're gonna win, but they're not they're not as confident."
“The confidence gap remains,” says @MarkHalperin of the moods of the opposing camps at Mar a Lago and in Wilmington. “Republicans I talked to are sending me their Electoral College guesses. They’re all above 270, some as high as 320 or 322. I don’t have a single Democrat emailing… pic.twitter.com/xxLjVuUcwL
— 2WAY (@2waytvapp) November 5, 2024
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