Will 2024 All Come Down to the Ground Game?
On this episode of See How They Run, Jeet Heer and Swing Left’s Yasmin Radjy discuss the importance of door-knocking in the final days of the presidential race.

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On this episode of See How They Run, D.D. Guttenplan is joined by Jeet Heer and Swing Left’s Yasmin Radjy discuss the importance of getting out the vote.
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Women go door-to-door canvassing, calling for voting for Donald Trump in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, on October 12, 2024.
(The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images)On these final days of the race, the chance for either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump to persuade undecided voters will have narrowed to almost nothing. In such a razor-thin election, which party reaches more of its core voters, and gets more of them to actually cast a ballot, could decide the next presidency more than any ad, speech, or scandal. That’s why there’s been so much focus in 2024 on the topic of this episode: the ground game.
Anxious Democrats are hoping that their get-out-the-vote operation, which they often describe as much more sophisticated than Trump’s, will give them the edge. But how much better is that operation, really? Can it make that much of a difference? And what does it even mean to have a good ground game? To discuss all of this on See How They Run, we’re joined by Yasmin Radjy, executive director of the progressive campaigning organization Swing Left, and The Nation’s own Jeet Heer, who has been following every twist and turn of this election for us.

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
There’s too much Knickerbocker news to fit here, but we do have other stories to report. This week: Iran and the U.S. exchange fire in the Gulf (2:00), plus peace talks stall after Trump adds new demands (4:29); Israel escalates its Lebanon campaign despite ceasefire talks (08:33); Cambodia takes a Thailand maritime dispute to the UN (15:19); in Sudan, tribal clashes kill dozens in South Darfur (17:38); Ukraine strikes St. Petersburg during the city’s International Economic Forum (20:13); Germany loses a UN Security Council vote (21:54); Colombia’s first-round election results see the right gain momentum (24:04); U.S. sanctions hit Cuba-linked hotels (26:36); and Tulsi Gabbard resigns as the DNI faces a CIA feud (29:11).
Then, Tim Sahay and Kate MacKenzie, co-editors of The Polycrisis, join the show to explain how the climate crisis, Chinese clean-tech, U.S. policy, and the Iran war are accelerating a global shift away from fossil fuels.
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With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.
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Onward,
Katrina vanden Huevel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation
