The presidential race remains a toss-up two weeks away from the election, though Republican candidate Former President Donald Trump has pulled slightly ahead of Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris in some forecasts:

• Five Thirty-Eight projected that Trump wins 53 times out of 100 in their simulations of the 2024 presidential election, and Harris wins 47 times out of 100
• "Despite trailing Harris in the national polls, the share of the popular vote, and projected Electoral College vote victories, the Silver Bulletin has predicted Trump has a higher chance of winning, at 51% to Harris' 49%," Newsweek reported October 20
• The 270towin election winner model has Trump at 50.4% to Harris' 49.1%

USA Today reported October 18, via the Detroit Free Press, "The fact is that while Harris is maintaining a lead in the national polls of about 2 percentage points, that is probably not enough to push her over the top in the Electoral College which decides the result, since the swing states that will determine that outcome — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia — are generally more Republican-leaning than the U.S. population as a whole."

The New York Times reported this morning that Harris and Trump are "essentially tied — with neither candidate ahead by even a single point — in The NYT's polling average of five critical battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin and North Carolina. In North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan, neither candidate even 'leads' by more than two-tenths of a percentage point. Neither can realistically win the presidency without winning at least one of these states." Similarly, ABC News said, "The latest polling averages from 538 show the two candidates running even in key swing states Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump, meanwhile, has a slight lead over Harris in Georgia and Arizona."

Much of the recent reporting is about the push by both candidates to sway undecided voters in those battleground states. "The race for the White House is coming down to the ground game in swing states like Pennsylvania … Pennsylvania is critical to nearly any path for Harris to win. Her campaign said volunteers and workers knocked on 250,000 doors in the state last weekend alone," Bloomberg reported. "Democrats need to max-out votes in Philadelphia to provide a margin to carry the state. Combined with support in critical 'collar counties' outside the state's two biggest cities, that might give Harris enough of a counterweight to Trump's dominance in rural areas."

As a practical matter, seating the new president will play out in the months after the November 5 election:

• December 11: states are required to finalize results via certificates of ascertainment appointing electors
• December 17: electors meet in the states and DC
• January 3, 2025: first meeting of the 119th Congress
• January 6, 2025: Congress meets to count electoral college results
• January 20, 2025: Inauguration Day

Tax — Multiple news stories have discussed prospects for the tax cut proposals that Former President Trump has put forward even on top of his advocating for extending TCJA provisions expiring at the end of 2025.

A story in the October 18 New York Times, "G.O.P. Wary Over Extent of Tax Cuts Trump Plans," said after the proposal to exempt tip income from tax that VP Harris backed in part, "Four months and half a dozen proposed tax cuts later, Republican lawmakers and aides on Capitol Hill, as well as some economists in touch with Mr. Trump's campaign, are taking a more circumspect approach. Asked whether they supported Mr. Trump's proposals, a typical response was: Let's see after the election. 'I'll decide what my position is on it once we see what the whole picture is next year,' Senator Michael D. Crapo, an Idaho Republican who could lead the chamber's tax-writing committee if his party regains control of the Senate, said last month. The caution is a sign that Mr. Trump's ideas may be too expensive and outlandish for Republicans in Congress to embrace. The rest of the party had been focused on extending the 2017 tax cuts … "

A story in the October 19 Washington Post, "Trump takes a scattershot approach to income-tax reform," said his proposals, including "no tax on tips," no taxes on Social Security benefits or overtime income, making car-loan interest payments tax-deductible, sparing Americans living abroad from paying US taxes, and consideration of income-tax exemptions for police officers, firefighters, active-duty military personnel and veterans, "add up to a version of tax policy that offers little in the way of a coherent, overarching vision — especially in the eyes of conservative tax policy experts who had hoped that a second Trump administration would bring a complete overhaul of the American income tax structure."

Stephen Moore, a Trump economic adviser and Heritage Foundation fellow, said, "I think what you're going to see if Trump wins in 2025 is a wholesale review of the whole tax system … It will be one of those once-in-a-generation opportunities to potentially really clean out the whole tax system." The story cited others who said Trump might campaign with popular sound bites but eventually endorse conservatives' broader plans if they get through Congress. It concluded with Moore saying, "I don't know the answer to this: Is Congress in the mood for doing smaller things like Trump is talking about which are helping isolated groups? Or will President Trump, if he gets reelected, go for the gold and go for a rewrite of the whole tax system consolidating the brackets and lowering the rates?"

Politico this morning noted the interactions between some of the new proposals — specifically a 15% corporate tax rate for companies that make products in the US and restoration of the State and local tax deduction now capped at $10,000 — and his signature TCJA tax law, parts of which expire at the end of 2025. "Trump wants a special, lower corporate rate for domestic manufacturers, which would effectively revive an old break for them that he and congressional Republicans junked as part of their 2017 tax cuts. At the same time, he has pitched reinstating a deduction for state and local taxes they pared back as part of that law," the story said. "It's a surprising prologue to what's expected to be a huge fight next year over what to do about the expiration of much of Republicans' tax cuts. And it's elbowing aside a more fulsome debate over not only individual components of that law, but also related issues like what to do about the government's $2 trillion deficit, how much to tax the rich and what to do about an international push by developed countries to raise taxes on multinational companies."

Trump intends to pair the domestic manufacturing rate with broad-based, country-specific, and product-specific tariffs, which VP Harris continues to describe as a sales tax. Contrasting their tax positions at an October 19 event in Atlanta, Harris said: "I will give a middle-class tax cut to 100 million Americans, including $6,000 during the first year of a child's life … My plan will lower the cost of starting a small business, including by increasing the tax deduction for entrepreneurs from $5,000 to $50,000 … Donald Trump will give billionaires and corporations massive tax cuts like he did it last time … He will impose what I call a Trump sales tax, because he has an intention of putting an at least 20% tax on everyday necessities, which economists have estimated would cost the average person more than $4,000 more a year."

Economy — An editorial in the October 19 Wall Street Journal, "Harris vs. Trump: the Inflation Record," took on a major issue in the election (inflation), saying, "Some of the $3 trillion in Covid spending during 2020 no doubt contributed to inflation, especially the $900 billion that December when the economy had nearly rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. That bill was a bipartisan mistake. Then in March 2021, Democrats stoked consumption even more with their $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, even as states were lifting lockdowns and vaccines rolled out."

Looking back to the 2017 TCJA as a broad swath of provisions expires at the end of 2025, the editorial said, "As for Mr. Trump's tax reform, it slightly reduced revenue as a share of GDP in 2018 and 2019. But it spurred business investment that boosted the supply-side of the economy and helped keep down inflation. Receipts as a share of GDP were back close to the historical average in 2021 and above it in 2022. The reform wasn't anywhere close to the deficit-buster that liberals claim. Mr. Trump is now proposing new tax exemptions that we've criticized, including one on overtime wages, but we doubt most will pass Congress."

With Congress away, What to Expect in Washington is being published less frequently, though WCEY Alerts will be issued as events warrant.