Election Gut Check: Hollywood On Edge Over Possible VP Defeat & Trump Return To White House
EXCLUSIVE: Coming right down to the wire with the polls tied days before Election Day, the White House race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump has many Democrats in Hollywood very nervous.
“Fascism is at the door, and her campaign isn’t fighting back enough, aren’t breaking through,” an openly worried PR executive declares of the vice president’s battle with the Project 2025-backed former president. “It’s too tight in the battleground states, and she needs a sweep to make it to 270 [electoral votes].
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“This should have been over, a done deal, weeks ago.”
Tinseltown’s inclination toward an action movie third-act TKO aside, insiders tell Deadline that dread over a possible Trump return to the Oval Office has become the only conversation anyone in the C-suites and West L.A. enclosures are having right now. With Hollywood still one of the top donors to the Democrats, those conversations alternate from cautious optimism to dismay to out-and-out anger.
Responding in real time and with targeted ad buys to Trump’s violent rhetoric on Friday, when he suggested putting Republican ex-Rep. Liz Cheney in front of a firing squad, the Harris campaign also has been featuring celebrity speakers and performers at campaign events. Taylor Swift hasn’t shown up yet, but in the past week alone, Beyoncé has appeared at a Harris rally in Texas, and — as outrage has grown over Trump surrogates last week calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” — Bad Bunny and others have issued endorsements. LeBron James came out for the VP on Thursday, and Jennifer Lopez spoke at a Las Vegas Harris rally over the offensive words. Cardi B is scheduled to speak at an event in Milwaukee on Friday.
RELATED: Kamala Harris Celebrity Endorsements: A List Of Celebrities Supporting The VP
For all the stars supporting Harris and all the deep-pocket donors, more than a few Hollywood power players believe that the only thing that could truly shake up the race right now is a certain Republican ex-commander-in-chief speaking out.
“Where is George Bush?” a self-described “compassionate conservative” filmmaker demands of the 43rd POTUS. Bush has seen his own VP Dick Cheney and Cheney’s daughter insulted by Trump, as his own daughter Barbara is out canvassing for Harris. “He doesn’t have to say ‘Vote for Kamala,’ he just has to condemn Trump,” the filmmaker suggests of W.
RELATED: Trump Celebrity Endorsements: A List Of Celebrities Supporting The Ex-POTUS
Even then, former top Joe Biden speechwriter and Democratic operative Matthew Littman said that, at this late date, the real value of high-profile endorsements and appearances is to boost turnout, to encourage people to get off the sidelines and to the polls — and not necessarily to change minds from Trump to Harris.
As for how he feels about Harris’ chances on Tuesday, Littman said, “I try not to feel, and just make sure we are doing what we should be doing.” He, like others, brought up the experience of 2016, when many in the industry were buoyed by the Clinton campaign’s confidence that they would win.
To some in the industry, no matter what goes down in the last days of this seemingly endless election, it all has the air of too little, too late.
“I hate to say it, she peaked too soon,” an Emmy winner adds of Harris’ near flawless entry into the contest just over 100 days ago in one of many surprises in an unprecedented campaign. “Doesn’t seem to be a landing strategy there — it’s like they’re winging it.” The scribe also wonders if Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro would have been a better running mate than Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for cutting into Trump’s lead with young men.
RELATED: This Week On The Campaign Trail: Kamala Harris And Donald Trump Deliver Closing Messages
“I hope I’m wrong, I really do,” he says, with a litany of qualifiers over the VP pick and more. “Feels like 2016. Trump is dominating her, even with his f*ck-ups and racism. His base loves that sexist, racist sh*t, and the Biden garbage thing didn’t help.”
On the other side, even after the president’s gaffe seemingly denigrating MAGA voters this week on a campaign call as the VP delivered widely praised closing–argument speech to a crowd of 75,000 just outside the White House on October 29, there are even some who now wonder if Biden staying in the race would see where we are right now playing out differently.
“Would Biden have been able to pull ahead at this point?” one agency executive, who has long been a big donor to the Democrats, ponders of the 81-year-old incumbent who dropped out of the race on July 21, after a disastrous debate performance against Trump a month before. “I don’t know, I doubt it, but Joe had beaten Trump before. People know him.”
Chris Stirewalt, the man who made the Arizona call for Fox News that essentially put Biden over the top in 2020, insists that handwringers need to look at the true forest of this election and not get lost amongst the trees.
Fired by the Rupert Murdoch-owned channel in 2021 and now political editor at NewsNation, Stirewalt told the Deadline ElectionLine podcast this week: “It’s close. Now, there are some aromas of 2012 around this one. … We had a race that looked close but was not. We had a race that was stable and then Trump gained — really Harris lost more than Trump gained — and the race flattened out. It’s just stayed flat. It’s stayed absolutely flat.”
The numbers-crunching Stirewalt continued: “And there is one theory of the electorate that says … there are still more lower-propensity voters, mostly men, that can be motivated to get out and vote and that Trump is going to overperform more than Harris and that [pollsters] are going to look back and say, ‘We missed again, for the third straight election, we missed that last wave of Trump support.’ Or it will be like it was in 2012, when the missing piece was the low-propensity voters on the Democratic side. Those were a lot of Black voters and a lot of younger voters that you are going to miss in a lot of polls.
“So this time,” he added, “I feel pretty comfortable in saying, ‘Get a hunch, bet a bunch.’”
One hardened California political operative looking at record-breaking pre-Election Day turnout in states like Georgia and Arizona said the result hangs on one piece of data: “My gut says all this early voting is good for Harris.”
Of course, as high-wire as the presidential contest is, it is not the only game in town. To that, the focus of the industry has shifted considerably from fundraising for the vice president, who has amassed record sums since her September 29 fundraiser in Los Angeles, many Democratic donors have turned their attention to down-ballot races as the party struggles to maintain control of the Senate and has a rather good chance of reclaiming the House.
According to the most recent October 17 figures from the Center for Responsive Politics, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has drawn the most from entertainment industry sources for his Senate race against GOP challenger Steve Garvey, collecting just over $1 million. He’s followed by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Jon Tester (D-MT) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV), all of whom are battling to retain their seats. Also near at the top of the list is Rep. Ruben Gallegos (D-AZ), who has been ahead in the Senate race in that state.
Among House candidates, some of the biggest beneficiaries of industry money have been Will Rollins, who has been seeking to unseat GOP Rep. Ken Calvert from a Riverside and Palm Springs area district, and former Rep. Mondaire Jones, who is looking to oust Republicans Rep. Mike Lawler from a New York district. Other House candidates who have been drawing industry interest include Dave Min, the California state Senator who is running against Republican Scott Baugh to succeed Katie Porter for an Orange County seat.
This weekend, industry figures will be working phones and canvassing districts.
Littman and Captain Phillips screenwriter Billy Ray have been organizing a phone bank in Westwood on Sunday. Last weekend, Littman and more than four dozen other members of The Working Group trekked to Michigan to do door-knocking in Detroit. Among those who took part were Ron Livingston, Rosemarie DeWitt and Gabrielle Carteris.
“Part of this stuff is the camaraderie of just being together, of being with like-minded folks before the most anxious time in a lot of people’s lives,” Littman said.
In what might be the last word with Election Day less than 100 hours away, he added that he and others have adopted one of The West Wing alum’s Bradley Whitford’s phrases, that he was “nauseatingly optimistic.”
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