Oct. 7 one year later, Hill Dems’ localized messaging & Biden’s Hurricane Milton prep
Plus: Major abortion decisions from Georgia’s top court and the Supreme Court.
👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome back to Once Upon a Hill. I hope you had a great weekend.
Quick countdown: The general election is in 29 days. The next government funding deadline is 74 days. Inauguration Day is in 107 days.
Today is one year from the day Hamas attacked Israel and killed more than 1,200 civilians, including families terrorized in their homes and attendees of an outdoor music festival with more than 240 people taken hostage, in the deadliest day for Israel since its independence.
Israel declared war against Hamas the next day, first by conducting air strikes on the Gaza Strip, followed by a ground incursion. Two days after the attack, Israel cut off water, electricity, food and fuel from entering Gaza, which limited the emergency response from paramedics and humanitarian organizations. Three weeks after the attacks, more than 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza had been displaced. At least 41,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed to date and two-thirds of the buildings in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed.
The attack has had enormous ramifications for American foreign policy and domestic politics. The US had been negotiating a peace deal with Israel and Saudi Arabia in hopes that a sustained peace between the two would enable the US to refocus economic, diplomatic and military resources to the Indo-Pacific region to deter China from invading Taiwan—which would upend the global economy and could pull the US, Japan and other allies into a full-scale conflict to preserve China’s independence—and advance shares interests, such as the economy, trade, climate change and artificial intelligence.
But the war, Iran’s backing of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen have reshaped President Joe Biden’s legacy on foreign policy, complicated the US’s engagement in other parts of the world and penetrated American politics on Capitol Hill, the campaign trail, college campuses and even corporate boardrooms.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the highest-ranking Jewish member of Congress in US history, said in a statement that while the brutality of Hamas’s attack remains overwhelming and heart-wrenching, the US must remain focused on securing the release of the remaining hostages, including the seven Americans and several of his constituents.
“Hamas displayed such viciousness on that horrible day to try to scare the Israeli people, the American people and freedom-loving people of the world into submission—but they failed,” Schumer added. “We will never forget.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in a separate statement that Americans have been reminded over the past year of the painful reality that Israel and the Jewish people are in a constant struggle for their existence.
“We continue to pray for peace, for healing for all those impacted by the evil unleashed by Hamas on that day and for the safety of Israel in the face of the ongoing challenges from Iran and its proxies.”
Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Young Kim (R-CA) and Joe Wilson (R-SC) led 132 members of Congress in a bipartisan resolution to condemn Hamas for its attacks on October 7 and urge international bodies to do the same. It also calls for the group’s surrender and the release of hostages, reaffirms Israel’s right to self-defense, commits to delivering humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians, and strongly denounces antisemitism globally, including on college campuses, with a commitment to combating it.
President Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden participated in a candle lighting in memory of the victims of the attacks. The Bidens were joined by Rabbi Aaron Alexander, a family friend of Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s family. Hersh was abducted in the attacks and held hostage for almost 11 months until Hamas murdered him in August.
The rabbi recited a Jewish prayer for the soul of the person who died, traditionally delivered during burial and memorial services. Rabbi Alexander’s recitation mentioned the areas in Israel that were attacked on Oct. 7. President Biden lit a yahrzeit candle, which is a candle lit in memory of the dead in Judaism before the ceremony ended in a moment of silence. Before the ceremony, he spoke with President Isaac Herzog.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff planted a memorial tree on the grounds of their residence to honor the victims of the attack. During the event, protestors could be heard near the Naval Observatory chanting through bullhorns. Emhoff attended a national commemoration of the day at the American Jewish Committee in Washington.
In this evening’s edition: Intel on the messages that are resonating the most in battleground states and districts, according to the chairs of the House and Senate Democratic campaign arms responsible for making sure their candidates get elected four weeks from now. But let’s start with the latest on another natural disaster bearing down on Florida and details on two anti-abortion rulings impacting two states with some of the strictest bans.
Hurricane Milton intensifies: 10 days after Hurricane Helene made landfall, Florida is bracing for Hurricane Milton, which has reached Category 5 strength and threatens to unleash a life-threatening surge and winds to the state’s Gulf Coast.
FEMA announced it is fully prepared to respond to the storm’s potential impacts and has already begun staging resources and personnel to support communities without compromising the Helene response. The agency has urged residents in Milton’s projected path to stay informed and prepare now.
This afternoon, President Biden received a briefing on the federal response to Hurricane Helene and the preparations for Hurricane Milton. Vice President Harris received a similar briefing.
Amid its response, the Biden administration is contending with mountains of misinformation from former President Donald Trump and the far-right online ecosystem that has mischaracterized FEMA’s Serious Needs Assistance program, which provides $750 in emergency funds to eligible survivors for essential items.
Trump and his supporters have accused the Biden administration of spending disaster relief funds on undocumented immigrants, which is also untrue. The funding shortfall Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters about stems from congressional underfunding of the disaster relief program.
Federal support for survivors of Helene has surpassed $210 million, according to FEMA. The agency said 7,000 personnel are deployed across the southeast and it has shipped over 15.6 million meals, more than 13.9 million liters of water, 157 generators and more than 505,000 tarps to the region.
GA abortion ban reinstated: The Georgia Supreme Court restored the state’s six-week abortion ban just a week after a Fulton County Superior Court judge ruled it unconstitutional. The decision means the ban will remain in place during the appeals process.
The Georgia decision came hours after the Supreme Court declined the Biden administration’s appeal to Texas’s ban on emergency abortions that violate the state’s law.
The two rulings weren’t surprising to the reproductive freedom advocates I checked in with this afternoon for reactions to the decisions considering the composition of both courts. But they reinforce the stakes of the election as several states have initiatives to enshrine abortion rights into their constitutions and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said over the weekend that he and former President Trump would support defunding Planned Parenthood if elected next month. (Planned Parenthood provides cancer screening, birth control and more, in addition to abortion care.) In an interview with Atlanta’s 11Alive on Friday, Vance declined to say whether he supports Georgia’s abortion ban before pivoting to how he and Trump would lower food and housing costs and secure the southern border.
“I don’t know the full details,” he said in a response the Harris campaign immediately seized on as more evidence that the Republican ticket would ban abortion nationwide and further restrict reproductive health care.
Now, back to the 2024 election:
If Kamala Harris wins the election in a few weeks, the most significant factor in her success in her first 100 days will be the balance of power on Capitol Hill.
President Barack Obama passed many of his signature legislative achievements—from the Affordable Care Act to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to the Dodd-Frank Act— with Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.
Fast-forward a decade. President Biden signed into law a pile of landmark bills pushed through by another Democratic trifecta in the White House and both chambers of Congress.
Harris has proposed an ambitious economic agenda focused on addressing the housing and child care crises, spurring small business creation and expanding health care. But without the margins in Congress, many of these items will be significantly constrained or killed altogether.
It’s not just Harris’s legislative agenda: With the GOP favored to win the Senate, Harris’s cabinet nominees and judicial appointments could be blocked if the results match the prognostications. Democrats also believe the only way to prevent House Republicans from refusing to certify the election; after all, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was among the 147 House Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the chief architect of the GOP’s legal argument in a rejected lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 election.
At this point in the campaign, though, the ads and texts have exhausted most viewers and recipients, regardless of how obsessed or repulsed they are with politics. But the ground game is where elections are won and lost, and the two congressional Democrats charged with leading the party to electoral victory think they have the advantage.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, acknowledged that communications on the ground are essential, but the DSCC doesn’t have a national messaging strategy because each campaign is unique to the candidate and the voters in each state.
“Every senator knows what’s best in their state. They know it intimately. They live there. They are fighting for folks on an ongoing basis. So you’ll see that message will be a little different,” Peters said. “But a big part of that message is what they have done for the people in that state [to] localize it to the community that they’re in [and] make sure that people understand that they’re their champion.”
The Michigan senator added that the best way to communicate what’s important in each state is with volunteers who make voters feel seen and heard while also providing feedback to the campaigns on how to adapt to the race's evolving nature.
“It is a very labor intensive effort to do,” he said. “But it's one which is paying great dividends, particularly with just our army of highly motivated volunteers supporting and amplifying the message that our incumbents and candidates have been delivering.”
On the House side, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene (WA) told me that the DCCC has heavily invested this cycle in understanding where people best get their information.
“So it’s not just ads,” she said. “But it’s also understanding how we connect with community leaders, influencers online and kind of mobilize those folks to be able to interact with folks on the ground and digitally within their communities to make sure they’re getting accurate information, but also to remind them kind of where folks stand.”
Given the historic lack of productivity under the House Republican majority this Congress, DelBene said the DCCC is focused on holding the GOP accountable for its positions and making sure people know what's at stake in this election.
“There's incredible enthusiasm on the ground. We have more volunteers, folks making phone calls all across the country,” she told me. “But we also have folks working to engage their network of folks in every way possible to make sure they understand what's at stake this election, make sure they're getting accurate information and that we turn out the vote.”
And finally, a few evening reads:
“Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi are cordial—but not close” by Shira Stein and Joe Garofoli: “Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi’s relationship drives home the way their divergent approaches and generational differences have shaped their careers.”
“Sarah McBride is ready to be the first openly trans member of Congress. Is Congress ready for her?” by Oriana González: “The Delaware state senator says she’s used to working with lawmakers who have ‘voted against my own rights.’”
“Facing a tight race, Ted Cruz goes quiet on abortion” by Kayla Guo: “As abortion and other reproductive rights loom over the election, Cruz has largely been unwilling to clarify his stances.”
“City Hall” by Andrew Rice: “How much longer can the Eric Adams machine last?”
“Wondering if your pet is happy? They’re already telling you.” by Zoe Glasser: “How to read the signs of stress in your pets, and tips for keeping them happy.”
That’s all I’ve got for now.
See you on Thursday,
Michael