🚂 Trump's excuse train

🏈 Happy Sunday. Congress is out, so we're taking you on the campaign trail for the final five-week sprint to election day. 990 words, a 3.5-minute read.

1. 🚂 Trump's excuse train
2. 😰 Walz's debate nerves
3. 👀 Slotkin sounds alarm
4. 🎂 Jimmy Carter's centennial

Donald Trump is assembling a detailed catalog of excuses for rejecting the results of the 2024 election — if he loses.

Why it matters: The Trump-aligned efforts to overturn the 2020 election — both overtly and covertly, peacefully then violently — shocked the American public. No one should be surprised this time around.

Listen to Trump: The former president, who risks jail time and more criminal trials if he loses, has expanded his range of baseless attacks on U.S. voting procedures in recent weeks and months.

• Overseas voting: Trump falsely claimed last week that Democrats are exploiting an overseas ballot program for expats and military members in order to circumvent "any citizenship check or verification of identity."
• Early voting: At a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump denounced what he called the "stupid" concept of voting 45 days before the election — floating conspiracy theories about his loss in the crucial swing state four years ago.
• Mail-in voting: Trump has long despised mail-in ballots. He's recently begun attacking the U.S. Postal Service as incompetent and untrustworthy — even as the GOP has pushed its voters to embrace the practice.

Zoom in: The millions of undocumented migrants who have crossed into the U.S. during the Biden administration are a top campaign issue. They're also being used to fuel new voter fraud conspiracy theories.

• Earlier this month, Trump demanded that House Republicans use the threat of a government shutdown to pass a measure requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
• That effort failed, but it gave Trump and Republicans additional fodder to claim election fraud — even though it's already illegal and exceedingly rare for non-citizens to vote in U.S. elections.

The big picture: Since 2020, the Republican Party apparatus has been reorganized — from the top down — to give credence to Trump's false claims that election fraud is a scourge on American politics.

• Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee say they've built a network of about 175,000 volunteer poll watchers and poll workers, part of a relentless focus on "election integrity."
• In Georgia, a hard-right election board has passed new rules that Democrats fear could be used to undermine confidence in the results if Trump loses the critical battleground state.
• House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) drew outrage last week by pledging to certify the 2024 election and "follow the Constitution" only if it's a "free, fair and safe election."

What to watch: On Nov. 1, 2020, Axios exclusively reported that Trump had privately told confidants he planned to prematurely declare victory on election night if it looked like he was "ahead."

• That's exactly what he did.
• Given the likelihood that the election once again will take days to call, don't be surprised to see the former president dust off that same playbook.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz warned Kamala Harris during the VP vetting process this summer that he was a bad debater.

• Now, ahead of his showdown Tuesday with Sen. JD Vance, Walz privately says he's as nervous as ever — and that he's worried about letting Harris down, CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere reports.

Why it matters: It could be expectation management. But given this could be the last debate between any candidate on the two tickets, Walz appears to be feeling the unusually high stakes.

Between the lines: As governor, Walz had a tendency to speak at a fast clip and trip himself up in unscripted situations, resulting in muddled answers and occasional misstatements.

• And the generally affable Walz can get defensive and terse when under attack, says Axios Twin Cities' Torey Van Oot, who has covered Walz for years.
• But allies and even past rivals say his everyman approach can neutralize the lack of polish — and turn it into an asset.

🔥 New GOP attack line: "Once you get to know the real Tim Walz, he's like Gavin Newsom in a flannel shirt," House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), who's playing Vance in debate prep, told ABC's "This Week."

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) warned donors last week that internal polling for her Senate campaign shows Harris is "underwater" in Michigan, according to a video clip obtained by our Stef Kight.

• "I'm not feeling my best right now about where we are on Kamala Harris in a place like Michigan," Slotkin said at a virtual fundraiser Wednesday with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

Why it matters: Winning Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is the vice president's simplest path to victory. If Trump sweeps the Sun Belt, he'd only need to pick off one of those Blue Wall states to win the election.

Between the lines: It's not unusual for campaigns to paint themselves as the polling underdog as a fundraising tactic.

• RCP's polling average has Slotkin up 48% to 43%, and a recent New York Times/Siena poll also has her up by five points. Republicans have also raised the alarm about Democrats' 2:1 money advantage in the state.
• But there are some signs the Senate race could be tightening — Republican internal polling shows the candidates are statistically tied, according to a source familiar with the matter.

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ExxonMobil is working on solutions to reduce emissions in its own operations — using technologies like carbon capture — that could help the U.S. industrial sector reduce its emissions, too.

Learn more about the tools and technologies that can help lower emissions.

Jimmy Carter, who's been in hospice care for more than a year, turns 100 on Tuesday.

• Festivities are planned in Carter's hometown of Plains, Ga., but his son says the former president cares only about one thing: Getting his absentee ballot and voting for Harris.

What they're saying: In a video statement shared with CBS News today, President Biden praised his longtime friend as a "moral force for our nation and the world."

• "Put simply, Mr. President, I admire you so darn much," Biden said.

ExxonMobil is working on solutions to reduce carbon emissions in its own operations — like carbon capture — that could help industries in manufacturing, commercial transportation and power generation deliver lower emissions, too.

Learn more.

This newsletter was edited by Arthur MacMillan