On Monday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: Hurricane Milton is expected to barrel into Florida Wednesday. It's been one year since the Hamas attack on Israel. For more, listen to our special edition episode from Sunday. USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Bart Jansen discusses concerns over postal delays ahead of next month's election. The FEMA administrator Sunday knocked former President Donald Trump's Hurricane Helene recovery claims. USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page talks through new analysis showing red states have gotten redder and blue states bluer. What impact does that have on our politics and our country?

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Monday, October 7th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, the latest on a new storm brewing in the Gulf, plus it's been one year since Hamas attacks on Israel, and we discuss concerns over postal delays in this year's election.

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There's a new hurricane on the way, Milton. The storm gained hurricane status yesterday as it rolled through the Gulf of Mexico on a track headed Wednesday for parts of the Florida Peninsula still reeling from Hurricane Helene. The National Hurricane Center predicts the storm will reach major hurricane status later today, meaning at least a category three. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis yesterday expanded a state of emergency that now covers 51 of the state's 67 counties. Rain, which has already begun in Florida, could reach totals of five to 10 inches with localized totals up to 15 inches across parts of the Florida Peninsula and the Keys through Wednesday night. Hurricane Center specialist Eric Blake said the rain brings the risk of widespread minor to moderate river flooding. But there's still plenty of uncertainty over Milton's path, and the storm could hit Florida as a major hurricane or weaken, according to the Hurricane Center. You can stay up on all the latest with usatoday.com.

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Today marks one year since Hamas attacked civilians in Israel, and Israeli Defense Forces responded with bombings and eventually a ground invasion in Gaza. The Gaza War has spread across the Middle East and put Israel on the brink of war with Iran. The brutal invasion swept into Israel and caught military defenses by surprise a year ago. Hamas gunmen attacked army bases, civilian communities and an all-night music festival about three miles from the Gaza border a year ago today. Israel retaliated the next day. They've waged ensuing battles against Hamas and Gaza, then Hamas allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iranian forces in Iran. Hamas in its attacks on Israel a year ago killed some 1200 people and took about 250 hostages according to Israeli figures. Gaza's Health Ministry says Israel's Gaza Offensive has killed almost 42,000 Palestinians.

For Shlomi Berger, whose 20-year-old daughter Agam was taken hostage, it has been a year of agony. For Nour Swirki, who has evacuated four different times and whose children are now living in Cairo, it has also been a year of agony. You can find a special edition episode of The Excerpt right here on this feed that aired yesterday to hear their stories. We have a link in today's show notes.

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Election officials and lawmakers are worried that US Postal Service delays could prevent thousands of ballots from being counted this year in what could be a close election next month. I spoke with USA TODAY Justice Department correspondent Bart Jansen to learn more.

Bart, thanks for hopping on.

Bart Jansen:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Bart, what are these concerns some state election officials have about postal delays during this election? And do the numbers about post office delays really back up those concerns?

Bart Jansen:

It's a pretty serious concern put forward mostly by the National Association of Secretaries of State, those are the state-level officials that basically govern elections, and also the National Association of Directors of Elections.

Those folks have written a couple of letters to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to say there are these problems such as ballots arriving late, that the first class ballots are supposed to arrive within three to five business days. And they say dozens, hundreds in some locations, arrived longer than 10 days after primary elections this year.

The concern is that if they show up late, then they get discarded, and folks are going to lose their votes. So they've met with DeJoy a couple of times, and they're trying to encourage him to just make sure that the postal service does the best job that it can.

Now, DeJoy has responded that the postal service understands the importance of ballots in both directions, getting mailed out from the government officials and then getting mailed back so that they can be counted. They strive for punctuality. He said that 99%+ get delivered within seven days. So they're not meeting their own first class goal, but they are getting there within a week of business days. He says they go to heroic efforts to try to get those ballots delivered.

But state election officials remain concerned. And with the election only about 30 days away, they want to make sure that everything is in place to do the best job that they can this time around.

Taylor Wilson:

Bart, can you help us understand really just how popular mail-in voting has gotten in recent elections, especially since 2020? And are there any partisan leans in terms of who actually mails in a ballot?

Bart Jansen:

Yeah, the number of people using absentee ballots has grown dramatically, largely in the 2020 election because of the coronavirus pandemic at that time, where the share of people casting absentee ballots was somewhere around 24% in 2016, but that it jumped up to 43% in 2020. So it was just an enormous jump. Something like 60% of Democratic voters use absentee ballots, but the number is about half that of Republicans casting ballots that way.

So there's a bit of friction. There have been some Republican lawsuits that want to make sure that ballots are cast correctly. They've alleged that the ballots maybe that aren't signed or dated, that they've got to be discarded.

There's actually a pending lawsuit that was just argued in the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals where the Republican National Committee is asking that no absentee ballots be counted if they arrive after election day, even though the state of Mississippi has a five-day grace period for ballots to arrive after election day. Now, their argument is the ballot was cast. As long as it's postmarked by election day, the person voted, but it just isn't counted until perhaps five days afterward. But the RNC says that they don't want any ballots arriving that late.

And so we're waiting on an appeals decision, and that's a case where legal experts say that actually go to the Supreme Court this year. So there's a lot of interest in absentee ballots, and it's because they're becoming so much more popular.

Taylor Wilson:

And, Bart, for folks listening, thinking, "Hey, I'm planning on mailing in a ballot here over the next few weeks," what advice do election officials give folks who do plan on voting by mail this year?

Bart Jansen:

Yeah, I think the message is the same from lawmakers, who have voiced concerns about these problems, to the election officials who were administering the elections, to the postal service itself, Mr. DeJoy, all saying that the safest thing to do would be to mail a mailed-in ballot at least seven days before the election.

One Secretary of State was telling me their advice has been, if it gets to be Halloween, you really want to check that your ballot has gotten in because you might have to look for a different course of action. People have really gotten used to the idea that you could... One person said, "Vote from your couch. Vote from the kitchen table." But you want to make sure that that ballot actually arrived, and so the way to do that is to send it in early.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Bart Jansen covers the Justice Department for USA TODAY. Thank you, Bart.

Bart Jansen:

Thanks for having me.

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Taylor Wilson:

President Joe Biden's administration continued to push back yesterday against former president Donald Trump's unfounded claims about Hurricane Helene's storm recovery. Appearing on ABC's This Week yesterday, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell said her agency has all the resources it needs to respond to Helene, which ravaged parts of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and other states. North Carolina and Georgia are key swing states in next month's election, which has heightened the political stakes for the recovery effort. Criswell defended FEMA's response and shot down Trump's claims that the agency is short on disaster relief funds because money has been diverted to help undocumented immigrants, and that help is being withheld from Republican areas, calling such assertions frankly ridiculous and just plain false. Trump has made a series of unfounded claims about Helene recovery at multiple events in recent days. He said at a rally in Michigan, Thursday that quote, "Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal immigrants," unquote. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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A USA TODAY analysis shows most counties have become more partisan, leaving less room for compromise. I spoke with USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page for more.

Susan, I thank you for hopping on today.

Susan Page:

It's my pleasure.

Taylor Wilson:

So Susan, what did this exclusive USA TODAY analysis find really about how partisan leanings have intensified in recent years?

Susan Page:

You know, we looked at trends by county, more than 3,000 counties in the United States, and what's happened from 2012 to 2016 to 2020. And what we found was in three-fourths of the counties, the red counties have gotten redder and the blue counties have gotten bluer. And if you want an explanation of why our politics have gotten hotter, there's one of them.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. So we also had some specific polling data here. What did this USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll find really about how important it is to Americans that they live in a community, Susan, that shares their general political views? And how did that compare to those who said it's important they live in a community with diverse political views?

Susan Page:

You know, it's pretty clear Americans feel pushed and pulled in two directions on this issue because a majority of Americans, 55%, told us it's important to them to live in a community with people who have political views much like their own. But even more Americans, 60%, said it was important to them to live in a community with diverse points of view.

So we seem to be holding both these things as virtues at the same time. Some people feel both ways, think both things are important, and, of course, some people think one or the other is more important.

There is a partisan divide on this. Republicans are much more likely to say, "Living in a community with people of similar views is important to me." Democrats are much more likely to say, "It's important to me to live in a place with diverse views."

Taylor Wilson:

And Susan, as you write in the piece, there's this kind of chicken-and-egg idea to this where some Americans say redder policies or bluer policies in their states have actually pushed them to move elsewhere. Can you talk through this idea?

Susan Page:

You know, we see really a patchwork of laws across the country on things like abortion or transgender care. And one reason we see that is because in most states, in 40 of the 50 states, one party or the other controls all of the state government, the governorship and the state legislature. And that enables them to pass policies that seem either very conservative or very liberal, even when they're states next door to one another. You think of a state like Colorado next to a state like Wyoming, and they have very different attitudes on some of these big issues.

And why is that? It's because we've seen Colorado draw, be a very attractive place for some Democrats, and we've seen Wyoming be a draw to some Republicans and conservatives. And so that's sorting then is it's like a chicken-and-an egg aspect to the enactment of these policies. They're the result of people sorting into states, but they also lead to people sorting into states.

Taylor Wilson:

So Susan, really, what are the implications of these redder red states and bluer blue states? What does this functionally mean for next month's election and also just elections going forward?

Susan Page:

The sorting of states into being very red or very blue means that most states are irrelevant to the election we're going to have in November. We know that there are only seven battleground states that everybody's focused on. That's because we pretty much know where the other states are going to go in this election.

Taylor Wilson:

And Susan, in terms of the impact really beyond elections, what can you tell us here? I know you wrote about some of the other aspects of this.

Susan Page:

Social scientists have looked at the effect of living in communities mostly with people who are like you by race or by religion. It reduces the opportunity to get to know people who are different. It reduces the opportunity for conversations. It also reduces the need for compromise.

Taylor Wilson:

Susan Page is USA TODAY's Washington Bureau Chief with some great insight for us, as always. Thank you, Susan.

Susan Page:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to The Excerpt and get the podcast wherever you get your pods. And if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson. I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.