Posted on 10/12/2024 3:33:02 PM PDT by SharpRightTurn
This is the race Democrats feared. Less than a month before the US election, Donald Trump is regaining the slight edge he held before Democrats convened in Chicago to nominate Kamala Harris. According to the RealClearPoliticspolling average in battleground states, Trump trailed Harris from late August until late September. Now, though, he’s back on top at 48.4 to 48.1. His lead may be fractional — and Harris is up two points in the popular vote — but the numbers have Kellyanne Conway feeling good.
Alongside a picture of the RCP numbers, the pollster argued this week that Trump is “in his best polling ever era, even as media outlets are likely undercounting his voters — again”. On CNN, Harry Enten crunched the numbers too. “Let’s say we have a polling miss like we had in 2020. What happens then?” he asked on Tuesday. “Well, then Donald Trump wins the election in a blowout with 312 electoral votes.”
In his Wednesday column, Charles Blow of the New York Timeslamented that FiveThirtyEight now gives Harris and Trump “close-to-even chances” of winning. “The campaign doesn’t need a post-joy strategy,” he wrote, “but it definitely needs an in-addition-to-joy strategy.” FiveThirtyEight‘s win probability chart mirrors RCP‘s battleground chart in that as Harris’s DNC bump has waned, Trump’s numbers have gone up, closing the gap significantly in just the last few weeks.
Harris’s media blitz this week clearly sought to reverse the trend. New York Times political correspondent Michael Bender noted on Wednesday that data in a recent poll found “voters wanting more information about Ms. Harris were primarily young and Black or Hispanic.” What’s more, “they typically did not identify with either political party and largely consumed news from social media or online outlets rather than newspapers or cable networks.” Bender added: “Ms. Harris’s schedule was essentially a media map of those specific demographics.”
Harris, Bender wrote, “keeps answering the question she wants, not the one that was asked”. For Democrats, it’s been a week of tightening polls, media flops, and poor reviews in the paper of record. When the party was eagerly working to push Joe Biden out of the race after his June debate performance, one Democratic megadonor toldPolitico: “Be careful what you wish for.”
That story was one of many that revealed Democrats were wary of ousting Biden in large part because Harris, for a number of reasons, would likely assume the mantle. Her numbers were similar to Biden’s, and his were not good. She’d become something of a joke in the memeverse. She’d proven to be a weak national candidate ahead of the 2020 election. So it seems as though two things will prove to be simultaneously true: the “joy” of the Harris campaign was real and it sustained her for about a month, but it couldn’t last forever under the unforgiving campaign spotlight.
The risk aversion that characterised Harris’s campaign before Labor Day might be her best bet. Tack to the centre, stick to the script, and stay the hell away from Bill Whitaker. Perhaps remaining a blank slate for some small group of undecided voters is better than Harris trying to define herself at all.
“Ms. Harris is truly an unqualified and unwelcome candidate.”
She may not be as hated as the Hildebeest (who is?), but to say that she is unlikeable is an understatement. And so she is not good at “retail politics”/campaigning. She cannot give extemporaneous remarks; she has to have a teleprompter and, like Bathhouse Barry, if the teleprompter misfires she freezes up. She has to have the perfect environment, with everything controlled, to pull off an address that Trump could do on the spur of the moment.
“They instead installed the least popular option they could find, and saddled her with the worst possible choice they could find for VP.”
Yes, they got just what they deserved and I pray that on election night we hear nothing from them but wailing and the gnashing of teeth.
“I have a friend who is. senior adviser on the Harris Campaign and she just can’t see how the campaign is imploding and I don’t say anything. She really thinks Kamala has a chance but I don’t think she has been watching the interviews she has been doing.”
It is amazing that sometimes those who are up close cannot see what is happening right before their eyes. Your friend must be in denial.
The honeymoon is over, let the screwing begin.
“Young people are NOT included in “polls” and do not watch or read normal media or balanced places like “X.” They use Instagram and TikTok, which are heavily censored to favor pro-Democrat narratives.”
I haven’t thought about that. It may be true. On the other hand, I believe it is the case that young people are one of the groups most fickle about turning out to vote.
Denial is a possibility. She has over 30 years expense in D.C. as an adviser and media consultant ands I am amazed she can’t see the signs. I have worked on 4 Presidential Campaigns, long time ago, but the basics do not really change and I can see the problems, but she can’t.
This Tim Waltz scandal is gaining traction and the word is someone or someone’s are going to come forward and talk. If that happens the implosion goes nuclear. Harris can’t at the last minute change VP as that calls into questions her judgement to begin with on picking him.
This may be the coup on her. I knew he was the wrong choice to begin with.
Couldn’t agree more.
IBTZ Troll.
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