What appears to be emerging on the horizon as of mid-August and pre-Democratic convention hoopla is a very tight race beginning to tilt in Harris’s favour.
Mark Halperin’s Wide World of News produces a newsletter seven days a week and holds regular Zoom meetings for anyone subscribed. It could be argued that Halperin knows more about U.S. elections than anyone alive today. He eats, drinks, and thinks about the presidential election in the same way Adam Schefter hunts down football news, or Elliotte Friedman stalks a hockey rumour. He could once be seen on ABC News as their political director, then on MSNBC. He wrote books about elections and then got himself into trouble when several women with whom he worked accused him of sexual harassment. After some time away and an effort to strategize a comeback, Halperin has rehabilitated himself enough that many journalists and politicians appear on his Zoom Calls.
With that background in mind, I confess to reading his newsletter enthusiastically because of his insights, information, and intelligence. If someone is better plugged into the campaigns than Halperin it would not be for sheer effort. Halperin consumes and produces more political news than any one person I know about. It feeds his bloodstream and those who listen gain knowledge, perspective, facts, and internal information known only to the campaigns until Halperin delivers it like a Mahomes pass to Kelce.
His latest reporting tells his readers that Harris has moved ahead. In his simple presentation, he sizes up the race in order of most likely to least likely as: (1) Harris narrow win, (2) Harris easy win (tie), (3) Trump narrow win, (4) Trump easy win.
As Halperin suggests, this indicates a dramatic change in the race since the day Biden ended his campaign and handed the nomination to Harris. At that time the race looked like this: (1) Trump easy win, (2) Trump narrow win, (3) Biden narrow win, (4) Biden easy win.
In Halperin’s lexicon, an “easy win” is defined as winning at least five of the seven swing states. Trump now appears to have to run the race Biden was trying to run when he was pushed out. That means overcoming a low approval rating by making the opposition (Vice President Kamala Harris) unacceptable in the eyes of swing state voters while energizing the base.
As Halperin puts it, “Trump can’t win an up-or-down referendum (Do you want Trump to be president for four more years?); he can only win if Harris is defined for enough voters as an incompetent, unqualified, unelectable San Francisco radical.” Halperin remains dubious about Trump’s capacity to portray Harris negatively. He lays out seven things that would have to happen for Trump to successfully execute this plan. The scenario would include Harris appearing unprepared and incompetent in a press encounter while Trump displays the discipline to persecute the case against her. Meanwhile, the press has to go along with this narrative and Harris must prove to be incapable of responding to Trump’s charges. The chances of this happening seem remote, given the cocoon-like manner in which Harris is successfully campaigning and the apparent disinterest the press has in forcing her to engage in an interview, press conference, or impromptu exchange.
Worse still, a poll just released in the Financial Times suggests that for the first time in this election cycle, a Democrat leads in the survey question, “Who do you trust more about the economy.” Harris preferred 42 per cent to Trump’s 41 per cent. I can’t imagine what this does to Republican morale, but Trump trailing Harris on the economy tells you a lot about how much this race has shifted.
What appears to be emerging on the horizon as of mid-August and pre-Democratic convention hoopla is a very tight race beginning to tilt in Harris’s favour. She leads in Wisconsin and Michigan but needs Pennsylvania to maintain the blue wall. Trump has inroads in Pennsylvania, but if Harris can hold it, she only needs to win one of the Sun Belt States (Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia), or take the electoral vote split in Nebraska surrounding Omaha in the second congressional district.
As Halperin suggests, Harris has two issues developing in her favour in Georgia and Arizona. The Obama coalition can be reactivated in both states, but in Georgia, there are two Democratic senators, and a large African-American population and Trump has created unnecessary tension with the best politician in Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp, who has already endorsed him. In Arizona, the same Obama coalition can be ignited and a very unpopular Republican senate candidate in Kari Lake could direct votes onto the Harris ticket as voters eagerly vote for Democrat Mike Gallego to replace Independent Senator Kirsten Sinema.
The Trump Team will deny all this and has a much more bullish forecast. Halperin writes: “Trump’s fundraising is good still; all Harris has done is consolidate the Democratic base; the undecided voters are more likely to go for Trump; the return of lawfare in the fall and the relentless and clear bias of the media will fire up the Red team; she can’t run from her record forever; the Sunbelt states will all hold firm for Trump, leaving Harris with just one path to 270.”
I agree with Halperin’s final analysis. Harris will likely not be as bad in an interview or at a press conference as the Trumpsters expect. And Trump has never displayed the discipline needed to prosecute a case against a political opponent. He lacks the knowledge of the details required to do so. It would be hard to prove he knows much more about economic policy other than to say he cut taxes and that we had a perfect economy. In a recent press conference, he alluded to Harris as having positions “like nobody would ever believe.” That is not going to cut it. He has to be ready to attack her for calling for bans on fracking, calling for the elimination of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and the end of private health insurance. He no longer has Biden as a security blanket. He was not good in the debate, but Biden faceplanted. He should not count on Harris to follow suit. MAGA world is appalled with his performance the past month. The high after the RNC has been erased. The only good news for Donald Trump is that it is August.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who now works part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, where he earned a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
