One week before Election Day, Democratic contender and Vice President Kamala Harris is losing. How do we know? Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump is leading Harris in New Hampshire (a state Joe Biden won by 7 points), Harris is mimicking Trump campaign tactics, such as meeting Black men in a barbershop, Democrat Mayor Eric Adams defends Trump in his deep blue city, and so much more.
- Harris has altered her approach and messaging. She has gone from a cheerful warrior to a crazy-sounding doomsayer, telling people that Trump, Israel’s most consistent supporter, is the second coming of Hitler. You wouldn’t do that unless you were losing.You certainly don’t start stuffing your rallies with superstars to draw attendees, but the recent Houston event, which promoted an appearance by Beyoncé, backfired spectacularly.
•Polling has changed in Trump’s favor, not substantially, but consistently. Prediction markets have also shifted towards the former president. - Major newspapers have failed to support Harris, a surprising shift from previous practice.
- Democratic senators vying for reelection in competitive states are running negative commercials linking them to Trump.
Worried with declining poll numbers, Harris and her surrogates have recently escalated incendiary – and, yes, dangerous – charges against Donald Trump, comparing him to Hitler and even implying that he will intern his political opponents.
According to the New York Times, Future Forward, Harris’ primary super PAC, has advised the campaign that her emphasis on fascism and Trump’s character is ineffective; his favorability ratings in the most recent New York Times/Siena poll, after all, mirror those of Kamala Harris. People want to hear about policies instead.
Ironically, some of this idiotic vitriol is coming from Hillary Clinton, who escaped any punishment at all for a slew of misdeeds, including destroying and lying about government-protected communications, recklessly mishandling classified information, and using campaign funds to start the Russia hoax, a completely fabricated attack that undermined Trump’s presidency from the beginning.
Trump could have attacked Clinton on a variety of fronts, including the exceedingly dubious activities of her foundation, but chose not to. Unlike the Biden White House, Trump did not use his Justice Department to attack his political opponents.
Harris’ new technique does not merely include inappropriate rhetoric. Like Clinton in 2016, the Democrat candidate is promoting an infinite list of superstars, including Bruce Springsteen, Magic Johnson, Eminem, and others, in the aim of packing the bleachers.
Fans in Texas, however, were outraged when Beyoncé’s much-anticipated visit turned into a four-minute lecture on abortion rights rather than a concert. People dislike being tricked.
The star power didn’t help Clinton in 2016, and it doesn’t appear to be helping Harris now. According to significant Clear Politics, Donald Trump leads Harris by a hair in the average of national surveys, but the significant news is that he has momentum.
Several major surveys now show the two candidates tied, after Harris had previously led. For example, a New York Times/Siena poll of 2,516 potential voters shows the candidates tied; earlier this month, the same poll had Harris three points ahead.
More crucially, Trump leads in all swing states.
The betting markets have also shifted towards Trump, with the RCP average betting odds showing him as the favorite by 24 points, 61.8 to 36.9. The prediction bets are so lopsided (and deflating for Democrats) that the liberal media suggests that those statistics can (and may be) altered by a few significant wagers.
According to Bloomberg, a French “whale” has been inflating the data on Polymarket, the leading betting site with over $2 billion in trading volume. Using many accounts, the anonymous trader has put $45 million on Trump’s victory while simultaneously betting that Taylor Swift will announce her pregnancy by the end of the year. Partisan at work, or a wealthy individual putting his money behind his instincts? I’ll choose the latter.
With Trump on the rise, it’s no surprise that the Washington Post has decided not to endorse Harris this year, breaking with its decades-long record of supporting Democratic candidates. The startling decision sparked outrage in the newsroom and led to thousands of subscription cancellations.
Rumors circulated that Jeff Bezos, the Post’s owner as well as the founder of Amazon and space technology company Blue Origin, was concerned about the commercial risk of getting on Trump’s wrong side. Whatever the reason, the decision cannot auger well for Harris, especially given that it followed a similar decision by the Los Angeles Times, a consistently liberal newspaper in Harris’ home state.
Voters are more likely to value endorsements from trade unions and other interested groups. Harris, too, is falling short, failing to secure the Teamsters’ customary Democratic support after internal polls revealed that 58% of their members expected to vote for Trump. The International Association of Fire Fighters, which backed Joe Biden in 2020, declined to support Harris, as did the National Border Patrol Council.
The former president is gaining traction in swing states, but it is still surprising to see Democratic incumbent senators running for reelection in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising touting their ties to Trump.
Democrat Bob Casey of Pennsylvania is launching an advertisement alleging he “bucked” the Biden administration to defend fracking and “sided with Trump to end NAFTA.” Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin states in an ad that she “got President Trump to sign her Made in America bill…” For the record, both Casey and Baldwin voted to impeach President Trump.
If Democrats running for reelection want to ride Trump’s coattails, you can bet he’s getting ahead. Senator John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, recently told a New York Times reporter, “We’re in trouble. And that is undeniable.” That sounds correct.
