There are many ways to judge the state of a presidential or Senate race beyond the tsunami of polls we attempt to process in the run-up to Election Day. While the trajectory of national and swing-state polling appears to favor the former president with just days to go until all votes are cast, the behavior of Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, and down-ballot candidates on both sides is arguably even more revealing.
Trump was pumped up as he put it all on the line in a much-ballyhooed rally on Sunday night at New York’s Madison Square Garden. To the strains of a live version of God Bless the USA, the 45th president strode onto the stage of the world’s most famous arena, after being introduced to the overflow audience by his wife for the last major speech of his third and final presidential campaign of an era he has largely defined. He channeled Ronald Reagan by kicking off his speech with that oft-repeated rhetorical question: Are you better off than you were four years ago? He spoke of a new golden age and reprised his most famous phrase prior to entering the political stage: “Kamala, you’re fired.”
He accused Vice President Harris of “shattering the middle class,” while promising to “make America affordable again.” He promised to end inflation and stop the invasion of criminals on the southern border, and to “build the greatest economy in the history of the world.” He reiterated his proposals to do away with taxes on tips, overtime, and social security benefits, and announced a new tax credit for caregivers, and making interest on car loans tax-deductible – but only for cars made in America. He reiterated his enthusiastic support for tariffs and used video clips about a vicious Venezuelan gang that has seized control of apartment complexes in Colorado and Texas, promising to reinstitute the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. He called for the death penalty for killing a police officer and for making sanctuary cities illegal.
The speech covered the waterfront, and – as most close observers say – Trump is in the zone, appearing happier than at any other time since he strode onto the political stage. And since we know the Donald loves nothing more than winning, that tells you something by itself. His speeches have become loftier, more uplifting, his rhetoric centering more around prospects for the future instead of grievances about the past. He has clearly adopted the stance of a Reagan-style happy warrior more than during his previous two campaigns for the White House. His recent maneuver at McDonald’s, designed to embarrass Harris and her unverifiable claim that she worked at America’s favorite restaurant, revealed a comfortable and enduring connection between the New York billionaire and everyday Americans.
A Contrasting Vision
In the starkest of contrasts, Harris’s campaign of joy and vibes has transformed to pure dystopia. Unable to present a clear or compelling vision of what her presidency would look like or how she can reverse the economic and cultural decline of her own current administration, she has been reduced to scaring the bejesus out of the American people by projecting dark images of a fallen democracy if Trump returns to the Oval Office. That did not work for Hillary Clinton and her immensely damaging characterization of Trump voters as a basket of deplorables and irredeemables. It is likely to be even less effective this time around since Trump already served for four years without becoming the dictator Harris says he would be if he becomes the 47th president. Even many prominent Democrats have observed that Harris’ decline in October coincided with her pivot from a positive campaign to panicking voters about her opponent.
Joe Biden finally let the cat out of the bag with his recent remark about Trump, saying that “we need to lock him up.” The left has expended countless time and treasure trying to do exactly that. And while the fast-fading president tried to backtrack and say he didn’t mean what he had just said, it presented as what many call a Washington-style gaffe, meaning he was accidentally telling the truth. It is clear now, if it wasn’t before, that the Harris campaign has become convinced their candidate cannot win on her own merits.
A remarkable reality is that, unlike the relentless legal warfare conducted on the watch of Biden and Harris, Trump as president did not target or attempt to imprison any of his numerous sworn enemies. So Harris is engaging in projection, a specialty on the left, meaning that she is projecting onto her opponent the very things encouraged by her own administration. But just in time for the final stage of the campaign, prompted by a savage hit piece in The Atlantic, Harris has taken to calling Trump a fascist. And true to form, the scurrilous piece became news by itself, enabling other left-wing platforms to double down by referring to it in their naked pursuit of a Harris presidency.
Richard Nixon, nothing if not an astute politician, once opined that when a campaign is focused solely on stopping a particular candidate, the person they are trying to stop will win. Essentially, the 37th president suggested that, if the only thing a candidate can do to win is warn about the horrors of their opponent, they will fail. Hillary Clinton learned that the hard way in 2016. But Harris appears to have nothing else left in her quiver. Exhibit A in her now singularly dystopian campaign is that she will make her final pitch to voters on Tuesday at the same venue where Trump famously spoke on 1/6/21, the Washington Ellipse, presumably in a last-ditch effort to frighten the electorate out of pulling the lever for her opponent.
How effective will her “threat to democracy” strategy prove to be? We can’t be sure, but it appears that ship has sailed, with even the most left-wing newspaper in the nation’s capital releasing a poll showing Trump outdistancing Harris on the question of who would do a better job handling threats to democracy in the US. If that’s true, the Harris tank is all but empty.
The Schedule Tells All
A candidate’s schedule is always the most revealing about how their campaign views the race. If Trump was insecure about winning, he would not have expended valuable campaign time to visit deep-blue California to boost the prospects of a Republican House candidate. He would not spend time in the reliably blue Bronx or New Jersey – or hold Sunday’s rally at Madison Square Garden. He would not show up at bodegas, barber shops, and union meetings pressing the flesh with small groups of voters. With his seemingly bottomless cup of energy, he is still crisscrossing the critical Rust Belt and Sun Belt states, but if he appeared to be losing, he would spend every waking moment there, which, outside of mostly friendly interviews, is exactly what Harris is doing.
It should not be surprising that the campaign has come to this for Harris. She bombed out and never made it to the starting line in her own generously funded presidential campaign in 2019 because she had no coherent message. Four years later, her lack of clarity and propensity for dodging direct questions with indecipherable word salads is typified by her recent response to a question from CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Asked why her proposed programs to boost the economy and lower prices with taxpayer-funded schemes to give money to new homeowners and small businesses, and using the federal government to stop “price-gouging,” were not accomplished in the almost four years of her current administration, she replied, “Well there was a lot that was done but there’s more to do, Anderson. I’m pointing out things that need to be done that haven’t been done that need to be done.”
A Trump and Congressional Trifecta?
The consequences of Harris’s wavering campaign are not limited to the presidential race. As usual, the down-ballot effect is unmistakable. By most accounts, the VP has received multiple appeals – “thanks, but no thanks” – not to appear alongside candidates in competitive House races or swing-state Senate contests. To further accentuate the point, as their once-comfortable leads tighten to the point of turning into toss-ups, incumbent Democrats Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, plus Ellissa Slotkin, vying for an open seat in Michigan, have actually run ads highlighting their agreement with Trump on issues where Democrats fear any connection to Harris or Biden.
Casey brags that “he bucked Biden to protect fracking and he’s fighting with Trump to end NAFTA and put tariffs on China to stop them from cheating.” Baldwin’s ad boasts that “Tammy Baldwin got President Trump to sign her Made in America bill,” while Slotkin proclaims that she “wrote a law signed by President Trump forcing drug companies to show their actual prices.” For Harris operatives, the reaction to these Senate candidates tying themselves to Trump – while not once mentioning Harris – must have been something along the lines of … ugh.
With West Virginia all but certain to go red after incumbent Democrat Joe Manchin retired, and GOP challenger Tim Sheehy holding a big lead over Jon Tester in Montana (eight points in the Real Clear Politics average), the barn door already appears closed on Democrats sustaining their current slim majority in the Senate. Now it has become a matter of how many seats the Democrats can protect. The possibility of a 53- or 54-seat Republican majority appears realistic.
The GOP already holds a narrow majority in the House, and while limited polling is available in the 30 or so races considered competitive, “ticket-splitting” by voters who support Trump but also the Democratic House candidate would appear to be their best hope for winning control of the lower chamber. But as PBS has reported, “Split-ticket voters —people who vote for candidates from different parties — are increasingly rare in modern American politics.” For what it’s worth, according to Politico, some seven weeks ago, when Trump was trailing, “House Speaker Mike Johnson told other Republicans … that he is ‘100 percent’ convinced the GOP will win both chambers of Congress and the White House.”
If Kamala Harris cannot change the current trajectory of the presidential race, Donald Trump and Republicans stand a better-than-even shot of winning the trifecta – control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. Should that come to pass, a Trump second-term agenda will have a relatively unobstructed path to achieving the major change a majority of Americans say they desire.
