The Briefing, Vol. XII, Issue 38
- A second attempt on Trump’s life
- Why Harris’s debate win doesn’t seem to be helping her in the polls
- Republicans favored to win the Senate
President 2024
The second assassination attempt on Donald Trump in as many months is a disturbing reminder of the almost universally negative, at times even extreme and hateful, media coverage he has routinely received since 2015.
Politically speaking, the consequences remain unpredictable, but the event likely won’t hurt Trump. As the story plays out this week, it will likely result in a few days of less rancorous coverage and rhetoric. It is also important to note that this event comes on the heels of a debate performance that is (or was) expected to help his election rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Sept. 10 Debate: The first is her successful debate performance over Trump, which incredibly already feels like it took place a century ago. Although the debate was far from a knockout, Harris did convincingly better than expectations, and better than he did.
However, this has failed to translate into a decisive improvement in her polling. And indeed, such a thing was probably always too much for her to hope for. Debates rarely decide elections. This year’s first debate between Trump and Joe Biden was a noteworthy exception to the rule only because it made his cognitive decline impossible for Democrats and the media to keep hiding.
Trump accomplished very little in last week’s debate. The one blow he landed that probably from perhaps successfully pointing out (near the beginning) that Harris’s positions on issues were changing so much that he ought to send her a “Make America Great Again” hat.
On the other hand, there were some things Harris wanted to accomplish with that debate which she failed to do. Yes, she successfully baited Trump into his characteristic, erratic rants by attacking such soft spots as his rallies and crowd sizes. She got him to say some bizarre things. But Harris still has a problem when it comes to substance, and she failed to ameliorate it.
Harris would have benefited from addressing key issues such as the economy and immigration and explaining how her solutions would solve the problems voters currently perceive, which have made the Biden administration’s positions very unpopular, even in polls that have her leading in the national popular vote.
A more decisive debate victory could have resulted if Harris had taken those issues head-on, as they will feature prominently as themes of Trump’s campaign against her in the final month and a half of the election. But there are reasons in Harris’s past and present for believing this is an un-solvable problem for her. The real problem is that Harris is not very impressive with her knowledge of the issues or comfortable discussing them in detail, as her first interview confirms.
Kamala probably can’t hide: The chief obstacle Trump has to overcome in this race is his high negative rating, a constant throughout his career. He has big fans, but a huge number of people hate his guts.
Harris’s chief obstacle, especially in close states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, is that voters just don’t feel familiar with her or know enough about what she would do as president. As the New York Times discovered in talking to undecided voters, the debate did little to change this, since she spent most of it attacking Trump (success) and resorting to rhetorical crutches (failure) Nor did her subsequent interview — her first solo interview of the entire campaign — which she gave to a local ABC affiliate in Pennsylvania.
You would expect Harris to give many such interviews, given her specific problem of low voter-familiarity. But instead, her campaign is largely hiding her. This particular interview contains some hints as to why.
It has gone largely unnoticed that her voice trembled throughout the interview. But to get to specifics, her interviewer began with a straightforward question about the economy, inviting her to “drill down” on what she means when she talks about an “opportunity economy.” For the next two minutes, she offered a speech about how her neighbors growing up (in Montreal, apparently) were “hardworking people, construction workers and nurses and teachers,” who were “very proud of their lawn,” and about how “we as Americans have a beautiful character,” and “investing in the ambitions and aspirations and the incredible work ethic of the American people, and creating opportunity, for people, for example, to start a small business. My mother worked long hours and my neighbor helped raise us…”
After that, nearly two minutes in, she finally got around to the answer she should have given in the first or maybe the second sentence: She wants to subsidize first-time homebuyers and increase the maximum allowable tax deduction (she mistakenly described it as a “tax credit”) for those starting up businesses. By the time she got to her actual answer, viewers were probably asleep.
This was just one of many word-salads that Harris tossed during this interview.
To put it bluntly, Harris needs to explain herself a lot better. She has a hard time scoring even the easy points when it comes to familiarity with the issues and sharing a clear vision for the future. Her lack of political talent is evident — there is a reason some liberals and Democrats were talking about dumping her from Biden’s ticket as recently as January. She may overcome this in the end, but it could also cause her to sink gradually in the swing states between now and Election Day, as more such interviews air.
Electoral picture: So where does the race stand? It’s really, really close in the handful of states that will decide the election.
Pennsylvania is effectively tied in the three polls taken this month — slight advantage Trump, but it’s really a coin-toss. Michigan is likewise simply too close to call, whether or not RFK remains on the ballot (the only post-debate poll is just slightly better for Trump). North Carolina is also very close — Trump leads by a hair in the last three polls. Trump’s lead in Georgia is a bit more robust.
Only Wisconsin really seems to have broken clearly toward Harris since her accession as the nominee, yet even this may only be due to a couple of outlier polls completed three weeks ago or more. The two candidates are within the margin of error in all polls taken this month, including the only one after the debate. Arizona likewise remains well within the margin of error, as does Nevada, where Harris leads slightly in the only post-debate poll.
Harris does at least seem to have righted the Democrats’ ship in Virginia.
So in the end, we get another unsatisfying, unsettled electoral map:
Trump needs to find 35 more electoral votes. The most obvious path is to win North Carolina and Pennsylvania, although there are others. Harris needs 44 more votes, which could be accomplished (for example) by winning Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
The 2016 and 2020 races were both extremely close — either one could have been reversed if just tens of thousands of voters in key states had gone the other way.
Senate 2024
As of last week, Republicans are strongly favored to take control of the U.S. Senate with a 51-seat majority. This is due to Republican Senate candidates in West Virginia and Montana leading their opponents.
However, there are potential problems for the Republicans. The races in Florida, Texas, and Nebraska seem much closer than they should be. And GOP candidates are simply failing to get traction in other swing states, such as Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada.
Montana: National forecasters are increasingly putting this race into the Republican column in the final weeks. Retired Navy SEAL and businessman Tim Sheehy (R) is now favored to defeat the longtime survivor Sen. Jon Tester (D), who made his national political debut by defeating Sen. Conrad Burns (R) in 2006.
This race has been polled only sparsely, but Tester has not led in a single poll all summer. This contrasts sharply with his last two contests, neither of which involved him running head-to-head against Donald Trump at the top of the ticket.
In 2018, Tester won by three points after leading now-Rep. Matt Rosendale in every single poll taken, right up to the end. In 2012, it was more of a mixed bag, with Tester and former Rep. Dennis Rehberg (R) trading the lead throughout the summer and fall.
