Donald Trump is reportedly losing sleep, battling anxiety, and obsessing over his polling numbers as the GOP nominee hopes to hang his hat on any sign that he will return to the White House.
A campaign official told Axios that Trump is asking more questions and pushing his staff to work even more to ensure that he will come out ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris come Election Day.
“Trump’s anxiety is evident in his late-night and early morning calls to aides in which he peppers them with questions on how things are going—and whether they think he’ll win,” Axios reported.
You’re going to see more registered Republicans crossing over to vote for Harris than perhaps any Democrat has previously received.
I’m fully aware thats the assumption people are making. Its not clear how good or bad of an assumption that is. Its also not clear what damage Harris has done with Democrats relationship to the Arab/ Muslim/ Anti-genocide Democrats. Two weeks ago this thing was in the bag for Trump to the point he was just dancing on stage cus he knew he didn’t need to do anything else to win. Then he had a Nazi rally.
Pretending like this thing is in anyway a shoe-in for Harris seems to be oblivious to the facts on the ground. She campaigned extremely poorly and made bad strategic choices that took her from heading towards a blue-wave the likes of which we’ve never seen to now, a blue whimper. Look at how Harris is doing relative to down-ballot Democrats (538) (D’s left, R’s right, senate where possible, house where not):
Pennsylvania:
Harris 47.6, Trump, 47.9: -0.3 to team D. Casey 49, McCormick 46: +3.0 to team D. Harris delta: -3.3
Michigan:
Harris 47.9, Trump 47.1: +0.8 to team D. Slotkin 49, Rogers 47: +2.0 to team D. Harris delta: -1.2
Georgia:
Harris 47, Trump 48.5: -1.5 to team D. Bishop 47, West 44: +3 to team D. Harris delta: -4.5
Arizona:
Harris 46.5, Trump 49: -2.5 to team D. Kelly 48.6, Masters 47.1: +1.5 to team D. Harris delta: -3
North Carolina:
Harris 47, Trump 48.5: -1.5 to team D. Beasley 45.2, Budd 49.5: -4.3 to team D. Harris delta: 3.2
Nevada:
Harris 47.1, Trump 47.9: -.9 to team D. Cortez Masto 45.9, Kaxakt 47.3: -1.4 to team D. Harris delta: 0.5
Wisconsin:
Harris, 48.1, Trump 47.4: +0.6 to team D. Baldwin 49, Hovde 48: +1 to team D. Harris delta: -.4
Averages out to about ~ -1.25
So in general, Harris is under performing “the average Democrat” in the swing states by about 1.25 points. Keep in mind, Harris was leading or damn near leading at one point in most of those races, and was on track for more substantial gains going into the convention.
She may win in-spite of those major mis-steps, but its not a forgone conclusion that she will win either. Also, it still has to get through all the states, the supreme court if that comes up, and then finally through the certification.
I think you’re giving Trump far too much credit that he was dancing on stage because he had nothing to do and coasting to victory and that wasn’t just an obvious sign of dementia. Let’s be honest, here, the polls have been pretty much tied and within the margin of error this entire time. So I find this to be a bit speculative and expecting more than Trump than he is really capable of.
I’m nowhere saying this is a shoe-in. I am just explicitly responding and providing context to, “republican voting is up in places it matters”
I also disagree that she campaigned poorly. I think she campaigned exceptionally given the time she had and the needle she needed to thread with both distancing from Biden but also citing that the economy is, in fact, improving phenomenally on the world stage and post pandemic. To pick up the mantle in three months and run as well as she had? The Democrats have honestly not been this united since 2008 maybe, and that speaks to the fact that she brought onboard 5 veteran Obama campaign staffers. Regardless of the outcome, this has been historic.
Sounds like your main gripe is really her policy on Gaza, which unfortunately during election season you need to get the votes needed to cross the finish-line… Which means catering to the Jewish votes in Pennsylvania perhaps more so than the Uncommitted voters in Michigan by the nature of electoral votes. You saw that Elon Musk is spending millions in PA with attack ads with opposite messages targeting BOTH the (larger) Jewish community and the Muslim community in PA — yes? She literally has no choice but to toe the line between these two groups.
Moreover, I want to know at what specific point in time in polling anyone had confidence we were heading for a blue wave when polls are all we know?
The Iowa poll which has been dead-on in terms of gauging turnout in 2016 and 2020 compared to nearly any other pollster just gave Harris a +3 in Iowa. A +3 in Iowa. Keep that in mind.
If we’re going to go into more speculation as you’re suggesting we do, then I can point to 2022 and show that the Red Wave turned into a Red Mirage. Why? Simply: Pollsters did not account for the over-performance of Democrats post-Roe Reversal. Polling volatility given registration numbers and cross-over from Republicans is very volatile right now. It is entirely possible we see that same over-performance again, and thus a red wave turns into a blue mist, wave, or tsunami even given that Platinum-tier Iowa poll. Don’t forget 538 had 59:41 odds of GOP getting the Senate.
In the end who knows and I’ll hope for the best and expect the worst. But given the circumstances I think the Harris campaign has done great. I don’t think we as laypeople could do better. Easy to throw peanuts from the sidelines.
just an obvious sign of dementia
Yeah we just don’t know. The whole campaign seemed to have gone into autopilot at that point, because they were doing quite well in the polls. My read was they went into “do no harm mode”. Then they did a Nazi rally which kind of blew up that notion.
“republican voting is up in places it matters”
Which it was on my last check in NC and GA. Republican receipts were up a couple percent points in NC and Harris canceled Ad buys. The tea leaf read was that the campaign was throwing in the towel to do damage control in MI.
I also disagree that she campaigned poorly.
That’s fine, but we’re not going to agree on this. Harris went from a 38 to 50 in a like, 4 weeks. That’s meteoric. Not good, not great, shocking. And that happened in the weeks prior to the DNC, when the assumptions we had about the candidate was her platform from 2020. At the DNC we saw her platform an anti-abortion Republican in the slot that was for a Palestinian Democrat from GA. She made no effort to fix this, and its probably going to have cost her MI. Since about a week after the convention, as she continued to step right, her polling started out and went into serious decline. It became clear she’ wasn’t going to be trying to gather the disaffected votes of Democrats to win this. She wanted “Cheney” Republicans (keeping in mind that Cheney lost her primary, as an incumbent, with only 27% of the vote.). Only in the past 3 days have we had any signal that Harris still has a chance in this race. She ran a teerrrrrrrrrible campaign post convention. Just straight up. Had she stepped to the left and worked off of the things she campaigned on in 2016, had she distanced herself from Israel Gaza, I think her numbers from before the convention would have continued to increase and that she’d be at about 54-56% nationally right now. The facts are on my side for this one. It does us no good to pretend that things were some other way than they actually were. We can just plot her polling over time and see she dropped the ball. Like you can-not pretend that a candidate who had been dropping in polling for the 8 weeks prior to an election is “crushing it”.
her policy on Gaza, which unfortunately during election season you need to get the votes needed to cross the finish-line… Which means catering to the Jewish votes in
What makes you think Harris would lose any Jewish voters with a stance against genocide? If you are going to make that claim, you need to back it up with evidence. All that the Arab and Muslim community has asked for is a seat at the table for the party that supposes to represent them, and they were refused. If Harris’ loses MI, this is why, and its on her head. There is no evidence to suggest there is any cost to holding Israel accountable when its already in violation of US law. You don’t get to just speculate that things were some way you wished they were. What we can defintivelty say is that Harris has lost the support of the Muslim community in Michigan and that very well may cost her the election.
Harris a +3 in Iowa. A +3 in Iowa. Keep that in mind.
+3 in Iowa is fucking wild. I generally go by aggregates not individual pollsters. The only way Harris does this is with a landslide of women voters who are not showing up in most polls. We are seeing women voting at an anomaly level, but we’re also seeing republican voting up. Nate silver says don’t read anything into early voting, but also, its a post-covid world.
