40 days to go until the Presidential Election.
If you are following the polls, tuning into the 24-hour rolling news or glancing at the online headlines you will know its close.
Having been around elections on both sides of the pond for more than 30 years, I can recall close ones before, but this feels surprisingly different.
First, when one of the candidates has been found guilty of felony crimes, you would think it was going to be a much more one-sided affair. Equally, when the other camp bins their candidate, a sitting President, you’d imagine that too signalled the end.
Perhaps these candidate attributes and novelties have cancelled each other out, but there are other strange circumstances shaping the outcome.
2024 America is undoubtedly a polarised electorate. While there is just a little movement in the polls, within the margins of error, it appears voters have largely already made their minds up and aren’t budging. Like in 2016, the Democrats appear on track to win the popular vote – Trump however wins the electoral college and proceeds to the White House.
Therefore, it is interesting to see the approach the two sides are taking.
One is pursuing a classic campaign tactic, looking to make gains around the margins with non-affiliated voters and those who have an issue they care deeply about.
The other, relentlessly hammering the same message over-and-over again, hoping something gives and the old idiom about ‘banging your head on the wall’ can be disproven.
Popular wisdom suggests the former is the smarter approach, but as we have said, this time it’s different.
Take a look at this week.
Kamala Harris received the backing of 700 military top brass, current and former National Security officials, and former secretaries of state and defence. Not only did she secure their backing, but they spoke of Trump, her opponent, as a threat to ‘national security’ and ‘American democracy’.
The issue of defence and security is high on voters’ lists – whether it is around border security, the threat of global terrorism, or the sabre-rattling and worse of Russia, China and Iran – this should be a vote winner.
She followed this up with 400 leading economists writing to support her economic policy. Leading academics, university professors, former central bankers.
Then data released by the Harris camp claimed a huge lead over Trump in voting intentions for electors under the age of 30 – perhaps boosted by America’s darling, Taylor Swift, urging her hundreds of millions of followers to register to vote and her preference for Harris as the next leader. Again, in an election where age and competency has been an issue, being see as the youthful preference should be good news for Harris.
The Harris campaign also spent time in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina, with visits to factories, photo ops with Governors and senators, and scheduled appearances at packed rallies and sold-out town hall meetings, all designed to show that critical campaign mojo, momentum.
But the early polls following those plays are still showing little movement.
If anything, some polls are indicating the surge towards Harris has stopped and, as we get closer to election day, voters are starting to favour Trump.
Political commentators I talk to are wondering if we have reached ‘Peak Harris’ – having hit her electoral high-water mark.
Trump, on the other hand, spent his week doing exactly what he has been doing since he entered the race earlier in the year – speaking to those who are already voting for him.
Whether that was through rambling and often hard to follow speeches and rallies, all CAPS shouty posts on his personal social media channel Truth Social, or through surrogates on Fox News, AM talk radio, online bloggers or the Alternative News networks which spout strange conspiracy theories.
With every week that passes, it appears Trump is alienating voter groups, providing meme-able material of awkward encounters with ‘the public’, authoring poorly worded attacks on key demographics. All the while, he is seeing senior party figures distancing themselves from him as he snuggles up to far-right QAnon-conspiracy lover Laura Loomer and fails to put clean air between himself and his earlier backing for a Republican Governor candidate who describes himself as a ‘Black Nazi’ on a porn chatroom.
Conventional campaign thinking would see this as a death spiral.
But this is America 2024.
The polls haven’t moved against him. The opposite in fact.
His rankings on issues of national significance are getting better too.
Voters – especially white, blue collar non-college educated voters (WBCNCE) who make up more than 50% of some key swing states – say they favour him on what they see as the big issues – Who is most likely to resolve the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, push back against China, halt illegal immigration and lower taxes? Trump every time.
So, what is going on?
First, the polls are notoriously fragile. Often wrong.
Nate Silver, who made a name and a fortune for himself by calling the 2008, 2012 and 2020 elections with remarkable accuracy, is an outspoken critic of the US polling system.
What appears to be true is that Republicans, Trump supporters and those who hold even further right-field views are reluctant to share their opinions on the online, telephone or face to face surveys the pollsters still rely on. This weights the polls heavily to the left, and in states with large WBCNCE electorate, that is a problem.
Secondly, while Trump is not everyone’s cup of tea, his messages are simple and resonate.
He is unabashed at claiming that he and he alone can fix the world’s ills. My plan, my economy, my America. “I will return the World to peace – I can do it with a phone call, we don’t need to send troops.”. That’s some claim.
In a town hall in Georgia this week he emphatically told the crowd he would end the wars, tell China who is boss, drag manufacturing back to US, create American jobs, cut taxes more than Reagan, deregulate automakers, energy companies and rebuild the ‘greatest economy for America which he had previously built’.
The crowd roared. They can get behind those messages – they don’t want ‘woke’, they don’t want to hear how tough it is, they want to hear that it isn’t their fault.
Forty Days to go. Forty Days to get the campaign won.
Harris and her team need to step up their game. No-one is asking for it, but here is my advice to Team Kamala – They need to be seen to connect with the electorate in those key states. Demonstrate they understand and are sympathetic to those who feel they have been left behind at the expense of an elite who neither care about nor understand their concerns.
They need to connect with real people, white, blue collar, non-college educated and everyone else, at a level and in a way, Trump finds it easy to do.
Hurricane Helene is currently hurtling towards the coast where I live. I’m writing this on Wednesday because we will lose power and internet connection in the coming days. Others in the storm’s direct path will lose a lot more – their homes, their communities and perhaps even their lives.
VP Harris should mobilise the National Guard, be seen to position medical and emergency services in the areas affected, enlist the Army Corps of Engineers to help plan evacuations and protection of road and rail infrastructure. Be on the ground to show leadership.
The storm will whistle through Florida and up into Georgia dumping record rainfall on communities before blowing out as far north as North Carolina – both key swing states.
Opportunistic? Perhaps – but she shouldn’t be shy of this, she is currently Vice President of the nation, it would show good leadership.
Too much? Something softer? the baseball World Series playoffs start next week and Philadelphia Phillies, Milwaukee Brewers, Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, Detroit Tigers are all still in contention. These key states sports lovers are excited. Get out there, swing a bat, throw a ball, sit in the stands with a hotdog and a beer – anything to show it matters.
And it’s Halloween soon and that’s a big deal here. Go pick pumpkins with Tim Walz and make wise cracks about them looking like Trump, go trick or treating, decorate a house.
America loves a holiday and there are all kinds of national and international days to celebrate – October 5 World Teacher Day, October 10 World Mental Health Day, October 11 Southern Food Heritage Day, October 28 National First Responders Day.
Kamala, show us you get it, get out there, do the things ordinary citizens do, let us see you care and aren’t just another Washington politician.
40 days to go. It is still too close to call.
