As the Trump campaign continues to melt down, both nationally and in swing states like North Carolina, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are maintaining the momentum that has propelled their campaign. Just before last week’s debate, Harris was ahead 49% to 46% in North Carolina. If Trump loses NC, it’s GAME OVER. He cannot win the election without it.
My wife Lucia, son Alex and I went to the AWESOME Harris rally in Greensboro last Thursday. The coliseum was PACKED. Nearly every one of the estimated 17,000 seats was filled. Hours earlier, she attracted 7,000 at a rally in Charlotte. On the same day, Trump spoke to ONLY 2,000 people in Tucson, AZ.
Below, a sample of the sea of people in Greensboro for Harris (photo courtesy the Facebook group Kamala for NC).
In Asheville on Tuesday night, MN Gov. Walz gave an enthusiastic speech to a high-spirited outdoor crowd of what looked to be about 5,000, in the rain. Trump’s audience at his August speech in Asheville was about 2,400. Live updates of Walz campaign rally (citizen-times.com). Full speech.
He reminded me of MN’s other favorite son, former vice president and senator, Hubert Humphrey, whom I met him several times when I was a teenager. He uses some of the same light-hearted phrases: "Politics of joy" and "we can sleep when we're dead." Walz was first to use the adjective “weird” to describe Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance, which went viral. In a town hall, Trump tried to reassure the audience 11 times that he was not weird. “If you have to remind your audience 11 times that you’re not weird, you might be weird,” Walz quips. During his extemporaneous speeches, rally-goers often chant such phrases as “we’re not eating cats!”
For Harris and Walz, politics is not just about anger, bitterness, grievance and outrage. As David Brooks noted in the NYT (gift link), “a cultural shift favors Harris. People can only be bitter for only so long. Harris’s happy strength may offer a glimpse of a sunnier national mood to come.”
Lucia is volunteering weekly at Chatham County Democratic headquarters in Pittsboro with 50 other volunteers. On Saturday, I joined members of NC Neighbors on Call and NC County to County to door-to-door canvass Nash County (Rocky Mount), one of NC's most bellwether counties. It voted for McCain in 2008, Obama in 2012, Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020 (by 120 votes). Volunteers will be going door-to-door every weekend until the election. Data suggests that for every 13 voters contacted, one goes to the polls who would not have done so otherwise.
Do the Republicans even have a ground game in places like this? It appears NOT.
Trump took NC by less than 80,000 votes in 2020. I feel sure 40,000 voters have more negative opinions of him now than they did then.
Follow daily election news in the swing states, or specifically
North Carolina; Arizona; Georgia; Nevada; and in the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania; Michigan; and Wisconsin.
I am reading that Iowa, Alaska, Florida, Missouri, and even Texas could be in play as Harris appears to be closing in on Trump’s 5-point lead in those states.
No doubt some of this optimism is exuberance on the part of Harris supporters. But if political gravity is truly a thing, Trump should be crushed. Why is this election against a convicted felon even close? “More than 100 ex-Republican officials call Trump ‘unfit to serve’ and endorse Harris,” The Guardian reports.
Former Republican Congressman Liz Cheney is campaigning not only for Harris but also for Democratic Congressman Colin Allred, Senator Ted Cruz’s opponent in Texas (Video). She calls Cruz an unprincipled chameleon who will do anything for power, including trying to subvert free and fair elections. Allred is within striking distance of Cruz.
The sober and skeptical analyst in me reminds that Harris must win the popular vote by three to four percent in order to clear the Electoral College’s bias in favor of Trump and rural states. Trump could lose the popular vote by millions and win in the Electoral College by 40,000 votes. This would entrench minority rule for the third time this century.
Many Voters Believe Misinformation
A large number of voters — perhaps even a plurality — believe things that aren’t true, such as that inflation is the highest it has ever been in American history; and that Venezuelan authorities are releasing prisoners into the U.S. A quarter of voters even believe that Haitian immigrants are eating household pets. Click. A substantial number of Americans, including 58 percent of independents and 25 percent of Democrats believe that mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants — is feasible and desirable, even though it would be extremely expensive, costing billions of dollars, cause an immediate recession and inevitably include the deportion of many citizens. 1.8 Million Latinos Were Deported From the U.S. in the 1930s. Half of Them Citizens.
This Is How Trump Wins, by Chris Cillizza.
Chances Dim of Dramatic Swing to the Left
Even if Harris wins, the odds are currently that the Senate will flip to the Republicans. Democratic senators Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown appear to be in trouble in the Trump states of Montana and Ohio. Only if Harris surges 5+ points ahead or more, with coattails for a Democratic Congress, will she have a true mandate to pass a progressive agenda.
I would bet, however, that passage of a bipartisan immigration bill is likely if she’s elected, and if Trump no longer has the influence to tell Republicans to table it for short-term political gain.
What are you seeing in your community?
‘Keys to the White House’ Historian, Eschewing Polls, Predicts Kamala Harris Will Win
Allan Lichtman, the American University historian and political scientist who disdains national polling snapshots in favor of uncovering historical patterns — what he calls the 13 keys to the White House — believes Kamala Harris will win the presidential election. He explained in this video:
He predicted Trump would win in 2016.
Amid suspicions that Lichtman’s “Keys to the White House” have a liberal bias because he has done consulting work for progressive politicians, he points out that he has correctly predicted the winner of every election since 1984. Here’s an interview he gave to Fox News in 2016 predicting Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.
Al Gore Could Have Legitimately Divided America Like Trump Did Illegitimately
After losing the too-close-to-call 2000 election due to a 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, Vice President Al Gore “could have handled the whole thing differently,” he told the Washington Post Magazine, “and instead of making a concession speech, launched a four-year rear guard guerrilla campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the Bush presidency and to mobilize for a rematch.”
Gore rejected that advice, he said, because “I just didn’t feel like it was in the best interest of the United States or that it was a responsible course of action.”
Donald Trump did exactly as Gore was advised to do but chose not to do, though he had less legitimate reason to do so. More than 60 courts rejected Trump’s appeals to the courts.
2000: When the Wrong Man Was Selected As President
Lichtman revisits the 2000 election and says Gore should have been elected. He has reviewed documents that Black voters in Florida were illegally purged from the rolls.
As for the “13 keys to the White House,” Lichtman argues that if the answer to most of the following questions is false, the incumbent party will lose. If true, the incumbent party will win.
The factors are:
The party holding the White House gained seats in the last mid-term elections. False for Trump in 2020. (Republicans lost the House of Representatives in 2018, as well as 2006, and 1990, presaging their party’s defeats in 2008 and 1992.) But this is not a definitive predictor, because Democrats lost the House in 2010 after Barack Obama’s first two years, he still won in 2012. Democrats lost the House in 1994 after Bill Clinton’s first two years. He won re-election in 1996. Biden-Harris’s Democratic Party held the Senate and lost the House by the narrowest of margins in 2022. Republicans subsequently toppled their speaker, Kevin McCarthy. Far-right members of Congress have an uneasy alliance with Speaker Mike Johnson.
There is no primary contest for the White House party. True, for Trump in 2020. True for Biden-Harris in 2024. Not true for Trump in 2024. A significant number of primary voters supported Nikki Haley and may not support Trump’s re-election.
The incumbent president is seeking re-election. True, for Trump in 2020. Not true for Biden in 2024, but Harris is adhering closely to Biden's record while offering voters a fresh face.
There is no third-party challenger. True, for Trump in 2020. True for Biden-Harris in 2024. Robert Kennedy Jr has withdrawn his candidacy and endorsed Trump, though he will still be on the ballot in several swing states.
The short-term economy is strong. False, for Trump in 2020. Unemployment was high. In 2024, unemployment is low. This should help Harris. Inflation remains a problem, especially for working-class Blacks and Hispanic voters. But it has gone down, according to official data, to under three percent per year. Confident that inflation is easing, the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates by half a percent, signaling a new era of looser borrowing costs for homebuyers, consumers and businesses.
Long-term economic growth for this presidential term has been as good as the past two terms. False, for Trump in 2020. True for Biden in 2024. Long-term economic growth has been almost as strong under Biden as during the Bill Clinton administration.
The White House has made major changes in national policy. True, for Trump in 2020. True for Biden in 2024.
There is no major social unrest during the presidential term. False, for Trump in 2020. True for Biden-Harris in 2024.
The White House is untainted by scandal. False, for Trump in 2020. True for Biden-Harris in 2024. The Biden impeachment has petered out in the US House. Hunter Biden’s problems seem no worse for this president than past presidents’ relatives were for them. The “Biden crime family” trope resonates with hyper-partisan Republicans, but I can’t imagine swing voters will be swayed by it. On the other hand, a faction of Trump voters say they will not vote for him since he has been convicted of felonies, and faces additional legal trials after the election.
The White House has no foreign or military failures abroad. Lichtman rated this true for Trump in 2020, although Democrats tried to blame him for casting a blind eye to Saudi Arabian human rights abuses, including the murder of a journalist, for being soft on Russia, too close to Vladimir Putin and other dictators. This is true for Biden-Harris in 2024, although Republicans are trying to blame him for the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
The White House has a major success abroad. Lichtman rates this false for Trump in 2020, although Trump boasted about moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and claiming credit for peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. This is true for Biden-Harris in 2024. Ukraine is holding its own against Russia. The administration is pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The incumbent party candidate is charismatic. Lichtman rates this false for Trump. It was false for Biden in 2024, and Lichtman says it is false for Harris as well.
The challenger is uncharismatic. Lichtman rates this true for Joe Biden in 2020. I’d say Trump is uncharismatic as well. He doesn’t attract the crowds in 2024 that he did in two previous elections. Harris is generating enthusiasm, but it’s too early to tell if she has real charisma like John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
7 False: 1, 5,6, 8, 9, 11, 12 in 2020.
6 True in 2020: Lichtman’s formula successfully predicted Trump’s loss for re-election in 2020. But he likely would have won re-election if not for the pandemic and its negative impact on the short-term and long-term economy.
10 are true for Biden-Harris in 2024: 1,2,4, 5,6,7,8,9,10, and 11, although some of these points are debatable.
I am seriously concerned about Harris winning by a landslide in the popular vote but losing the electoral college. The Russians are interfering brazenly in this election, there are boards of elections around the country who’ve said they will not certify a Harris victory. It will all likely end up in this extraordinarily corrupt Supreme Court. I still remember Bush/Gore. I’m trying hard not to be pessimistic but I was trained to prepare for the worst and expect it.
It’s game over. Joe! Oh I mean Kamala…polls standing strong!! Lookin good Billie-Tay! Let’s hope the cheat isn’t in like 2000 and 2016. Ask Hill.
A couple things. The war in Ukraine. Remember. The one we provoked by expanding NATO yet again and failing to negotiate when Russia offered. A million casualties. Talk about genocide. I wonder if Joe thought about those families when he passed on peace.
Even scarier, the Ukraine is losing. Russia has stated they will declare war on us and NATO if we approve long range artillery. Realtime. War. The Russia ambassador says they will hit into the heart of America. Real war. Oh. Trump wants peace, what does Kamala want? What do her supporters like you want notwithstanding the polls?
BTW great debate, I can’t get over how prepared Kamala was and the fact checking. Almost like she knew what was coming. The glorious polls! So smooth. Like 16.
Don’t tell anyone but, Hunter couldn’t make this up. The day before the debate. A new whistleblower. No way.
We need forever war to save democracy Jim. Kamala ;) lookin strong in NC Billie-Ray :) Stay away from the sixth hole Louis :)
https://x.com/billackman/status/1835497041151300069?s=46