Will Donald Trump win? As I write this in late October, nobody is aware of for positive if 2024 will likely be a repeat of 2020 or 2016—or if it should manifest as another election state of affairs none of us have lived by means of but. However we do know a pair issues for positive.
First, vote totals from mail-in voting and early voting present that, not like 2016, this won’t be a low-turnout election.
Second, Trump 2024 may be very a lot not Trump 2016. That is to say that the previous president is now not a symptom or an outlier of the Republican Occasion; he is the Republican Occasion, and the Republican Occasion is him. The GOP Home Speaker, Mike Johnson, was effectively installed by Trump for his work making an attempt to overturn the 2020 election. And whereas some senators, like Minority Chief Mitch McConnell, could wish to downplay their alignment with Trump, any actually anti-Trump Republican has been pushed from the celebration. All that continues to be are a sea of mini Trumps, sycophants and faint mimeographs of the OG.
Third, though many Democrats reside in mortal worry that this cycle will likely be one other 2016, they’d do properly to keep in mind that Kamala Harris’s marketing campaign will not be like Hillary Clinton’s. Harris is working a extremely focused floor sport targeted on selecting off Republican girls who can’t abdomen Trump and the few undecideds who’re someway nonetheless on the fence. Will it work? That I can’t say. In any case, she’s working as a lady of colour in a rustic that’s nonetheless deeply racist and sexist. But when she doesn’t win, it gained’t be for lack of making an attempt.
Take, for instance, her canny media blitz: Over the previous few weeks, the vice chairman has dared to puncture the right-wing media ecosystem. She sat down for a really annoying interview with Fox Information’ Bret Baier—who interrupted Harris at the very least “38 instances in 27 minutes,” in response to CNN—and is reportedly in talks to seem on Joe Rogan’s podcast. In the meantime, her working mate, Tim Walz, has been on Fox Information Sunday twice within the final three weeks. (Oh, and it additionally doesn’t damage that Harris absolutely destroyed Trump within the first and solely debate.) All of this, as one swing state member of Congress tells me, is “the full reverse” of the anemic approach Clinton campaigned in 2016. “I skilled each,” they stated. “Like evening and day.”
Extra lately, on Sunday, Harris spent her morning with two totally different church congregations within the Atlanta space. And on Monday, she’s doing one other marketing campaign cease with anti-Trump Republican Liz Cheney, who rallied with Harris earlier within the month in Wisconsin and can cohost “moderated discussions” with the veep within the suburbs of Philadelphia, Detroit, and Milwaukee.
Trump, for his half, isn’t (at the very least not but) crisscrossing the nation with a flurry of marketing campaign stops in battleground states, as he did in 2016. In keeping with ABC News, round this time that 12 months, Trump did 26 rallies, whereas Clinton solely did 19; Trump went to 12 states and Clinton solely went to eight. Clinton’s greatest fumble: She neglected to visit each Georgia and Wisconsin—and solely spent a single day in Arizona—after clinching the Democratic nomination in June. That seemingly fed into her -12 unfavorability ranking on the time. In contrast, Harris presently sits at a snug +5%, in response to a brand new AP ballot, and she or he rates better on the economic system than Trump too.
