There are a few "high quality" polls that show the race as roughly a Harris 2-3 points lead. Given the ability to Trump to exceed his polling and the Electoral College tilt towards the GOP, this has caused a "vibes shift" inducing panic among Democrats.
However, you can tell a lot about a campaign by what they do, rather than what they say. Their polls are more rigorous and more detailed and are used to define what they do. They poll messaging, they polls which demographics they need to reach. News media polls are narrative setters. They are trying to drive coverage.
Trump's campaigns have always been a bit weird. He doesn't campaign like previous candidates. He doesn't raise money, he doesn't sit for neutral interviews unless he wants to pick a fight. He does his rallies and lets the media's bias towards narrative do his work for him.
However, for 2024, he hired some "normal" campaign people to run his campaign. He then brought back accused wife beater Corey Lewandowski a few weeks back. Now, he's shaking up his communications team.
You don't shake up your comms team three weeks before the election because your communication strategy is working. Trump might have, but Susie Wiles wouldn't have. She did, because she must be getting feedback that their message is failing to get through.
There is also Trump's bizarre decision to have his rallies in Colorado, California and New York. He's not winning those states. Why is he there? Is it that he hopes there will be counter protestors and violence? There's some media involved, but the clips from his rallies are more and more insane and inane. He rambles more, he leans into outright Nazi language more and more.
And the increasingly desperate tone of his attacks on American democracy and democratic norms suggests to me that he's also getting the word that he's losing.
If there's truly some underlying data that this race is leaning significantly towards Harris, there's a weird confluence of interests for both the Trump and Harris campaigns to see the race as close.
Let's say the "real" numbers suggest a pretty static 5-6 point Harris lead with solid leads in the Biden states plus North Carolina. Harris wants you to think it's close, because there seems to be a lingering fear that some Democratic demographics won't vote. I'm not 100% sure that's still the case - in fact, I think there might some evidence that lower propensity voters now tilt towards Trump. Still, they want to make sure all their voters go to the polls, so that there is no 2016 surprise. Meanwhile, Trump's people need the race to look close so that they can plausibly argue that A) they have a shot at winning, so vote and B) they can advance their false claims about a stolen election.
The message from Harris is "We are winning, but it's close so don't take anything for granted." That's the message of a campaign that feels pretty confident in their ground game and their status in the race.
The message from Trump is his usual nonsensical blathering, but also a LOT of fear mongering over demonstrably false things like FEMA spending their money of gender reassignment surgery for MS-13 members. The fact that the campaign professionals are sidelining Steven Cheung - a former UFC figure - because the combative stuff clearly isn't working. Fear mongering on trans issues or pet-eating immigrants isn't getting them where they need to go.
There are two things to focus on in the crazy media environment before an election. Where are the candidates going and where are they spending money? Harris is going back to Atlanta and Arizona this week. Trump is too, plus Arizona. Trump does not seem to be putting much into Wisconsin, which is interesting.
There's also this: Trump went to Detroit for an economic summit and immediately denigrated Detroit. The Harris people had an ad up and running in Detroit before the day was out. His incessant negativity and disparaging of America IS HIS MESSAGE. If you want to extend your reach beyond your cultists, that's really tough.
Trump's message is a message for the 35% of voters who adore Donald Trump. The "hold your nose and vote for him" cadre are likely not going to like it but they will vote for him anyway. That gets you to 45% or thereabouts.
He's not persuading new voters. The fact that he's reshuffling his communications team is stronger evidence for that than any poll.
No comments:
Post a Comment