Hopium

 I follow Simon Rosenberg, which is why I'm maybe more optimistic about the election than most. He recently made some good points that I want to fold into some other points.

Among the oddities of this election is the fact that it is October 3rd and we are done with debates. The reason we are done with them is that Trump is increasingly unhinged and incoherent. Further evidence of this is Trump backing out of the 60 Minutes interview that is traditionally done every October. He simply can't be trusted to weather skeptical questioning. Hell, he sits down with NewsMax and says something crazy. The lasting soundbites of these debates are Trump's bizarre "eating the cat eating the dogs" bit and Vance refusing to say who won the 2020 election. That's now locked in.

Losing campaigns typically want more debates, unless they are genuinely worried because their candidate has pudding for brains.

As Rosenberg notes, if we look at quality polling - excluding Republican pollsters like Trafalgar and Rasmussen for very good reasons - we see the following dynamic. Harris is up nationally by about 3-5 points. The Cook Report has her up 3 in Michigan, up 2 in Wisconsin and Arizona, up 1 in Pennsylvania and Nevada, tied in North Carolina and down 2 in Georgia. That's 287 electoral votes.

What Rosenberg doesn't mention but Josh Marshall and others have been tracking is that the GOP apparently has no ground game. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has no money. There's a strong argument that if this contest really is as close as the polls have it, then Get Out The Vote campaigns are critical, because those are your margins of victory. The Republican Party has lost its historic advantage with high propensity voters, as educational polarization turns college graduates Blue. 

Trump has historically turned out these low propensity voters - which is why the GOP can't move on from him. However, ANY erosion in support among his voting blocs will be fatal to his campaign, and they simply aren't allocating resources to mobilize those voters. Democrats have ALL the usual advantages of organization, money and high propensity voters. The GOP has the hope that Trump can mobilize those hidden voters he did in 2016.

One other thing that Harris is doing is reaching out to disaffected Republicans. She's campaigning with Liz Cheney, right after Jack Smith dropped a court filing that (should) reinvigorate the question over Trump's conduct in 2020 and even Vance's refusal to state who won that election. If the next week is about Trump's efforts to overthrow the election, how does he change the subject?

Furthermore, the dynamic of the VP debate was sort of turned on its head. VP debates are usually bomb throwing affairs, as the VP is supposed to be the attack dog of the two candidates. Trump is his own rabid mutt, so Walz and Vance gave a glimpse of what politics might look like once Trump goes away. The fact that BOTH men were more popular after the debate suggests a real hunger to move on from Trump's nastiness and 24 hour drama.

As always, I'm not convinced there are a meaningful number of people who voted for Biden in 2020 who are going to vote for Trump in 2024. I do believe that there is a groundswell of support for Harris among new registrants. I think he's losing voters and she's gaining them. We are living in the aftershock of January 6th and Dobbs, and whatever the polls say, it seems unlikely that there are a ton of Biden-Trump voters. Maybe misogyny really is that strong though. 

The big, unreported story is Trump's psychological and cognitive collapse as evidenced by his recent appearances. He's low energy and barely coherent. People really ARE leaving his rallies early. People really fired up for Harris. Maybe it's 2020 where we have to wait for PA to count their absentee ballots. Or maybe we go to bed Tuesday night with Harris pulling Florida out of her hat. But we are winning. I feel it in my bones.