It’s clear that Kamala Harris’ campaign is making progress, but it’s also clear that Donald Trump still eludes the normal rules of politics.
Following a particularly well-run convention, things are looking pretty good for the Democratic candidate. Polls continue to show a slow but steady rise in her support, including in the seven key states where the election will be decided.
Other signs don’t lie, including the impressive amounts raised by Democrats and the massive voter registration of groups supporting Harris.
To non-specialist observers, however, the most obvious sign of Harris’s progress is probably the increasingly erratic behavior of his opponent.
A destabilized campaign
As much as the Trump campaign tries to project confidence and strength, the candidate seems unable to listen to his advisers, who urge him to stick to issues like the economy, immigration and foreign policy.
The Trump camp thought it was making a big splash by welcoming Robert F. Kennedy.rbut the latter doesn’t add much to the Trump team, other than helping to make it even more weird.
Trump has increased his personal attacks on Harris, issuing or relaying vile and disgraceful remarks about her. Judging by his ramblings on social media, there is reason to worry about his psychological balance.
In short, Trump is crazy.
Ahead of the September 10 debate, it is now the Trump camp that is insisting that the microphones be turned off when he is not speaking, to prevent him from completely losing his cool during the debate.
Rules just for him
Looking at all this, one might be inclined to believe that Trump’s carrots are cooked, but he has some very special aces up his sleeve. First, the polarization and calcification of partisan support ensures that the vast majority of Republicans will remain loyal to him.
Above all, Trump violates the rules and norms of the political game with such frequency that these violations have become normalized and commonplace for his supporters and for the media, who never really make him pay the price.
This week, Trump broke federal law by filming a promotional video at Arlington National Cemetery. That blunder, and his recent statements denigrating military heroes, would be enough to sink any politician. But rules and norms are for other people, not Trump.
By November, Harris’s slightest deviations will be severely criticized while Trump will commit the worst excesses with impunity. At the same time, in the interest of “balance,” Harris’s every statement will be dissected for insignificant bugs while Trump will churn out the most outrageous lies at such a rate that he will never be held responsible for them.
That’s part of the reason why this election is far from over and why Kamala Harris will need to be close to flawless to win it.
Quote of the week
“Under a Trump administration, the federal government will pay for fertility treatments in vitro. We will force insurance companies to cover these treatments.” – Donald Trump, last Thursday, at a rally in Michigan.
Trump is trying to distance himself from the unpopular positions of the religious right. On IVF, his promise is hollow, because it is certain that such a measure, under pressure from insurers, would never be ratified by Congress. This promise and his refusal to firmly support a project to ban all forms of abortion after six weeks in Florida place him in opposition to the pro-life movement, which could lead to a demobilization of part of his partisan base. Officials from his campaign have also been quick to qualify his remarks about the referendum on abortion in Florida.
The number of the week
6/7
Six out of seven is the number of key states where Kamala Harris leads in the polls, according to averages calculated by the site FiveThirtyEight (August 30). The seven states where the race is closest are the same as in 2020: Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Only in North Carolina does Donald Trump have a slim lead (0.2 percentage points). Harris’ average lead in the other six states is 1.8 percentage points.
The lie detector
“Not only does Kamala Harris support taxing tips for service workers, but reports confirm that Biden and Harris have used the IRS to confiscate your tips. Biden and Harris have literally deployed IRS agents to harass tipped workers.” – Donald Trump social media ad.
FAKE
According to the Washington Post (August 26), this claim is false. Such a program to deploy IRS agents against tipped workers never existed.
Photo of the week
Photo taken from X
On Monday, an invitation to Donald Trump to commemorate the death of a service member during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was turned into a campaign event, in violation of federal law (CFR 553.35, section C). A cemetery worker who came to report the violation was shoved by a Trump camp employee. She declined to press charges, citing fear of retaliation from Trump and his supporters.
