The closer we get to election day, the more the outlines of Donald Trump’s victory become clearer. If he could stick to talking about immigration and the economy, this presidential election would be in the bag. This is not the case yet, because Trump is his own worst enemy.
Democratic strategists must be tearing their hair out. Poll after poll places Kamala Harris and Donald Trump tied. The Democratic candidate, however, is everywhere.
She combs Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, stops twice a week in Michigan and Georgia, and makes long detours through Arizona and Nevada. She was criticized for not giving enough interviews, she worked extra hard.
Seeking to reach young voters and African-Americans, she found Charlamagne tha God on his wildly popular radio show. She wanted to be seen and heard by independent voters and more traditional Republicans, like Nikki Haley. She threw herself into the den of the wolf, granting an interview to Fox News, the openly pro-Trump news channel.
Each time, she does rather well: we see her, we know her better, she doesn’t make any major blunders. Result? No movement in the polls.
Unable to take it upon himself
What is Donald Trump doing during this time? He is arrogant and vulgar. He insults, in his social media, not only his Democratic opponents, but also those who are sympathetic to him, but who do not show complete submission to him, such as the leaders of Fox News who let Harris appear on their airwaves.
He multiplies the intimidating remarks towards prosecutors and civil servants who confronted him with his transgressions of political norms and the laws of the country.
He belittles anyone who opposes rational arguments to his obsessions, like the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News who questioned, before the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday, the merits of the customs duties that Trump promises to impose on imports to the United States: “What exactly do you know about it? You were wrong about everything!”
Ideas that resonate
Trump’s success, despite his vanity and insolence, is due to the popularity of the two pillars of his campaign. Americans remain obsessed with immigration and the idea of a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants appeals to a majority of voters. In a poll conducted last month by Scripps News and IPSOS, 54% of respondents said they supported this policy, including 86% of Republicans and 25% of Democrats. One in four Democrats!
Furthermore, despite a low unemployment rate, slowing inflation, and lower gasoline prices than in recent years, Harris remains behind Trump on economic issues. People say they feel less rich: it’s not easy to get them to change their minds.
That’s not all. More than half of Americans (52 percent, according to Gallup) say their family’s situation is worse today than it was four years ago. It’s a mystery to many analysts, but perceptions of Trump’s presidency remain much more positive than those of Biden.
Kamala Harris cannot, despite her efforts, distance herself from the legacy of the current president. There are only a fortnight left in this presidential campaign, probably too few to change this reality.
What could save Harris… is Trump himself. As long as he keeps this election about him, filling the media landscape with his whims and mood swings, he will remind voters of the chaos that was his presidency. If he kept his mouth shut, he would have already won this presidential election.
