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Polling is a useful tool in politics, if a bit blunt and slow, and this weekend Democrats were upset by an ABC/Ipsos survey showing Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump by 4 points nationally.
But what’s important about this poll isn’t the margin. After all, Rasmussen has Trump up by 2 points. No one knows the truth. Importantly, on August 13, the same ABC poll also showed Harris up by 4. In other words, Harris’ momentum was not only lost, it was gone.
MARGIN OF ERROR RACE BETWEEN HARRIS AND TRUMP AS ELECTION 2024 ENTERS FINAL STRETCH
I first felt the air coming out of a Harris balloon more than two weeks ago, in San Francisco of all places, where one would think he would be seen as a city hero. But now, from almost everyone I meet, there is a creeping question about what he will do, what he will do as president.
Former President Trump and Vice President Harris side by side split picture. (Getty Images)
We’ve all seen the viral video, even from the Democratic National Convention, of delegates asking Harris what his favorite policy is, only to stare off into the distance, looking for a nonexistent answer as if asked for a conjugation. some words in ancient Greece.
Now I have seen this expression more times than I can count, in red states, in blue states, in suburbs, cities and small towns, even many of those who are committed to electing the vice president admit it as buying a political scratch. – die ticket. He wasn’t sure what he was going to win.
Now, make no mistake, from the moment Nancy Pelosi shoved President Joe Biden, face first, off the stage to before the Democrats gathered in Chicago, the momentum was there, the vibe was real, and Harris’ numbers were rising. .
I felt that distinctly, and palpably in the Democrats I spoke for, who have felt a kind of doom and gloom surrounding Grandpa Joe, but the vibes are funny and they tend to run out of steam. In fact, just after Trump survived an assassination attempt, it was the Republicans who were convinced that the image of a bloody and defiant Trump had won the election.
President Trump famously raised his fists and shouted “war” to the crowd after surviving an assassination attempt in July. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
But not so fast.
So why did the wheels fall off the Harris vibe bus when the joyride started? There are several mistakes to address, including his refusal to answer questions or conduct interviews.
This is where the nature of slow polling becomes a problem. For two weeks, I was told by the liberal media that Harris did not need to do the interview. He was surging, they promised. But he didn’t.
And at that point, almost without fail, every voter I spoke to said they should start answering questions. Today, it must seem like a sponge bath that he and Governor Tim Walz received on CNN last week too little, too late.
The bigger problem for Harris is that he doesn’t have the political will. Candidates with political chops can do three interviews a day without breaking a sweat, they thrive on unscripted moments that can be turned to advantage.
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Harris doesn’t have these abilities, and he shouldn’t. No one without political clout and supreme instincts can win a competitive presidential election, losing to a better candidate, but Harris has never faced another candidate and his lack of battle testing shows its ugly head.
When the first orange leaves shook the ground this week, we found ourselves before we could not serve Joe Biden written in giant neon. This race is a toss-up, voters are split as usual, and we’re going into the fourth quarter all the way.
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For Donald Trump and JD Vance who have now blunted the short-lived Harris surge, this means more than the same, staying in the public eye as much as possible. You won’t be surprised to see one of them with giant scissors at the grand opening of Dairy Queen.
Harris and Walz, on the other hand, needed a Second Act. Kamala describes how she made collard greens and Tim eating pork chops on a stick at the state fair won’t cut it. American voters have questions, lots of them, but do these untested Democratic candidates have the answers? We will find out.
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