“It’s over,” I texted my friend Noah just under two weeks ago, referring to the presidential election. Donald Trump had just survived an assassination attempt, millimeters away from a bullet taking his life, rising triumphant and shaking his fist to the cheer of his crowd in defiance of such senseless barbarism. And it came just after Mr. Biden had been literally Trumped in the worst debate performance in American political history. The contrast between Mr. Trump, rising from near-death, and the frail, coughing Joe Biden was stark. Surely, Mr. Trump had won himself another term.
Well, as baseball legend Yogi Berra said, “It ain't over till it's over.”’
Mr. Trump had a rare opportunity to unite the country just before and at the convention, and he did—for about fifteen minutes. He insisted he rewrote his speech to be a statesman-like call for unity. The nation was regaled with stories from his campaign and allies on how the near-death experience had “changed him” for the better, and he even pledged he would not mention Mr. Biden by name. His speech in Milwaukee opened with a powerful and personal account of surviving the shooting; it was quite moving.
But, typically, Mr. Trump decided to depart from this through the speech and instead went on for 90 minutes of rambling, ranting, and attacks on Mr. Biden and the Democrats, reneging on his earlier pledge to be above the fray. Because Mr. Trump is ultimately incapable of reverting to being Mr. Trump—no matter how hard he tries. Later, Mr. Trump explained this decision: “I was supposed to be nice. They say something happened to me when I got shot; I became nice,” he said. “And when you’re dealing with these people, they’re very dangerous people. You can’t be too nice.”
Meanwhile, a few hundred miles away in Delaware, in recognizing the precarious situation and the disaster it spelled for his party down-ballot, President Biden, amidst an unprecedented amount of pressure from within his own party and declining health, opted to stand down for reelection and endorse his vice president. With roughly 100 days to go, the electoral contest has been transformed into a completely new race.
Stepping into the spotlight, Kamala Harris has left the Republicans scrambled and unprepared. Mr. Trump and the GOP, having spent the last three years focused solely on attacking Mr. Biden's age and cognitive vulnerabilities, suddenly found themselves without a clear target. In a moment reminiscent of a dog finally catching the car it was chasing, the Trump campaign has been left in disarray and is being outmaneuvered in every possible avenue.
Mrs. Harris has managed to foster a remarkable groundswell of support reminiscent of the electrifying days of Obama's 2008 campaign—with the potential even to surpass it. A notable demonstration of this was the "White Women Answer the Call" event, which broke records on Zoom by bringing together 140,000 women, so many that the meeting kept crashing and raising $2 million in 90 minutes. The grassroots energy backing Mrs. Harris's campaign is powerful—a potent force that should leave the MAGA camp with reason to worry.
The Harris campaign's fundraising efforts are stellar; the Vice President amassed $126 million from 1.4 million donors in just three days from Sunday to Tuesday. The formidable cash advantage Mr. Trump previously held in this election against President Biden has now evaporated. Not to mention the free and positive media coverage she receives on top of the adoration of the '‘KHIVE” on social media.
The Republican Party's approach to countering Mrs. Harris has been peculiar, to say the least. Instead of engaging in substantial policy debates, highlighting Mrs. Harris’ incredibly left-leaning policies, their attacks on Mrs. Harris have been riddled with racial and sexual undertones, shedding light on a reoccurring and problematic issue within the GOP. The chauvinistic rhetoric has been amplified by Mr. Trump’s vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, whose criticism of a supposed cabal of "childless cat ladies" ruining the country is doing rounds around the Internet.
His remarks drew the ire of and a rare smackdown from Jennifer Aniston, who lambasted him in an Instagram post for his comments, saying, “I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children,” and issuing a reminder that not all women who are childless are by choice either, specifically reminding us of her struggle to have children through in-vitro fertilization (IVF). And while he delivered a genuinely sincere apology for the remarks in an interview today with Megyn Kelly, the optics are not only terrible for the GOP—it’s worth remembering the golden rule of politics: if you’re explaining, you’re losing!
Alec Lace, a conservative author, resorted to calling Kamala Harris in an appearance on Fox Business, the “original hawk-tuah girl” (you are blessed if you don’t know what ‘hawk-tuah’ means), further showcasing the GOP's inability to mount coherent and respectful critiques. Republican Representatives Tim Burchett and Harriet Hageman have referred to her as a "DEI hire" and "bottom of the barrel," respectively. These attacks, rather than originating from a place of policy disagreement, appear to stem from a mix of racial animus and sexual frustration, largely propagated by those in the MAGA camp who are terminally online.
This kind of rhetoric has not gone unnoticed. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz aptly summarized the sentiment, “These guys are just weird. They’re running for the he-man women hater’s club or something.” Such bizarre and conspiratorial language alienates the pivotal undecided voters in any election. These voters, who embody the quintessential American middle-class lifestyle with white picket fences, barbecues, and baseball, are more concerned with their day-to-day lives than with the online vitriol spewed from the fringe.
Trump's campaign manager, Susie Wiles, dismissed all these concerns, asserting, “For every Karen we lose, we're going to win a Jamal and an Enrique.” Besides the obviousness of the GOP's desperation, it’s quite clear that Team Trump continues to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the electorate.
Yet, for now, it is still his race to lose. Mr. Trump leads the RealClearPolitics average against Mrs. Harris by 2 points. Per the latest Emerson polling, he leads her in North Carolina by 10, Virginia by 2, Georgia by 2, Arizona by 4, Pennsylvania by 2, Michigan by 1, and is tied in Wisconsin. It is also worth noting that, historically, the polls have always underestimated Mr. Trump, even being off by up to 6 points.
But Mrs. Harris has the chance to win this race. The truth is that Mrs. Harris has the ability to articulate clear and coherent policy positions, as evidenced by her recent press conference and campaign appearances. It contrasts Mr. Trump's rambling rally style, where he goes through speeches off-script with little focus; Mrs. Harris can critique and attack Mr. Trump with far more effectiveness than Mr. Biden ever could. Also, the age issue is suddenly completely flipped on its head. Donald Trump, at 78, is the 'old man' in the race. Mrs. Harris, at 59, would be our first Gen X president, and she could borrow from Bill Clinton's 1996 strategy against the 73-year-old Bob Dole or Barack Obama’s 2008 strategy against 71-year-old John McCain in portraying herself as the younger bridge to the future.
Her two biggest issues, being tied to the unpopular Biden administration and being significantly left out of the country on policy, are not likely to be barriers to a potential victory. Mr. Trump is the worst candidate in articulating attacks on policy, despite Mrs. Harris’ extremely left-leaning policy positions, such as banning fracking, abolishing ICE, eliminating private health insurance, and supporting amnesty and citizenship for illegal immigrants, which are incredibly unpopular with the public. Mr. Trump has shown an inability recently to stay concentrated enough on specific policies, and so far has opted to instead go down an avenue of attacking Mrs. Harris's prosecutorial career, complaining about the undemocratic way she became the nominee and other dead-end attacks that are, ultimately, stupid and a waste of time.
Many days remain to go until the Democratic convention and the general election. Still, we are likely in for an incredibly close race that, ultimately, either candidate could win. While Republicans would likely have dispatched Mrs. Harris easily and paved the way for a conservative realignment had they nominated Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley, in choosing to renominate Mr. Trump, they have opted to hinge the election on a coin toss.