Donald Trump was on a roll.
After Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance on 27 June, Trump gained momentum and Biden lost whatever he might have had, which wasn’t much. Then came the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, a key state in the upcoming election. Trump’s MAGA followers attributed his surviving to being “touched by God.” Less than a week later, Trump tapped Hillbilly Elegy author and Ohio Senator J. D. Vance as his running mate. The Republican National Convention immediately followed from Milwaukee showcasing more hot air than the inside of a pizza oven. Republicans began getting the moving vans ready for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Meanwhile, democrats were in disarray in what seemed five-alarm fire mode, all of them calling for Joe Biden to withdraw. It took the irrepressible Nancy Pelosi to push him over the line. And so, on a summer Sunday afternoon, like Lyndon Johnson before him, 56 years ago, Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.
That was just twenty days ago, and since then everything seems to have changed.
Harris seems made for the moment, and appears to have, politically, grown immensely in her four years of calling the Naval Observatory home. Democrats have been instantly energized much as they were when Barack Obama ran in 2008. Suddenly, it is Donald Trump, the picture of elderly vigor at the Biden debate, who now looks just plain elderly compared to his 19-year younger opponent.
And then Harris selected former high school social studies teacher, football coach, National Guard Command Sergeant Major, Congressman, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, The contrast to 39-year old, ex-venture capitalist from the Peter Thiel orbit, J. D. Vance, could not be more stark. We suddenly have Mr. Likable going up against a person who more and more seems an embarrassingly poor selection with his “childless cat ladies” and his attachment to Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation’s president and proud creator of Project 2025. Vance wrote the forward for Roberts latest book that has now seen publication delayed until after the election, but reviewers have copies, and they have not been kind.
So far, the best republicans have been able to come up with in attacking Walz is to call him a communist, castigate him for, after 24 years of service, retiring from the National Guard two months before his unit was deployed to Iraq in 2005, and mock him as Tampon Tim, because he lobbied for and signed a Minnesota law to provide menstrual products in the bathrooms of the state’s public schools. This latter criticism suffered a huge backlash throughout the country and came across as discriminatory, racist, and mean-spirited (which it was).¹
What are the polls saying?
Two excellent sources for discovering how this is playing out with the electorate are Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin (formerly FiveThirtyEight) and the Cooke Political Report. Both require subscriptions to get their full analysis.
They each report significant movement as of yesterday. The big news comes from the Silver Bulletin, which now concludes, with its 40,000 model simulations, that Harris has overtaken Trump in the all-important Electoral College voting.
And here’s the day to day tracking of that change happening.
This movement resides in three primary demographic groups: Women, Blacks and Independents, according to the Cooke Political Report, although there is some upward Harris movement in nearly all demographics.
Two weeks ago, on 23 July, Harris led Trump among women voters by 50.4% to 43.5%, for a lead of 6.9 percentage points. Yesterday, the lead had grown to 9.5 percentage points.
Among Black voters, Harris has gained 2.3% in the same period, with the greatest movement coming immediately after Trump’s catastrophic interview at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention.
Trump has had a contentious relationship with people of color since 1989 when he inserted himself into the case of the Central Park Five, Black and Latino men wrongly convicted in the beating and rape of a white female jogger. Trump famously took out a newspaper ad in New York City after the 1989 attack calling for their executions. They were later exonerated. He never apologized.
Finally, Independent voters, the group most likely to be the primary deciders in the upcoming election, have also moved toward the Harris/Walz ticket. On 23 July, Trump led Harris, 49% to 41.9%, a lead of 7.1 percentage points. By 4 August, his lead had decreased to only 2.6 percentage points.
However, I do not have to mention, but I will, anyway, that relying on polls, even the most reputable, is a lot like betting on the ponies and expecting to win, because someone you met outside the track has given you a compelling tip.
Regardless, Harris has energized her base as Joe Biden was unable to do. Moreover, because of the brilliant timing of Biden’s withdrawal, Trump’s campaign got little, if any, boost from the Republican National Convention.
This brings me to the Democrats’ Convention, which happens ten days from now in Chicago. If democrats can remain united, a big “if,” and if the Harris/Walz rally tour around America continues to bring joy to the faithful leading up to the Convention, it will be interesting to see to what new low level Donald Trump sinks to smear and malign his opponent.
Yesterday, in a sign that Trump is feeling the burn of the Harris heat, he agreed to debate her on ABC on 10 September. He had originally agreed to this debate when Biden was the candidate, but after Biden withdrew and passed the torch to Harris, he backed out. He also agreed yesterday to two additional debates, one on CBS, the other, Fox. Harris said she’d be open to these, but her campaign has not not yet officially accepted.
As Harris surges and Trump seethes, this contest is guaranteed to become even more noxious than it already is.
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¹ After Vice President Harris announced Walz as her pick, Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to former President Trump, tweeted, “She actually chose Tampon Tim.” Chaya Raichik, who runs the far-right social media account Libs of TikTok, photoshopped Walz’s face onto a Tampax box. I have written previously about the serious issue of period poverty here.
