Wondering Where The Election Stands Now? Worried Trump Can Worm His Way Back Into The White House?

"The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" by Goya

Tons of excitement about a new Susquehanna poll showing that Pennsylvania voters on the verge of ousting another Trump-fanatic Freedom Caucus leader, this time insurrectionist Scott Perry. Conservative former Republican Janelle Stelson leads Perry 48-39%. Figures from the far right fringe are rushing to the district to campaign for Perry, although, notably, he hasn’t asked Marjorie Traitor Greene to show up. (Kamala is leading in the same R+5 district by 5 points— 46- 41%.) And northeast of there, PA-07 is also looking like more good news for Team Blue. The PVI is R+2 and Biden barely won the district in 2020, just a fraction of a point over Señor T. The GOP is aggressively targeting Susan Wild but a new Muhlenberg College poll for the Morning Call shows her beating state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie 51-45%. It also has Kamala up over Trump 50-47% and Bob Casey beating McCormick in the district 51-45%.

Looks like Señor T’s politics of grievance is losing some of its allure, at least in a district in south central Pennsylvania that he won by 4 points in 2020. Speaking of which, Lisa Lerer and Michael Gold reported that his cynical grievance-laden appeal is being aimed at Black and Latino voters right now. (Almost a quarter of Perry’s district is non-white.) 

They pointed out that for over a decade, the divisive, self-serving Trump “fueled his political rise with dark appeals to white Christian voters, warning of immigrants coming for their jobs and nefarious efforts to undermine what he describes as the country’s true heritage. Now, facing a neck-and-neck race against the first Black woman to win her party’s nomination, Trump is branching out. He has repeatedly accused migrants of poaching ‘Black jobs’ and ‘Hispanic jobs,’ which is inaccurate, according to labor statistics. He told Latino voters in Las Vegas that illegal immigrants were ‘totally destroying our Hispanic population.’ He promised women in Pennsylvania he would ‘be their protector’ and that they would no longer be ‘abandoned, lonely or scared’— a vow based on the hyperbolic premise that criminals who also happen to be immigrants are lurking around every corner. For all the frequent laments about how left-leaning politicians divide the country through ‘identity politics,’ it appears to be Trump in this race who is making the most explicit identity-based arguments for voters to support his policies… Many of Trump’s blunt and dire entreaties have been greeted with condemnation, even mockery, for their clumsy invocation of race, gender and religion. Yet, in this final, frenetic stretch of the contest, they also represent a striking effort to expand the tent of economic, racial and cultural grievances that propelled him to the White House eight years ago.”

He certainly hasn’t persuaded the editors of The Atlantic, who endorsed Kamala yesterday. “Trump’s support,” they wrote, “is fixed and impervious to argument. This election, like the last two, will be decided by an absurdly small percentage of voters in a handful of states. Because one of the most personally malignant and politically dangerous candidates in American history was on the ballot, The Atlantic endorsed Trump’s previous Democratic opponents— only the third and fourth endorsements since the magazine’s founding, in 1857. We endorsed Abraham Lincoln for president in 1860.”

They weren’t around when George Washington ran, but Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was proud of a separate piece by Tom Nichols comparing Washington with Trumpanzee and urged on Atlantic readers: A Great President, And His Opposite. “Washington,” he wrote, was imperfect. He was a beneficiary of the sin of chattel slavery. But as a leader of a newly born democracy, he was also an avatar of self-restraint and self-mastery. As Tom writes in his cover story, Washington’s life and leadership were a guide for his successors. Through his example, he taught presidents how to rule, and how to return power to the people when it was time to go home. ‘Forty-four men have succeeded Washington so far,’ Tom writes. ‘Some became titans; others finished their terms without distinction; a few ended their service to the nation in ignominy. But each of them knew that the day would come when it would be their duty and honor to return the presidency to the people.’ All but one, of course: the ex-president trying to regain the office he lost in a free and fair election four years ago, and signaling that he will refuse to concede should he lose again. The story of George Washington and Donald Trump is the sad tale of a country once led by a Cincinnatus but now being duped by a grifter.”

Duped indeed. And not just by Trump. There’s a giant unspoken conspiracy in our country— led by two parties desperate to keep their bases engaged and the campaign contributions flowing, happily amplified to a largely stupid and lazy mass media eager for unearned clicks, and by largely incompetent pollsters and much worse prognosticators. They all insist on terming the election “too close to call.” Yet, while it manages to slip out that Kamala is winning, by 5 points, an R+5 district that Trump won by 4 in 2020, they’re pretending that Pennsylvania is going down to the wire, at least, in part, by including GOP firms like Rasmussen and Trafalgar, famous for fudging their numbers, in the polling aggregates. 

I keep reading that the Pennsylvania Senate race, for example, will be a photo finish. Really? Of the last dozen polls— even including one by Trafalgar— Democrat Bob Casey is ahead... in every single one. Does this look like an impending photo finish?

I think the Democrats have a better chance to steal Alaska (R+8) or Iowa (R+6) than Trump has to steal Pennsylvania (R+2), Michigan (R+1) or Wisconsin (R+2). But that isn’t the impression you get from the media— not even close, and especially not if you don’t go beyond the yellow-journalism headlines.

A new report from Gallup states that Kamala leads Trump 51% to 45% when respondents are asked whether each candidate has “the personality and leadership qualities a president should have,” largely because voters see her as being more likable and of strong moral character.

More Democrats, including independents who lean Democratic, say they are generally pleased with Harris as their party’s presidential nominee than Republicans and Republican leaners say they are pleased with Trump as theirs, 85% vs. 73%.

…Trump and Harris look evenly matched overall, with neither possessing knockout advantages in voters’ ratings of their images, perceptions of their ideology, agreement on issues, ratings for how they are conducting their campaigns, or perceptions that one or the other is too old. If the race comes down to which candidate can get better results in the Oval Office, Trump may have the upper hand. But if voters perceive leadership more holistically, factoring in their perceptions of each candidate’s personality and character, Harris may have the edge.

Yesterday, Andrew Egger noted that Liz Cheney— along with 3 other former Trump administration officials, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Cassidy Hutchinson, and Sarah Matthews— packed the house (1,300 seats) in Glenside, a Philly suburb, Wednesday night. “Since his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election,” wrote Egger, “all have become ferocious critics… ‘His own vice president is not supporting him,’ Farah Griffin said. ‘Multiple chiefs of staff. Former national security advisors. Multiple former Department of Defense heads. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His White House comms director. Deputy press secretary. Another White House comms director. The list goes on. All of us who saw him up close and personal as president, some of the senior-most roles and the most consequential roles, are the people saying he should be nowhere near the Oval Office.’”

Unfortunately the people who showed up in Glenside were mostly Democrats and polling shows that independents and supposedly “persuadable” Republicans are not even on the fence; they’re voting for Trump.

I wonder if it’s too late for Kamala to dump Netanyahu and concentrate a little more on working class voters and leave the Republicans to stew in their own moral morass and quandaries.