But he’s their lunatic Two weeks from now, Election Day polls will be open. Vanity Fair‘s Bess Levin summarizes what Donald Trump’s been doing with his last days to build a winning coalition. Policy? Did he finally lay out his health care plan after over eight years of promises? Perhaps explain his plan for resurrecting an America he claims Democrats “destroyed”? Did he explain [timestamp 1:05:00] how he’ll “cut your taxes, end inflation, slash your prices, raise your wages,” etc.? (More on raising wages in a moment.) If Trump promised everyone in Greenville, N.C. a pony yesterday, I missed it. “Donald Trump’s closing message to voters appears to be: I’m insane,” read the tweet from Vanity Fair promoting Levin’s take: Instead, he talked about the size a famous golfer’s penis, pretended to be a fast-food worker at a closed McDonald’s, and claimed every single goose in Springfield, Ohio, has has gone missing.
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Is the Harris-Cheney teamup unnerving the Trump campaign? Former Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin wonders if the Kamala Harris / Liz Cheney teamup is working against Donald Trump. Griffin reminds CNN viewers that as many as 20 percent of voters voted for Nikki Haley in Republican primaries even after she dropped out. The fact that Trump is still insulting her instead of reaching out to Haley voters is not the way to win them over. Team Trump is going after Cheney as well. But that’s because “Donald Trump is going to do Donald Trump,” says Republican stragetgist Erin Perrine. Whatever comes out of his mind (mouth) is his strategy. That is, if it’s not to simply flood the zone with crazy, Griffin adds. Anything to distract from his claims about using the U.S. military against U.S. citizens. Many voters are shrugging it off as Trump being Trump. But deploying the military against Americans is also the crazy coming out of Trump’s mouth. So if crazy is a distraction strategy, Trump lacks the self-discipline to adhere to it. Cheney, meanwhile, gets to say things Harris the candidate cannot, and from the same stage in joint events with Harris.
I’m staying away form the horserace polls. But some of the other questins are interesting. Like this one: “Voters who made their decision on who to support over a month ago break for Trump, 52-48%, while voters who made up their mind in the last month or week break for Harris, 60-36%.” Voters who say they could still change mind? Harris +5 I don’t know if that’s meaningful. I can’t imagine why so many people haven’t been sure that they would vote for a fetid pile of garbage over Donald Trump. But if they’re coming around, that’s good news.
One of Obama’s top strategy and data guys, Patrick Dillon, has written a statement today that I think you may want to read. It’s not just phony Hopium, it’s based on educated analysis, experience and possibly some inside knowledge. Anyway, I don’t know if this will be real or not and he admits he doesn’t know either. But this is his best guess. An excerpt: My texts are full these days of “are we gonna be okay?” and, then, a beat later, “are you really sure?” Over and over, my answers are basically “yes” and “as sure as I can be.” I also used to get paid to make big presentations this time of year to tell clients what was going on and what might happen. That process forced me to be rigorous in assessing every bit of data I could lay my hands on, and keep myself honest. That said, I’m no Nate (neither Silver nor Cohn.)3 I still believe at the end of the day campaigns are more art than science. Call it 51% gut / 49% data.
Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk taking over the Trump field operations may be one of the worst decisions he’s made and that’s saying something: Donald Trump’s ground game in Arizona and Nevada may be undercut by canvassers working for America Pac using GPS spoofing to pretend they have knocked on doors when they haven’t, according to multiple people familiar with the practice and a leaked how-to-fake-location video. The ramifications for Trump may be far reaching, given America Pac has taken on the bulk of the Trump campaign’s ground game in the battleground states, and the election increasingly appears set to be decided by turnout. A bootleg how-to-spoof video, made by an America Pac canvasser in Nevada and obtained by the Guardian, shows the apparent ease with which locations can be changed to fake door-knocks, calling into question how many Trump voters have actually been reached by the field operation.
Those two quotes are correct. The first, the second. I share this after having watched a bunch of evangelicals drool all over Trump as if he’s the second coming and I’m reminded that we don’t have to listen to the Christian Right about morality ever again. There was a time when they’d be trotted out as the avatar of Real American values. No more. They showed themselves to be simply lackeys for a demagogic cult leader. I don’t think we have to have any doubt WJWD.
Jeffrey Goldberg has published a story in the Atlantic compiling many of the grotesque commnts from Trump about the military. I guess I’m not shocked by it anymore but I confess I’m still pretty stunned that Republican voters don’t care. I suppose they believe it’s all lies but on some level they do know he’s lying and have chosen to pretend to believe him when he says it didn’t happen. I will never understand what makes them so attracted or loyal to this man but that’s another story. I’m linking with a gift link so that you can read the whole story. Much of it isn’t new but it’s still good to see it all in one place. The newest piece is here. Trump had offered to personally help pay for funeral expenses for vaness Guillen a young soldier who had been killed by a fellow soldier. Months after the fact, he asked if they had ever received a bill: According to attendees, and to contemporaneous notes of the meeting taken by a participant, an aide answered: Yes, we received a bill; the funeral cost $60,000. Trump became angry.
One of my favorite TV scenes was in a show called “6 Feet Under” in which Kathy Bates brings her friend to a department store and tells her to go ahead and shoplift because once a woman goes through menopause she’s invisible. It’s kind of true … I thought of that today when I read this: New polling shows Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump with women over the age of 50 by more than any presidential candidate since 2016. The survey shows that 54% of women in that demographic plan to vote for the vice president, over just 42% for Trump. It’s a huge improvement from Joe Biden, who only led Trump by three points with women over 50 in January. The numbers are also better than Hillary Clinton‘s numbers in 2016, who polled 48%-40% over Trump. […] ‘Our polling over the years has shown them to be a key swing voting bloc,’ said AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond. In the same survey, Democrats led Republicans 51%-42% on votes for who should control Congress. Overwhelmingly, women over 50 say that the economy and affordability are their biggest issue.
You should opt out Dan Pfeiffer this morning examines the GOP push to psych out the public: Despite minimal evidence, a full-bore effort is underway to make Democrats think Kamala Harris is losing the election. This effort is abetted by preternaturally anxious Democrats expressing their concerns on social media. I have written a lot recently about the vibe shift in Democrats after Kamala Harris’s nomination. I don’t think the data validates such an extreme shift in emotions. However, I won’t shame anyone for being on edge these last two weeks. The stakes are enormous. Reproductive freedom, health care, democracy, and the planet are on the line in an election that could be decided by the weather in a random suburban Wisconsin county. Simon Rosenberg has been on about Republicans flooding the zone with conservative “red wave” polls meant to skew polling averages in Donald Trump’s favor. This is a GOP psyop meant to a) depress Democrat enthusiasm and, b) lay the groundwork for another “stop the steal” movement post-Nov. 5.
IYKYK There’s a difference. A big one.