Tipsheet

Time for an Election Reality Check

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  August 05, 2024 10:25 AM

As soon as Joe Biden was forced out of the 2024 presidential race -- as Democrats nullified their primary election process to replace him, in the name of winning -- I offered this warning to the Trump campaign and Republicans generally: "Understand that this is absolutely a losable election for Trump and the Republicans, and the winning trajectory they were on may have just been jolted in a way that other major events have not precipitated.  The GOP cannot be complacent, and the Trump base cannot overestimate the broader appeal of their beloved candidate."  In a subsequent post laying out the straightforward case against Harris, I offered additional admonitions.  "Overconfidence is the enemy.  Kamala Harris can win this election...Despite his base's adoration and a clear uptick in favorability and retrospective job approval ratings, Donald Trump is not a broadly popular figure.  Harris can win.  But she shouldn't."  I went on to highlight the avalanche of soundbytes that should make Harris unelectable in a national election.  Should, not necessarily will.  

Two weeks since Biden's departure, Kamala Harris has not conducted a single interview.  Her staff is walking back nearly all of her policy stances via emails to reporters, with no explanation from the candidate herself.  On anything.  The one question she took resulted in a typically vacuous word salad.  The 'news' media, far from being angry about the lack of access and accountability, is delighted.  The hype they have built for her has resulted in Trump's national lead evaporating.  Harris is now ahead in several of the national averages, including the RealClearPolitics 'full field' aggregation.  So-called reach states in which the Trump campaign was actively expanding the map during the Biden era have reverted to blue-leaning.  Swing states are margin-of-error toss-ups.  The election is a jump ball.  It's entirely plausible that within the next few weeks -- after Harris announces her running mate with great fanfare (it seems likely that it will be Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who could very well help the campaign in his crucial state and beyond), followed by a convention that will be covered adoringly by the the press -- Harris will be the clear frontrunner in this race.  Maybe the 'honeymoon' will fade.  Maybe it won't.  A lot of people are deeply invested in making it last for three months.


In short, thus far, Democrats' decision to subvert their elections and oust their failing nominee has been successful.  And with onus nearly entirely on them to define their new opponent, Republicans have been unfocused, even flailing.  A huge component of this overall race is winning the race to define Harris.  By keeping her on a teleprompter, and via a blizzard of glossy ads and social media buzz, the Democrats and their media allies are ahead in that critical race-within-the-race.  Her record and positions are genuinely radical.  Her capabilities and character are deeply deficient.  Are voters getting any clear sense of that from the Republican Party?  Some are doing excellent work, but overall, it's been scattershot, at best.  The GOP nominee is back-sliding into bad habits.  He's making unforced errors, and returning to his self-destructive habit of warring with Republicans he deems insufficiently 'loyal.'  At a weekend rally in Georgia, Trump repeatedly ripped into the state's successful and popular governor, Brian Kemp.  You know, this guy:


This is, to put it bluntly, gratuitous, counter-productive, and downright moronic.  Trump narrowly lost Georgia in 2020, having alienated just enough of precisely the types of voters who handed Kemp a resounding victory over Stacey Abrams in 2022.  Against a hyped media darling and woman of color who was significantly to the left of the electorate (sound familiar), Kemp put on a clinic and crushed her.  He did so after utterly dismantling Trump's hand-picked primary challenger.  Kemp has a superb operation in the state and has established the roadmap for how Republicans can triumph in that purple state.  Trump is still airing grievances from 2020, loudly and needlessly reminding a specific group of voters precisely why they helped flip the state blue four years ago.  Kemp, fortunately, is not a petty man and remains committed to the overarching goal:


Georgia-based conservative radio host and commentator offered these thoughts on the episode:

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In 2020, Trump lost the state by less than 12,000 votes and 30,000+ refused to vote for President.In 2021, Trump convinced 427,205 Republicans not to turnout for a runoff.In 2022, the Kemp ground game got Trump’s Senate pick through a general election into a runoff, but couldn’t carry a bad candidate across the runoff finish line.  And the GOP won every other statewide race and generated more votes statewide than the Democrats for legislative races. The anomaly is Trump and his handpicked candidates.  They underperform Kemp.  So attacking a guy who has endorsed you whose ground game you need to win in 2024 is not wise.  Luckily for Trump, Kemp is not a petty man. Unfortunately for Trump, he’s reminding those 40,000+ voters who wouldn’t vote for him in 2020 in Georgia why they didn’t vote for him.A candidate who is known and disliked will lose to an unknown and undefined candidate through whom voters can pour their own dreams.  The Harris campaign is outspending Trump in Georgia positively defining herself.  The state leans Republican right now and leans Trump, but there are ninety days for Trump to further screw it up.

'Always Trump' dead-enders will defend anything he does. They've had plenty of good news and positive developements to glow about in recent months. But the last week-plus has reset the race. Adversity is here. Indulging Trump's worse impulses may win loyalty points, but it will not win the types of votes that Republicans must win. A little dust-up with someone like Kemp may not matter too much, in isolation.  It's emblematic of a larger challenge. At a moment in which Democrats are unifying and in full-blown propaganda mode on behalf of their candidate, pissing away Republican unity -- a theme of the successful convention -- and for absolutely no good reason beyond Trump's personal grievances, is mind-bogglingly dumb.  This election could go either way.  Georgia is basically a must-win state for Trump.  The contest there is tightening.  In Georgia and elsewhere, Republicans must make an aggressive and smart case against Kamala Harris (she's made it pretty easy for them, frankly).  Or they can do whatever they've been doing for the better part of two weeks.  And how's that going?  As noted above, the national averages have moved to Harris, thanks to surveys like this:


The Trump campaign published a lengthy memo disputing the methodology of this poll.  They may have some valid points, but I'd suggest that they stop whining about polls (this one shows a dead heat, with Trump very much in a position to win) and instead train their energies on taking actions to stall and reverse Harris' momentum.  Poll un-skewing and attacking popular Republicans in pivotal states seems like...not the best use of time, resources, or head space.  Use the megaphone on issues that matter to people, like these:


I'll leave you with an encouragement to re-read my optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for the Trump campaign, published exactly a week ago.  Over the ensuing days, a lot of the pessimistic scenario has been playing out.  The ingredients for optimism still very much exist, but winning requires a party, a campaign, and a candidate who are willing to actually do what it takes to win over wavering non-loyalists. Get focused and get serious -- or risk losing to this.