Everyone knows Trump, but after the debate Harris remains a mystery

When John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon faced off for a television debate in 1960, both candidates were new and fresh. Nixon blew a six-point lead with a poor performance and it took 16 years until candidates could agree to debate again.

For most incumbent presidents debates are a disaster. In 2024, with most people around the world feeling grumpy, it pays to be the challenger. Incumbency for every government, from Modi in India to Macron in France, is political arsenic.

Most Americans believe that their country is heading in the wrong direction. Kamala Harris will not win if Americans see her presidency as Joe Biden’s second term.

The Trump/Harris debate was an arm wrestle between two candidates with experience in the White House, but only Donald Trump came across as the outsider. His performance was predictable. It was a more disciplined version of his stock standard rally speech.

Harris outperformed expectations and addressed concerns she may not be up to the job. However, she spent most of the debate either defending Biden policies or attacking Trump. At this stage it won’t be enough.

Until now, polls have both candidates neck and neck. Democrats got a massive bounce out of Biden’s resignation, as the despair about Biden turned into hope with Harris. But the widely anticipated surge after the successful Democratic National Convention in Chicago never eventuated. Harris still remained a policy mystery. For four days everyone spoke about Harris, but she had less than an hour explaining ­herself and her policies to the electorate.

Harris has avoided tough media and adopted the small target approach of Biden in 2020. That won’t be enough. Biden was well known to most Americans who were uninterested in the daily Washington DC wash. ­Harris remains comparatively unknown.

It’s the reality that the Democrats need to win the popular vote by more than 2 per cent over the Republicans in order to win the electoral college that chooses the president. Harris hasn’t got that lead yet. She seems to flatline without a big enough margin.

While Trump lost the debate, nothing said or done during the nearly two hours of talk will shift votes between Harris and Trump. If you were voting for either candidate then your vote is unlikely to change.

Trump didn’t screw up and he was his authentic self. If he came out looking like he was souped up on tranquillisers then his voters would have thought he was a fraud. If he was condescending and snarly he would’ve burned off some crucial female voters.

From a presentation perspective, Trump needed to avoid being rude. He was reasonably coherent and effective. Harris needed to be calm and strong. Her personal attacks on Trump were targeted and well researched.

It remains the case that the most important voting demographic for Trump is white women. In 2016 and 2020, he received more of their votes than either Hillary Clinton or Biden. In the election he lost to Biden, too many white women gave up on him and his behaviour.

They are the demographic most attuned to cost-of-living pressures and national security. Trump’s strong words on the exit from Afghanistan and his closure of the Mexican border resonate with these voters. At the same time, they don’t like a bully and Trump was saved from himself by the mute button which the Harris campaign didn’t want.

Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer has reacted to the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
Similarly, an overly aggressive Harris would have turned off her soft vote supporters. It’s much harder for a woman to be aggressive, but Harris performed well in that environment.

This election, more than ever, is about voter turnout. Trump was correct to say he has won more votes than any other candidate for president, apart from Biden in 2020. I suspect Trump will lose few of those votes.

If they voted for him against Biden four years ago, nothing, until now, would cause them to change their vote to Harris. Trump 2.0 is the same as Trump 1.0, but today he is more desperate to win.

Was there anything said or done by the candidates in this presidential debate that will cause an undecided voter to get off the couch and go and stand for three hours waiting to vote in a queue, in the chilly conditions of a Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or Michigan autumn? No.

It’s more likely that this election will be decided on policies rather than personalities – and the personality vote is now locked in. For the voters who really ­matter, the issues discussed in the debate were often peripheral. ­According to the Pew Research Centre, the No.1 issue for American voters is the economy.

It was the first issue discussed and the debate was orderly and useful. Both candidates prosecuted their cases successfully. After that came abortion. It’s not in the top seven issues for voters.

The abortion vote is already locked in. If it is the deciding issue for a voter, they are already locked in to their candidate. People who have a strong view either way have already decided how they will vote. Similarly, the January 6 vote is locked in, as is the Trump is a criminal vote, the Trump rudeness vote and the Trump is a liar vote.

It took forever to get to health, education, foreign policy, violent crime and immigration.

With all of that, why is the race still too close to call? For too many voters, Harris is still a mystery. Voters want change and Harris has just 55 days to explain why she is different to Biden. We know she is very different to Trump but that’s not enough. She needs to distance herself from Biden and on only two issues she was effective with that – small business and housing.

Trump showed he is different to the Biden/Harris administration on immigration, taxes, tariffs, foreign relations with China, NATO and foreign adversaries, student loans and Ukraine.

On guns and fracking, Harris wants to be close to Trump. On health, Trump wants to be close to Harris. Welfare didn’t get a mention, which would have benefited Harris. Addressing the surge of fentanyl didn’t get much attention either and that would have helped Trump.

Everyone knows Trump and what he stands for. Harris is still too much of a mystery. This election is still too close to call.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/everyone-knows-trump-but-after-the-debate-harris-remains-a-mystery/news-story/05d29d8fc272b592cc191f4afff3d315

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Rurals, Young People, and Hispanics Revert Back Toward Trump after Harris Surge in July

After an initial surge of support for Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden exited the race in July, the polls have narrowed significantly.

Immediately upon announcing her candidacy seven weeks ago, Harris received a bump in support – particularly among key factions of the Democratic base that Biden had been steadily losing ground with for well over a year. Young people, independents, and minorities all appeared more interested in Harris than they were in Biden seven weeks ago, but that picture has shifted, with Harris suffering relatively large declines since early July.

The most striking decline for Harris has been among young people. Young voters had been steadily distancing themselves from Biden for well over a year by the time the president announced his retirement, and for a brief snapshot in time, Harris appeared to be activating at least a portion of young voters, namely young women.

That picture has shifted over the past seven weeks. A New York Times/Siena College poll from July shows Harris earning 59 percent of voters under 30 to former President Donald Trump’s 38 percent among the likely electorate, placing her nearly at the same level (60 percent) as Biden won four years ago.

However, youth enthusiasm has largely fizzled for Harris since the thrill of her “Brat” campaign has worn off. Economic reality has set in, and the latest Times poll from September places Harris at just 51 percent among voters under age 30. This represents an eight-point decline since she announced her candidacy and has nearly erased the gains she briefly held over Biden’s campaign.

Trump, meanwhile, has scrambled back up to 43 percent of the youth vote over the past seven weeks, a five-point gain since Harris became the nominee. Harris’ eight-point decline looks even worse when compared to the total share of the youth vote Biden won in 2020. According to CNN exit polls, Biden won young voters 60 percent to Trump’s 36 percent, meaning Harris is trailing Biden’s 2020 numbers by nine points, while Trump has gained seven points compared to 2020.

Harris’ brief “blip” in youth support right after Biden exited the race does not appear to be sustainable. Trump, however, has been polling around ten points above what he gained in 2020 with young people for over a year now. Democrats are on track to face the November election with a much-reduced pool of youth support compared to 2020, while Republicans have made incremental gains, despite an onslaught of attempts to portray Trump as a dictator. Among all other age groups, Harris’ numbers have stayed relatively stable since she entered the race with only marginal one or two points shifts.

While it isn’t as large of a decline as the numbers among young people, Hispanics have also reduced their support for Harris since she entered the race seven weeks ago, ousting Biden. According to the same Times poll looking at the likely electorate, 60 percent of Hispanics planned to support Harris shortly after she became the nominee, while 36 percent planned to support Trump.

The latest Times poll shows a five-point decline for Harris, with just 55 percent of Hispanics now intending to support her, while 41 percent plan to support Trump. This amounts to a five-point decline for Harris and a five-point gain for Trump over the past seven weeks.

Again, for reference compare Harris’ current standing in the polls to the share of the electorate Biden won in 2020, and the picture is even worse for Democrats. Biden won 65 percent of the Latino vote in 2020, while Trump earned 32 percent. As polls stand seven weeks after Harris announced her candidacy, she is on track to fall short of Biden’s 2020 numbers by ten points, while Trump is expected to gain nine points.

Where else is Harris in trouble? Harris may be suffering a decline in support among rural voters, after earning a small blip in July. Rural voters have increasingly skewed Republican, but just after Biden was ousted Harris was earning around 36 percent of the vote from rural areas to Trump’s 59 percent.

However, seven weeks later she is earning around 31 percent of the rural vote, while Trump has skyrocketed up to 65 percent of the vote. Compared to 2020, this is an eight-point gain for Trump in rural areas, with Trump winning 57 percent of the rural vote four years ago.

For Harris, this represents an eleven-point decline compared to the share of the rural vote (42 percent) Joe Biden earned four years ago. This isn’t that surprising. Biden attempted to portray himself as a simple blue-collar Democrat from Scranton, Pennsylvania, while Harris is a coastal elitist from deep-blue California who is not even attempting to resonate with middle America.

That said, just because Trump has regained footing among groups that were already on the way out the door for Democrats doesn’t mean Harris isn’t seeing an increase in support among certain demographics. City folks and Black voters have flocked to her side in larger numbers over the past seven weeks.

As of July, Harris was having difficulty attracting support from Black voters, but she appears to be gaining. She is up six points with Black voters, going from 72 percent of their vote in July to 78 percent as of early September. While this is a relatively large gain for Harris, she is still polling nine points below the 87 percent of the Black vote Biden won in 2020.

Trump, for his part, is polling at 14 percent of the Black vote in the latest Times poll, which would constitute a modest two-to-three-point gain compared to 2020. It isn’t much, but against a candidate that is being sold to the public as the “first Black female president”, it is worth noting she is doing slightly worse than Biden.

Then, there are city dwellers, another group that appears to be consolidating their support behind Harris. July’s poll had Harris earning a comfortable 59 percent of the city-folk vote, but that number has climbed to 63 percent. This represents a slight gain over the 60 percent of the city vote Biden earned in 2020, indicating Harris could beat Biden’s numbers among city dwellers.

In short, the longstanding demographic losses for Democrats among young voters and Hispanics which Americans for Limited Government and others have been covering for well over a year now appear to be “real” at least according to polls.

Young voters and Hispanics have been shifting away from Democrats over the past four years due to the Biden Administration’s mishandling of key issues like inflation and immigration, and they do not appear to be circling back just because Kamala Harris is heading the ticket now.

The urban/rural divide is likely to be even larger this election than it was in 2020, with Trump further consolidating support among rural Americans and Harris gaining over Biden’s numbers among urbanites. Black voters like Harris more than they liked Biden seven weeks ago as he teetered out of the race, but they still like her less than they liked the Biden of 2020.

https://dailytorch.com/2024/09/rurals-young-people-and-hispanics-revert-back-toward-trump-after-harris-surge-in-july/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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