Among the predictions I made in that column, two things are likely to change with a new ticket for Democrats: Interest in the election will increase among all voters, especially among some of the key voter groups that Democrats are hoping for, such as the young and the young. African Americans. And renewed interest in the new Democratic ticket could dampen interest in various third-party candidates. These two developments alone will widen the gap in possible results for November.
Early voting shows a resurgence of interest in the campaign as a whole – and it’s not just about voting. The fundraising has been a bigger boon than even the most optimistic Democrats expected. Various “measures of attention” such as television ratings and social media trends also show that interest in the campaign is close to 2008 and 2020 levels. After this which is to been down to unusually low levels before.
And then there’s the collapse of third-party candidates. The Biden-Trump rematch was a perfect storm for the third party’s share of the presidential election to increase. And at times, some polls have put the share of non-major party voters as high as 25%.
That’s no longer the case, and I highly doubt we’ll ever see the total third-party vote reach double digits. It has been particularly fascinating to watch the disintegration of support for Cornel West and Jill Stein, both of whom are running to the Democratic left and who are very aggressive on the Gaza issue.
New interest in the campaign is compounded by more just weird info Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of the public. What he learned about it showed that there may be people who are not convinced of any major party backing away from his support. He might just corner the gadfly market of American politics. I still expect Kennedy to stop campaigning and endorse Trump at some point. He indicated that Trump’s victory was his preferred outcome.
All of this means that the country is largely where it has been since the 2000 election: deeply polarized and essentially evenly divided. Remember that five of the six presidential elections since 2000 have been decided by 5 percentage points or less, and it is likely that these elections will be decided by 5 points or less. (Only five elections in the entire 20th century were decided by this small a margin.)
So let’s explore what we don’t know. There are a number of questions to consider when trying to figure out which way this election is leaning.
Race status
Let’s start with this premise: Is Harris winning now? Or is Trump losing? Is there a combination of both?
I was very cautious when answering the question about Harris’s real viability in this election. Until the country elects its first female president, there will always be some doubt as to whether voters are ready to elect a female commander-in-chief. But it’s clear that Trump is completely off his game, and right now he’s making unforced errors that could cost him this election.
From his decision to question Harris’ mixed-race background to his strategy-free move in Georgia against the state’s popular GOP governor, Brian Kemp, it certainly seems Trumpian. is off his game. He was on cruise control on July 18, the night he gave his acceptance speech at the convention. From surviving an assassination attempt to the surprising unity he predicted at his convention to Biden’s lackluster performance at various public events, Trump knew how to win a rematch with Biden.
But he’s no longer running against Biden, and it’s clear that he regrets it more than any of us realize. Many people close to Trump have told me how focused he is on avenging his 2020 loss to Biden. Losing to someone who, in his opinion, didn’t deserve to beat him bothered him deeply.
This is how those close to Trump explain his obsession with questioning the validity of 2020. He just can’t accept Biden beating him by being anti-Trump — less in-your-face, less erratic, less aggressive. To accept Biden’s defeat is to accept that Trump’s own worse instincts are doomed to destroy him in 2020. While I promise not to put Trump on the couch, he wouldn’t be the first narcissist who can’t take rejection.
But it’s not just losing Biden as an opponent that shocks Trump, but also having to fight against a woman. It’s worth noting how he musters his personal venom when questioned by a woman, a woman from his own party challenging him for the GOP nomination (see Carly Fiorina in 2016 and Nikki Haley in 2024). his own party questions his commitment to American ideals and the Constitution (see Liz Cheney) or women who are his equal (think then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and now Kamala Harris). Trump has a history of arguing with women who question him in the most condescending and unpleasant way.
Trump already has a substance issue with many female voters when it comes to reproductive rights, but these personal attacks on Harris could actually backfire.
What does VP pick mean
Neither side used the VP pick to virtue signal to a disgruntled middle. What now?
That’s the biggest unknown of this campaign: who might appeal to those left behind. If you’re worried about the progressive leanings of the Democrats and at the same time put off by the MAGA leanings of the Republicans, who are you going to vote for if neither party makes an overt attempt to appeal to you?
Now, both campaigns will take issue with the idea that their vice presidential picks don’t appeal to some key swing constituencies. Both campaigns are citing Vance and Walz’s Midwestern roots to appeal to voters in the key states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But the reality is that Walz is not to the right of Harris, and clearly not to the left of Vance Trump.
Electing Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona or Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania would be a clear virtue signal from Harris to the center, as both are his political right within the confines of the Democratic Party on at least several grounds. including the border (Kelly) and school vouchers (Shapiro), just to name a few. If Trump chose Haley or Virginia Gov. Glenn Young, the choice would similarly be viewed as virtue signaling by the center-right wing of the GOP.
But both campaigns hit their bases, which is an indication of where both campaigns see this election. They consider it not a convincing election, but an activism election. In fact, my guess is that Harris has decided against any vice presidential pick that would cause any level of internal tension within the Democratic Party.
In the short term, this thinking can be understood. He’s been the official party leader for nearly two weeks, and the last thing he needs is a series of ideological firebrands at his convention over Gaza, vouchers or immigration. Because of this, the Walz option is now considered a “damage” style VP option.
(I wonder if the Trump-Vance campaign of the Harris-Walz ticket is prepared for George Floyd’s intention to do it all over again with Walz, and if so, whether he sees it as a positive or a negative.)
The bottom line is this: Neither Trump nor Harris have much of an opportunity to signal the middle ground. The VP picks were the last of those opportunities. It looks like we’re heading into October when both campaigns try to disqualify the other candidate with the skeptical middle and sway those voters to the ticket that least offends their sensibilities.
The question of ‘change’
Of course, these elections can now play in several directions. For example, if this election is just 2016, then what?
In this scenario, Vance’s “childless cat ladies” line of attack against Democratic voters is similar to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” attack against Trump voters.
But Trump resembles Clinton in another way than in 2016. As with Trump, voters already knew what kind of presidency Clinton would hold. In 2016, Trump was new and volatile, and Clinton was the status quo. In 2024, the status quo of Trump and Harris is new and changing.
Many of us spend a lot of time analyzing politics because it’s complicated, but sometimes politics isn’t that complicated. If the majority of the country does not like the direction of the country, he is going to look for a new one. Although Trump is not in office, he is not new. Harris may be Biden’s running mate, but his selection would mean something very new and different. Roe v. Throw in the massive shakeup by Trump’s Supreme Court nominees by ousting Wade, and you can see a very plain and simple explanation for Trump’s loss to Harris.
Several other variables are also poised to play a role in this campaign, and the extent is unclear. Trump is old: As Haley has said several times on the campaign trail, rewarding the first party to abandon its 80-year-old flag bearer could help Harris.
The world looks more volatile today than it did four years ago, and if anxiety about the direction of American foreign policy is more front and center in the fall, Trump’s presidential record could be seen as an asset to some undecided voters.
And then there’s the economy, strong in some places (jobs) and weak in others (cost of living). A decidedly negative turn in the country’s economic outlook over the next 60-90 days will also benefit Trump more.
Overall, what looked like the elections of 1980, 1992, or 2020 — the last three elections that incumbents lost — are now on a different trajectory.
The race is still winnable for Trump, but it’s a tougher road for him. Harris’s path to victory is better than Biden’s, but it’s not certain either. He still has plenty of gaps to fill with American voters. Vice presidents are both famous and unknown.
How it fills these gaps in the next 30 days will go a long way in deciding whether the country will crack the last glass ceiling in about 90 days.