Deep breath, everyone. We’re almost on the other side.
Almost.
Relief is otherwise found nowhere. Not in the polls, which have been razor-thin for weeks now. Nor with the experts, reluctant to make predictions.
Not even Kamala Harris’s own team – helped by heavily biased liberal news coverage and a near-total media blackout when it comes to her husband’s alleged disturbing history with women – can summon the ‘joy’ of her early campaign.
‘Nauseously optimistic,’ the Harris camp says. Though one top strategist told New York Magazine on Friday that emotions are now changing ‘hour by hour’.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump merrily rolls along, buoyed by on-the-ground gusto and stronger polling than either of his two previous campaigns.
We’re almost on the other side. Almost. Relief is otherwise found nowhere. Not in the polls, which have been razor-thin for weeks now. Nor with the experts, reluctant to make predictions. Not even Kamala Harris’s own team can summon the ‘joy’ of her early campaign.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump merrily rolls along, buoyed by on-the-ground gusto and stronger polling than either of his two previous campaigns.
‘We’re wrapping up something that has been incredible,’ he said in North Carolina last week. ‘There’s never been anything like this: the rallies, the size of them, the enthusiasm. And we have more enthusiasm now than we did for 2016 or 2020.’
Still, Team Trump isn’t sure of a win either.
‘Controlled optimism’ is how I would put it,’ one top Trump strategist said.
I hate to say it, but it’s looking more and more like the ‘vibes’ election Harris put forward this summer — running on feelings and fun, not policies or facts.
Let’s check in on those vibes, shall we?
For the past several weeks, the Harris campaign has been bombarding voters with increasingly desperate emails and text messages. Here’s a sampling of what’s landed in my own inbox and iPhone:
‘Maureen, is there anything — ANYTHING — we can say right now?’
Another: ‘You haven’t pitched in yet.’
And my favorite message, an absolute banger: ‘Begging on my hands and knees’… for a $20 donation.
Nothing says confidence and strength like begging!
How long ago and far away June seems, that catastrophic presidential debate that marked the beginning of the end for President Biden.
First came the mainstream media finally admitting what most Americans knew already: Joe Biden was not compos mentis.
Weeks of turmoil followed: Biden refusing to bow out of the race, insisting that he alone could beat Trump, and that only ‘the Lord Almighty’ (meaning Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi) could convince Biden otherwise.
‘I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job [sic] as I know I can do, that’s what this is about,’ he told ABC News.
What a grim moment for the American electorate, and a revealing one: This race, one we have repeatedly been told is the most consequential ever, with American democracy in absolute, existential peril – well, not so much.
This election wasn’t about us, you see, and never really had been. It was about Joe Biden.
A summer of trauma and whiplash ensued: Trump, shot in the ear on live television by a would-be assassin, springing up with his fist in the air and yelling, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’
First came the mainstream media finally admitting what most Americans knew already: Joe Biden was not compos mentis. Then summer of trauma and whiplash ensued.
He seemed invincible until eight days later, when Biden finally bowed out of the race and Kamala Harris — younger, energetic, glamorous and glowing — stepped right over Biden’s still-warm body and into the Democratic nomination.
The attempted assassination of a former, and potentially future, president was suddenly old news. It’s incredible to think back to the lone presidential debate, held on September 10, and recall how Harris successfully baited Trump.
His demeanor, affect, and accusation against Haitian migrants — ‘They’re eating the dogs… they’re eating the cats!’ — only reinforced fears about Trump: His age, his ability to hold grudges, his barely-concealed anger.
One of his strongest campaign pledges, to secure the American border, was transformed once again into Trump-as-racist.
It became a meme, a catchphrase, a T-shirt. That was the unforced error that was going to stick through Election Day — until Kamala, under pressure even from her fans in the liberal media, began giving interviews.
Harris, as best I can recall, has only ever answered one political question quickly, clearly and succinctly — this, posed by CNN frontman Anderson Cooper during a town hall Q&A two weeks ago:
‘Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?’
‘Yes I do,’ Harris replied. ‘Yes I do.’
Otherwise, she has stuck to her well-trod talking points. All three of them:
She is not Joe Biden.
She is not Donald Trump.
She recognizes that Americans are ‘an ambitious people’ — really, has she met us all? I would argue not — with ‘goals, dreams and aspirations’.
The best exchange of that town hall: An undecided voter named Carol, herself a poli-sci professor, asking which single piece of legislation would be Kamala’s dream to push through:
‘Well, there’s not just one,’ Harris replied. ‘I have to be honest with you, Carol. Um, there’s a lot of work that needs to happen but let’s — let’s — I think that maybe part of, this point that I — how I think about it, is — we’ve gotta get past this era of politics and partisan politics slowing down what we need to do in terms of progress in our country.’
Even David Axelrod, the top Democratic strategist who got Barack Obama elected twice, gave up on defending that garbage.
‘Word salad city,’ he said.
Speaking of garbage: Joe Biden threw a verbal grenade into Kamala’s campaign last week, seizing on an unfortunate joke about Puerto Rico that a comedian had made at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally days before.
‘The only garbage I see floating out there,’ Biden said, ‘is his [Trump’s] supporters.’
That was it: The final gift to Trump, who promptly met supporters in the battleground state of Wisconsin and climbed into a custom ‘TRUMP’ garbage truck. He donned an orange safety vest and wore it again to a rally, joking that it made him look slimmer.
‘I have to begin by saying 250 million Americans are not garbage,’ Trump said.
That was it: The final gift to Trump, who promptly met supporters in the battleground state of Wisconsin and climbed into a custom ‘TRUMP’ garbage truck.
And so we enter the final hours of this most incredible, stressful, unpredictable election. There are, however, bellwethers, slight as they are, pointing to Trump.
Last week, the well-funded Harris campaign pulled its ads from North Carolina, a key swing state, which likely indicates an expected loss and a rerouting of funds to Congressional races.
An Iowa poll did send shockwaves through the Trump campaign on Saturday, after it placed Harris up by three points — still within the margin of error — in a state Trump won in 2020 by eight points. But then another poll, released the same day, found Trump up by ten in the state.
Even the New York Times — screaming that Trump is Hitler, that he’ll use the military against his enemies, shred the Constitution, get in bed with Putin and Xi and destroy America forever — has him leading in both the crucial states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, tiny though those leads may be.
Add in the refusal of left-leaning outlets such as The Washington Post and LA Times to endorse Harris, the proliferation of campaign ads from Democratic candidates vowing to work ‘with anyone, of any party’ (code for Trump) and the betting market breaking his way — it seems ‘vibes’ point to a Trump victory.
Not that we may know on Election Night, or the day after that. Both Harris and Trump are lawyered up and ready to fight. Barring a landslide, we’ll need to brace ourselves all over again.
Buckle up, America. This ride may just be getting started.
