State of the race: Tight.
On Tuesday, Sept 17, 2024 Donald Trump spoke at a townhall event in Flint, Michigan and Kamala Harris spoke to the National Assn. of Black Journalists in Philadelphia.
Counting today, there are 48 days standing between us and Election Day. Early voting has already begun in several states. More early voting states will be shortly coming online. So where do things stand?
In a word, tight.
According to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, Vice President Kamala Harris now leads former president Donald Trump by two points nationally. As we are always quick to point out, national polls make for good entertainment but are otherwise meaningless.
The polls that count are in the seven battleground states that will decide the election. On that front, the Real Clear Politics average has Trump leading in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona. In all cases, except for Arizona, the margin is a fraction of a point. Those same averages show Harris leading in Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada by an average of just over one percentage point. Assume for the moment that these poll averages are correct, and Trump wins the Electoral College.
But it’s important to recognize that all the polling is well withing the margin of error. Which means that Kamala Harris has gained significant ground in the polls as compared to when President Biden was the presumptive nominee.
Regarding polls, while the consensus among Republicans and Democrats is that Ms. Harris won last week’s debate against Donald Trump, the polling data that has come in since that debate indicates that she didn’t gain significantly among voters.
Also to be noted in this week’s report is that there was a second attempt on Donald Trump’s life and it appears that the Secret Service dropped the ball a second time.
As to the campaign, both candidates are working those swing states, and both are hurling barbs at one another.
At a townhall in Flint, Michigan yesterday Trump said this about immigration:
Donald Trump: We have to stop the influx of millions of people, many coming from jails, many coming from mental institutions, and they’re pouring into our country and it’s destroying our country.
Kamala Harris spoke to the National Association of Black Journalists yesterday and had this to say about Trump’s rhetoric on immigration:
Kamala Harris: You cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the President of the United States of America engaging in that hateful rhetoric.
According to the internal data of essentially all the major polls, immigration and energy policy are two issues about which Trump has a commanding lead over Harris. In that same townhall yesterday, Trump said this:
Donald Trump: Day one, we’re doing two things, closing the border, and drill, baby, drill. Two things. We’re gonna get down the prices.
He went on to speak about the 31,000 Haitian migrants that the Biden administration sent to Springfield, Ohio, a town of about 60,000.
Donald Trump: This is a town with no crime at all. Springfield. It’s got no crime. It’s got no problems. And now they have 31,000 people just came down on them. This is not survivable.
Forty-eight days to go in a race that may prove to be the closest of our lifetimes.
