By Dave Andrusko
It just dawned on me that we are less than a month and a half away from arguably the most consequential—and tightest—presidential election in decades. Today’s crop of surveys is dramatically different—and favorable to former President Donald Trump— than they were just a month ago.
The headline that accompanies the New York Times’s Nate Cohn’s story reads, “What’s Behind Trump’s Best Poll Results in Weeks: In a shift from a Times/Siena survey last month, he leads in three Sun Belt battleground states.” The survey was taken between September 17 and September 21, so it is very current.
Cohn begins
This morning, the latest New York Times/Siena College polls of Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina find Donald J. Trump leading Kamala Harris in all three states, with a lead of three points in North Carolina, four points in Georgia and five points in Arizona.
In the five most recent polls, Harris is ahead in two; Trump is up in one; and two are tied.
Cohn added, “And in each state, these results are the best results for Mr. Trump from a high-quality pollster in weeks.”
National Review’s Jim Geraghty is no fan of Mr. Trump but the headline on his story is “If the Harris Campaign Is Such a Well-Oiled Machine, Why Is the Race Neck-and-Neck?”
He begins with the contest “still a toss-up, with the Sun Belt states looking a little better for Trump, and the ‘blue wall’ upper Midwest states looking a little better for Harris, but no state looking out of reach for either candidate. (Harris’s biggest lead in those seven swing states in the 538 average is 2.5 percent in Michigan.)” Geraghty adds, “Harris had little to no convention bounce in her polling numbers, and little to no boost to her polling numbers after the debate.”
So, after citing some of the glowing stories about pro-abortion Vice President Kamala Harris, Geraghty then asks, “If everything keeps coming up roses for Democrats, why is this race neck-and-neck?”
Well…
Maybe generic platitudes aren’t the smartest strategy. Maybe the Harris camp’s decision to avoid so many interviews and press conferences are convincing a small but key slice of Americans that she’s hiding something, or she can’t handle the pressure, or she’s crippled by imposter syndrome. Or maybe these voters don’t trust her because Joe Biden proved to be a hapless geriatric with a poor memory though she insisted he was not.
But what about Pennsylvania which both campaigns are targeting? In the five most recent polls, Harris is ahead in two; Trump is up in one ; and two are tied.
One last critically important point. It’s from a story written by the Washington Examiner’s Jeremiah Poff and while it lengthy, it is a necessary corrective because it about Trump’s underrated ground game [https://www.
Despite reports surfacing that the Trump campaign was pulling investments from Virginia, the operation is continually expanding.
Jeff Ryer, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, touted the campaign’s 19 field offices and 30 staffers working with “thousands of volunteers” all over the commonwealth.
“As evidenced by the tens of thousands of yard signs dotting neighborhoods across the commonwealth, our support on the ground is strong and engaged,” Ryer said. “While Democrats insist the state isn’t a battleground, their actions tell a very different story. They’re claiming 132 staffers and 25 offices, and they sent Tim Walz, Doug Emhoff, and Gwen Walz to campaign at separate events in northern Virginia and Hampton Roads over Labor Day weekend. Since Virginia wasn’t the only state hosting backyard barbecues, we’re pretty sure they were here to campaign.”
Zack Roday, a political strategist in Virginia, said in an interview that this version of the Trump campaign is among the most professional and effective he has seen when compared to the 2016 and 2020 iterations.
“[The Trump campaign] has a really solid shot,” he said. “There’s not a lot of waste. I think everyone knows their mission … and they are ruthlessly going to execute on it.”
More tomorrow.