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35 days until the November 5 elections. What’s new and what might that tell us?

Oct 1, 2024

By Dave Andrusko

Tonight is the much anticipated debate between pro-life Sen. J.D. Vance and pro-abortion Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. As fate would have it, there are a  number of news outlets that at this very moment are probing one or another of Walz’s more questionable assertions.

CNN’s Aaron Pellish reported that “Newly unearthed reports contradict previous claims made by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz about his travel to China, including a claim that the Democratic vice presidential nominee was in Hong Kong for a teaching position in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that ended in hundreds of protesters killed by the Chinese government.”

“When asked by CNN if Walz was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests, the Harris campaign was unable to provide evidence to substantiate Walz’s claim.”

Pellish concluded a long story writing

The inconsistencies around Walz’s travel to China and Hong Kong mark the latest instance in which the governor’s past comments have been revealed to be inaccurate since he became the Democratic vice presidential nominee. In August, a Harris campaign spokesperson said Walz “misspoke” in a 2018 video in which he said he handled assault weapons “in war.”

The pressure on Walz to handle a barrage of charges that Vance is sure to bring up tonight must be enormous.

Meanwhile at the top of the ticket, the contest between former President Donald Trump and pro-abortion Vice President Kamala remains even-steven.

Harris retains a one or two point lead in the popular vote. Among the electoral college, which is how presidential elections are decided, Trump has a razor thin lead in the swing states–Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.

According to Newsweek’s James Bickerton, a poll of 1,398 likely Pennsylvania voters finds Harris up by three points. However, “An average of a dozen recent Pennsylvania polls, which were conducted between September 11 and 29, by election website RealClearPolitics, gave Trump a 0.2 percent lead with 48.1 percent of the vote to Harris’ 47.9 percent. This was the first RealClearPolitics polling average to give Trump the lead since September 16.”

For example,  The New York Times/Siena College survey finds Harris up by only one percent.

As we talked about yesterday, Michigan Democrats are plenty worried. Axios’s Stef W. Kight reports

“Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) warned donors last week that internal polling for her Senate campaign shows Vice President Kamala Harris is ‘underwater’ in Michigan, according to a video clip obtained by Axios.”

Why does that matter?

Winning Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is Harris’ simplest path to victory. If former President Trump sweeps the Sun Belt, he’d only need to pick off one of those Blue Wall states to win the election.

 

FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls has Harris up by about 2.4 points in Michigan. The latest New York Times/Siena College poll has her up by just one.

More tomorrow. Be sure to watch the vice presidential debate between Vance and Walz.

Categories: Politics