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Debates, the economy, Trump sentencing, abortion, JD Vance and Project 2025, and Tim Walz as an LGBTQ+ defender may affect the election, writes John Casey.
If you are a political junkie like me, then you know what it feels like every four years on the Tuesday after Labor Day — the presidential election kicks into high gear, and you’re filled with all the nervous excitement and anticipation that comes along with it.
The race has already been an exhilarating ride, starting with the Trump/Biden debate in late June, followed by the assassination attempt on Trump, then the Republican convention, where the typical bounce was thwarted when President Joe Biden stepped aside and quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, and Voilà, it was a brand new race on the way to the Democrats rousing and uplifting convention.
All of the above happened in two months, and now as we enter the last two months of the race, all bets are off — or are all bets on? The smart money is on Harris, who has quickly ascended to the top of the polls; however, the wild card is the wildly unpredictable Trump. How far will he go to try and upend the race?
The latest ABC News/Ipsos poll has Harris up nationally at 52 percent to 46 percent for Trump, and she also has small leads in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Her upward trajectory didn’t get much of a bounce of the Democratic convention; however, that might change as the race reaches its final weeks, when voters start to choose their preference.
Here’s a look at eight key variables that might affect the race moving forward:
As Politico reported this morning, Republicans are starting to panic about the massive cash advantage the Democrats have going into the home stretch over the race. Now, this is primarily for down-ballot races, but nevertheless, the massive cash haul Harris has brought in since she ascended to the top of the ticket can’t be ignored.
Nobody talks about the fact that Trump and his minions control the Republican National Committee, including the budget. God knows where that money is going, and surely Trump is using it as a slush fund.
If Republicans continue to have money problems in the next few weeks and don’t catch up, and fast, to the Democrats, all races, from top to bottom, will be affected.
I’ll have more to say about this next week, but in the meantime, I’m haunted by what Trump did before one of his debates with Hillary Clinton when he paraded President Bill Clinton’s sexual abuse accusers Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Kathy Shelton for an unofficial press conference, and then had them sit in the front row during the debate. I was sick to my stomach, but that pales in comparison to all he’s done since then.
Women confound Trump, he only seems to know how to belittle and abuse them. And he’s been bamboozled by Black women, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County Prosecutor Fani Willis come immediately to mind.
Will he try something like what he did to Clinton again? He’s got nothing else, so why wouldn’t he stoop to something low? If he does, at this point, he turns off more moderates and independents, who seem to be peeling away from him, slowly but surely. And your guess is as good as mine as to what he might do.
As for Harris, she just needs to ignore Trump throughout the debate, and stick to her script of talking about bread and butter and pocketbook issues — and abortion — that the electorate cares about. Don’t forget, Trump hates to be ignored, so if Harris refuses to be baited into a tussle, that should throw Trump into a hissy fit.
Trump is scheduled to be sentenced after being found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records to interfere with the 2016 election. If the judge denies Trump’s attempt to delay or overturn based on the Supreme Court immunity ruling, and follows through on the 18th, don’t expect a jail sentence; however, whatever the outcome is will be a lead news story that will remind voters that Trump is a convicted felon less than two months before the election.
Trump should be an acrobat in the circus as he contorts himself in the most uncomfortable twists and turns on abortion. There’s no forgetting the fact that Trump appointed the three handmaid’s tale-esque Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. That compounded with all of Trump’s previous comments about abortion, including not stopping states from prosecuting women who have abortions.
Saying he’s leaving it to the states, and lying that both the GOP and Democrats supported this shift,he’s waffling around on how many weeks should constitute legal abortions, and then hemming and hawing about how he’ll vote on Florida's abortion ballot initiative.
The more he does so, the more he infuriates women — not only Democratic women for reproductive rights, but also conservative Christian women who are appalled that he isn’t being full-throated about protecting life.
According to the ABC News/Ipsos poll, Harris still trails Trump on who would better handle the economy. Harris and Walz have been successful thus far in sticking to how their policies would help the middle class, and unions in particular. As their message starts to stick, they should attract more of the blue collar voters who went for Obama, and then defected to Trump in 2016.
Inflation has come down, the stock market is roaring, interest rates are likely to start to fall this month, and if jobs remain steady, it’s the perfect storm for a message that the Biden/Harris economic policies have worked, are working, and will continue to work if Harris and Walz are elected.
The fact that Harris campaigned along with Biden in Pittsburgh at a labor rally is a harbinger of the campaign’s emphasis on jobs, wages, and working conditions.
As the campaign thickens, it’s becoming more apparent that Harris’ choice of Walz was a masterstroke, and that Trump’s choice of Vance was…well, an unmitigated disaster. Now, that’s not to say that Vance isn’t a smart guy, but he enters the debate with a big disadvantage — all his utterly stupid statements about women and children, among other things.
The same rules for Harris apply for Walz. Just stick to the script, although it might behoove Walz to talk more about how Democrats and the Harris/Walz ticket will benefit women and children, drawing a sharp contrast to Vance’s world where childless women are useless.
What else on earth will be unearthed pertaining to Vance’s past misogynistic comments? It seems like every other day, someone finds something offensive that JD Vance has said. It’s like digging for gold at the same stream, and continuing to find more priceless nuggets.
Not since Sarah Palin has a VP been such a drag on a ticket. The beauty about his big mouth is that everything he has said underscores the severity of Project 2025. It gives the Democrats an opening to use Vance’s words to say how dangerous the pet project of the notoriously conservative Heritage Foundation, the authors of the doomsday 2025, and fans of Vance.
One of the advantages of Walz as a former football coach and national guardsman is his outspokenness and strong support of LGBTQ+ people and issues throughout his life. Sad as it is to say in the year 2024, Walz makes being queer more palatable and more acceptable.
Republicans, and Trump in particular, have been harping on trans individuals, with derogatory terms “transgenderism” or being “transgendered” whatever those terms mean, and schools promoting queer issues — this is a losing argument. Just look at the losses Moms for Liberty have been incurring. Voters are turned off by queer bashing, and moderates and independents can see right through this attempt to deflect from key issues.
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