Harris-Walz on the offence; Trump campaign disoriented and deflated

IT NOW seems like ancient history: Former president Donald Trump, his ear bandaged – a living martyr after the assassination attempt against him – his fist raised as he addressed thousands of Republican delegates who cheered him on that first night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Public opinion surveys had indicated that candidate Trump was ahead of 81-year-old President Joe Biden, then the presumed Democratic presidential candidate, in national polls and also in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona.

Only one question was on the minds of Trump and his supporters then: What will be his margin of victory in November? But now, all of that is a foggy memory.

What followed was a roller-coaster of events, including Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race and the entry of an electrifying new rival, Kamala Harris, a Black woman nearly 20 years younger than Trump who has been drawing large and excited crowds, and who nominated an intriguing Midwestern politician, Tim Walz, as her running mate. Harris and Walz are now dominating media coverage.

In response, Trump seems to be losing his grip on his campaign. According to Politico, he spent most of the last two weeks having a “public nervous breakdown”, appearing gloomy and disoriented in his few public appearances.

Hence, candidate Harris – whom Trump had ridiculed in the past, and continues to attack, mock and insult – has transformed the presidential race and left Trump and the Republicans scrabbling to take the political narrative back from the Democrats.

And beyond the changing images of the campaigns are the new numbers. Based on recent surveys by The New York Times and Siena College, Harris is now ahead of Trump by four percentage points in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan – 50 per cent to 46 per cent among likely voters in each state.

A survey conducted by the Financial Times and the University of Michigan indicated more dramatic turns after President Biden’s withdrawal: More Americans trust Harris with the economy than they do Trump. Forty-two per cent of voters believe Harris would be better at managing the economy, compared with 41 per cent who think that the former president is more adept at tackling such issues.

At the same time, the tracker poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov shows Harris leading Trump – 47 per cent to 45 per cent – in national polls.

Some pundits have criticised Harris for selecting Walz, the progressive governor of Minnesota, as her running mate, arguing that she should have chosen the more moderate governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, as a way of appealing to more centrist voters.

But Walz – a former geography teacher, high school football coach, National Guard reservist and former congressman – has been charming the Democratic Party’s electoral base with his folksiness and Midwestern roots.

The hope among the Democrats is that Walz’s modest upbringing and down-to-earth mannerisms could appeal to blue-collar workers and voters in rural areas in the battleground states – in particular, the Midwest.

Trump, meanwhile, has failed to come up with a strategy to tackle these developments. Instead, he has returned to his modus operandi of bashing his rivals and accusing the Democrats of trying to “steal” the election and engaging in dirty tricks.

He has called Harris “nasty” in public events and insulted her in private forums, saying she is incompetent and “not smart”. He questioned her racial identity at a gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago, suggesting that Harris – who is of Jamaican-Indian heritage – only recently began identifying as Black for political purposes.

And, obsessed with crowd sizes, Trump has insisted that the Democrats have been lying about the number of people who attend their rallies and that his assemblies are “bigger”.

He has even picked fights with allies, including the popular Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, and antagonised some of his main donors who had questioned his behaviour and argued that he should stick to policy contrasts with the Democrats over the economy, immigration and crime, rather than mean-spirited personal attacks.

Walz has emerged as a powerful advocate of Harris, describing himself as the head of “White Dudes for Harris”, and as a critic of the Republicans, saying “these guys are just weird” – a comment that has become a popular Democratic line of attack.

Economic woes

But even with all the momentum that Harris and the Democrats have gained in recent weeks, they remain vulnerable when it comes to the issue of the economy, which, according to opinion polls, remains American voters’ main concern. Despite an economic boom, Americans have been critical of the Biden-Harris administration’s economic policies and have blamed it for the rising cost of living.

Now that the US economy seems to be slowing, with signs of rising unemployment and turbulent stock markets, the Democrats’ main worry is the possibility of a recession.

While no leading economist is predicting an economic crash landing, an economic slowdown could increase unemployment and lower consumer confidence which, in turn, could darken the public’s mood on the eve of the election. Justifiably or not, Harris could bear the brunt of the electorate’s unhappiness over economic woes.

The Republicans are certainly going to attack the Democrats over the management of the economy. Trump has already referred to the recent stock market turmoil as “the Kamala crash”.

It would be good news for the Democrats if the Federal Reserve decides to cut its policy interest rates at its September meeting. This could lead to falling rates on mortgages and credit card debt just as the American people prepare to vote in the November election.

Even the FT-Michigan Ross survey that showed Harris leading Trump on the economy pointed out that Americans still overwhelmingly cite inflation as their biggest concern going into the election, with only 19 per cent of voters believing that they were better off today than they were when President Biden and Vice-President Harris took office in 2021.

Just one in four registered voters rated economic conditions as either “excellent” or “good”, and 42 per cent said they would be “much” or “somewhat” better off if Biden won the 2024 election. Just 33 per cent said they would be “much” or “somewhat” better off under a Harris presidency.