Don’t quite know where you are getting this line of thinking from as Trump has historically performed decently in debates.
Very clear-eyed and non-biased look at where the POTUS race stands one day before debate
- Thread starter torbee
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Well the good news for you Dems is that she is renowned for her fantastic public speaking ability. Also she’s not an invalid, so she’s got that going for her. So pretty much 👍🏻Again, from the Bulwark.
A bit depressing, but realistic. As they point out, probably still a little easier path for Harris than Trump but it will be/is a true dogfight now.
She HAS to kick ass at the debate or things will get very, very uncomfortable. The fact this is the case makes me so, so sad for America, sigh.
Kamala Harris Is Falling Behind
But her pathway to victory remains clear.
Jonathan V. Last
Sep 09, 2024
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at the Throwback Brewery, in North Hampton, New Hampshire, on September 4, 2024. (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
1. Where Are We?
Let’s be clear-eyed: With 56 days to the election Kamala Harris is not where she needs to be.
I’m going to give you three reasons to be concerned. And then three reasons to be optimistic. Let’s take the medicine first.
(1) 50.5 or Bust
Donald Trump is going to get somewhere between 46.0 percent and 48.0 percent of the vote.1 In order to have a solid chance to win the Electoral College, Harris needs to be over 50.5 percent; for a good chance she’ll need to be at 51 percent.2
No matter which polling average you look at, she’s not there.
Where are those last 2 or 3 percentage points supposed to come from? She’s not going to take from Trump. His voters are locked, cocked, and ready to rock.
Harris is going to have to achieve at least one of three outcomes:
Of those, (1) and (2) seem like the best bets.
- Win late-breaking undecideds by a large margin.
- Juice Democratic turnout so that it swamps Trump’s turnout of low-propensity voters.
- Hold down the numbers of those low-propensity Trump voters, either by making herself unobjectionable to them or dampening their enthusiasm for Trump.
One more thing: It is concerning that Harris’s post-convention ceiling never broke the 50 percent mark in the polling averages.
She had the best month any presidential candidate has had in a long time. Her convention was an unalloyed success. Yet in the dozens of polls taken since she became the nominee, she’s touched 50 percent in only seven.
(2) Her momentum is gone.
When Harris entered the race and performed at a high level, it seemed possible that she could slingshot on that momentum all the way to Election Day. Shooting the moon was always going to be hard—a hundred days is a short campaign but it’s a long time to maintain fever-pitch excitement.
We now know that she isn’t going to shoot the moon.
Democrats ran a letter-perfect convention and Harris’s bounce coming out of it was still only about 2 points. Last week she started drifting backwards.
You have to zoom in pretty tight to see it, but the numbers are there:
After a month of hockey-stick growth, Harris flattened and then ticked backwards over the last two weeks.
This isn’t the end of the world, but it is the end of one of her pathways to victory. She isn’t going to swamp Trump with a tsunami of momentum. She’s in a dogfight.
Harris campaign staff has reportedly said that her goal is to try to get under Trump’s skin. I would hope he ignores such shenanigans and just focuses on policy.
Your exaggerating/over-estimating Kamala’s debating style and speaking ability.
I am genuinely curious: What historical experience leads any of you to believe that Kamala is likely to defeat Trump in an honest debate?
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Elderly criminal pant shitters rarely do well in that format
America has watched her underperform for almost 4 years, she bombed in her last debate, I expect nothing but the same from her this time.
Look for Harris to challenge Trump to personally insult her face-to-face like he typically does at his rallies. Also, she needs to remind the viewing audience as often as possible that Trump is a convicted felon.
Oh come on. I have exactly as much education as you so fairly well educated and informed.
Yet I'll be voting Trump.
I honestly think one of the failings of the democrat strategy is assuming all Trumps voters are in a cult and rubes.
You may not like Trump or his voters but there are more successful educated voters keeping quiet than you know. Is it enough? No idea.
Just as he needs to remind voters she has been VP 4 years so a vote for her is for more of the same.
‘Well why haven't you done it’ should be Trumps reply to every single policy she proposes.
I'd be surprised if she actually gives specifics. We are going to hear a lot of ‘strengthen the middle class’ platitudes with no actual plan. I predict.
There are also a lot of old blue dog Democrats who have had enough of the far left philosophies that have infiltrated the party. Pennsylvania, as another example, has lots of Kennedy Democrats who hate what the modern Democratic party has evolved into. They no longer see that party as the party of the working man or the blue collar family.
I'm beginning to believe that voting bloc may carry Trump across the finish line.
She can compensate by winning Georgia or North Carolina, where the boost in voter registration among black women may prove decisive.
Pennsylvania has MAGA-ish demographics, so it's possible she could lose PA while winning one of GA or NC.
If she wins any of those three states, she is almost certain to win the election.
RFK announced endorsed Trump shortly after the Democratic convention, so couldn't the lack of a convention bounce be due to RFK voters switching to Trump?
I don't know how you fix her previously-articulated wildly liberal policy positions.
You state them again & all the sane people decide they aren't voting for that.
OR
You contradict what you've previously said & try to convince people you're not a liar.
Presidential debates are not outcome determinative (except perhaps in the single case of Joe Biden), and to the extent they are positive or negative, they are positive or negative based on factors wholly unrelated to policy positions.
Michael Dukakis, and the death penalty question over raping his wife. Think that flipped a bunch of people.
I don't know that Trump is deft enough in debate to score points on the items you're speaking of. But she's already getting it in election commercials. They have some good out-of-touch liberal stuff to work with.
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Biden was the elderly pants shitter in the first debate - my position hasnt changed.
He was driven out of the race by being incoherent and dementia rattled.
Hoping America now sees Trump was - maybe - about 5-10% less deranged than Biden was.
Wait...you're not suggesting that was a flip based on a policy position was it?
Honestly, the tank ad was much worse for him than the debate.
Admittedly, that was a major factor for Trump in ‘16. I’m just not sure how many of those voters are left.
Trumps performance wasn’t good. Biden’s face plant overshadowed that.
Think he’s also going for the gamer/podcast bro. Logan Paul, Theo Van, Joe Rogan, etc etc.
If his campaign thinks they need to expand their reach, that kinda makes me think their internal numbers might be a bit concerning, or at least emphasizing his ceiling.
i think you're right, though when I was talking to a buddy in the alabama part of pa, his anecdotal read was that R-voter motivation was pretty high. I'm a little skeptical of that, in that I'm not sure he's really the guy who's talking to a lot of uninterested no-show's on a day-to-day basis.
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He has a HARD ceiling of around 46%
It is stupid that we are in danger of minority rule, again.
Still feel the true states in play are Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona , and Nevada. Felt that several weeks ago. Polls will swing a little bit here and there but it’s fairly solid imo.
Off the top of my head:
Giving Ukraine over to Russia
Massive further tax cuts for the rich
National abortion ban
Further marginalization of the LGBTQ+ community
Lack of progress on actual immigration reform
Meddling in the Fed's decisions
Giving Elon and RFK prominent roles in any decision making
Selling out the country's natural resources and not protecting them for the future
Repeal of the ACA
Backsliding on environmental goals
Irresponsible deregulation
10% tariffs jacking up the economy
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