The campaign battle continues…
With less than two months to the presidential election, polls indicate that it will be another tight race, likely decided by a few swing states. As a result, the candidates are basically spending all their time in campaigning in these states. There are six key swing states: Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Georgia. Biden won all of them except North Carolina in 2020, but there is an opportunity for Trump to gain momentum in all or most of the states, primarily due to economic reasons. Prices have increased a lot during the Biden administration, and workers are pressed financially. In the recent televised debate between Harris and Trump, most viewers seem to think that Harris won the debate. At least according to media with the New York Times and the Washington Post writing “Harris dominates as Trump gets defensive” and Harris dominated Trump in debate, but will it matter?”
Harris certainly had much help from the moderators at ABC. The biased David Muir and Linsey Davis kept fact-checking only Trump, despite Harris often confusing statements with no or little content. After the debate, which might be the only presidential debate this year, many in media swooned over Harris performance. Much is compared to Biden, who was confused and more or less out of it in the summer debate against Trump, so much of the media hype is based on their happiness with a more energetic and articulate democratic candidate. However, polls and focus groups emerged showing her winning on style points, but Trump winning on substance. Harris is full of platitudes such as “I love our small businesses” and “I want an opportunity economy”. Statements with no specifics, outside of massively increasing government spending.
On substance, the voters still have no idea how Harris would act. How would she lower the cost of living, how would she rein in the violent crime that is causing an exodus out of dozens of democratically run cities such as New York, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Chicago. What is her plan for the southern border and for wars overseas? Is she for or against fracking and what is her energy strategy? Is she still for government price controls? Voters don’t know and there was no indication of any clarifications during the debate. Voters know what Trump wants. Stop immigration, more tariffs, no wars, lower taxes, more nationalism, get out of multinational organizations, tough on China, make NATO countries pay more and so on. They might not like it, but they know. So far, they clearly like Harris better than Biden, but joy, vibes and giggles will likely not win the election. The voters want to know what Harris stands for and what the plans are in the key policy areas.
As American politics is getting increasingly partisan, it also seems to have gotten dumber and less thoughtful. Candidates are rude, phony, unknowledgeable, uneducated and prefer to simplify, feeding messages into short social media posts. Harris has repeatedly described herself as a middle-class kid, repudiating her upbringing in the wealthiest and most privileged neighborhood on Montreal in Canada, in order to win blue-collar voters in key swing state such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Voters are familiar with Trump’s background and his story is straightforward.
When it comes down to election date, there are some issues that are more important than others such as the economy, including inflation, unemployment, taxes, and issues like immigration, health care, education, abortion, gun policy, foreign affairs, and climate change. In most cases, voters know the difference between the republicans and the democrats without any specific explanation. There are vast differences between the parties and between the presidential candidates. The agendas are often opposing and there is little agreement about anything frankly.
One area where voters are looking for more information is clearly the economy. This is likely the most important area in the election, and Harris needs to come up with a more coherent economic plan. The voters are expecting this. The campaign battle will continue to the bitter end on November 5th and it will likely be another close race. Life will go on whomever wins, but given the vast difference between the candidates’ policies, the winning candidate will take the country in a very different path than the other candidate would have done. It is truly an election that matters.