How The Hell Could Trump Be Running Neck-and-Neck With Harris?

https://www.rawstory.com/polls-trump-harris-2669294354/

49 Comments

  1. As per [original article](https://www.rawstory.com/polls-trump-harris-2669294354/) 📰:

    – With less than 40 days until Election Day, how can it be that Trump has taken a small lead in Arizona and Georgia — two swing states he lost to Biden in 2020? How can he be narrowly leading Harris in the swing state of North Carolina? How can he now be essentially tied with her in the other key swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin?

    More generally, how can Trump have chiseled away Harris’s advantage from early August? How is it possible that more voters appear to view Trump favorably now than they did several months ago when he was in the race against Biden?

    How can Trump — the sleaziest person ever to run for president, who has already been convicted on 34 felony charges and impeached twice, whose failures of character and leadership were experienced directly by the American public during his four years at the helm — be running neck-and-neck with a young, talented, intelligent person with a commendable record of public service?

    Since his horrid performance debating Harris, he’s doubled down on false claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Ohio. He’s been accompanied almost everywhere by right-wing conspiracy nutcase Laura Loomer. He said he “hates” Taylor Swift after she endorsed Harris; that Jewish people will be responsible if he loses the election; that the second attempt on his life was incited by the “Communist Left Rhetoric” of Biden and Harris. And so on.

    He’s become so incoherent in public that Republican advisers are begging him to get back “on message.”

    ***So why is he neck-and-neck with Harris?***

    Before we get to what I think is the reason, let’s dismiss other explanations being offered.

    One is that the polls are understating voters’ support for Harris and overstating their support for Trump. But if the polls are systematically biased, you’d think it would be the other way around, since some non-college voters are probably reluctant to admit to professional pollsters their preference for Trump.

    Another is that the media is intentionally creating a nail-bitingly close race in order to sell more ads. But this can’t be right because, if anything, more Americans appear to be tuning out politics altogether.

    A final theory holds that Harris has not yet put to rest voters’ fears about inflation and the economy. But given that the American economy has rebounded, inflation is way down, interest rates are falling, wages are up, and the job engine continues, you’d think voters at the margin would be movingtoward her rather than toward Trump.

    ***The easiest explanation has to do with asymmetric information.***

    By now almost everyone in America knows Trump and has made up their minds about him. Recent polls have found that nearly 90 percent of voters say they do not need to learn more about Trump to decide their vote.

    But they don’t yet know Harris or remain undecided about her (more on this in a moment).

    Trump is exploiting this asymmetry so that when it comes to choosing between Trump and Harris, voters will choose the devil they know.

    ***This requires, first, that Trump suck all the media oxygen out of the air so Harris has fewer opportunities to define herself positively.***

    Americans who have become overwhelmed by the chaos are tuning out politics altogether, especially in swing states where political advertising is nonstop. And as they tune out both Trump and Harris, Trump is the beneficiary, because, again, he’s the devil they know.

    ***In other words, Trump is running neck-and-neck with Harris not despite the mess he’s created over the last few weeks but because of it.***

    Trump’s strategy also requires that he and his allies simultaneously flood the airwaves and social media with negative ads about Harris, which are then amplified by the right-wing ecosystem of Fox News, Newsmax, and Sinclair radio.

    Trump’s campaign has given up trying to promote him positively. The Wesleyan Media Project estimates that the Trump team is now spending almost zero on ads that show him in a positive light. There’s no point, because everyone has already made up their minds about him.

    Instead, the ads aired by Trump and his allies in swing states are overwhelmingly negative about Harris — emphasizing, for example, her past support for gender transition surgery for incarcerated people.

    ***Researchers on cognition have long known that negative messages have a bigger impact than positive ones, probably because in evolutionary terms, our brains are hard-wired to respond more to frightening than to positive stimuli (which might explain why social media and even mainstream media are filled with negative stories).***

    Finally, Trump’s strategy necessitates that he refuse to debate her again, lest she get additional positive exposure (hence he has turned down CNN’s invitation for an October 23 debate, which she has accepted).

    Behind the information asymmetry lie racism and misogyny. I can’t help wondering how many Americans who continue saying they “don’t know” or are “undecided” about Harris are concealing something from pollsters and possibly from themselves: They feel uncomfortable voting for a Black woman.

    ***Having said all this, I’m cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the election. Why? Because Trump is deteriorating rapidly; lately he’s barely been able to string sentences together coherently.***

    Harris, by contrast, is gaining strength and confidence by the day, and despite Trump’s attempts to shut her out, more Americans are learning about her. As she gets more exposure, Trump’s “devil-you-know” advantage disappears.

    Perhaps it’s more accurate to say I’m nauseously optimistic, because, to be candid, I go into the next five weeks feeling a bit sick to my stomach. Even if Harris wins, the fact that so many Americans seem prepared to vote for Trump makes me worry for the future of my country.

    ——

    **For any new voters or voters with questions – from helping voters to register, verify their registration, request a mail-in ballot, sign up for election reminders, to finding their polling location and staying up to date on the laws or policies that affect their ability to vote – visit [Vote.org](https://www.vote.org) to learn everything you need to know about voting.** 🗳️✅

  2. He’s not, she’s way ahead and everybody, especially trump, knows it. He’s clearly panicking, lol

  3. Puzzleheaded-Top944 on

    **Republicans aren’t voting for Trump,** they’re voting for the POWER. They don’t care what he says!

    He is their Lee Harvey Oswald, so they will NEVER condemn him until they no longer need him and have their “Christian States of America”

  4. IndependentTalk4413 on

    I’m glad this is being portrayed as a super close race. It should encourage lots of voter turnout for Harris. Many thought Hilary was going to cruise to victory and turnout was poor.

    The other factor in polling is younger generations don’t answer calls from unknown numbers, so respondents trend older in any phone poll as that’s the only people that still have land lines/will answer any call. Remember the “red wave” from 2022 that completely fizzled when Gen Z turnout out in droves to mid terms at a level never seen from young voters before.

  5. I could be wrong but I feel that Kamala is going to win if not easily, then decisively on election night.

    The enthusiasm for Trump appears to be down. I live on a lake in rural Michigan and before Trump signs and flags were everywhere around the lake. Think pontoon boats with six American flags and a Trump flag. Just not seeing anything remotely close to that this time around.

    He clearly has a diminished capacity and lower energy as well as decreased focus. I saw a clip the other day of his debate with HC in 2016 and he just seemed much sharper and on point, now he seems dull in comparison.

    To me this is going to translate to a decreased turnout for the orange guy. My gut feeling

  6. Heavy-Excuse4218 on

    Trump has an interest in as many stories he can get that it’s close or he’s winning so he can election deny and go to the courts and stall stall stall in hopes that his SCOTUS hands him the election.

    Scary part is that it could very easily work.

    It’s sad that Harris has to win soundly to be free from this nonsense but that’s what it looks like.

  7. Puzzleheaded_Air5814 on

    It’s hard to accurately poll an unprecedented election. It’s also hard to predict how many first time or rare voters will show up. I’m not over confident, but suspect he’s going to lose bigly.

  8. There is *that* much fear, hate, and ignorance in America.

    *But …* I blame all the elitist entitled, exclusivist, judgemental, isolationist intellectuals (including myself) for not getting out of their security blanket echo chambers and reaching out to assist those via education, economic resources, etc., vs. labeling them as weird or deplorable. Also, we can’t run entire ideological campaigns claiming they are the progeny of colonialists or the heirs of exploitation and discrimination and deserve whatever happens to them, which tends to spur reactionism.

    *However ..*. The development of AI, such as chatbots, may bring equity in education, including distributed rationality, thinking, logic, skepticism, and fact-finding independent of background economic levels, cultural influence, etc. The answer, once again, might be in technology.

  9. People have brain fog, and are history revisionists. There’s a reason why Trump was beat soundly in 2020. Harris hasn’t done a good job reminding people that 2016-2020 was hardly some economic windfall. Most voters are uninformed and not very bright, social media is one of many reasons America has been dumbed down.

  10. MindLogical6881 on

    Because Ritchie people rule the world that’s why this bozo will win because rich people want it all and want everyone else to have nothing

  11. He isn’t, but polling favors his base, so it seems like he is doing better than he is.

    The media has to sell it as close because if they don’t they will be called unafir.

  12. How? 30-40% of Americans are part of the MAGA cult and don’t believe anyone other than Trump. If Trump shipped out flavoured water a la Jim Jones… who most MAGAts have never heard of, or bothered to read about.

  13. because the democrats don’t know how to campaign, that’s why. Negative ads, OBVIOUSLY work. But, they have to be negative in relation to your opponent’s perceived strengths. there is ample evidence that trump’s economic numbers were worse than Obama’s and now worse than Biden’s. YET, they have let the myth of trump’s greatness on the economy stand. During the debate when she was asked are americans better off today than they were 4 years ago…why couldn’t she name the things we were going through 4 years ago, nothing on the shelves, everyone laid off, the lies and bungling of covid…then say I’ll let the people decide if they’d like to go back to those days. or whatever…it would have been a much better non-answer than she gave.” trump being some type of master businessman/ economist is LUDICROUS!

  14. The media is putting their own poll numbers together to make it look closer while trying to humanize Trump. They have made no issues now about his age now that Biden is out, plus they ignore all the senseless ranting and questionable behavior.

  15. A lot of people only watch Fox News. They listen to conservative radio talk shows. They live in a bubble. They are voting for Trump no matter what. MSM does not cover Trump honestly, they disregard his crazy talk (dictator for a day, immigrants are eating pets) and normalize his lies from his rallies. People who don’t do their own research will be easily swayed into voting for Trump because they like one thing they heard somewhere. We need to stay diligent and vote.

  16. Several_Leather_9500 on

    I wouldn’t be surprised if, after the election, people come forward and talk about how trumps campaign was paying to influence poll numbers. He’s always lied about his value, and many polls are owned by the same worms in Trumps dirt.

  17. propaganda works.

    repeating lies and stupidity again n again enough times and people start to believe anything. we coulda thrown convicted con man Dump in prison months ago and be done with that but nope.

  18. Because polls are shit. The simple fact is that polling is more inaccurate each election cycle, because they haven’t figured out how to capture the younger generations. They’re still doing phone polls. Hell, I’m in my 40s and even I won’t pick up my phone unless I recognize the number, and I honestly probably wouldn’t submit to a poll, even if I did.

    In short, the demographic being polled already leans heavily conservative because they are the demographic most likely to be polled. I don’t think it’s anywhere near as close as it’s being made out to be, especially if there’s a surge of new, typically underrepresented voters. I mean just the Swifties accounted for nearly half a million new registered voters, which won’t be represented by any polling, especially “likely voters”. Not all will necessarily actually end up voting, but even if just some did, in the right places, it could swing the race dramatically in Kamala’s favor.

  19. The answer is simple: they’ve been mentally conditioned for decades to not vote for the other side “I just can’t bring myself to vote for the other side” no matter that their candidate is a convicted felon and rapist who goes against everything they tout as family values.

  20. Strong-Educator2390 on

    50% of Americans are racists and 50% aren’t.
    100% of all racists, Nazi’s, Proud Boys, are members of the Republican Party.
    0%, are Democrats.
    Easy

  21. I do believe it’s part of the playbook. Like in football.

    Biden gives a bad debate. Pro Biden news media are aghast at his performance whereas normally they’d paint a prettier picture (looking at you Anderson Cooper!). Note that Biden hasn’t had any news worthy gaffs to speak of since. Everyone is sad and then here comes Kamala to the rescue! Energized! A campaign already put together. Call Trump weird and trigger him lol (brilliant!). The news media has been instructed to post tight polls in order to get as many people to vote as possible because blue needs to win by a landslide in order to prevent cries of fraud from the other side. I do believe they could do it honestly, without manipulation, because it makes me feel like they’re treating the american population like we’re stupid. And indeed we do need education reform.

    Source: I have worked for NBC and seen this behavior within news organizations.

    edited a bunch

  22. I don’t believe that it’s close. I don’t think the sampling models are accurately counting younger people

  23. He is going to lose in a landslide. Media just wants us to stay glued to the news so they act like it is close. On Fox, I just saw an article heading that read Trump is gaining on Harris in key battleground states. I can go to another network and find something that says Trump is leading, Trump is trailing. Trump is up by 10, down by 10. I could find the same things about Harris. If you want media not owned by one or the other billionaire, stick to AP newswire, PBS and NPR.
    In 1986, Rupert Murdoch created fox, but there were so many lies, congress passed the fairness doctrine in media because of the disinformation it contained. In 1987, Reagan veto’d it for his buddy. So fox and the culture wars were born and thrived. Now we have culture wars and social media influencers being paid by foreign governments to influence the same baby boomers who used to absolutely despise Russia

  24. MisterBlisteredlips on

    He’s not. Cultists can’t keep their mouth’s shut or opinions to themselves to the point of answering polls, ranting, mega-signage, and bumper stickers. We’re all opinionated, but the “stupider the louder”.

    But come Nov 5th, the silent very majority will kick them harder than in 2020.

    “Fuck that noise” as we say locally. “Fuck trump” as we say globally.

  25. Fresh-Willow-1421 on

    I believe that it’s being reported this way because a tight race makes people watch the news, and that drives ad revenue. I plan to vote my head off anyway.