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If that were replicated when voters went to the polls on Nov. 5, Trump would surpass the threshold of 270 electoral college votes needed for victory and propel him back to the Oval Office.
The consolation for Harris is that, with multiple polls telling conflicting stories when the details are analyzed, that particular result probably won't happen.
In fact, a simulation using five-thirty-eight polling, economic and demographic data Harris still won the election 55 out of 100 times, as of Thursday lunchtime. and a Wall Street Journal poll on Friday also painted a brighter picture by showing Harris holding slight leads in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia, enough to give her a narrow electoral college victory if confirmed on Election Day.
The margins are baffling to Democratic strategists, however, given that the vice president's campaign recently revealed that it had raised $1 billion within 80 days of Harris replacing Joe Biden as the party's nominee in July. The amount far exceeds that raised by the Trump campaign.
As of late August, Trump's campaign had raised a modest $309 million, although it has the advantage of financial support from businessman Elon Musk's Tremendous Pac, which is offering cash incentives to people in swing states to register pro-Trump voters. .
Whatever the monetary advantages, Harris appears to have lost some momentum in the rust belt “blue wall” battlegrounds of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania since her performance in the September 10 debate against Trump in Philadelphia, when in common was considered the winner.
This was illustrated by a Quinnipiac University poll last Wednesday that found that a five-point lead in Michigan in the week following the debate transformed into a three-point lead for Trump, 50% to 47%; In Wisconsin, a one-point lead after the debate turned into a 2% lead for Trump. And in Pennsylvania, Harris' six-point lead was cut in half, to 3%.
One issue clouding Harris' prospects is the escalating conflict in the Middle East, with Israel's offensive against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite group, threatening to further erode support among the large bloc of ethnic Arab voters. in Michigan, which was already angry about the White House's support for the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza.
The Quinnipiac poll shows Trump has significant leads on the issue in both Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump has apparently become so confident of victory that he has begun going beyond the battlefields to host rallies in Democratic strongholds like New York, California, Illinois and New York, even though polls indicate he has little chance of winning there. The move seems calculated to project an air of imminent triumph.
With just 24 days until Election Day, Harris is running out of time to correct her stutters in the polls, Democratic strategists fear. The schedule has been further constrained by the twin storms, hurricanes Helene and Milton, which have battered the southeastern United States in the past two weeks, diverting Harris from the campaign trail and presenting Trump with the opportunity to spout lies and falsehoods about her and Biden's alleged failure to mount a recovery effort.
“I'm very, very worried and very scared,” James Carville, the renowned mastermind of Invoice Clinton's successful 1992 campaign and author of her signature catchphrase, told MSNBC last week: “It's the economy, stupid.”
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Carville warned that Harris had limited time to communicate a more aggressive message to voters and continued: “Today is over. You're going to lose four because of the hurricane… and everything comes to a standstill on the Saturday before the elections. So you probably have less than 20 days before you really have to spread a message.”
Calling for a targeted attack on Trump's plan to impose tariffs on imports – which economists have warned will fuel inflation – he added: “They have to be tough. They need to be aggressive. “They need to stop answering questions and start asking questions.”
But amid the growing darkness, glimmers of light remain for Harris. Although poll after poll gives Trump clear clues on issues of greatest importance to voters – namely the economy, inflation and rising costs, and immigration – most voters feel the country is headed in the right direction. the wrong address.
And just as Harris has failed to turn her financial reserves into clear leads in the polls, Trump is showing a comparable failure despite having leads on some headline issues.
The reason, the Wall Road Journal suggested, may be that his leadership on economic issues is more nuanced than at first glance. For example, Harris has a 6% lead on basic questions indicating that she “cares about people like you.” Likewise, while a majority said Trump has the right experience to be president, 48% said he was “too extreme,” compared to 34% who said the same of Harris, according to the newspaper's survey.
Harris may not have achieved an electoral knockout, but her opponent, for all his bombast and resilience, has vulnerabilities and weaknesses that make a victory within reach.
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