It’s better to be Harris than Trump

I started Steady almost four years ago to try to cut through the chatter and inject some sanity into an increasingly chaotic world. Boy, do we need that today. I am not suggesting we all dust off our rose-colored glasses. But we do need to take a very deep, collective breath and remind ourselves of several things.

First, reporting and polling are showing momentum has slowed for Kamala Harris. For many Democrats, that means it’s time to panic. Pearls are being clutched, hands wrung, and hair pulled out.

With the current make-up of the electorate, one that is increasingly polarized, neither candidate was likely to run away with this election. So set your anxieties aside, and let’s take a look at what is really going on.

The polling data does not point to a crumbling of the Blue Wall — those all-important swing states that propelled Joe Biden to the White House in 2020.

The Sunbelt swing states are not out of reach.

There is no hard evidence that “the race is slipping away” from Kamala Harris.

Polls are often wrong. Really wrong.

If you are still mystified by Donald Trump’s support — and you have every right to be — you need, with all due respect, to get past it. As a reader of this newsletter, you are most likely a rational, well-informed person who votes in every election. Most Trump supporters can’t check all those boxes. That will not change before Election Day.

Here’s what can change in the next three weeks.

This presidential race is a “margin of error” race, meaning the final result will be within the margin of error of even the best polls. It is and has been a statistical dead heat for more than a month. Either candidate could win.

Polls that show Harris up 2 points here or down a point there are accurate as much as political polling can be accurate. Remember, a poll is an imprecise snapshot in time. An arguably better gauge is to look at election results. If you consider that Donald Trump has been “on the ballot” since he ran in 2016, he has lost every subsequent election: the 2018 midterms, the 2020 presidential race, and the 2022 midterms.

Another way to look at the polling calcification is that during an unprecedented and tumultuous campaign season, nothing much has moved the needle. Both candidates have gotten small bumps from things that in past elections would have made a bigger difference: a near-perfect political convention, not one but two assassination attempts, a contentious debate.

Considering how quickly and definitively people got behind Harris’s candidacy, how fast she raised record-breaking amounts of money, how enthusiastic her supporters are, and how well she performed during her only debate, you are right to have hoped she would be marching toward Election Day with a big advantage. But that is not the world we live in. In our current reality, Donald Trump’s support, which has topped out at 46.5% in 2020, is unwavering. Harris has as much or slightly more solid support than Trump. Hence, a “margin of error” race.

So, why should anyone stop wringing their hands and planning a move to Canada? Most importantly, Harris is more capable of convincing undecided and lower-turnout voters.

While Trump is universally known, has an Electoral College advantage, and does well on voters’ most important issue — the economy — he is doing almost nothing to appeal to undecided voters. This is why David Plouffe, Harris’s campaign strategist, estimates that Trump’s support will cap out at 48%.

The Trump campaign is keeping tight-ish reins on their increasingly incoherent candidate. He will not debate Harris again. He hasn’t done a mainstream media sit-down in months. According to The New York Times, Trump is considerably less active this cycle. In 2016 he held a whopping 283 rallies. He has had 80% fewer rallies in 2024. He is making odd campaign stops, including one in California, a state he has no chance of winning. He will also hold an event at New York’s Madison Square Garden, which was famously the site of a 1939 Nazi rally, a fact that is already getting some traction.

On the flip side, every move Harris is making is a strategic choice. While many in the Beltway media have bemoaned her unconventional playbook of eschewing the mainstream media, it is a reflection of what may be the political realities of 2024 America. Harris’s target audience for the next three weeks does not watch MSNBC or read The Washington Post. They are getting information from hundreds of niche sources. Trending on social media is more important than a headline in a major daily, which is why Harris appeared on Howard Stern’s radio show and the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. She has similar appearances scheduled in the coming weeks.

Harris won’t win if her supporters spend the next three weeks panicking. She has a good chance of winning if they roll up their shirt sleeves and get out the vote. I have said this before, and I will keep saying it until Election Day: Individual and citizen team efforts matter. For whoever you want to win, make calls, knock on doors, give money, share content, write letters.

The hardest thing to predict in a presidential race — and I realize that’s saying something — is voter turnout. It is important in any race; it figures to be decisive in this one. So go vote. Vote early. Encourage your friends and family to vote. Drive your fellow citizens to the polls. Work to get others to vote as if American representative government as we have known it depends on the outcome of this election. Because it does.