Jim Geraghty of National Review Online ponders Kamala Harris’ electoral prospects.
For Kamala Harris, the timing of the big campaign events of the past month has lined up just about as perfectly as she and her team could have wished. President Biden announced he was quitting the race one month ago, on July 21.
Then on August 6, Harris selected Tim Walz, and despite the belated recognition that he lies a lot – Axios gently calls him “a gaffe factory” – Harris was carried along by a wave of ludicrously generous coverage of Walz. (Amazing how Walz can be a “gaffe factory” without doing any interviews or press conferences, hm?)
Then this week, on August 19, the Democratic convention began, and candidates usually get some sort of minor bump from the conventions, as party allies and the nominee get four nights to make a prime-time sales pitch for themselves.
So for the Trump campaign, the good news is that Harris has enjoyed one solid month of just about the gushing, cheerleading mainstream media coverage you’ll find this side of Barack Obama or Beto O’Rourke … and the race is pretty much a tie.
Harris leads by 1.5 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics head-to-head matchup, and 1.6 percentage points when the minor party candidates are included. She’s up by a point in Wisconsin and two points in Michigan.
Trump leads by two-tenths of a percentage point in Pennsylvania, the same margin in Arizona, one point in Georgia, 1.4 percentage points in Nevada, 1.2 percentage points in North Carolina. That’s a jump ball race.
After the Democratic convention, the road ahead gets harder for Harris and Walz.Robert F. Kennedy may withdraw from the race and endorse Trump; that may well give Trump another percentage point or two, or three, just where he needs them.
At some point, Harris is going to have to do an interview or press conference, and she’s inevitably going to make some gaffes, and the same goes for Walz.
