Harris takes Trump to task over immigration. Nebraska springs a Senate surprise. The House starts to shift toward Democrats.
It is all happening at the same time.
Kamala Harris continues to redefine the Democratic Party.
She is discarding their tired old playbook of engaging with Republican talking points on their terms. President Biden and the Democrats have long known that Trump and the GOP would hit them hard on immigration. Instead of confronting them and pushing for a solution, they tiptoed around the issue, taking hit after hit, and then tried to fix it far too late.
The bipartisan immigration bill that Donald Trump tanked this year to boost his reelection chances had a decent chance of passing two years ago. Biden could have pursued it — or at the very least, tried and failed. That would have lessened the impact of Trump’s attacks. Even then, there was no reason for the Democrats to play the underdog on immigration. But for some reason, they did just that.
In four years, how many times did the President visit the border? I think he did it twice. Avoiding an issue as significant as immigration was not going to help; it was only going to hurt, and that is exactly what President Biden got. It was a strategic mistake. Kamala Harris has decided that enough is enough.
On Friday, Harris visited the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona. After the visit, at a rally in Douglas, Arizona, the Vice President criticized Donald Trump’s immigration record. She stated that she would focus on fixing the problem instead of running on it, a clear jab at Trump for derailing the bipartisan immigration bill.
“It was the strongest border security bill we have seen in decades. It was endorsed by the Border Patrol union. And it should be in effect today, producing results in real time, right now, for our country.
But Donald Trump tanked it. He picked up the phone and called some friends in Congress and said, ‘Stop the bill,’” Harris said.
I liked her speech because she spent very little time attacking Trump. Most of the time was focused on explaining what is wrong and how she plans to fix the problem. Of course, I also want to hear the contrast, but at the end of the day, when a politician doesn’t offer a clear roadmap, I tend to lose interest. Harris has been very careful about that. She highlights the contrast with Trump but spends much more time explaining solutions in easy-to-understand terms for Americans.
Her plan seems to hinge on two key points: increasing security at the border to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants, and fixing the broken U.S. immigration system, which is filled with loopholes.
The GOP is still trying to corner Harris by calling her the “border czar” and questioning what she has done over the past four years. If she backs down, these attacks will only escalate. So, it’s a good thing that she is trying to face the problem head-on and take responsibility for communicating her plan to Americans.
Immigration remains the only issue where Donald Trump has a sizable edge over Kamala Harris, sometimes by double digits. Yet, Trump has not presented a clear plan. It will be the same usual performance: it will be big, it will be bold, someone else will pay for it, and then American taxpayers will foot the bill.
Harris coming out with a clear outline of her plan is good news. This is the first time since accepting the nomination that she has spoken in detail about this issue. It’s also good that she chose Arizona to deliver the speech. She needs to draw Trump into a debate on immigration. Just as she exposed his weaknesses on the economy, she needs to expose the shortcomings of his plans on immigration.
Nebraksa Springs a Surprise
My forecast for the Senate race remains the same: it is the GOP’s majority to lose. The Democrats have a very difficult map this year. They need to retain all the seats they currently hold to protect their majority. Unfortunately, Senator Jon Tester is struggling against Tim Sheehy in Montana, and it looks like the state is slowly slipping out of Democratic hands.
Things were looking good for the GOP, but suddenly, out of nowhere, the Senate GOP arm dropped $172,000 on ads in ruby-red Nebraska. Okay, maybe not ruby-red, but definitely red. The margin of victory may have been smaller than in other states, but the GOP has won the state in 14 consecutive presidential elections.
So why would the GOP spend so much money on a state with just 1.2 million voters? It is because the race has become too tight for their comfort.
A poll released on Tuesday found that independent Dan Osborn has a 1-point lead over incumbent Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska.
There aren’t many polls coming out of the state, but the trendline in the last two polls shows a shift from +1 for the GOP to -1 for the GOP. Now, correlate this movement with the national polling advantage that Harris has been building. As she continues to improve her numbers on the economic front against Donald Trump, the Republican numbers are starting to fluctuate all over the map.
When you are an incumbent, running neck and neck with your opponent is a dangerous sign. I’m not going to change my forecast for the Senate just yet. I will wait another week or two to see if the polling lead for independent Dan Osborn holds. If it does, I will move the Senate majority race to a toss-up.
House Moves from Toss-up to Lean Democrats
Thanks to gerrymandering from both sides, Democrats will win 192 seats off the bat, while the GOP will win 196 seats. The fight is on for the remaining 47 seats, but not all of these seats are competitive. We can further narrow it down to around two dozen seats. That is where we started the race — with 24 seats in the gray zone, with both sides capable of reaching the finish line.
The momentum at the top is now starting to filter down the ballot. As Kamala Harris improved her numbers in national polling, so did the Democrats on the generic ballot (House).
Democrats and Republicans were even on August 1. As of September 27, Democrats are up by 2.3 points. The Cook Political Report has moved several seats toward the Democrats.
The nonpartisan group Cook Political Report has shifted half a dozen House races toward Democrats and two toward Republicans, as Democrats see their fundraising advantage and enthusiasm rise after Vice President Harris replaced President Biden at the top of the ticket.
“Two months out from Election Day, Democrats’ prospects for taking control of the House are looking considerably brighter than they did two months ago. Democratic candidates are no longer burdened by an unpopular incumbent president, free to run in a political environment where Republicans no longer have a clear enthusiasm advantage, and continue to fill their campaign coffers as Republicans’ fundraising lags,” Cook’s Erin Covey said in the analysis.
I like the Racetothewh ratings system. It works really well.
Can you see where the majority line is? As things stand today, the GOP needs a full sweep of the gray zone seats. This is a highly unlikely scenario given how Trump and Vance are running their presidential campaigns.
Mr. Vance has unveiled a strategy that I have never encountered before. According to Politico, the new strategy is to incite the crowd to boo journalists.
The scene — Vance taking questions from the press while a mass of supporters, bedecked in Trump-Vance merch and hoisting campaign signs, jeer the questions and cheer the Ohio senator’s responses — has become a prominent feature of Vance’s rallies.
Keep it up, Trump and Vance; it will do wonders all the way down the ballot.
When Data Slaps You in the Face and You Still Manage to Miss It
Okay, I’m not talking about you; I’m talking about myself. I don’t remember which show it was, but I think it was CNN where James Carville spoke about swing states always making a clean break toward a single candidate. As soon as he said that, I knew it was true. It always makes a clean break in one direction — that’s the nature of the beast. I’ve seen the data so many times, and somehow I still missed it completely.
In 2012, Barack Obama won 7 out of 8 swing states.
In 2016, Donald Trump won 7 out of 8 swing states.
In 2020, Joe Biden won 6 out of 7 swing states.
That’s almost a 90% hit rate year after year. I’m sure if we go back in time, the same trend would hold up. However, I have no idea how many states would fall into the swing state bracket if we stretched the timeline that far back. I think the last three presidential elections provide a reasonable set of data on which to base our decisions.
The odds of swing states breaking in one direction look extremely high, and there seems to be only one person among the candidates capable of doing that. A recent poll by Bloomberg shows Kamala Harris ahead of Trump in all the swing states, with a tie in Georgia. That’s 6 for Harris and 1 for Trump.
A clean break, just as James Carville said.