String of Serious Blunders Leaves Harris Campaign Reeling and Trump Campaign Rising
Desperation has replaced joy and good vibes for the Harris campaign at the worst possible time.
Trump supporters watched in horror and shock this summer as the Democratic Party, with an enormous assist from the corporate media, turned the inept Vice President Kamala Harris into a superstar in the space of a week. And for over two months, the media-created campaign of joy and positive vibes appeared unstoppable.
But a presidential campaign based on joy and good vibes cannot last forever. Eventually, reality will interfere to burst even the biggest bubble. Unfortunately for Harris, a string of serious unforced missteps combined to bring the ginned up momentum to a screeching halt, leaving desperation in its wake.
Although it’s impossible to say for certain whether former President Donald Trump’s triumphant return to Butler, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 5, the site of the first assassination attempt against him, was the catalyst for the shift in the race, the next day, he reclaimed the lead in the betting markets (which has increased every day since) and Harris’s momentum stalled.
Over the past couple of weeks, two of the most widely watched metrics have shifted away from the Harris campaign. As of Sunday morning, she has shed 1.3 points in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, leaving her with a 0.9% lead. (For context, Hillary Clinton led by 6.4% on this date in 2016 and still lost the election, and President Joe Biden led by 8.6% in 2020 and barely won.)
Meanwhile, Trump’s average lead in RCP’s average of battleground state polls has climbed to 1 point.
Here are some of the Harris campaign’s recent unforced errors that have contributed to the shift in sentiment:
1. Perhaps the most significant miscalculation was Harris’s decision to sit for an interview with Fox News’ anchor Bret Baier last Wednesday. Outside of a few tough questions from CBS News’ correspondent Bill Whitaker, this was the first time a real journalist had asked Harris serious questions. In an attempt to point out the duplicity of her campaign, Baier made hash of her campaign’s attempt to offer voters a “new way forward” considering that she and Biden have been running the country for the past four years. Asked when she first noticed that Biden’s mental faculties had diminished, Harris refused to even acknowledge the issue. Considering that Biden’s senility was the reason for her promotion to the top of the Democratic ticket, her denial appeared completely disingenuous.
In a recent post about the interview, I wrote, “The vice president’s demeanor throughout the brief interview was defensive, combative, and even imperious at times. … Harris dodged and weaved and filibustered. Her answers were weak, incomplete, evasive and sometimes absurd.”
I would add that she came across as extremely unlikable, perhaps reminding voters why her 2019 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination ended in early failure. The consensus among conservative news outlets was that the event had been a “trainwreck” for Harris from the get-go.
2. Harris’s decision to skip the Al Smith dinner in New York City on Thursday was inexplicable. Her foolish choice was compounded by the cringeworthy video she had prerecorded to be played at the event. Mary Chastain wrote that the video “failed on all levels.”
NEW: Kamala Harris releases her pre-recorded video for the Al Smith dinner in New York that she didn't show up for.
Comedian Jim Gaffigan made fun of the Vice President after the crowd gave a dismal applause once it ended.
Cringe. pic.twitter.com/9dvsYQub9h
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 18, 2024
3. Harris was delighted over the news that IDF troops had killed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organization and the mastermind behind the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, on Thursday in Rafah. She wanted voters to forget that both she and Biden had warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to invade Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, back in March.
At the time, Harris told ABC News “there could be ‘consequences’ for Israel if it moves ahead with a planned invasion of Rafah.”
“We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake,” she said.
Harris added, “Let me tell you something. I have studied the maps. There’s nowhere for those folks to go.”
💥#BOOM VP Harris: "We've been clear in multiple conversations [with the Israelis] in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake. Let me tell you something, I have studied the maps– there's nowhere for those folks to go… I'm ruling out nothing." pic.twitter.com/BB1xp4PGcx
— Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي (@NTarnopolsky) March 24, 2024
4. Another misstep was trotting out former President Barack Obama to lecture black men who don’t plan to vote for Harris. Obama said “it’s unacceptable” to sit out the election and suggested the reason might be that they are unwilling to vote for a woman.
It turned out that black men were not too pleased to be shamed into voting for Harris by the former president.
5. The Harris campaign’s incessant insistence, without evidence, that a Trump victory would mark the end of democracy in America, something she and her surrogates tell voters at every opportunity, is beginning to fall flat.
During a campaign speech on Thursday night in Wisconsin, she told supporters: “Let us be very clear. Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States should never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States. Never again.”
Resembling a mad dog, her anger and voice growing louder, she repeated, “Never again. Never again. Never again!”
Well, the media’s full-court press has subsided, and the Harris campaign has failed to deliver anything substantive to voters. At her peak level of support, she led Trump nationally by 2.2%. As mentioned above, that lead has dwindled over the past two weeks to 0.9%, far below the levels of support reached by both Biden and Clinton. And Trump is now leading by 1 point in the battleground states where the election will be decided.
Desperation has replaced joy and good vibes for the Harris campaign at the worst possible time and they are resorting to outright lies and scare tactics to stem the bleeding. In the MSNBC clip below, host Donny Deutsch and Rev. Al Sharpton claim, of course without evidence, that they will be put on an enemies list if Trump wins the election and imprisoned.
MSNBC's @DonnyDeutsch & @TheRevAl worry that if Trump's elected, they'll be "put on a list" & imprisoned. pic.twitter.com/h5XjbZtkES
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 18, 2024
On Saturday, a group called “Republicans against Trump” resurrected another familiar fake scandal based on a passage in journalist Bob Woodward’s new book. The group alleges that Trump’s one-time Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, whom Trump replaced with then-Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe, told Woodward he suspects that Putin is blackmailing Trump. No evidence.
🚨Trump's former Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, suspects Putin is blackmailing Trump.
This should be a much bigger news story.pic.twitter.com/pdKdIOHqxr
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 19, 2024
We can expect allegations like these to intensify over the next two weeks. Because it’s all they’ve got. The joy and good vibes have run their course and Harris has reverted to the same weak, unappealing, and inauthentic candidate who was forced to drop out of the 2020 presidential primary before a single vote was ever cast.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Never trust the demonrats. My wife constantly refers to the voting irregularities of 2020 when discussing the current campaign. With 4 states saying it could take 4 days to count the votes, that alone gives off “steal” vibes. The R’s need to be proactive against this type of subterfuge. They have to make sure they are in the count room for absentee and overseas ballots. Be ready with court orders for transparency and following the voting law. If we can’t have confidence and transparency in our national voting, it’s going to lead to a national divorce. FKH
>>With 4 states saying it could take 4 days to count the votes. . . <> They have to make sure they are in the count room for absentee and overseas ballots.<>Be ready with court orders for transparency and following the voting law.
Yeah, good luck with that. The courts will simply throw out any cases concerning the election and punish those that filed any kind of election related lawsuit just like they did during the 2020 election cycle. The courts are rigged. There will never be an election that anyone will be allowed to question. And this is one of them.
A lot of things could happen. One thing I am certain of – the Democrats will never accept a Trump win, and Kamala will never concede. Regardless of whether a Trump win is a squeaker or a landslide, they will not concede. If a squeaker, they will challenge individual state results, like in 2000. If a landslide, they will move to disqualify Trump before the Joint Session on January 6 and install Kamala anyway. They will openly encourage foreign powers to conduct any assassinations of members of Congress or the GOP candidates that further these goals. If Trump wins, I could see Kamala openly telling Ukraine that if they make her President, she will ensure they win and give them nuclear weapons. Ukraine could do this by assassinating enough GOP congresscritters to force a temporary Dem majority, so they have the votes on Jan 6. And the Democrats are a unified party. All members, without exception, will do exactly as Pelosi tells them to.
Lara Trump has said they have hired lots of lawyers and thousands of election observers to look out for their “irregularities.” There were so many of them. And around 1,000 people signed affidavits describing what they saw. But no judges were willing to touch it. It still makes no sense. … I hope the RNC really will be on the lookout this time around because the only way Trump could lose this election, in my opinion, is via fraud.
The courts will do today what they did in 2020: ignore any and all evidence put in front of them, and forbid any investigation that might produce such evidence. That assumes, of course, that the RNC in fact want to help Trump.
Actions -> consequences.
The D’s should never have gone forward with the idiot Biden. It’s was painfully clear he was suffering from dementia in 2020.
The D’s should never have shived Biden, but rather should have removed him via the 25th before the primaries.
The D’s should never – ever – have allowed Biden to sandbag them with Harris. She is awful.
If they had simply gone with Tulsi Gabbard, she’d be cruising to reelection right now and Trump would be a bad memory for them.
This is the flea and bedbug infested bed they have made for themselves. May it destroy them.
I certainly hope for an embarrassing loss for KH and the gang. I am interested in how the media will spin it.
Misogyny and racism.
Don’t forget Putin.
It takes a candidate as rotten as Trump to make a race against this idiot so close. Any other accomplished, bread and butter Republican nominee would be cruising to a landslide right now. Instead, despite citing a laundry list of Harris missteps, she still has a fair chance of winning.
You reckon it has nothing to do with the wall to wall positive coverage (ie lies) told by the media tat its raining and that its definitely not democrats pissing on you.
Or put it this way, in spite of the absolute whoring the media has done on Brown Diversity Hillary’s behalf she is still losing the election to Trump because…She. Is. That. Bad 🤣🤣🤣
Very much so, but a decent candidate would not have that added to astronomic, preexisting high negatives. I like Tom Cotten.
Go knit a bootie for your self… Tom Cotton
No one, no one could have withstood what President Trump has all these years
Including, TWO ASSASSINATION attempts!
You have to be one seriously unserious person to believe any Republican would not be treated the same way as Trump by the Democrat whores that call themselves journalists 🤣🤣🤣
That’s completely untrue. Trump is the only Republican who has demonstrated his willingness to clean house, and they know he has a plan to do it this time if re-elected. Compared to him, all other republicans are more-or-less “Yes-men.”
Just the lack of media coverage on our border
20-30 million people , insane just insane
“Bread and butter” Republicans is part of the reason we are in this mess. They have refused to do ANYTHING about the systemic problems, apart from promise great things and then go “it’s too hard” once they get into office. Nothing changes.
Trump’s entire first campaign was about building the big beautiful wall and making Mexico pay for it. He did nothing and now never mentions a wall. He allowed himself to be completely stymied by his enemies because he is too stupid to assemble the right team, take advice and practice patience. I am voting for him, but he is as stupid as Harris. It’s al theater for the gullible.
He was stabbed in the back, couldn’t get funding to complete that wall
And now we have an additional 30 million illegals , criminals all, to add to the 30 million already here
Trump decided NOT to use his Veto power to reject the budget Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell sent up that lacked funding for the border wall.
That was a very bad choice by DJT and many are still salty about it, including many who support Trump in ’24.
This revisionist effort to paint Trump as the helpless victim in the face of …Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell (AYFKM) is laughable.
You’re partially correct. In business, Trump made himself the absolute boss, and obeyed. ‘You’re fired’ is legendary RTV.
In govt., Trump brought w/ him a naivety that made him the target of soulless sewer ghouls whose only loyalty is to the sewer that is their livelyhood.
Trump threatened the sewer, and continues to threaten. It’s why the sewer has attempted to kill him – twice, now, and counting.
Trump learns from his mistakes, and he will not make the same mistakes again.
“Beware of old men in a profession where men die young.”
Trump used funds from defense budget to build 100’s of miles of border walls despite total opposition of Congressional Democrats and the establishment GOP and numerous lawsuits.
To say he did nothing is a blatant falsehood and a typical Dem/GOPe propaganda line.
Yeah, Trump is no angel, but man! That Economy!
And quite seriously if push comes to shove with Iran, who would you rather have getting that 3 a.m. call?
Given the choice, I prefer voicemail.
A Romney or a Cheney would have cruised to victory – yeah right
Actually, if it was any Republican the media would be trying to annihilate them.
Remember what happened to Mitt Romney, not exactly a conservative?
“The Republican presidential nominee has faced “perhaps the most corrupt and tendentious coverage in presidential history,” with the mainstream media doing everything in its power to ensure that its darling, Barack Obama, is re-elected. ”
https://theweek.com/articles/471821/election-media-biased-against-romney
Agree. DeSantis would be 10-15% ahead right now. Trump has made himself the issue rather than his policies.
In the history of American politics, no candidate has ever raised more money than Harris (it’s not even close, particularly considering the very small window she’s had to raise it) nor has any candidate received as favorable media coverage as Harris (or as hostile as the coverage Trump has received). And yet, she’s on the glide-slope to defeat. She’s that bad….and we probably shouldn’t discount how progressive she is, perhaps too progressive even for our current electorate.
Biden, in response to Trump’s photo-op at McDs: “The ice cream machine is fixed, Jack!”
Harris, in response to Trump’s photo-op at McDs: “I will do 5 Guys this week.”
That’s very clever!
And she’ll laugh uproariously with each and every one. I wonder if she is very vocal at times like that.
.
What Democrats (and the media) used to say about Harris before her unelected elevation to usurp Biden:
https://x.com/i/status/1846782714625548470
Elizabeth Stauffer, your efforts here are to be highly commended. Your presentation, including the videos, is something all voters should see. Although I have been closely following all the developments, the ‘plantation speech’ was most compelling. I copied the URL and went to youtube to see who the presenter was. I noticed that at the end of the vid Melanie King describes what is happening as “weird,” and “eye-opening.” The tacit ramification appears to be that she is perhaps too young and ignorant of history of what those on the left will resort to, and how far they’ll go, to gain power; for they know damn well they can not win by being truthful about their vision and agenda. Though one person on the vid called the president’s replacement a coup, no one used the term or admitted that the coup was perpetrated by the machine; socialists that “use democracy to defeat democracy.” That phrase, a public admission, was used — proudly I might add — by the leader of the National Socialists in Germany in 1941. Hopefully Melanie King’s eyes will open a lot more quickly.
Thanks Allears! I appreciate it. … Every time the Democrats talk about saving “our democracy,” just substitute it with “our power.” Hopefully, after all the information that’s been revealed about the Democrats’ dirty dealing over the past four years, particularly after the “Twitter Files,” enough voters will be armed with the truth to carry Trump to victory. If not, we’re all in trouble.
weed out never trunmpers
re: #4
reminded of the time jesse jackson said of obama
id like to cut off his nuts
after obama told blackmales to get their act together ( not that harshly but he did)
Kamala Harris can win without doing anything to deserve it. Nobody should be complacent. Make sure you vote.
Texas in particular should not be complacent. It is an abortion ban state, and angry young women may show up in droves on election day for the state legislature contests. Other states like Virginia have only federal races on the ballot, so have different dynamics.
And another one.
14 days to go, She’s been accusing Trump of ‘hiding’ and being ‘exhausted’…. and then her campaign announced she’s the one taking a day off.
I have literally never seen anybody take a ‘day off’ this close to the election, EVER.
Thankfully the winds are out of Kamala’s sails. Taking a day off is simply channeling Hillary the Harridan, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
Kamala…… Thank you for bringing JOY to the Republican Party!!!
The Harris campaign heavily miscalculated in the FOX interview. They though that Trump’s viewers hadn’t heard her anti-Trump message before and that it would make an impact.
They’ve been bombarded with her message by all of her media allies and every know-it-all progressive on every platform.
They didn’t need to hear it again. She would have been better off pulling a Beto and trying to rebrand as semi-conservative. Not that that would have worked either.
Far from putting the MSM wack job hosts on an enemies list, Trump would want them promoted and become the face of the MSM and the Dem party. The left’s goal every election is to hide who they are and what they want.
The more desperate they become, the more blunders.
The media reaction to Trump’s McDonalds visit is another huge own-goal.