
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">While Democrats and the Harris campaign are putting on a positive face – or whistling past the graveyard, as they say – they have to be aware that this VERY close race appears to be moving in President Trump’s favor. ; It is in fractions of percentages and still inside the margin-of-error &#8212; but still in Trump’s favor.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Since every poll is well within the margin-of-error, it is impossible to deduce a winner with any level of confidence. ; BUT &#8230; one can interpret and speculate. To do that, we have to look at the polls and beyond – at money, history, early voting, and gut instinct.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>The Polls</strong></p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">According to FiveThirtyEight compilation of several polls, Trump has moved ahead in the critically important battleground state of Pennsylvania for the first time in months. ; It is a small and fragile lead – .002 percent – and well within the margin-of-error. ; But it is still significant. It is the first time Trump has taken the lead in the Keystone State since Harris entered the race.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Trump has similar leads in several of the other battleground states – and he is closing in on Harris in states where she leads. And for the first time some – that’s SOME – polls put him in the lead in the national polling. Rasmussen Reports has Trump ahead with 50 percent to Harris’ 47 percent. USA Today also has Trump at 50 percent with Harris at 49 percent. Fox News also has Trump at 50 percent and Harris at 48 percent.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">As it looks at this moment, the polls are trending to Trump. ; Decades of reading – and even creating – polls tell me that the pollsters will make some effort to adjust for past errors, BUT it will not be enough. ; The final polls this year may not be so egregiously wrong as in the past, but the pollsters may still under count the Trump vote. ; Even a small undercount in the Trump vote will tip the election in his favor.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">There is a reason for the miscounting in the past &#8212; and potentially again this year. Trump has been so demonized by a mainstay Democrat strategy that has been designed to shame voters away from Trump. Consequently, the 45<sup>th</sup> President’s voters are more likely to not admit to voting for him – and even lie to pollsters. That phenomenon has been documented in the past and is likely to be true again this year – especially considering the level of brutality of the attacks on Trump and Republican voters as enemies of the Republic.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>History</strong></p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Perhaps the scariest unknown for Harris is this historic fact that Trump tends to outperform his polling numbers – by a lot. ; At this time in 2016 and 2020 Trump was down – outside the margin-of-error. ; In some polls he was down by double digits. ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 but won the all-important electoral vote and became the 45<sup>th</sup> President of the United States. ; In 2020, Trump lost the electoral vote. ; The popular vote, however, was much closer than the earlier polls had indicated.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In response to that reality, Harris &; Company – and Harris-friendly pundits – suggest (or is it hope?) that the polling companies have corrected the polling errors that led to Trump’s surprising vote counts. ; But will they adjust enough? Or will they overcompensate and under poll Harris support? ; We do not know for sure. ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If the words inscribed on the National Archives in Washington – “What is Past is Prologue” – have any validity, Trump may have enough “secret votes” to win the election.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Money</strong></p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Many left-wing media personalities are talking a lot about the fact that Harris has raised a record breaking $1billion dollars. While that is impressive, the candidate with the most money does not always win. Also, most of those billions of dollars raised by Harris have already been spent over the course of the past couple of months &#8212; and they did not move the needle in Harris’ favor from where it was when she was first anointed as the Democrat standard bearer. </p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">What they have on hand at the time of this writing shows a less dominant picture. ; Harris has about $370 million to Trump’s $270 million. ; In terms of presidential campaigns in the last days, that is not a lot of money or a big difference. ; Harris has more, but Trump has more than enough.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Third Party Candidates</strong></p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Polls do not seem to take third party candidates into the mix. ; ; These outrigger candidates are not getting a lot of support – as they never do – but they can, and have, flipped outcomes in a number of races. ; And they could flip the Electoral College. ; According to reports, Jill Stein is the most formidable third party candidate &#8212; and she appears to be taking votes away from Harris.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Early Voting</strong></p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">What can we divine from the early voting numbers? ; In most states, we can tell the number of Republicans, Democrats and independents who have voted so far – although some states, such as Georgia, do not list voters by party affiliation. ; In past elections, Democrats participated in early voting in much greater numbers than Republicans. ; That is not the case this year. ; Republican numbers are up significantly – even exceeding Democrat numbers in some battleground states. ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Again, at the time of this writing, Democrat numbers are down by more than 250,000 early voters from the 2020 numbers. ; Republicans are up by more than 420,000 early voters.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Is that an indication of a larger Republican vote or merely an offset of Election Day voters? ; Probably a little bit of both.  ;Democrats claim that a lot of them may be Republicans crossing over for Harris – but I doubt it. ; Regardless, it is an indication of greater enthusiasm by GOP voters. ; By any analysis, that is not good news for the Harris campaign.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Gut Instinct</strong></p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">My gut instinct is based on other snippets of information – such as the fact that Trump is up in all the issues that voters, themselves, have said were most important to them. ; The fact that almost two-thirds of voters believe the nation is heading in the wrong direction &#8212; usually dooming the party in power. ; Trump appears to be attracting percentages of voters traditionally conceded to Democrats – Blacks (men especially), Latinos and Jews.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">But my gut instinct is just that. A non-empirical sense that the American people are leaning and trending to Trump at this critical moment. Momentum at this stage in a campaign usually points to the ultimate winner. However, &#8230; while my gut instincts have proven to be right in most instances, they have been wrong on occasion. As I said in a previous commentary, I would not bet the ranch on a Trump win, but I would bet a beer – maybe even up it to a bottle of wine (cheap wine).</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">So, there ‘tis.</p>

Is the Harris campaign crashing?
