50 days out: Where are we?
Final mad dash to election day begins
We are now 50 days away from the presidential election. And everyone is asking the same question heading into this final stretch: Where are we?
Before we look at the state of this unusual race, let’s start by looking back at one of the things I said after the now-infamous June debate:
“If the current and previous presidents are looking for a positive way to spin their debate performances, they can start by breathing a sigh of relief that they were debating each other and not anyone else.”
“[…] it would not be hard to imagine a Democrat like Vice President Kamala Harris or California Gov. Gavin Newsom eviscerating Trump on a debate stage, particularly on his legal troubles and personal conduct.”
Of course, I agreed with the consensus that we would never see this happen. But as we all learned the hard way, a lot can happen in three weeks. Could Nikki Haley have been right when she offered that same dire warning back in January? (Harris is now the first presidential nominee under the age of 65 since 2012.)
Last Tuesday, Vice President Harris offered up what might be the best performance of anyone Trump has ever shared a debate stage with. And the former President, as we all saw, didn’t do himself any favors.
Like most debate winners, Harris immediately called for a second debate (Trump did the same thing after President Biden’s poor June debate performance). For now, Trump is declining to participate in another one. But this is someone who operates on an emotional whim — if he thinks he needs to do another debate, he would absolutely change his mind.
That brings us to today: the race remains both literally and figuratively a game of inches. Harris and Trump are separated by fewer than three percentage points, according to an average of recent national polls.
But in a literal sense, this election is going to be decided by the same half-dozen or so states that decided the last one. These states are known to come down to the narrowest of margins — oftentimes thousands of votes.
So as we look ahead to this final 50-day sprint, I really can’t say for sure where this race stands. There is simply no comparable time period for this unusual era of politics, and our country is as polarized as it has ever been.
The energy that the Vice President’s campaign has brought to this race has been compared to Barack Obama. Is this a result of an effective campaign strategy or voters being happy to finally have someone new (or a combination of both)?
But the former President, as he likes to brag, received more votes in 2020 than any president in history. He has a diehard faction of supporters who have shown no signs of abandoning him, which means he has a fighting chance if they turn out in larger numbers in the key battleground states.
Where are we? I truly can’t say for sure.