Trump's War on Identity, the Polls, and the VP Choice

Plus, Biden is doing some good President-ing

Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign has apparently already given up on litigating the 2024 Presidential election on the issues. It’s not even a culture war. It’s a war on identity. It’s a war against cat ladies and nontraditional families. It’s a racist war on Kamala Harris with shades of birtherism, and the cult of Donald is so powerful that his surrogates online and on cable news are … honestly, I don’t even know what this line of attack is supposed to accomplish. Likewise, he’s called Doug Emhoff — the second gentleman — a “crappy Jew,” and just last night, he called Chuck Schumer “a member of Hamas.” (Full Disclosure: My wife met the “crappy Jew” yesterday, and had very nice things to say).

What is the thinking here? He can’t possibly be trying to win over Black voters by suggesting that Kamala Harris is not Black. And how do you win over Jewish voters by questioning their religion? Y’all: Chuck Schumer may be a lot of things. Chuck Schumer is not a member of Hamas. He’s also alienating childless women, people from nontraditional families, and people who are pro-choice.

That is a weird campaign strategy. I don’t understand how it shakes out in the Electoral College, but the Secretary of Transportation seems to understand it best.

For her part, Harris is doing exactly what she should be doing: Staying out of it. She’s responding to it generally, but the Vice President is not getting into the muck. She’s not trying to parse her own identity to appease a group of white men who aren’t going to vote for her anyway.

“The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth,” Harris responded. “A leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us. It is an essential source of our strength.”

That’s all she needs to say. In response to being called a member of Hamas, Schumer — who likewise does not have to defend his identity — simply responded, “The lower he drops in polls, the more unhinged he becomes."

Just let Donald Trump continue to talk himself into a hole until he has completely alienated everyone but his most hardcore supporters.

POLLS

We like to talk about how meaningless polls are, and as predictors of Presidential elections — especially three months out — they’re not accurate. But when the polls show your candidate gaining ground or — in many cases — pulling ahead, I’d argue that they are very meaningful in terms of generating enthusiasm. There are a lot of people who vote based on the issues, based on the party, and based on the candidate. Some people vote based on who they think will win because they want to be on the winning side. Those people were not going to vote for Joe Biden, and now they may not vote for Donald Trump because they want to be on a winning team.

I have been watching the polls closely, and first of all, I am dumbfounded by the sheer number of polls that are commissioned at this point in an election year. Yesterday, there were seven general election polls released. They were all over the place. But if you average them all, Harris is up 7. If you throw out the outliers on both sides, Harris is up by 4.

As for the Rust Belt states — Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan — almost all of them are basically within the margin of error. Harris is up by a point or two in some, and Trump is up by a point or two in others. I feel like Wisconsin and Michigan, on the whole, are leaning Harris (I saw one outlier where Harris was up +11 in Michigan), but Pennsylvania is still an issue.

What is more interesting is that I’ve seen polls now where Harris is either tied or, in some cases, even winning (within the margin of error) in Georgia, Nevada, and even Arizona. North Carolina is suddenly close, too.

The map has opened up, which means that the Democrats may not have to put all their eggs in the Rust Belt basket. But what I find even more heartening right now is the favorability numbers for Harris. We live in such a polarized country that a favorable rating is almost unheard of. Just today, American Pulse Research polled 1,035 likely voters and asked them how they thought about the candidates: Trump is + 5 Unfavorable, Vance has a +7 Unfavorable, Biden is at +10 Unfavorable, RFK is at +14 Unfavorable.

Kamala Harris is +4 Favorable. That’s nine points higher than Trump. That’s 14 points higher than Biden. That is huge.

It’s also worth mentioning that the polls obviously did not factor in Donald Trump’s meltdown yesterday, and Harris still has the DNC to go. I would love to see a situation like in 2008 where Obama opened up a lead after the DNC and held it the rest of the way.

Prisoner Exchange

We often get so caught up in the race that we forget what it’s for beyond simply keeping Trump out of office and maintaining our Democracy. But the actions that Presidents take are obviously hugely important, too. Joe Biden not only got the American economy through the pandemic, but our economy is faring better than any other major country in the world. We received a few checks during the pandemic that made all the difference. We also didn’t pay our student loans during the pandemic, and then, after it was over, Joe Biden erased $120,000 in debt that my family had been paying for 20-25 years. He also passed an infrastructure bill that will allow our family to finally buy an electric car once interest rates fall (and if Harris wins and Trump doesn’t take back the rebates).

And today? Joe Biden is in the process of securing the release of Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan in a major prisoner swap with Russia (that reportedly will also include Germany). That’s good President-ing.

Vice President

We still don’t know who Harris will choose as her Vice President, but we do now know that she has personally met with two people: Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Either would be an excellent choice (although we here are rooting for Tim Walz).

The big question really does seem to be whether she will risk pissing off the online left by choosing Josh Shapiro. He will bring home Pennysylvania for Harris, a state she must win. But he will piss off the online left. That may not be a bad thing. From the NYTimes:

“Harris needs to win Pennsylvania, signal moderation and reassure Haley voters that she’ll stand up to the left,” said Representative Jake Auchincloss, a Massachusetts Democrat, a Jewish military veteran and an admirer of Mr. Shapiro, referring to Republican supporters of Nikki Haley. “The more the Twitter left piles on him, the more helpful he is to Harris.”

It’s important to note here that Shapiro’s position on Israel is basically the same as all the other VP candidates, including Harris, except that he’s the only candidate who has actually called out Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him “one of the worst leaders of all time.” He supports a two-state solution, and the way that the online left has taken that KKK comment out of context is flat-out wrong. He was drawing a distinction between peaceful protestors — which he supported — and the extremists carrying clearly antisemitic signs calling for the annihilation of Jews in Israel. He was comparing those extremists — not the typical peaceful protestors — to the KKK.

Substantively, there is no difference between Shapiro and every other VP candidate, except that he was actually more supportive of the protestors and has been more vocal about his opposition to the Israeli prime minister. The only real difference is that he is Jewish. If folks have other issues with Shapiro — that school voucher thing, or the sexual harassment lawsuit his office settled on behalf of an aid — that’s fine, although there are going to be those kinds of issues with all the candidates. But if this is about Gaza? 👀