by Jon Fuhrman
Monday, October 7. So, where are we? Polls are up, polls are down, whom are we to believe? And are the polls even at all useful in this unique year?
I’m still hanging tough on my prediction of 377 electoral votes for Kamala. We’ve had a few other ACT members send in their predictions (all lower than mine), and there’s still time for you to send in your own prediction.
But what should we be looking for? Are there any helpful indicators out there?
One of them is money, and though the Harris campaign has not yet released their September totals, I have no doubt they will, once again, substantially outpace Trump’s fundraising. In September, once again, Trump spent more money than he raised, drawing down on his accumulated stash. My guess is that, also once again, the Harris campaign will have raised more than they spent in September, giving them the ammunition to splurge on ads and all sorts of voter contact activities, not just in the battleground states, but in stretch states like Florida and Texas. Harris has already donated $25 million of her war chest to the Congressional campaign committees and to down ballot state candidates. I suspect more will be coming. Further, since the Democratic Convention, the Harris campaign has spent more than $263 million on ads, compared to just $109 million by the Trump campaign. Harris also has more staff, more volunteers, a larger digital presence and a larger surrogate operation, at least according to Electoral-Vote.com, one of my favorite political sites.
Secondly, there is enthusiasm, which correlates with the money and the volunteers. All the polls are clearly showing a huge measure of enthusiasm on our side, outpacing the normal GOP edge there.
And lastly, there are a slew of interesting tidbits from the ground, reports of what’s happening in individual states or localities which add a bit of color to the overall picture.
Let’s start with Pennsylvania, clearly a key state. The period in which to apply for absentee ballots opened up a few weeks ago, and as of last week, 885,000 Democrats had requested an absentee ballot compared to 375,000 Republicans. That’s better than a 2:1 advantage, way higher than the registration stats. Admittedly, this may be indicative of greater election-day turnout by GOP voters, but it also illustrates the GOP dilemma: local activists are trying to get their folks out to vote early, but Donald Trump keeps casting aspersions on absentee balloting. So GOP voters are buffeted by these countervailing currents, while the Dems are pouring out to vote, and vote early, which of course makes our GOTV operations substantially easier and more effective. Of the absentee ballots actually returned so far, less than 1/5 are from registered Republicans – not a good sign for their side.
In terms of the ground game, the Trump campaign early on decided to “outsource” that task and have the various allied PACs take on the job (to save the campaign a lot of money). But that plan doesn’t seem to be working. For example, apparently Turning Point USA Action, one of the well-established hard-right PAC’s, was supposed to handle the ground game in Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan. But they were short on money, so they dropped Michigan, and then they dropped Wisconsin. They are still doing Arizona, but observers note that they also helped run Kari Lake’s Gubernatorial campaign there in 2022, and pretty much got skunked. So their ability to have much of an impact in Arizona is questionable, and they simply abandoned Michigan and Wisconsin, two of the key battleground states. That doesn’t seem like a recipe for success.
Talking about Arizona, former GOP U.S. Senator Jeff Flake has not merely denounced Trump, but explicitly endorsed Harris, adding his name to a raft of GOP operatives and former Trump Administration officials. Interestingly, Flake is also a well-respected leader in the Mormon Church, which has a substantial membership particularly in northeast Arizona, an area that also has a heavily contested Congressional race. His endorsement could carry substantial weight in that community.
Finally, a couple of random observations from folks who wrote in to the Electoral-Vote.com blog. One reports that in the Omaha, NB area, which is included in the Congressional District that Harris hopes to win there, the number of “Blue Dot” lawn signs (representing the one blue district in Nebraska) outnumber Trump signs by at least 8 to 1. The correspondent reports those signs are “everywhere in central Omaha. Just everywhere.”
A second correspondent, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, reported seeing two rows of Trump bobblehead dolls in an airport convenience store. Next to them was a large sign saying “Harris Bobblehead Sold Out – More Coming Soon.”
The enthusiasm gap manifests itself in all sorts of interesting ways, but I think there’s a real message in these observations from the ground level. Our folks are fired up, their folks are not, and their hard-core cadres are bleeding away. The attendance at Trump rallies is a fraction of what it was in 2016, his message is wearing thin, and the money is drying up.
It’s still not a done deal, and we have to keep the pressure on, particularly in states like Nevada and Arizona, but I’m thinking Nov. 5 will be one for the history books.
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