Top operatives from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign are very confident in their ability to close strong in swing states, contending Kamala Harris’ metrics have collapsed in the seven battlegrounds likely to decide the presidential election in just over three weeks.
A memorandum senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles and pollster Tony Fabrizio sent reporters Sunday says the Democratic nominee’s campaign is “cracking,” with fissures revealed at the worst possible time for her — and the best possible time for Republicans.
Noting RealClearPolitics’ model projects the former president ending up with 296 electoral votes, which is more than enough to win even if a state or two ends up in Harris’ hands in November, Team Trump contends the supposed Harris’ “momentum . . . never really existed beyond the confines of July” and, per its “internal Battleground State data,” Harris “actually slipped marginally post-Labor Day until now in her image and ballot position.”
She’s 5 points underwater in terms of favorability, while she was -3 early last month. And in a head-to-head test with Trump, the vice president is 2 points down; she was dead even with the Donald last month.
A deeper dive reveals the changes in the dynamic. Trump is, his campaign says, +13 with independents compared with his 2020 level. He leads Harris by 5 with that pivotal group.
And while he’s still down 61 points with black voters, that’s better than the 81-point loss with the cohort he experienced four years ago — and a good reason for Barack Obama’s recent lecturing of black males to support Harris despite qualms supported by this and other data.
Trump is +7 with Hispanics, a group he lost by 25 points in 2020. And he’s just 4 points behind Harris with voters under the age of 45.
Part of that seismic shift in the race can be explained by Harris being seen as an agent of the status quo, despite her best efforts to distance herself from the administration for which she’s worked for nearly four years, says the Trump camp. She can’t “convince the voters that she is ‘the change agent’ in the race, that she will be better on the economy, inflation, immigration, crime, or improving people’s financial situation.”
These major topics are meaningful, given public polling that delves into these issues in a single battleground or multiples thereof finds Trump with the advantage on all of them — sometimes a double-digit lead.
Per Team Trump’s data, he’s seen as likely to do a better job than Harris as president (49% to 45%) and more likely to bring change (47% to 43%), create jobs (47% to 42%), fight inflation (50% to 40%), improve the economy (50% to 41%) and improve respondents’ personal financial positions (52% to 40%).
But, as the saying goes, it’s not “just the economy, stupid.”
It’s also about public safety, and the Trump data say voters don’t trust Harris to guard against menaces, whether they are foreign or domestic.
When it comes to fighting crime and keeping neighborhoods safe, an anemic 38% of respondents believe Harris can accomplish that.
And on the issue of repelling hostile immigrants and securing the border, a pitiful 28% of those polled think Harris is the one. Trump has a nearly 2-to-1 advantage on this critical matter.
Beyond the issues, Team Trump thinks Harris’ flip-flops on cashless bail, fracking and electric vehicles are tough to square for voters who take in the full context of her radical career notwithstanding a media apparatus that’s facilitated the glow-up.
“She’s tried to re-invent herself at every level. And despite once being dubbed the ‘worst Vice President in the modern era’ by many in the media, they gave her a free pass (much like Harris did with hardened criminals on her watch) as she tried to pull a fast one on the voters. However, as has been reported by a few courageous members of the media, voters in focus group after focus group aren’t buying it and are uncertain about who Kamala really is,” Team Trump says.
