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Good Friday Morning! Especially to those of you riding out Hurricane Helene. It’s been wild watching this storm blow up from nothing to a full-blown category-four storm at landfall. It started Thursday morning as a category one storm, and 12 hours later, it was making landfall as a category four storm with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph. A few probes suggested it snuck over the line of 158 mph winds (possible category five status), but we won’t get confirmation of that until the after-action report comes out.
This week, I’m going to touch on some of the election fundamentals starting to solidify as we go into October. We’re getting an idea of what Election Day may look like, and if these things hold, it’s good news for Trump. I’ll try to answer what the shape of this election looks like—links to follow.
Quick Hits:
- The US military confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that China’s newest and first Zhou-class nuclear-powered submarines sunk “alongside a pier on the Yangtze River in late May when it was undergoing its final equipping before going to sea.” China denies these reports, but the WSJ’s report confirmed the sunk sub by interviewing US defense officials and getting access to satellite photos showing cranes trying to rescue the sub. This report follows rumors from last year China lost 55 sailors on another sunk sub in the North Sea. These stories are occurring against a backdrop where China is escalating non-lethal actions against the Philippines in the area. It’s a severe blow to China’s naval ambitions and gives the United States more time to respond to the growing threat of China. I believe that if the United States can delay China from acting long enough, demographic decline will take over and crush Chinese ambitions.
- The implosion of the NCAA is nowhere near complete – the NIL era may soon follow it. UNLV Starting QB Matthew Sluka triggered an earthquake this week when he abruptly announced he was redshirting this season after starting several games, leading UNLV to an undefeated record and a dark horse position to get into the new 12-team playoff. The dispute is over whether he is owed $100,000 as part of the deal to transfer to UNLV in the offseason. There’s no written contract. It was a verbal deal that Sluka alleges UNLV backtracked on. UNLV argues the opposite. In the middle of that, UNLV is trying to figure out whether it will switch conferences or stay in the current one, with the sole incentive being money. It’s the first time we’ve seen a player quit on a team in the middle of a season over NIL money. There’s a similar case with former Florida Gator recruit Jaden Rashada, who is currently a backup on Georgia’s team, while suing Florida, alleging they broke a contract with him (Georgia coach Kirby Smart knows about that lawsuit and gave it his blessing). The NCAA has no real place to navigate this situation because they’re dead in the water after Tennessee nuked them earlier this year. How will this all settle? I have no idea, but there’s plenty of case law on how to prove a verbal contract case. I suspect some of these schools are about to get burned as badly as the NCAA.
- DirecTV and Dish are in talks to merge, possibly as soon as Monday. They’ve talked about such a merger for years, but regulators shot them down over monopoly concerns. The companies think it has a better chance of going through now, with competitors like YouTubeTV and other streaming services killing cable operators. DirecTV is bleeding more users this year between losing the Sunday Ticket package with the NFL and getting into a pricing war with Disney. I suspect the Biden administration will fight this merger, though the economic reasons behind opposing it are far weaker than they were a decade ago. I don’t believe a Trump administration would oppose it.
Where you can find me this week
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Horse Race Ep: 010: Polls Are Splitting | Wisconsin’s Bad Polling History | Economic Headwinds?
Three Assassination Attempts Later Democrats Won’t Stop Awful Trump Attacks – Conservative Institute
Kamala Harris Is Struggling To Win Over White Working Class Voters – Conservative Institute
Hurricane Helene Proves How Far We’ve Come In Predicting Storms – Conservative Institute
Election Fundamentals Favor Republicans – Just like 2016
It can be hard to tell what the cultural takeaways of a debate are in the moment. Sometimes, there’s no impact, but the first Trump-Harris debate delivered two things. First, the internet made songs out of Donald Trump saying, “They’re eating the dogs and cats.” Second, people are using Kamala Harris’s line, “I’m from a middle-class family,” to get out of any difficult conversation they don’t like, including comedians.
CNN asked a kid what he thought about Kamala Harris, and he had a one-word answer: liar. These anecdotes underline the central problem ahead of the Harris campaign: she’s perceived as dishonest and won’t answer a question.
And if you doubt me on this, check with the New York Times. The Times wrote a story on the “three takeaways” from Harris’s “interview“ with MSNBC. The third takeaway gives away the game: “A hard-hitting Harris interview is still yet to come.“ The Times concluded of the MSNBC interview:
It’s not quite clear what Ms. Harris gained, aside from giving her campaign aides the ability to say she held a one-on-one cable television interview.
The Times couldn’t identify one question Harris answered during the interview. The Times didn’t have much to say about the MSNBC host, either:
So it went with Ms. Harris. Ms. Ruhle joined Ms. Harris in attacking Mr. Trump (“His plan is not serious, when you lay it out like that”) and avoided posing tricky questions about positions Ms. Harris supported during her 2020 presidential campaign or what, if anything, she knew about Mr. Biden’s physical condition or mental acuity as his own campaign deteriorated.
Which is perhaps why Ms. Harris agreed to the interview in the first place.
As the Harris afterglow from the debate fades, polling is centering itself on the idea that it’s a two-point Harris lead. For all the various things that have happened in September, the polling started the month with Harris with a 1.8-point lead, and now she has a 2.0 lead over Trump.
That’s not a ton of movement. In the YouTube podcast this week, I said this race reminded me more and more of the 2016 Clinton race, and I can’t shake that. Harris is not running at Biden 2020 levels, and Trump is running closer to his final 2016 totals. Clinton held a 2.1 lead over Trump in the popular vote, and Harris is polling right at that same level.
One reason polling is more stable on this front is that Trump isn’t swinging wildly in the polls. Between the Access Hollywood and other scandals in 2016, he frequently dipped below 40% in polls. That’s not really happening this time around. In 2020, Biden’s support was overestimated, though Biden’s lead was larger than Clinton’s.
Ron Faucheux makes a similar point at RealClearPolitics, saying that 2024 may rhyme with 2016. He writes:
Trump’s ad spending is targeted to those seven states and, more importantly, the messaging in those ads is much more disciplined and cogent than that which comes from media coverage of his speeches, interviews, and tweets. In short, Trump’s campaign is doing better framing the choice for voters in the seven swing states than in the ignored 43 states, which include California, New York, and – yes – my home state of Louisiana.
Harris’ campaign is also targeting ads to swing states, but her seven-state messaging is probably no better than her national effort.
Who is Kamala Harris? She is desperate for voters to fill that in with vague notions. And that’s how comedians can start joking about getting out of arguments by randomly talking about being a “middle class person.” It’s meaningless drivel meant to distract from the question.
Again, could this work? Certainly. It could. However, when I look at the data, I see cracks in the Harris case and the path forward for Trump.
There’s also this: election fundamentals favor Republicans, as they did in 2016. Gallup released a survey this week looking at critical factors it’s measured for decades. Whoever leads those keys typically wins the race. In 8 of the 10 things Gallup measured, Republicans led.
As I mentioned on YouTube, the most critical factor is party identification: Republicans hold a 48% to 45% advantage over Democrats heading into November—a first in Gallup’s survey. Republicans have had to depend on Democrats holding narrow leads in that category; the GOP has never led it in 40+ years.
More concerning for Democrats: Republicans hold a 46% to 41% advantage over Democrats on the question of who is better able to handle the most important problems. And what are the most important problems? The economy and inflation.
Biden’s approval rating sits at 41.6% in the RealClearPolitics average; in that Gallup poll, Biden’s approval sits at 39%, which is closer to what Atlas Intel found, which has a national survey showing Trump with a 3-point lead. Atlas was the most accurate national pollster in 2020.
This last point is critical because it’s why Democrats are trying to run a hilarious change campaign with Harris, pretending that they have no connection to Joe Biden. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is on “The View“ telling them that he could absolutely beat Trump and that there’s no difference between him and Harris.
The question voters will have going into the voting booth is whether they want more of the same from the past four years or more of Trump. It’s not an enviable decision, but the data shows voters have hated the Biden years with a passion. When you compare the economy between then and now, Trump is viewed with rosier glasses.
I say all this because you’d measure these data points in any traditional election year. You’d look at Presidential approval ratings, what issues voters care about, and the weak points for everyone. That kind of analysis is getting ignored in this cycle because of how insane things have been between Biden getting kicked out and the now two assassination attempts on Trump.
Harris is running on a “vibes only“ campaign, as D.C. beat writers put it. That’s great for her. The hope with that is her “vibes“ cancel out everything we know about politics and elections. I remain unconvinced that happens. If she does win, I’ll admit I was wrong. For now, I’m seeing shades of Clinton 2016 and some of the same glaring weaknesses.
We’ll find out in 38 days.
Links of the week
How Trump Wins: If He Does – Run Teixeira, The Liberal Patriot
Education and Gender Polarization Will Decide Pennsylvania: What the latest Keystone State polling tells us about the race. – Nate Moore, The Liberal Patriot
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted – Politico
Feds charge NYC mayor with selling his influence to foreign nationals. He says he won’t resign – Associated Press
Trump predicted NYC Mayor Adams would be indicted last year; blames ‘dirty players’ in DOJ – Fox News
[August 10, 2021 Flashback]: Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigns over sexual harassment allegations – Associated Press
[February 1, 2024 Flashback] Andrew Cuomo Wants Redemption — and He Wants to Win an Election – New York Magazine
North Carolina election board removes 747,000 from voter rolls for ineligibility – Just The News
Kamala Harris won’t say how she’ll pay for $1.7T spending plan in first solo interview with major news network – New York Post
Senators Release New Jaw Dropping Details on Secret Service Failures to Protect Trump – Kate Pavlich, Townhill
Mike Pence quietly lays the groundwork for a post-Trump future – Semafor
X/Twitter Thread(s) of the week
Satire of the week
Man Becomes First In His Family To Go To Bed – Onion
After Being Asked Where His Brother Is, Cain Explains To God That He Grew Up In A Middle Class Family – Babylon Bee
Justice Department Assures Americans Diddy Is Securely Locked Away In Epstein’s Old Cell – Babylon Bee
QUIZ: Is This First Date Going Well or Are You the Most Charismatic Person Alive? – Reductress
Millennial Reaches End of Zillow, Begins Scrolling Out-of-Network Doctors – The Hard Times
Wikipedia Awfully Close to Selling Your Data Unless You Fork Over Some Cash – The Hard Drive
Woman’s Sudden Onset Of Hunger Just Happened To Coincide With Boyfriend Going Into Kitchen – Waterford Whispers News
Thanks for reading!