USA 2024 presidential election

I see it in listings for CNN Europe, Sky News and Channel 4.

I say it will be easy to find on youtube as well.

I was thinking earlier and tbf its been alluded to by others, Harris and Waltz not doing interviews does seem like a small own goal. Waltz especially has a lot of charisma so he should be much more visible.

Harris has an interesting back story which plenty of people would like and has some charisma so their is no reason for her to be dodging interviews.

They don't need to go on Fox, but some soft interviews would do her no harm and tbf very few politicians stray outside their comfort zone these days anyway.

Before the usual "Trump~" line yeah he's not been much better , popping up on Hannity ffs . I do think the gamble of popping up on podcasts is interesting whether it will translate to real votes who knows. It didn't really work that well for Yang or Vivek but Trump obviously has a bigger profile.

Oddly enough Vance out of the 4 has probably been the bravest in going on interviews with which his base would be considered enemy territory early on and seems content to take questions everywhere. The obvious downside for JD though is its all to late, the Dems nuked him early with all the stupid **** he has said over the years.

I had a look at the polls of the swing states (the important ones) and oof… It has NOT been a good week for the Harris/Walz ticket.

In alphabetical order…

Trump takes the slimmest of leads of .4% in the battleground state of Arizona, which has 11 electoral college votes. on the 31st August, Harris had a .3% lead, so that's a swing for Trump of .7%

Next up…

Interestingly, both candidates increased their leads in Georgia this week. Trump increased his share from 45.8 to 46.1, a .3% swing , and Harris maintains her slim lead with a .2% rise from 46.3% last week. It's going to be a neck and neck race in Georgia, with it's 16 electoral college votes.

Next up:

Gretchen Whitmers' Michigan with 15 Electoral College votes. I'll be honest, I'll be surprised if Michigan turns red on Nov 5th, but Trump is catching up. His share increased by .7% from 44.1%, whereas Harris has only gained .1% in the week, up from 46.6%. While she still leads in this poll by 1.9%, last week, it was 2.4%…

Up next:

Nevada with 6 EC votes. Harris' lead has fallen from .7% to .5%. She went up .2% from 45.7%, but Trump has increased his share by .4%, from 45% last week. This can go either way.

Next up:

North Carolina with 16 EC votes. More bad news for Harris here as Trump increases his slim advantage of .3% last week, to .8% this week. Trump increased his share from 46.1% by .6%, while Harris has only increased .1% from 45.8% last week.

Next up:

Arguably the most important swing state, Pennsylvania comes with 19 EC votes. And it is yet further bad news for Harris as her lead shrinks from 1.2% to .6%. That's a 50% drop. Ouch. Last week she was polling at 46.2%, so has gained .2% while Trump has increased his polling by .8% from 45% last week. I think this one will hurt the most as she has been based in this state the past week, so would expect a small bump, or at least maintaining her lead over Trump.

Lastly:

Wisconsin, with 10 EC votes. Last week, Harris had a solid lead of 3.2% over Trump, which has been shorted by .5%. She has remained steady, gaining a single .1%, while Trump has increased his share by .7% from 44.2% last week. I'm still going to surprised if Trump wins Wisconsin this year. He won it in 2016, lost it by .63% to Biden in 2020 (a mere 20,000 votes!) but 2016 Trump is very different from 2024 Trump. I expect HArris will win this by .75% or more.

Conclusions:

OOF…

Tough week for Democrats, and Republicans will think that the wind has finally changed in their direction. Part of the reason may be RFK voters making up their minds and stopping sulking. I don't think Trump got quite the bump he was hoping for, but it might slowly be getting there. I think Democrats will know how vitally important the debate on Tuesday is. Harris has everything to do. All the pressure is on her in the debate. Trump will do the only thing he knows how to do well, which is play the character of Donald Trump. I fully expect to see an enraged Trump at one stage of the debate, and hopefully(!) a strong, resolute performance from Harris.

I lost a lot of respect for Nate Silver once I found out about the Peter Thiel connection.

They're interviewed by Dana Bash

Over the past week I watched "The Loudest Voice" which is a mini-series depicting Roger Ailes's time at Fox News. Great cast, storyline and acting and I'd imagine anyone with an interest in American politics would find it fascinating.

When watching it the saying that "Trump is the symptom, not the cause" really rings true. Ailes was poisoning the well with middle American right from the start of that channel in 1995.

If the show is accurate then Donald Trump as a plausible presidential candidate was entirely the creation of Ailes. Among other things they had Ailes:

• Convincing Trump to actually run in the first place and not just pretend to do so to get media attention
• Advising Trump on his announcement, specifically on hiring out of work actors to fill the lobby and enthusiastically cheer him as he came down the escalator and made his announcement speech
• Gave him disproportionate coverage on Fox News during the Republican primary, which the Murdoch family specifically ordered him not to do
• Went to bat for Trump and brokered a truce when Trump specifically attacked Fox News and Megyn Kelly after the first debate.
• Advised the Trump campaign on set design and his acceptance speech during the Republican National Convention

The show is available to stream on the RTE Player for anyone else who's interested in watching it

So yeah the debate as I said elsewhere you can't really win these things but you can lose them and well Trump did. I can't believe how easy it was though, he's in a good place in the polls but Harris just baited him so easily, the most embarrassing moment was early on the immigration question something which the Republicans lead on and he was rambling about crowd sizes. The abortion question where tbf on the moderators they did throw him a lifeline when suggesting he would veto any abortion ban which is sensible politics he threw everyone under the bus including his VP.

Harris should do the Fox debate, so no excuses about biased moderators etc. It would be moderated by Brett Baier/Martha MacCullum who will obviously have their biases but they have shown they are as fair as any moderator about. Their is nothing for her to fear from this guy whatsoever.

Just watched the debate and we'll...... Trump absolutely blew it, Two hours of him rambling, lying and repeating his same tired soundbites.

Harris was smart from the get go predicting he would do this and reminding people as the debate went on that he is doing exactly what she said he would do.

Can honestly see him refusing any more debates claiming he doesn't need to do any more as he did so well last night.

The other candidate is a rapist and a white supremacist who can barely assemble a sentence. If they're not ready now, they never will be.

I'd have said "white man" but I'd otherwise agree.

Which one appeared more presidential?

That's the main point of these debates.

Was it the guy who rambled about immigrants eating their dogs, who's 9 year health care plan is in the "concept of a plan" stage, who's convinced that some states allow post birth murder or the woman who didn't say any of that crazy hoopla?

Well... To be completely fair and subjective Trump didn't accuse immigrants of eating pets. He said somebody in Springfield Ohio told him this information. The fact that hearsay is one of Trump's points does raise questions about his suitability as president mind…

In fairness the stupidity of this man is comical and actually a joy to watch from an entertainment perspective

Harris didn't misrepresent anything.

Trump's both sides comment was racist dog whistling.
There were no fine people at that rally, there were just racists in a mob.
Such weasel words were intended to give cover to the racists.

Bear in mind since then - this is not an exhaustive list:

Said that illegal immigrants were poisoning the blood of the nation.

Implied that illegal immigrants are going around eating pets.

Tweeted memes showing immigrants as people of colour - no light skinned faces- as destroying neighbourhoods.

So what are the chances Trump wasn't actually dog whistling support to racists?

Zero.

It was racist dog whistling from a racist and Kamala Harris is entirely justified is putting that in the spotlight.

There's a twitter account called New York Times Pitchbot that specialises in coming up with ridiculous bad-faith false equivalencies (the types that are typically used by certain NYT op-ed writers who want to drive engagement). The above post could have come straight from one of their tweets.