This is the next of our series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020.
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One could ruminate on how a candidate who sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power could be normalized sufficiently to be enabled to run again. Embracing the horse race story, it seems almost like commentators and reporters are unwilling to say what they know to be true about Donald Trump. It seems a bit bizarre that he is running for election without acknowledging the results of the previous one. To say nothing for promising to arrest his opponents, get police to beat people up, and use the military to deport 12 million people.
Now comes the release of special prosecutor Jack Smith’s filing to federal district court judge Tanya Chutkan. This detailed explication of felonious behavior should be required reading. Beyond saying “So what?” when told his vice president’s life was in jeopardy, Trump clearly knew he had lost and chose fraudulent democracy-obliterating actions to try to stay in power. This is not forgivable.
However, this train of thought about the absolute illegitimacy of his candidacy must not be entertained, at least not until after we win on November 5. For this moment and every moment until then, it is only about what we must do to make Kamala Harris president.
Our chances are good, for these top 10 reasons:
- Kamala Harris is closing the gap with Trump on voter trust on the economy. This leaves immigration as his dominant issue and helps explain the heavily emphasized Feeding on Felines plank of Trump’s platform.
- Even by Trump’s standards, his most recent claims on Harris being mentally impaired are uncommonly repellent to independents.
- In six of the seven swing states, Democratic Senate or Gubernatorial candidates have strong leads. At this point, the leads of Senatorial candidates Ruben Gallego in Arizona, Jacky Rosen in Nevada and Gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein in North Carolina (over “black Nazi” Mark Robinson) are large enough to discourage Republican turnout. The polling leads of Senate candidates Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, and Elissa Slotkin in Michigan are also valuable for Kamala Harris.
- Harris’s campaign is raising and spending considerably more money than is Trump. Accordingly, she is making unprecedented commitments to field staff and digital advertising, as well as the usual television and print ads.
- Polls are showing fewer undecided voters than in recent election years, and fewer already committed voters open to persuasion. Trump’s agonizingly long tenure on the national scene means that most Americans have their mind made up about him. That makes it easier for Harris to sustain even a small lead.
- Polls in 2022 ended up being the most accurate of the last two decades. Pollsters believe that they have made methodological improvements to polling approaches that had contributed the 216 and 2020 undercounting of Trump’s support.
- Robert Kennedy Jr. (the non-Kennedy Kennedy) remains on the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin, to Trump’s disadvantage. Given Kennedy’s dumping of a bear carcass in Central Park, he is Trump’s “bro” in creating animal lore.
- A woman’s opportunity to control her own body is on the ballot statewide in Nevada, Arizona and Florida. To try to win votes, Trump is pretending that he never did what he previously said he was proud he did. Similarly, Trump opposed the Affordable Care Act every second of his administration and now insists that he led a bipartisan effort to protect and save it.
- As judges Aileen Cannon and Juan Merchan have fallen by the wayside at least temporarily, federal judge Tanya Chutkan has just shown herself to be unyielding. Special prosecutor Jack Smith has filed a 165-page brief providing significant new evidence of Trump actions that are way outside the heretofore unimagined broad presidential immunity the Supreme Court devised. Chutkan is expected to also release material (including FBI notes) from the appendix that Jack Smith filed. This will all remain in the news, as it should.
- The demographics in several swing states show a substantial reduction in the percentage of white voters without college degrees, who heavily support Trump. This is partly because of increases in diversity.
By now, we know what to do. We are either doing it already, or plan to do it as soon as we can, which hopefully will be very, very soon. Even though voting has started in some states, there are things that can be done.
| 1) Target Young People | |
 | There are college students and other young people (even ones you may know) who still are facing this hugely consequential elections with antipathy, Rock the Vote makes it incredibly easy to check one’s registration, register to vote, and help others do the same. If you aren’t a young person, figure out to whom you can send the link. |
2) Go Someplace Soon | |
| You would think it would be too late to sign up to go someplace else to knock on doors. The thing is, it isn’t too late. Common Power is one of the premier field organizers in the country. They are doing work with local partners in all seven swing states and in nine other states with close Congressional races. Depending on your travel availability you could even pick a nearby state. They are just a click away. | |
3) Lessen Your Money Management Burden | |
| Just as there are places you can still go, there are places your money can still help! There are organizations that are duty bound to put your resources in play before the election. In North Carolina, Mi Familia Vota is deploying paid canvassers to Latino households in and near Raleigh. The North Carolina Latino population has grown significantly, and it is under-registered. This little missive has already raised $8,000 for this aggressive effort by tireless organizers. Here is a link to join us in this effort. Happily, there are Republicans who cannot abide Donald Trump. Led by Sarah Longwell, the Republican Accountability PAC will run as many swing state ads as they can pay for. They all feature personal testimony from Republican voters. They would welcome your help. | |
Let’s seize upon the excellent opportunity to wake up in the sunshine on Wednesday morning, November 6.
David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington
