There’s no other way to put it. Kamala Harris has the momentum
Vice President Kamala Harris woke up to some mixed news on the final Friday before Election Day. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the US economy added only 12,000 jobs. That number came largely because of the devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton as well as labor strikes. Nonetheless, the Trump campaign criticized the low jobs numbers as a sticking point, even though they know this is likely to happen amid natural disasters.
At the same time, she got a goodie in her trick-or-treat bag at the end of Halloween: a new poll from Marist showed that she leads Donald Trump by 2 points in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin while leading Trump by three points in Michigan. Throughout the campaign, Trump has led on the economy by a wide margin as many people continue to feel the pain of inflation at the gas pump or the grocery.
But Harris’s messaging, particularly focusing on housing and home care, as well as zeroing in on Trump’s economic policies, seems to have helped her. Meanwhile, Trump’s pronouncements have become even more slapdash. On Thursday evening, he said in Nevada he would put Robert F Kennedy Jr, the anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist, in charge of women’s health.
Then, Trump caused another firestorm when he appeared in Glendale, Arizona with Tucker Carlson. He called Liz Cheney “a very dumb individual, very dumb” and a “radical war hawk.”
“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her,” he said. “Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Some have said this means that he wanted Cheney to face a firing squad. Though re-watching, it’s clear he meant he wants her to experience war when she hasn’t served in the military despite her support for a strong interventionist foreign policy. Either way, it does show Trump wants his political opponents to experience violence.
On top of that, Elon Musk, a major financial benefactor of two pro-Trump super PACs, all but admitted on X (formerly Twitter), the social media platform he bought in 2022, that Trump’s policies would cause “temporary hardship” before they usher in “long-term prosperity.” That, of course, comes as Trump tried to turn the page on the “floating island of garbage” comments about Puerto Rico that comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made during his rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Harris has seemed to weather the storm of President Joe Biden’s comments in response to the “garbage” remarks, and she indeed distanced herself from them.
As The Independent’sInside Washington newsletterexplained earlier this week, elections are all about momentum, and it appears that as of right now, Harris has the momentum. Indeed, one senior Harris campaign official said that the internal data showed they are leading with battleground state voters.
“So we have believed all along that there were still undecided voters here, and that the close of this race was really, really important, and we are seeing that to be the case as we are closing out in the last week,” the official said.
Another point of proof that Harris has the momentum is where Trump and Harris are heading in the closing days. This weekend, Trump will head back to North Carolina for an event in Gastonia and another in Greensboro. On Sunday, he will be headed to Kinston. Finally, on Monday, he will hold a rally in Raleigh, the capital of the Tar Heel state.
Trump and his running mate JD Vancehave gone all-in on North Carolina, the one swing state Trump won in 2020. Trump did four events there last week and slammed Biden and Harris on the response to Hurricane Helene. This should be the state where they feel most secure. Instead, the campaign finds itself shoring up its support there.
The Harris campaign likely smells blood in the water, which is why Harris will host an event in Charlotte. She clearly sees the data and thinks she can deny Trump a win in North Carolina.
At the same time, Harris is blitzing the state she needs to win the most on the final full day of campaigning: Pennsylvania. On Monday, she will visit Allentown, a city with a large Puerto Rican population, to put an even finer point on the insult toward Boricuas. She will then head over to Pittsburgh in the evening followed by a final event in Philadelphia.
This is not to say Harris will win the election. This has and always will remain a tight election. But one thing is clear. Harris is closing out the election on offense while Trump is trying to defend the places where he should feel the most comfortable.
-Andrew Feinberg contributed reporting