While election forecasters still give Kamala Harris the edge, Donald Trump has the momentum in the final weeks of the campaign. While the prevailing narrative of the moment from the mainstream media is still that the election will be close, we have been able to observe the signs that Trump has gained steam for weeks.
Last month, polls revealed surprisingly close races in both Virginia and Minnesota. Minnesota, a state that hasn’t voted Republican in a presidential race since 1972, showed Harris clinging to an embarrassing three-point lead. A couple of polls since have shown her with a more substantial lead, but — call me crazy — I suspect they are outliers.
When Harris picked Tim Walz as her running mate, no one expected Minnesota to be in play, and, to be honest, I wouldn't expect it to end up in Trump's column. Still, the tightening race suggests that the election is resetting to what it had been before Joe Biden dropped out.
There are other signs as well. The race in New York is much closer than it has been historically, and Trump is essentially making a play for the Empire State, planning a rally at Madison Square Garden during the final days of the campaign on October 27.
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Meanwhile, Harris continues to do disastrous interviews in a desperate attempt to move the needle in her direction, yet it's not working. CNN’s Dana Bash not only admitted that they weren't working but also acknowledged that sources in the Harris campaign say the interviews aren't doing what they hoped.
They definitely aren't. When Biden dropped out of the race, Trump had leads in most of the battleground states. After Kamala took over the top of the ticket, momentum shifted to her, and she took the lead. However, the polls have been trending back to Trump since September, and Trump has since retaken the lead in the RealClearPolitics averages for six of the seven battleground states.
As you can see, if this pans out, Trump would win the election with 302 Electoral College votes to Harris's 236.
The question, of course, is whether Donald Trump can keep the momentum going strong through November 5. On Friday, Fox News announced that Trump will participate in a town hall event exclusively with female voters next week. The event will be moderated by Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner.
“Women constitute the largest group of registered and active voters in the United States, so it is paramount that female voters understand where the presidential candidates stand on the issues that matter to them most,” Faulkner said in a statement. “I am looking forward to providing our viewers with an opportunity to learn more about where former President Trump stands on these topics.”
There's no use in sugarcoating this: so-called women's issues are not Trump's strong suit, which makes me nervous about this event. It certainly is an opportunity for him to speak directly to women voters, a demographic he lags behind Kamala with, but he needs to communicate better on these issues than he has in the past. His debate performance against Harris may have helped him long term, but it gave Kamala a boost in the short term. The closer we are to the election, the less he can afford to make crucial mistakes.
I've said before that Trump needs to run a disciplined campaign, and, to be honest, he hasn't exactly done so yet. Hopefully, he can keep the momentum going and avoid slip-ups that could give Kamala a boost at the most critical time of the election season.
