Gaslighting In Overdrive

Democrats are giddy at the prospect that their last-minute switch of Kamala Harris for Joe Biden will allow them to leave behind not only the decrepit Joe Biden–whose schedule this week included only one item, welcoming the Texas Rangers to the White House, which left him dazed and confused–but also the record of the Biden/Harris administration. At rallies, Harris has been promising to end inflation if she is elected. What a pity that she kept her plan secret from Biden for the years she has been vice president, or that she doesn’t go ahead and implement it now.

Speaking for the Democratic Party, the New York Times email this morning is headed “A swing in momentum.”

Everything seems different now.

A campaign that once felt like a death march has become a dance party for Democrats. Tens of thousands flock to rallies in battleground states and Zoom confabs online — White dudes! Cat ladies! Even venture capitalists for Harris! The campaign coffers are overflowing. And President Biden’s dark warnings about a “battle for the soul of America” have been replaced with a brat-infused pursuit of “the joy.”

And so on. Of course, whether momentum has swung depends on where you get your news. This morning the New York Post headlined: “Kamala Harris finally responds to claims that Tim Walz abandoned National Guard unit before Iraq deployment.” Actually, Harris didn’t respond. This is what she said:

“Listen, I praise anyone who has presented themselves to serve our country,” Harris said. “And I think that we all should.”

That answer will satisfy CNN and the New York Times. Whether it satisfies American voters remains to be seen.

Has the presidential race been reshuffled with Harris’s ascension to the top of the ticket? It some respects, it certainly has. And some swing state polls are showing a tighter race than when Biden was the candidate. It will take a while for the dust to settle, so I think the Democrats’ giddiness is premature, although I also think Harris inevitably will run stronger than Biden would have. She doesn’t fall down, and she can read a teleprompter.

But the most recent Rasmussen poll suggests that the race may not have been reset as thoroughly as the Democrats would wish:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that, in a two-way matchup, 49% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for Trump, while 44% would vote for Harris. Four percent (4%) say they’d vote for some other candidate and three percent (3%) are undecided.

Robert Kennedy is turning out to be a non-factor.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this survey is that minorities, so far at least, are not abandoning Trump for Harris:

In the two-way matchup, 53% of whites, 30% of black voters, 53% of Hispanics and 50% of other minorities would vote for Trump, while 42% of whites, 62% of black voters, and 38% of both Hispanics and other minorities would vote for Harris.

So Trump has a clear lead among Hispanics and Asians, while I doubt that the Democrats can win a national race if they garner only 62% of the black vote. There is much more polling to come in the days ahead, and eventually the key polls will be those in the swing states. But for now, don’t be depressed by the Democrats’ gaslighting.

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