There’s something in the air, I can feel it
Kamala Harris has been on track to likely win this election since she entered the race. None of the media’s ratings-based fear mongering over the past few weeks has changed that fact. I’ve said all along that it could end up being closer than we’d like, but Kamala has been on track to win all along. That said, something has definitely shifted this week. You can feel it.
On the one side we’ve got Donald Trump imploding head first in a way that we all thought might happen but weren’t expecting to be quite so on the nose. Puerto Rico is garbage? Really? This is the kind of gift he’s giving us down the stretch? We’re seeing a wholesale shift in the tenor of this election. This election is now firmly about what a racist Trump is. Puerto Ricans and Latinos are mobilizing against him at a time when it matters most. And moderate suburban white voters are finally realizing that Trump’s detractors have been right about him all along when they’ve called him a racist.
How ugly is it getting for Trump? Nicky Jam, one of the few mainstream celebrity endorsements Trump has been able to pick up this cycle, just un-endorsed him. Nikki Haley, who was recently offering to campaign alongside Trump, is now publicly bashing his campaign for being sexist and racist. These are the kinds of backside-covering moves you see when people expect their candidate to lose in humiliating fashion and don’t want any of the egg on their own faces.
Meanwhile, separate and apart from all of this, Kamala Harris is surging forward with coalescence and momentum. More than 75,000 people showed up to hear her speak. Rally crowd size is not a leading indicator of voter turnout in general, but these kinds of rally numbers are hard to ignore. And she’s gaining endorsements by the day from people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who never endorses anyone on either side.
At this point it’s tough to say what the bigger and more impactful storyline is down the stretch, Trump’s face plant or Kamala’s momentous surge. At a time when people are making voting decisions en masse, both storylines are huge.
There’s something in the air. You can just sort of feel it. I truly like our chances. Please, please, please use these final days to identify a few like minded people around you and make sure they turn out to vote. That’s how we turn this historic momentum into a historic victory. But yeah, there’s something in the air – in a good way.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report