Size matters
According to a new poll conducted by the New York Times and Siena College, Kamala Harris is significantly ahead of Donald Trump in three key swing states. In Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan the Vice President leads by a remarkable 4 points. People surveyed said Harris is more intelligent, more honest and more temperamentally fit to run the country than Trump. The poll was conducted after Harris picked Tim Walz as her running mate, so it’s current with this ever-shifting political landscape.
While I am gratified by this single barometer, this tenuous, shaky finger on the pulse of American priority, I acknowledge that it’s just one poll, and polls have been known to be wrong. I derive far greater comfort from a different kind of poll. I like to look at crowd size. Not just that, but crowd enthusiasm. It’s the kind of metric that tells a more than theoretical story. Polls are nice, but I think crowd size matters more. Trump would approve of that. In theory, anyway.
And when it comes to crowds, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are kicking Donald’s ass. In the recent rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Harris and Walz filled to capacity an arena that holds nearly 20,000 people. Meanwhile, Trump was holding a simultaneous rally in Montana in an arena that holds just 7,000 people, and half of those seats were empty. And just to compare apples with apples, a week before Trump, held a rally in that same venue in Phoenix, and the crowd was much, much smaller. You can see a side-by-side comparison photo posted by “Kamala HQ” in her X-Twitter account.
MAGA knows all this, and they’re getting desperate. How do I know? Even now, as I am writing to you, brothers and sisters, I received the following notification of “breaking news” on X by some lamebrain calling himself “aka”: “BREAKING: It’s being reported that EVERY SINGLE person at the Kamala rally [in Phoenix] was paid, carefully vetted and the majority were flown in. It was invite open[sic] and not open to the public. They’re all paid actors.”
Allow me to retort. I replied to “aka” with the following: “Oh, ‘it’s being reported,’ is it? You mean being reported by the voices in your head? Wow, are you ever desperate. This is such an obvious lie, you would have to be a loony to believe it. You would have to be a Republican. But, I repeat myself.”
Naturally, bribing 20,000 people to come to your rally is something that would never be considered by any sane person. It would immediately leak. How do we know this? Because Trump has tried it many times — and it always leaked. That’s how.
What I personally dig about the crowd size metric is it not only tells you what people think, but unlike polls, it shows you how enthusiastic they are. And at the Harris-Walz rallies the people are wildly, joyfully enthusiastic! They shake the rafters with their cheers and their chants.
These aren’t paid actors, they’re people who planned their days around attending. They’re people who left the comfort of their homes just to see Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. And if they’ll do that, they’ll take the 30 or so minutes (on average) it takes to vote. Or they’ll do like I will do. They will take fifteen minutes and drop their vote at their local post office. And their enthusiasm means they will make sure their friends, neighbours and acquaintances will vote too. These are people on fire!
We have beat thin-skinned, convicted felon Donald at his favourite game. We have beat him in crowd size and crowd enthusiasm. That tells a story that has MAGA shaking in its boots.
So the conspiracy theory narrative that it’s all fake news is all Republicans have got. Because their convicted criminal candidate no longer has what it takes to draw real crowds. Kamala and Tim, on the other hand, have EXACTLY what it takes! And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.