All the attention is going to be on the Democratic Convention in Chicago this week but it's pretty clear that for the next few weeks, the center of gravity in American politics is going to be in Pennsylvania. All the strategists and political pundits tell us that both the Harris and the Trump campaigns see it as a must-win and according to the latest polls, it's a tight race there. Already both candidates and their running mates have held events in the Keystone State, with no doubt many more to come.
I recently spent some time in southern Pennsylvania, as I often do, visiting friends in the late summer and was struck by the fact that unlike 2016 and 2020 there were far fewer Trump signs out in the rural areas. For years they had kept their tattered big blue Trump flags flying even long after the elections but this year they seem to be few and far between. Sure there were some yards covered with signs and trucks festooned with bumper stickers but it's much rarer than it's been in the past. What that means, I can't say definitively but something has changed and it's fair to guess it has something to do with enthusiasm. It feels as though some of the air has gone out of the Trump balloon. ( I'm not the only one who sees that.)
Judging from his rally over the weekend in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., the hardcore cultists are still there for Trump but they're getting weirder by the day. Some reportedly showed up carrying semen specimen cups with JD Vance's picture on them with the words "JD Vance family kit" in an apparent attempt at as some kind of mockery of Tim and Gwen Walz's IVF struggles. But that was only slightly weirder than Trump's rally speech which featured some of his most unhinged commentary yet.
Less than four minutes into his speech he went into a long diatribe about Harris' TIME Magazine cover which he claimed without evidence was drawn by an artist when the pictures they took were unusable (implying she looked too ugly.) He said the image looked like Sophia Loren or Elizabeth Taylor and went on to complain about a column by Wall St. Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, who had written that Harris had an advantage in the race because she is a beautiful woman. This evidently made him very jealous because he believes he is a much better-looking person than she is:
Trump values his own TIME Magazine covers almost as much as his "ratings" so seeing Harris on one apparently triggered him in some primal way.
Republicans have been telling every reporter who will take their dictation (on background, of course) that Trump needs to talk more about policy and stop his personal attacks on his opponent. They say that the race is his to lose but only if he delves deeply into the policy details that Trump voters are supposedly dying to hear about.
Have they met Donald Trump? Have they met his voters? Anyone who believes that didn't hear his ecstatic followers cheering when he proclaimed that he's much better looking than Kamala Harris.
Donald Trump doesn't do "policy" unless by policy you mean that he incessantly lies and rambles incoherently. For example about the economy, whether it's his own record, which he mischaracterizes as the most successful the world has ever known, or the current administration, which he likewise mischaracterizes as the worst. When asked recently what he would do about high housing costs, Trump bizarrely answered "drill, baby, drill." But then "drill, baby, drill", tax cuts for the wealthy and tariffs are really his only "policy" prescription. And even after being president for four years, he's still monumentally ignorant about them:
Trump: A tariff is a tax on a foreign country. A lot of people like to say it’s a tax on us. No… It’s is a tax that doesn’t affect our country. pic.twitter.com/NNyNthZbKg
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 17, 2024
Trump is not going to change. He's made that clear, telling reporters last week, “I have to do it my way.” Nobody puts Trumpie in the corner.
On Sunday, Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Elmhoff along with Gov. Tim Walz and his wife Gwen went on a bus tour of western Pennsylvania where they stopped in at a campaign phone banking operation, bought some snacks at a Sheetz convenience store, got food at a local restaurant and went to a high school football practice. Contrary to popular myth, Harris was happy to take questions from the accompanying press on issues both shallow and substantive.
A new Washington Post/ABC/Ipsos poll has Harris ahead of Trump by 49% to 45% among registered voters and 51% to 45% among likely voters, which is a substantial improvement over Biden's numbers from a month ago. Nonetheless, when asked about it at one of the stops on the bus tour, she wisely said, “I very much consider us the underdog. We have a lot of work to do to earn the vote of the American people. That’s why we’re on this bus tour today.” Those numbers may look promising but they're just one poll with others showing a tighter margin.
More importantly, Harris was also asked about the Child Tax credit at one of the stops and she was ready with a serious, informed response (and it wasn't "drill, baby, drill.")
Excellent answer on funding CTC. There’s zero benefit to getting sucked into a “how are you gonna pay for it” game
— James Medlock (@jdcmedlock) August 19, 2024
pic.twitter.com/MuPoV2dWKN
Walz, in turn, gave a rousing "Friday Night Lights" speech at the football practice at the famous Aliquippa High School, where NFL Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis actually joined them. Walz is clearly a gifted politician:
This man is effortlessly linking Democratic party values to the emotional foundations of American football culture as part of a Presidential campaign.
— Franklin Leonard (@franklinleonard) August 19, 2024
If I had read it in a screenplay, I’d have told you that it’s a lovely feel good story, but such a politician doesn’t exist. https://t.co/MoJ751ducj
Kamala Harris isn't bad herself:
Total Vibe Shift pic.twitter.com/vvYQqS2dul
— Polling USA (@USA_Polling) August 18, 2024
Harris and Walz flew out to Chicago last night with Harris scheduled to appear tomorrow night at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) when Joe Biden symbolically passes the torch to her. On Tuesday, she and Walz will travel to Milwaukee Wisconsin for a rally at the Fiserv Forum, the same venue where the RNC took place in July and on Wednesday and Thursday Walz and Harris will accept their nominations at the DNC.
Trump meanwhile will be trying to counterprogram the Democrats' convention with rallies in various swing states and his campaign will be holding press conferences at the Trump property in Chicago on a daily basis. Unfortunately for them, the DNC is already using that venue for its own messaging:
📍Chicago
— Alex Tabet (@AlexanderTabet) August 19, 2024
The DNC projects “Project 2025 HQ” onto Trump Tower in downtown Chicago on the eve of the Democratic National Convention pic.twitter.com/1JrkyidP33
The Harris/Walz ticket has the momentum, creativity and palpable excitement on its side. Whether that's enough to overcome Trump's inexplicable hold on the Republican Party after eight years of his now very tired old schtick is unknown. When they get a post-convention bump, according to Politico's polling expert, "candidates who end the conventions on the upswing typically see that momentum continue through to Election Day." So, if the stars align and there is no external catastrophe, the Democrats might deliver that historic victory we all thought we were getting back in 2016, and our long Trumpian nightmare may finally be over.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that former NFL star Jerome Bettis graduated from Aliquippa High School. The story has been updated.
