Cautiously optimisticish
Democrat Kamala Harris has surged ahead of Republican Donald Trump, 48%-43%, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll found.
The findings reflect an eight-point turnaround in the presidential race from late June, when Trump had led President Joe Biden in the survey by nearly four points.
…
“I think people are cautiously optimistic that they’re going to have a lot better chance with Harris than they would have had with Biden going head-to-head with Trump,” said Amy Hendrix, 46, of Fort Worth. An independent who usually votes Democratic, she was among those called in the poll. “I’m very excited to vote for a woman, and that’s just the truth.”
I’m excited to smack Trump in the face again.
That’s a little too much of a lead for the comfort of the Horse Race Media.
They’ll do everything they can to create another But Her Emails “scandal” to try to make it closer. CNN seriously had a headline declaring that the superseding indictment against Trump was bad for Harris. And they’re already chomping at the bit for the slightest pretext to declare the Harris/Walz interview a debacle. Meanwhile, Trump can ignore Army regulations and use soldiers’ graves as political props, and make crude sexual remarks about Harris, and the best the “Liberal” media can do is to chuckle at how Trump continues to flout political norms.
Trump flouts more than just political norms; he flouts every norm there is, and does it with a smirk. And you’re right, the horse race media can’t stand for the spread. It must be close, and when they make it close, then it turns to Trump, and they’re all like “wha happen?”
Apparently Trump is now so concerned about the abortion issue hurting him that, in addition to promising to protect reproductive rights, he’s also promising that a second Trump Administration will have the government pay for IVF treatments.
It’ll be interesting to see how the anti-choicers react to all this. I assume that most of them will conclude that Trump is bullshitting here, and, as usual, that is a safe assumption. Certainly a lot of Trump supporters enjoy his lying and get a thrill of being “in on the con” at least until they find they’re not. But this is not a movement that is renowned for tolerating a lot of rhetorical leeway from its politicians. Perhaps Trump, having delivered the Court that issued Dobbs, will be cut as much slack as he wants on this issue.
Even more fun will be watching JD Vance twist himself in knots on this issue, because the movement isn’t likely to extend the same grace to him.
IVF is pretty popular amongst the church going set (which skews older) provided they’re not NARAL donors; without it having a kid in your mid-40s to earliest 50s is pretty dicey.