In the first half of her campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris raised $361 million in a month and another $47 million in a day.
In the first half of her campaign, Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris and encouraged 400,000 people to register to vote.
In the first half of her campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris pantsed Donald Trump in a debate, out-TVing a TV pro.
I’ve been tracking the weird timing of this race. Sunday begins the 22nd month that Trump has been running. Because his damn campaign has been going on forever, he’s been plodding through the 92% mark of his campaign for days, stuck in slow-motion.
Today marks the 54th day of Harris’ campaign, with 53 left. Thus begins the second half of her campaign.
There are still things that could unsettle the race. Less than a month ago I listed six things that might yet do so:
- Kamala avoided any violent protests at the DNC (though her campaign also refused to grant a speaking slot to anyone supporting Palestinians, something that could affect her Michigan support).
- There’s no sign of a ceasefire in Israel, and Joe Biden has done little to forestall Israeli actions as they move to the West Bank.
- The debate did turn out to be pretty tumultuous, and it seems to have given Harris a slight boost in the polls — but thus far, it’s not clear how much.
- Between that and a particularly bad outing in New York last week, there is finally increased focus on how unhinged the former President is.
- His attack on immigrants in Springfield has led to political violence; I fear there will be more as Trump gets more desperate.
- Trump won’t be sentenced before the election (which could have helped as much as hurt him), but a superseding indictment will provide prosecutors a way to lay out his alleged crimes two weeks from now, on September 26.
On top of bad campaign news, Trump’s financial plight may begin to dominate headlines. In apparent response to Trump’s debate, his social media company crashed harder than it already was.
Unless the stock crashes some more, Trump can start unloading his Truth Social stock on Thursday. Devin Nunes seems more intent on using it to engage in diplomatic discussions with small Balkan nations.
On Monday, Trump and his failsons (including Barron) will unveil their next grift, a cryptocurrency. As Truth Social was, this is largely an effort to cash in on Trump’s popularity — but doing so significantly depends on winning the election and installing a captive SEC Chair.
If nothing else, the focus on Trump’s grift might finally get the press to focus on how much Trump defrauds his rubes.
Meanwhile, the House GOP is doing what the House GOP does: struggling to keep the government open. There’s a non-zero chance their incompetence, long hidden by supine journalists, will become visible to voters in an epic way in the next few weeks. Trump is rooting for a shutdown in the same way he made the GOP kill the border bill.
Against that background, the things that happen in the last 7.5 weeks of a campaign will happen like they normally do: volunteers will continue to call potential voters, try to get them to commit to voting for Harris, and then start encouraging voters to vote early. Harris will have extra help from unions this year to get out the vote, but she’ll need extra support from lawyers to fight back against Trump’s fuckery.
But even as that’s happening, Harris is still reaching out to new voting groups, which is one reason I’m obsessed about the timing.
The accelerated timeline shrinks the time between the moment something — perhaps an endorsement from some disgusted Republican or seeing Harris’ stature in the debate — leads a voter to first consider the possibility of voting for her and the moment they have to decide. The endorsement by the Cheneys is about creating a permission structure for Republicans to do so — to help them believe they can be patriots even if voting for a Democrat. Swift’s endorsement makes it more likely younger women will make more effort that twenty-somethings normally do to turn out. With more time, the Vice President might convert more voters, might get more voters to decide to show up.
Trump is doing everything he can to help, though, spreading neo-Nazi lies about Haitian immigrants, bringing 9/11 denier Laura Loomer to the 9/11 memorial, and hosting events with Hitler fans who attacked the Capitol at his golf resort.
But at the halfway mark, this race is still neck-and-neck.
Donald Trump is making it more clear what a vote for him would mean. But there are still far too many American voters who want the con he’s selling.