WASHINGTON: A popular meme circulating online shows a schoolkid telling his teacher “the dog ate my homework and an immigrant ate my dog.” With a growing roster of polls showing Kamala Harris edging ahead in the Presidential election, both nationwide and in battleground states, the Trump campaign is building redundancies into its election denialism, proffering a range of excuses from “fake polls,” to Iranian interference to help Democrats, to illegal immigrants being enrolled to vote.
A survey released Wednesday by the Trump-leaning Fox News shows Harris leading the MAGA supremo 50-48 in nationwide polls, the first time the Democratic candidate has touched 50 per cent. A separate set of polls by a NewYorkTimes-led consortium shows them tied 48-48, but puts Harris ahead 50-46 in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania. Another Quinnipiac University poll put Harris 51-45 ahead in Pennsylvania and by lesser margins in Michigan and Wisconsin. Polls by Washington Post and CBS News also puts Harris ahead by three to four points nationwide and a Cook political report shows Harris edging ahead in almost all battleground states.
All polls show Harris has either caught up or edged ahead of Trump, and none show Trump improving his numbers from the time he led comfortably when Joe Biden was his opponent.
The Trump camp’s response? The polls are “fake” and aimed at demoralizing Republicans. “Consistently, what you’ve seen in 2016 and 2020 is that the media uses fake polls to drive down Republican turnout and to create dissension and conflict with Republican voters,” Trump’s running mate JD Vance told Fox News, characterizing Harris’ numbers ticking up as a “sugar high,” that would level off. “The Trump campaign is in a very, very good spot. We’re going to win this race; we just have to run through the finish line,” he added.
Trump himself seized on reports of Iranian cyber activists trying to mess with US elections to claim that that the FBI caught Iran spying on his campaign and “giving all the information to the Harris campaign,” although the FBI said they had sent unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with President Biden’s campaign in June and July. “THEREFORE SHE AND HER CAMPAIGN WERE ILLEGALLY SPYING ON ME. TO BE KNOWN AS THE IRAN, IRAN, IRAN CASE! WILL KAMALA RESIGN IN DISGRACE FROM POLITICS? WILL THE COMMUNIST LEFT PICK A NEW CANDIDATE TO REPLACE HER?” Trump trolled in an effort to discredit the polls and disenfranchise his rival.
The MAGA supremo also made an audacious effort to stir New Yorkers into voting for him with a raucous rally in Long Island, claiming, as he did in California, that the state was ripe for picking because Democrats had diminished the state. Both California and New York last voted Republican during the Reagan era and are now considered reliably Democratic (by around +20) to an extent neither party campaigns there. Candidates only go there for fund-raising or to campaign for Congressional candidates, which is what Trump was doing, although he used the occasion to talk up an improbable victory in his inimitable style, telling New Yorkers to “get off your ass and vote for me.”
Lagging in the polls, the Trump campaign has raised the tempo of its narrative on illegal immigrants to whip up it nativists base, including doubling down on the “Haitians eating pets” canard that originated in Springfield, Ohio, last week. Despite Ohio’s GOP governor and Republican officials in Springfield telling the Trump-Vance campaign officials — who called them to check on the story — that it was baseless, Vance continues to peddle the story, arguing that it is legit to “create” such stories to draw attention to the illegal immigrant issue, which in his view, is diminishing the quality of life for Americans.
A survey released Wednesday by the Trump-leaning Fox News shows Harris leading the MAGA supremo 50-48 in nationwide polls, the first time the Democratic candidate has touched 50 per cent. A separate set of polls by a NewYorkTimes-led consortium shows them tied 48-48, but puts Harris ahead 50-46 in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania. Another Quinnipiac University poll put Harris 51-45 ahead in Pennsylvania and by lesser margins in Michigan and Wisconsin. Polls by Washington Post and CBS News also puts Harris ahead by three to four points nationwide and a Cook political report shows Harris edging ahead in almost all battleground states.
All polls show Harris has either caught up or edged ahead of Trump, and none show Trump improving his numbers from the time he led comfortably when Joe Biden was his opponent.
The Trump camp’s response? The polls are “fake” and aimed at demoralizing Republicans. “Consistently, what you’ve seen in 2016 and 2020 is that the media uses fake polls to drive down Republican turnout and to create dissension and conflict with Republican voters,” Trump’s running mate JD Vance told Fox News, characterizing Harris’ numbers ticking up as a “sugar high,” that would level off. “The Trump campaign is in a very, very good spot. We’re going to win this race; we just have to run through the finish line,” he added.
Trump himself seized on reports of Iranian cyber activists trying to mess with US elections to claim that that the FBI caught Iran spying on his campaign and “giving all the information to the Harris campaign,” although the FBI said they had sent unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with President Biden’s campaign in June and July. “THEREFORE SHE AND HER CAMPAIGN WERE ILLEGALLY SPYING ON ME. TO BE KNOWN AS THE IRAN, IRAN, IRAN CASE! WILL KAMALA RESIGN IN DISGRACE FROM POLITICS? WILL THE COMMUNIST LEFT PICK A NEW CANDIDATE TO REPLACE HER?” Trump trolled in an effort to discredit the polls and disenfranchise his rival.
The MAGA supremo also made an audacious effort to stir New Yorkers into voting for him with a raucous rally in Long Island, claiming, as he did in California, that the state was ripe for picking because Democrats had diminished the state. Both California and New York last voted Republican during the Reagan era and are now considered reliably Democratic (by around +20) to an extent neither party campaigns there. Candidates only go there for fund-raising or to campaign for Congressional candidates, which is what Trump was doing, although he used the occasion to talk up an improbable victory in his inimitable style, telling New Yorkers to “get off your ass and vote for me.”
Lagging in the polls, the Trump campaign has raised the tempo of its narrative on illegal immigrants to whip up it nativists base, including doubling down on the “Haitians eating pets” canard that originated in Springfield, Ohio, last week. Despite Ohio’s GOP governor and Republican officials in Springfield telling the Trump-Vance campaign officials — who called them to check on the story — that it was baseless, Vance continues to peddle the story, arguing that it is legit to “create” such stories to draw attention to the illegal immigrant issue, which in his view, is diminishing the quality of life for Americans.