At this point, you have to imagine that Kamala Harris’s campaign staff is pulling out their hair, trying to figure out what went wrong with their work. Many people say she treats her staff badly, so it’s likely that she’s also being mean to them. It’s clear that they can’t switch out the candidate again at this point, and it gets worse as she talks.

While this is going on, President Donald Trump is pulling off brilliant moves like his showing at McDonald’s over the weekend, which went viral and really caught people’s attention. His pace seems to be coming at the right time.

Harris is having trouble. RealClearPolitics polls show that she is behind in all of the key states. She is not on time with the Polymarket prediction. At the same time, the popular vote has been getting even tighter, so Harris is only ahead by one point in the race. Nate Silver also thinks she’s behind schedule.

Townhall revealed that Silver made a “laundry list” of 24 things that helped Trump win. I’ve broken down his points here in short form, and I’ve added some of my own inside the quotes. The link will show you what he said.

1. He said that even though Harris is the favorite to win the general vote, Republicans really do have an advantage in the Electoral College by about two percentage points.

2. Inflation rose to 9.1 percent when Biden and Harris were in charge. Prices are still “much higher than when Joe Biden took office,” even though they’ve gone down a bit. The rise in spending is due to Democrats. I’ll add that Harris broke the tie for some of that spending.

3. “Growth in income has been slow for many years for blue-collar Americans amid growing corporate profits.”

4. “Incumbent parties around the world are doing very poorly.”

5. “Populism is now a highly effective strategy.”

6. The “rise in illegal immigration” during Biden and Harris’s time in office, as well as the pushback around the world.

7. In 2019, Harris was very far to the left and held “unpopular positions.” She can’t really explain why her views have changed now.

8. “Cultural vibes are going to the right, and the liberals are paying the price for COVID oversteps, crime, and other issues.”

9. People remember the “relatively good economic performance” of Trump’s first three years in office. Some people think that the problems in 2020 are caused by Democrats. No, I think they’re just taking COVID into account and understanding that prices went through the roof after Biden and Harris were elected.

10. “Democrats’ dominance with Black voters is slipping.” You can say that again: as we’ve already said, Trump seems to be getting more support from a lot of different groups, including black and Hispanic people.

11. The rising gap between men and women.

12. The fact that Biden is running at an old age “neuters” claims about Trump’s age.

13. Harris got back to work late and took over staff from what she called a “poorly-run Biden campaign.”

14. She wants to be the first woman president, and people who weren’t sure about Hillary Clinton broke with her last time around.

15. “Trust in the media continues to go down,” so it’s tough for “legitimate Trump critiques to penetrate to the mass public.” I think that’s because people have seen the media lie and twist the truth so many times.

16. He says Trump has “traits of a classic con man” and that “Trump is skilled at convincing voters that he is on their side.” Or things went better for people while he was in charge because he made better rules.

17. “Democrats’ college-educated class has bad ideas about how to appeal to the masses,” while Trump has done more to connect with a wide range of people.

18. He said that the Democrats’ claim that “Trump is a big threat to democracy” is “important,” but it’s a “tough sell” because “voters don’t think that democracy is threatened.” It’s hard to sell because it’s the Democrats who are fighting the Supreme Court and the Electoral College. People don’t buy it. Not to mention kicking Biden out of the race even though he won the primary voting.

19. “The world has turned more unstable under Joe Biden’s tenure.”

20. The war between Israel and Hamas has split the Democratic electorate.

21. “There are now more third-party candidates that lean left than right ones, and RFK Jr. endorsed Donald Trump which undermined Kamala’s post-convention momentum.”

22. Elon Musk is now a Trump backer. As Silver puts it, X has “shifted far to the right.” Elon and Silicon Valley set up a “permission structure for others in their group to advocate for Donald Trump explicitly and give a new base of cultural influence.”

23. The efforts to kill President Trump. “Closely correlated with an uptick in favorability ratings for Trump,” according to Silver. Polls show that he’s “more popular than in 2016 or 2020.”

24. “Harris has been going with the flow and hasn’t been able to explain his clear vision for the nation.” The plan might have worked if the “fundamentals” were on her side, but they aren’t.

That he doesn’t like Trump and has ideas that I don’t agree with makes me more interested in the fact that he’s ready to talk about the problems with Harris’ campaign. He makes a good case for many of the things we’ve already written about.

All of this is good news for Trump, and he may have made it even better by working hard over the weekend.

Author: Blake Ambrose