In the previous article, I highlighted why the Electoral College is still overwhelmingly in favor of former President Donald Trump rather than Vice President Kamala Harris. But the map is just one of many aspects that must be taken into account in this election beyond the surface-level media frenzy.

The few apparent “strengths” of Kamala’s campaign are simply not so. If anything, the hidden strengths of this election much more heavily favor President Trump.

Poison Polls

Just as with Hillary Clinton eight years ago, the reason that is most frequently given as supposed “proof” of Kamala’s insurmountable lead is public opinion polling.

Even when one takes into account the fact that numerous polls released since Kamala’s so-called “honeymoon” phase show that this race is still in Trump’s favor, a closer look at the polls that are in Kamala’s favor reveals discrepancies that can only be explained by either sheer incompetence or deliberate deception.

One such poll was released by The Economist and YouGov, giving Kamala a mere two-point lead over President Trump, 46% to 44%, while RFK scores 3%. Never mind the fact that such a narrow popular vote lead would most likely equate to a decisive electoral college victory for Trump, a closer look at this poll’s crosstabs reveals that the sample size was D+10. When this error is corrected to a much more accurate sample, it would give President Trump a decisive popular vote lead and a landslide in the electoral college.

A similar poll was released by the left-wing organization ActiVote, with a focus on the state of Texas. It gives President Trump a 6-point lead, with 53% to Kamala’s 47%. However, this poll’s crosstabs reveal an even more egregious error in sampling, with a sample size of D+12. A similar correction of this mistake to a more accurate reflection of The Lone Star State’s political makeup would give President Trump a double-digit lead.

One other form of polling malpractice, besides grossly incorrect sample sizes, is the tactic of withholding polls that are favorable to Kamala and releasing them several weeks later, in an attempt to skew the aggregate by having these polls appear to be conducted later than they actually were. One such example was committed by the Cook Political Report, which released its polls of seven swing states roughly three weeks after they were held.

This is a crucial part of the mainstream media’s strategy to prop up Kamala Harris as somehow being universally popular when the facts underneath the surface simply do not agree with this fantasy. The real results of the latest polling only confirm that President Trump never lost the lead.

(Third) Party Time

One major factor in this election that seems to have all but been forgotten is the historic role that third-party candidates will play in November.

At the top of the list is still Robert F. Kennedy Jr. While he has undoubtedly gone down in national polls, his campaign is still trudging along like the tortoise against two hares. Most crucially, he has been wildly successful in gaining ballot access, only recently crossing the threshold of being on the ballot in enough states that he could, hypothetically, win 270 electoral votes. This removes one major barrier to his chances of qualifying for the upcoming debate between President Trump and Kamala Harris.

Not only is it the sheer amount of states for which Kennedy has qualified, making him one of only three third-party candidates to be eligible for 270 electoral votes or more, but it is the strategy of which states he has aimed for and achieved. He has gained ballot access in the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Iowa, as well as other states like Maine, Minnesota, and Nebraska, and awaiting certification in Wisconsin, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Virginia.

It is clear which of the two major parties is more negatively impacted by Kennedy’s presence on the ballot. Just look at the partisan leanings of all those who have tried to keep him out of the race. In New York, a Democratic judge ruled against Kennedy’s effort to get on the ballot in the Empire State; in Nevada, the state Democratic Party filed a lawsuit to keep both Kennedy and the Green Party off the ballot.

Aside from his skepticism on vaccines, there is absolutely no issue on which Kennedy can claim to run to the Right of President Trump. From global warming, to gun control, to abortion, Kennedy is an old-school liberal who most strongly appeals to the older voters in the Democratic Party’s base; liberal Baby Boomers who remember his family’s reign, from his uncle to his father, and long for the Democratic Party of old to come back. Kennedy promises to bring back that mid-20th-century liberalism, and that is what the modern Democratic Party fears the most.

And Kennedy is just the beginning.

Back in the game is the Green Party, the most left-wing party in America. The Greens unquestionably made the difference in 2016: In the three Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the total number of votes received by Green Party nominee Jill Stein was higher than the final margin between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

It’s no wonder, then, that the Democratic Party went all-out in its efforts to keep the Greens off the ballot in as many swing states as possible in 2020. Through multiple lawsuits, the Democratic Party successfully blocked the ultra-left party from ballot access in every single swing state, with the sole exception of Michigan. This, coupled with the Greens’ nomination of a much less well-known nominee in Howie Hawkins, reduced their impact on the election to near-zero.

Now, the Greens are on the verge of once again nominating Stein, their nominee in both 2012 and 2016. Much like Ross Perot and the Reform Party, Jill Stein is the face of the Green Party and one who excites a not-insignificant portion of the left’s base.

Despite the Democrats’ best efforts to repeat their undemocratic strategy from 2020, the Greens have gained ballot access in the following swing states: Nevada, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Maine, and are awaiting certification in New Hampshire, Ohio, and Nebraska, among others.

Even Cornel West, the far-left black activist and socialist, has managed to get on the ballot in a handful of crucial states: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Maine, and Nebraska, and is awaiting certification in Michigan and Wisconsin.

A keen political observer may note two particularly unusual states that have been listed as among the swing states this year: Nebraska and Maine. These states are the only two in the country where electoral votes are partially awarded based on the results of the congressional districts, in addition to winner-take-all.

In both 2016 and 2020, President Trump successfully won the electoral vote of Maine’s second congressional district. But what most may understandably forget is just how close he came to winning Maine outright in 2016, when Hillary defeated him by a mere 3%, while Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson garnered 5% of the vote and Jill Stein achieved 2%.

This year, every single major third-party candidate has qualified for the ballot in Maine, including Kennedy, Stein, and West. All three of these candidates decisively hurt Kamala more than Trump, and if Kamala’s performance is closer to Hillary’s 3-point margin than Biden’s 9-point margin—an extremely likely outcome—then those candidates could take enough of the vote to swing the whole state towards Trump, giving him 3 of the state’s 4 electoral votes and putting him just that much closer to 270.

The same goes for Nebraska. While the state as a whole is reliably red, the second district has been considered a tossup; President Trump won it in 2016, while Biden won it by 6.5% in 2020. Nebraska, like Maine, will see Kennedy, Stein, and West all on the ballot, which has even led political strategists in the state to concede that the second district is now much more likely to go to Trump than to Kamala. It may simply be one more electoral vote, but in a race as crucial as this one, every single vote counts on the road to 270.

Even the Libertarian Party is looking to be a bigger burden for Kamala than for Trump this year. Although the Libertarians have historically been considered to be a bigger spoiler for Republicans than Democrats, there has been a noticeable shift in the Libertarian base, especially considering who was nominated this year.

President Trump took the bold step of addressing the Libertarian National Convention in Washington D.C. earlier this year, courting the libertarian vote by vowing to protect cryptocurrency, free political prisoners, and give positions in his second administration to libertarians.

Following his address, the party nominated Chase Oliver, the party’s U.S. Senate nominee in Georgia in 2022. Oliver, a gay activist and former Democrat who previously supported Obama, has voiced his support for transgenderism and COVID-era mask mandates and lockdowns, among many other explicitly anti-libertarian stances. In response to the nomination of the decidedly left-wing Oliver, a number of prominent libertarian activists and libertarian attendees at the convention vowed to support President Trump over their own party’s nominee.

As the largest third party in the country, the Libertarians have gained ballot access in all but a handful of states: New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Montana, and are awaiting certification in New Hampshire.

If the polls and the favorability ratings of both Trump and Kamala are any indication, this will once again be an election where third-party candidates will have a major impact, and perhaps even an outcome-altering impact. And with many of the Democrats’ interference efforts from 2020 being far less successful this time around, it’s Trump who stands to gain from the votes that will go to the third-party candidates.