Snapshot: Don’t Panic About the Election

The Trump camp wants you to believe momentum is on their side and it’s theirs to win. Don’t buy it.

The vice president speaking in Clarkston, Georgia last week. (Photo by Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images)

Consider this a public service announcement: Do not panic. I know Hillary Clinton’s loss and Donald Trump’s win in 2016 was traumatic for most of us. I know that election’s result gave good reason to distrust polls. I know the long days of uncertainty in 2020 as we waited to learn Biden had won the election added to our angst, as did Trump’s Big Lie of fraud that followed.

But the Trump bunch wants us to believe that victory is already theirs. They want us to think that momentum is on their side and the election is slipping away from Kamala Harris. And we can be sure they will exploit Democrats’ anxiety to bolster their false narrative to insist anything other that a Trump loss could only be the result of fraud. And by the way, as Democratic strategist and fellow Substack author Simon Rosenberg has noted, the pro-Trump propaganda of inevitability has been aided by junk polls flooding the zone. “It’s ridiculous that Democrats are being asked to accept the integrity of polling averages when a plurality or a majority of the polls are coming from right-aligned organizations,” he said in the last few days.

Yes, the general polling shows a tight race, but there is plenty of reason for optimism—indeed to expect a solid Harris win. As I discussed with some of you on a live chat on Sunday, a New ABC News/Ipsos poll of likely voters shows Kamala Harris up 51-47 percent over Trump nationally. That’s a two-point rise from earlier this month. The poll also shows her winning Black men 85-11 percent and outperforming Biden’s share of votes from Black men in 2020 by 14 points, which belies recent doubts about troubles there. She also has a significant advantage with suburban women and Hispanics, two key groups. Sunday’s hatefest at Madison Square Garden insulting Puerto Ricans (among many others groups) will likely strengthen Harris’ numbers with that important bloc of voters.

And have you noticed the favorability ratings? A mid-October AP-NORC poll found that Harris has a plus-five rating with registered voters, while her running mate Tim Walz is plus-four. Trump, meanwhile, has a minus-18 rating and JD Vance has a minus-15. That’s telling: People like the Democrats and they don’t like the Republicans in this election.

That’s all reason to expect good news, even though I believe we should remain skeptical of the polls. Yes, the polling shows that Harris is essentially tied in all the battleground states—and no matter how strongly she wins she popular vote, we remain at the mercy of the Electoral College. But unlike Trump, who’s never achieved a majority, Harris continues to have the ability to raise the ceiling and bring in new voters (hence all the outreach to Trump-exhausted Republicans). Exuberant rallies with 30k+ supporters—while obviously not determinative—should calm your nerves a little that voters are energized and want to turn the page on Trump’s grim world of carnage, hate and division.

So even though no one can say exactly what the outcome will be, don’t buy into the false narrative that Harris is in trouble and a Trump win may be inevitable. It’s not only not true, it helps Trump’s certain plan to deny anything other than total victory. Let’s hope Harris’ closing argument tonight from the Ellipse—where Trump’s incitement took place on Jan. 6—strengthens our confidence and voter turnout.

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