How Trump, or Kamala, could win, as all sides zero in on the debate

No one knows who’s going to win this election.

The polls are so tight in the top battleground states, with Donald Trump or Kamala Harris leading by a point or two – a statistical tie – that a small number of voters or even the weather could make the difference.

There is a sense that Kamala’s crusade has stalled. She got no bump from the Democratic convention, perhaps because her joy-filled, vibes-based campaign had already soared during her first month as the nominee.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s approval rating has jumped to 48 percent, the highest of his presidency. Some pundits are crediting an improvement in the economy, but that’s not it. It’s because the president is largely out of the line of fire now that he’s stepped aside. 

TRUMP, KAMALA AIMING FOR THE MIDDLE WITH VARYING DEGREES OF SUCCESS

So the media have begun beating the drums for next Tuesday’s ABC debate, which may be the only such encounter between the two. If Trump can be disciplined and saddle Harris with the unpopular Biden record, he’ll win. If Harris can hold her own against a former president and deflect his attacks, she will have closed the stature gap.

And of course the airwaves will be flooded with partisans saying their candidate annihilated the other candidate.

In an interesting thought experiment, the New York Times had two columnists – both anti-Trump conservatives – write opposing pieces looking back on a Trump or Harris victory.

David Brooks, who is friendly with Biden, said the Trump camp "had one job: to define Kamala Harris as an elite San Francisco liberal before she could define herself as a middle-class moderate. The Trump campaign did next to nothing. All they needed was to play the 2019 clips of Harris sounding like a wokester cliché, but they couldn’t even come up with an argument…

"This mistake could have been fatal for the Republicans, because Trump is the 46 percent man. That’s roughly the share of the popular vote he won in 2016 and 2020. He was never going to ride a majority wave to victory in 2024, so it would have been helpful to take his opponent down a few points.

"And yet this is the pattern with Trump. He seems to do everything possible to sabotage his own campaigns, but still does surprisingly well in elections."

WHY KAMALA HARRIS AND DANA BASH GET A MIXED GRADE IN VP’S FIRST MEDIA SIT DOWN

That’s in part because Trump does 2 or 3 percent better, based on the last two elections, than his preelection polling. And the pundits should get that by now.

Though Trump could be "jerkish," says Brooks, the fastest-growing states are mostly governed by Republicans, including Florida, Texas, Idaho and Montana.

What’s more, "the Democrats dominate the media, the universities, the cultural institutions and government. Even the big corporations, headquartered in places like New York and San Francisco, are trending blue…

"This is what the educated elites always do. They promise to do stuff for us, but they end up serving only themselves."

And in my view, that’s always been the secret to Trump’s success: Playing on the resentments of those mostly less educated voters who feel the game is rigged against them. It’s the thing about Trump loyalists that top journalists, who tend to move in the same circles as the Dems – note the revolving door with MSNBC – least understand. 

That’s why they have been too quick to dismiss Trump voters as yahoos, racists, xenophobes and deplorables. And it’s why MAGA voters have been willing to overlook Jan. 6, indictments and even his softening stance on abortion. Trump has the right enemies.

Ross Douthat analyzes the hypothetical Harris victory, saying that the menu of liberal orthodoxy – what Ezra Klein has called the "everything bagel" spirit – has become the most powerful ideology in America:

"You can wander from an Ivy League faculty lounge to a corporate human resources department to a Hollywood gathering to a magazine editorial meeting and feel as though you inhabit a single-party state."

The vice president mostly followed "a Marie Kondo strategy, applying the life-changing magic of tidying up to the Democratic platform. She didn’t offer a comprehensive moderate agenda or seek out a Sister Souljah confrontation with some left-wing interest group. Instead she offered a form of progressive minimalism…

"Her convention speech was especially Kondo-ist: Short, sparse, and nonspecific about virtually everything except restoring Roe v. Wade, protecting middle-class entitlements and keeping Trump out of the Oval Office. The interest groups got oblique gestures, not shout-outs and promises."

And then there was the media strategy – a grand total of one interview, with CNN – and the dropping of past left-wing positions that frustrated Republicans as well.

So how did she win? By liberating her party from laundry-list liberalism. 

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"When being a Democrat just means being pro-choice and anti-Trump, it’s a lot more relaxing and, yes, joyful," Douthat says. And Trump supporters "complained that he was too undisciplined — which is to say, too much himself — to drive a consistent anti-Harris message."

Both columnists rely on assumptions that may or may not happen.

Which is why the 2024 contest remains impossible to forecast.

Strip everything else away and you have Trump outperforming his polling and the make-or-break debate.

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Most debates don’t live up to the advance hype. This one really could decide who gets to run as the "change" candidate – a former president or incumbent veep – and moves into the Oval Office.