When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his own presidential campaign and threw his support behind Donald Trump, it sent shivers among the ranks of the Democratic presidential campaign. Prior polling had shown that Kennedy’s voters by varying degrees preferred Trump over Harris; his endorsement, Democrats feared, could be enough to tip the scale permanently in Trump’s favor.
The most recent polling data from RealClearPolling.com suggests that this is exactly what is happening. In polls published by Yahoo News on Tuesday, August 27th, Kamala Harris only ekes out a 1% lead over Trump. Previously, various polls have put her lead at 3-5%.
It is important to remember that polls with a strong Harris favorability are consistently published by left-leaning mainstream media. In 2016, the same outfits predicted a Hillary Clinton victory over Trump by about the same margins. At the same time, the Yahoo polls reported by RealClearPolling show that not even a politically biased outfit can produce a convincing Harris lead in this race.
In fact, Rasmussen Reports, one of the very few polling outfits that have a good predictive track record, put Trump ahead of Harris by 2-3% already before the Kennedy endorsement.
Since Robert Kennedy’s announcement, another prominent Democrat, former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, has also lined up behind Trump. These are signs that Democrats outside of the ‘political swamp’ in Washington, DC are sensing which way public opinion is turning, but even people with deeper ties inside the Democratic Party are beginning to have second thoughts about Kamala Harris.
One of them is Dean Phillips, a Democratic Congressman from Minnesota. He was the only challenger to President Biden in this year’s Democratic primaries; by not heeding the call from the Democratic Party to drop out of the primaries—in the name of democracy—Phillips became the focal point of considerable ire. Fearing ostracization, he tried hard during the Democratic National Convention to talk his way into a future Kamala Harris presidential administration.
Apparently sensing which way the winds are blowing, Congressman Phillips has now declared his interest to serve under whoever is elected president. According to Yahoo News, Phillips recently
said he would accept an invitation to serve in either a Democratic or Republican administration, telling Fox News Digital he aspires to “help this country in some way, shape or form.”
When an incumbent Democrat in Congress opens himself to work for a Republican president, and when he does so during a presidential campaign, it does not matter that he also will accept an invite from the Democrat, should she win. This level of openness toward a Republican is unheard of, especially in the aggressively partisan political climate that President Obama created and left as his foremost legacy.
It is a signal from people on the inside of American politics that Donald Trump is doing better with the electorate than official polling suggests. A majority of the polling done in America never reaches the public eye: it is done for proprietary reasons, to help a political candidate hone his or her message, target constituencies, and redirect campaign funds for the greatest chance of victory.
As one example of what these unofficial polls can do: in 2016, the Trump campaign found a small but crucial number of states where Hillary Clinton was officially considered the frontrunner but was unable to reach that 50% mark of voter support. After a successful targeted campaign in each one of those states, Trump surprised many political pundits by edging out his Democrat opponent.
With support from Democrats trickling in, Trump and his vice-presidential candidate, Sen. J.D. Vance, are increasingly likely to defeat Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz. That would be a welcome change for the better after four years under Joe Biden. At the same time, if President Trump returns to the White House for a second term, he will need a Republican Congressional majority if he is going to make a meaningful difference.
It is hard to predict which way the almost-evenly split House of Representatives will go; from time to time, individual congressional races depend more on the personality of the candidates than on policy substance. However, based on experience, we should see an expansion of the razor-thin Republican margin in this year’s election, and a recoil in the form of a Democrat comeback two years from now.
It is a bit easier to predict which way the Senate is going to go. Currently, there are 49 Republicans in the chamber and 51 Democrats (including three independents who caucus with them). There is a good chance that this will turn into a 52-48 Republican majority in November.
In Montana, incumbent Democrat Senator Jon Tester is trailing Republican challenger Tim Sheehy by about five percentage points. Sheehy is one of several retired Navy SEALs who have entered politics recently; in Virginia, retired SEAL Hung Cao is the Republican candidate for Senate. Currently, Cao is trailing incumbent Democrat Senator Tim Kaine by 10-12 points, making it unlikely that he will flip the seat that Kaine has now held for two Senate terms. But a lot can happen between now and November.
Things look better for Republicans in Maryland, where 80-year-old incumbent Democrat Ben Cardin is retiring from the Senate seat he has held for 18 years. For the longest time, it looked like the Democratic candidate, Angela Alsobrooks, would sail through the campaign season to a convincing victory in November. But according to Fox News,
Former two-term Gov. Larry Hogan—the Republican nominee in the race—and Democrat nominee Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks both stand at 46% support
This is a formidable improvement in Hogan’s chances, which looked dim back in May and June when he was trailing Alsobrooks by 8-10 percentage points. If this trend continues through the fall, Democrats will lose a senate seat in one of the most heavily Democratic states in the country. According to some polls, Kamala Harris leads Trump by some 30 points in Maryland.
Losing a Senate seat in such a deeply Democratic state will be demoralizing for the party, but their losses will probably not stop there. They are also likely to lose their seat in West Virginia, where Joe Manchin is retiring. He is a long-time Democrat currently serving out his last Senate term. Although Manchin formally left the Democrat party earlier this year, in the Senate he continues to vote mostly with his former party. With his retirement, a U.S. Senate seat has been left open in a solidly Republican state. Manchin, a former governor of West Virginia, had a unique relationship with his state’s voters; the current Democratic candidate, former Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliot, is facing an almost impossible race against the Republican, former Governor Jim Justice.
If the Republicans win in Maryland, Montana, and West Virginia, and if they do not lose any other race, they can look forward to a 52-48 majority in the Senate. If Donald Trump wins the presidential election, his vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance will serve as the voting president of the Senate. In that capacity, he would increase the Republican vote tally to 53.
Republicans are unusually well positioned in terms of potential Senate race losses; interestingly, the only seat where an incumbent Republican is polling dangerously close to losing is in Republican-controlled Texas. Ted Cruz is running for a third term, and although polls earlier in the summer put him ahead of Democrat Colin Allred by 10-11 percentage points, in the most recent poll, Cruz was ahead by only two points.
In the end, it would be surprising if Senator Cruz lost his seat, but his inability to sustain a handsome margin to his Democratic opponent is a signal to Sen. Cruz that he might not want to run again in 2030. In his case, though, the reason for his narrow polling is not so much a sign of a growing Democratic vote in Texas as it is an indication of Senator Cruz’s personality. While most politicians are contrived, they have the ability to at least superficially come across as genuine; Senator Cruz, on the other hand, has the appearance of a genuine politician trying to come across as contrived.
If we make the reasonable assumption that Republicans win the races in Maryland, Montana, and West Virginia, and that Senator Cruz prevails in Texas, the Senate will flip Republican on its own merits. With a Trump victory, the Republican margin will be the same as it was last time Trump was President.
With Congress on his side, a re-elected Trump has the ideal position to go from theory and rhetoric to policy and reality. The more successful he is, the better it will be for America—and for Vice President J.D. Vance’s chances of winning the 2028 presidential election.
Republicans Can Win Both Congress and the White House
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his own presidential campaign and threw his support behind Donald Trump, it sent shivers among the ranks of the Democratic presidential campaign. Prior polling had shown that Kennedy’s voters by varying degrees preferred Trump over Harris; his endorsement, Democrats feared, could be enough to tip the scale permanently in Trump’s favor.
The most recent polling data from RealClearPolling.com suggests that this is exactly what is happening. In polls published by Yahoo News on Tuesday, August 27th, Kamala Harris only ekes out a 1% lead over Trump. Previously, various polls have put her lead at 3-5%.
It is important to remember that polls with a strong Harris favorability are consistently published by left-leaning mainstream media. In 2016, the same outfits predicted a Hillary Clinton victory over Trump by about the same margins. At the same time, the Yahoo polls reported by RealClearPolling show that not even a politically biased outfit can produce a convincing Harris lead in this race.
In fact, Rasmussen Reports, one of the very few polling outfits that have a good predictive track record, put Trump ahead of Harris by 2-3% already before the Kennedy endorsement.
Since Robert Kennedy’s announcement, another prominent Democrat, former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, has also lined up behind Trump. These are signs that Democrats outside of the ‘political swamp’ in Washington, DC are sensing which way public opinion is turning, but even people with deeper ties inside the Democratic Party are beginning to have second thoughts about Kamala Harris.
One of them is Dean Phillips, a Democratic Congressman from Minnesota. He was the only challenger to President Biden in this year’s Democratic primaries; by not heeding the call from the Democratic Party to drop out of the primaries—in the name of democracy—Phillips became the focal point of considerable ire. Fearing ostracization, he tried hard during the Democratic National Convention to talk his way into a future Kamala Harris presidential administration.
Apparently sensing which way the winds are blowing, Congressman Phillips has now declared his interest to serve under whoever is elected president. According to Yahoo News, Phillips recently
When an incumbent Democrat in Congress opens himself to work for a Republican president, and when he does so during a presidential campaign, it does not matter that he also will accept an invite from the Democrat, should she win. This level of openness toward a Republican is unheard of, especially in the aggressively partisan political climate that President Obama created and left as his foremost legacy.
It is a signal from people on the inside of American politics that Donald Trump is doing better with the electorate than official polling suggests. A majority of the polling done in America never reaches the public eye: it is done for proprietary reasons, to help a political candidate hone his or her message, target constituencies, and redirect campaign funds for the greatest chance of victory.
As one example of what these unofficial polls can do: in 2016, the Trump campaign found a small but crucial number of states where Hillary Clinton was officially considered the frontrunner but was unable to reach that 50% mark of voter support. After a successful targeted campaign in each one of those states, Trump surprised many political pundits by edging out his Democrat opponent.
With support from Democrats trickling in, Trump and his vice-presidential candidate, Sen. J.D. Vance, are increasingly likely to defeat Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz. That would be a welcome change for the better after four years under Joe Biden. At the same time, if President Trump returns to the White House for a second term, he will need a Republican Congressional majority if he is going to make a meaningful difference.
It is hard to predict which way the almost-evenly split House of Representatives will go; from time to time, individual congressional races depend more on the personality of the candidates than on policy substance. However, based on experience, we should see an expansion of the razor-thin Republican margin in this year’s election, and a recoil in the form of a Democrat comeback two years from now.
It is a bit easier to predict which way the Senate is going to go. Currently, there are 49 Republicans in the chamber and 51 Democrats (including three independents who caucus with them). There is a good chance that this will turn into a 52-48 Republican majority in November.
In Montana, incumbent Democrat Senator Jon Tester is trailing Republican challenger Tim Sheehy by about five percentage points. Sheehy is one of several retired Navy SEALs who have entered politics recently; in Virginia, retired SEAL Hung Cao is the Republican candidate for Senate. Currently, Cao is trailing incumbent Democrat Senator Tim Kaine by 10-12 points, making it unlikely that he will flip the seat that Kaine has now held for two Senate terms. But a lot can happen between now and November.
Things look better for Republicans in Maryland, where 80-year-old incumbent Democrat Ben Cardin is retiring from the Senate seat he has held for 18 years. For the longest time, it looked like the Democratic candidate, Angela Alsobrooks, would sail through the campaign season to a convincing victory in November. But according to Fox News,
This is a formidable improvement in Hogan’s chances, which looked dim back in May and June when he was trailing Alsobrooks by 8-10 percentage points. If this trend continues through the fall, Democrats will lose a senate seat in one of the most heavily Democratic states in the country. According to some polls, Kamala Harris leads Trump by some 30 points in Maryland.
Losing a Senate seat in such a deeply Democratic state will be demoralizing for the party, but their losses will probably not stop there. They are also likely to lose their seat in West Virginia, where Joe Manchin is retiring. He is a long-time Democrat currently serving out his last Senate term. Although Manchin formally left the Democrat party earlier this year, in the Senate he continues to vote mostly with his former party. With his retirement, a U.S. Senate seat has been left open in a solidly Republican state. Manchin, a former governor of West Virginia, had a unique relationship with his state’s voters; the current Democratic candidate, former Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliot, is facing an almost impossible race against the Republican, former Governor Jim Justice.
If the Republicans win in Maryland, Montana, and West Virginia, and if they do not lose any other race, they can look forward to a 52-48 majority in the Senate. If Donald Trump wins the presidential election, his vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance will serve as the voting president of the Senate. In that capacity, he would increase the Republican vote tally to 53.
Republicans are unusually well positioned in terms of potential Senate race losses; interestingly, the only seat where an incumbent Republican is polling dangerously close to losing is in Republican-controlled Texas. Ted Cruz is running for a third term, and although polls earlier in the summer put him ahead of Democrat Colin Allred by 10-11 percentage points, in the most recent poll, Cruz was ahead by only two points.
In the end, it would be surprising if Senator Cruz lost his seat, but his inability to sustain a handsome margin to his Democratic opponent is a signal to Sen. Cruz that he might not want to run again in 2030. In his case, though, the reason for his narrow polling is not so much a sign of a growing Democratic vote in Texas as it is an indication of Senator Cruz’s personality. While most politicians are contrived, they have the ability to at least superficially come across as genuine; Senator Cruz, on the other hand, has the appearance of a genuine politician trying to come across as contrived.
If we make the reasonable assumption that Republicans win the races in Maryland, Montana, and West Virginia, and that Senator Cruz prevails in Texas, the Senate will flip Republican on its own merits. With a Trump victory, the Republican margin will be the same as it was last time Trump was President.
With Congress on his side, a re-elected Trump has the ideal position to go from theory and rhetoric to policy and reality. The more successful he is, the better it will be for America—and for Vice President J.D. Vance’s chances of winning the 2028 presidential election.
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