HARRY COLE
If the Kamala Harris campaign continues to flail, it could be 2016 all over again… and Donald will owe his boy Barron
In the final throes, the Democrats are betting the farm on making abortion the big talking point
FORGET Beyonce, pay no attention to Taylor Swift’s Instagram.
Ignore the cringe celebrity endorsers pretending the permanently cackling Kamala Harris is the second coming rather than a second-rate candidate.
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Will Barron Trump, the ex-President’s 10ft tall youngest son, actually have more impact than any of them put together?
Hear me out . . .
The next President of the United States is more likely to be swept in on a wave of young, angry, working-class men than woke billionaire pop stars.
In Pennsylvania, the definitive battleground state of the 2024 White House race, which local celebrities did Donald Trump invite to join him on the podium on Saturday?
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The victorious Penn State University wrestling team, of course.
“Thank you for recognising us,” said their leader, world championship gold medal winner Zain Retherford.
Words that many potential Trump voters across the country appear to be feeling as the polls tighten.
But are pollsters missing this crucial white boy demographic?
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Those I’ve spoken to bemoan these so-called unreliable “low propensity voters” as notoriously hard to track — but they could yet cause a major upset on election night on November 5.
‘Ratings gold’
Since Hulk Hogan ripped off his shirt at July’s Republican National Convention to reveal a Trump logo emblazoned across his shirt, wrestling has been a central tenet of their playbook.
Kamala Harris dodges two key questions in interview - including one on presidential pardon for Donald Trump if he loses
Trump’s three-hour sitdown with Joe Rogan, the Ultimate Fighting Championship commentator turned most popular podcaster in the US, has hit 27million views and counting.
Yes, there were weird bits — there always are with Trump — but a poll of listeners had more than 96 per cent backing him after it.
And Barron is getting the credit for it, with Trump spinner Jason Miller saying: “Hats off to the young man.
“Every single recommendation he’s had has turned out to be absolute ratings gold that broke the internet.”
Trump’s pal Raheem Kassam, from thenationalpulse.com, tells me: “Much attention was paid, especially in 2020, to so-called minority voters, women and independents.
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“As a result, Trump struggled to turn out what many believe to be his most obvious voter: young, white men.
“This time, despite the insistence of some around him, Trump has re-engaged that demographic on their turf.
“If 2008 was the ‘Facebook election’, 2024 is the ‘podcast election’. And Trump has one person in particular to thank for the strategy — his son Barron.”
If his dad does make it back to the White House on the 18-year-old’s insistence that he speaks to voters of the lad’s age, on the platforms they use — and if they turn out — the pollsters will be crying into their spreadsheets again, just like in 2016.
Eight days to go and it is apparently a dead heat.
But there’s a 60 per cent chance one or other candidate will clear 300 electoral college votes, well ahead of the 269 needed to win.
The Wall Street Journal has Trump ahead by three, the New York Times’ latest is tied.
CNBC has it 48/46 Trump among registered voters, while CNN — no Trump-supporting network — also have it tied at 47/47.
Early voting data suggests Trump’s vote is once again being underestimated
As their data cruncher Harry Enten says, there is now “a real shot Trump may get his great white whale: winning the popular vote.
“Polls show the race nationally is basically even as Trump runs far ahead of where he polled in 2016 or 2020.” The Real Clear Politics poll of polls has Trump on 48.5, and Harris on 48.3 per cent.
But at the same point last time round, Joe Biden had a lead of 7.5 per cent and, when Trump won in 2016, Hillary Clinton was ahead by 5.6.
Could the pollsters be wrong again?
Early voting data suggests Trump’s vote is once again being underestimated.
After a fatal error in 2020 of telling the public early voting was vote-rigging, the Republicans have played catch-up this cycle and the cushion Biden went into the last election day with is severely dented.
In Pennsylvania, ten per cent more registered Republicans have turned out early, with similar numbers in Arizona.
Early voting for Democrats is down across the key swing states.
If the voting trends we are seeing now are repeated on polling day, Trump is more than likely to be President.
Just look at what the punters make of it.
On the Betfair Exchange, Trump is 4/6 with Harris, once favourite, out at 8/5.
Trump is the favourite in all but one of the seven swing states, with Harris still on to take Michigan. And her response to the tightening?
So far, it’s having the Obamas lecture men about not voting for themselves, but for the women in their lives, and calling Trump a fascist in a panicky press conference.
Yet again.
Harris has been offered the same Joe Rogan platform, but turned it down.
Given how poorly she has performed in interviews of late, most notably at CNN’s softball town hall event last week, a three-hour unscripted podcast would likely bury her hopes once and for all.
In the final throes, the Democrats are betting the farm on making abortion the big talking point.
In the final throes, the Democrats are betting the farm on making abortion the big talking point
The problem Harris has, however, is the polling consistently shows reducing inflation, the economy and immigration poll higher in voter concerns than reproductive rights.
More of a retreat
And Trump is ahead on all three, even more so in the Sun Belt swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.
That fact is also highly noticeable among the crucial independent voters which both sides need to break for them.
Recent polling trends show abortion as a critical issue for around 20 per cent of Democrat voters, but only 11 per cent of independents even put it in their top three.
With a little over a week to go, it feels like less of a master strategy from the Democrats and more of a retreat.
Meanwhile, Trump is finally hitting his talking points, buying up ad space in Pennsylvania last night during the Philadelphia Eagles game.
“I cut taxes more than any other president, I created seven million new jobs,” he says.
“We created the greatest economy in history by far.
“When I left office, it changed . . . millions of illegal immigrants and people-traffickers flooded in.
“Our country has gone to hell”.
If he can keep that discipline up for one more week, and the Harris campaign continues to flail, don’t be surprised if it’s 2016 all over again.
And the Don will owe his boy Barron, bigly.
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WHAT of that other great election this week?
The race to be the next Tory leader FINALLY concludes on Saturday.
However, I hear the turnout so far is way down.
As of last Friday, fewer than 50 per cent of the 140,000 or so Conservative grassroots members had bothered to vote.
Sources say they are expecting an uptick in the closing days, but for the final tally to be far lower than the 82 per cent of members who voted in 2022.
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Some fear it could be in the sixties . . .
“Lots have died, lots have gone to Reform and lots are still extremely naffed off with us,” sighs a party insider.
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