In just eight days' time, Kamala Harris overtakes Trump in Reuters/Ipsos poll and drags Democrats out of disarray while GOP goes into scrambling mode

 

It has been eight days since President Joe Biden stepped aside, allowing Vice President Kamala Harris to take over at the top of the Democratic Party's 2024 ticket. In that short time span, Harris and her team have turned the race for president upside down. Republican Donald Trump had led in polls by varying margins for months. But a poll released July 23 has Harris leading Trump 44% to 42%. That is a small margin, and it does not mean Harris is going to steamroll to victory on Nov. 5, but she has put a new tone on the race in a remarkably short period of time. Other storylines beneath the surface suggest Harris holds other advantages  that likely have Team Trump shaken. For example:

(1) The Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Harris is in strong position with certain key voting groups, especially independent voters;

(2) Trump, who once was willing to debate Biden "anytime, anywhere, anyplace" now seems reluctant to debate  Harris at all. With polls shifting in Harris' favor, is he concerned that a poor debate performance could strengthen her position even more.?

(3) Questions increasingly are being asked about the nature of Trump's injuries from an apparent assassination attempt on July 13 in Butler, PA. As we have previously reported, the official story of the assassination, which largely was constructed by Trump himself, is filled with holes and is likely to fall apart if FBI investigators have enough integrity to apply strict scrutiny to the matter. Suspicions have heightened in recent days as photos of Trump without a bandage on his injured ear show no sign of tissue damage or efforts to repair the wound.

We will have more in upcoming posts on both the July 23 poll and questions swirling around the nature of Trump's wounds from the apparent assassination attempt. But first, let's take a look at a report about the new poll, under the headline "Exclusive: Harris leads Trump 44% to 42% in US presidential race, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds." Reuters' Jason Lange writes:

Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two-percentage-point lead over Republican Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

 

That compares with a marginal two-point deficit Biden faced against Trump in last week's poll before his Sunday exit from the race.

 

The new poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, followed both the Republican National Convention where Trump on Thursday formally accepted the nomination and Biden's announcement on Sunday he was leaving the race and endorsing Harris.

 

Harris, whose campaign says she has secured the Democratic nomination, led Trump 44% to 42% in the national poll, a difference within the 3-percentage-point margin of error.

 

Harris and Trump were tied at 44% in a July 15-16 poll, and Trump led by one percentage point in a July 1-2 poll, both within the same margin of error.

 

While nationwide surveys give important signals of American support for political candidates, a handful of competitive states typically tilt the balance in the U.S. Electoral College, which ultimately decides who wins a presidential election.

 

A pollster with Trump's campaign played down any polling showing an increase in Harris' support, arguing that she was likely to see a temporary rise in popularity because of widespread media coverage of her new candidacy.

 

"That bump is likely to start showing itself over the next few days and will last for a while," pollster Tony Fabrizio said in a memo circulated to reporters by Trump's campaign.

 

Candidates often expect a bump after formally accepting their party's nomination at stage-managed, televised conventions such as the one that Trump had last week. But the poll showed no sign of that. Bump or not, the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll underscores the rationale for Biden dropping out of the race and for Harris replacing him on the ticket.

 

Some 56% of registered voters agreed with a statement that Harris, 59, was "mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges," compared to 49% who said the same of Trump, 78. Only 22% of voters assessed Biden that way.

Some 80% of Democratic voters said they viewed Biden favorably, compared to 91% who said the same of Harris. Three quarters of Democratic voters said they agreed with a statement that the party and voters should get behind Harris now, with only a quarter saying multiple candidates should compete for the party's nomination.

Here are more insights on the poll from moveon.org:

A brand-new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris is leading Donald Trump in the polls 44%-42%.

That comes after Harris raised more than $100 million in the first 48 hours of her campaign—shattering records and raising more money than any other presidential campaign in American history.

A Salon headline put it this way: "Kamala Harris has Donald Trump running scared."

Trump is so afraid of Harris that he is now scrambling to change the debate rules. In a desperate screed on Truth Social, Trump said he wants the debate to be hosted by Fox News instead of ABC, as he had previously agreed.

And Trump is reportedly even second-guessing his pick for vice president.

The polling toplines and Harris's massive fundraising haul aren't the only pieces of good news.

In-depth polling on key questions shows Harris has big electoral strengths that terrify Trump's team.

For example, while Trump had calculated that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s bid would siphon votes away from the Democratic nominee, a CBS poll shows Harris performing strongly in a three-way matchup against Trump and RFK Jr. The poll had Harris leading the pack at 42%, Trump at 38% and RFK Jr. at 8%.

In addition, Harris shows huge electoral strengths among key demographic groups that will be critical to winning in November.

• Among voters aged 18-29, Harris leads Trump by 25 percentage points, and nearly 40,000 new young voters registered to vote in the 48 hours after Harris announced for president.
• Among Black voters, Harris leads Trump by 54 percentage points.
• Harris is also popular among Latino voters, and especially with undecided Latino voters who will be the critical element in November.

Simply put: Kamala Harris can win this election. And if we all do our part, she will.

We can't return to Donald Trump's presidency and the daily chaos and the struggle of stopping the worst of his attempts to divide us, further dismantle democratic institutions, and roll back our remaining rights and freedoms.

The white Christian nationalist Project 2025 takeover plan tells us everything we need to know about the plan for a second Trump presidency.

Here is more about Project 2025 from a report at bbc.com: 

A proposed Republican party platform has been approved at the party’s national convention, but a much more detailed proposal from a conservative think tank has also been drawing attention.

Project 2025 was created by the Heritage Foundation and runs for nearly 900 pages.

Trump has disavowed Project 2025, though critics have pointed out it was led by former officials in his administration.

The document calls for the sacking of thousands of civil servants, expanding the power of the president, dismantling the Department of Education, sweeping tax cuts, a ban on pornography, halting sales of the abortion pill, and more.

There is agreement between many parts of the official Republican platform and Project 2025, although the think-tank document is much more detailed and in some policy areas goes much further than the party line.

There is a sharper contrast between the two when it comes to the issue of abortion, with Heritage urging much more aggressive anti-abortion policies.

Who wrote Project 2025?

It is common for Washington think tanks of all political stripes to propose policy wish lists for potential governments-in-waiting.

The conservative Heritage Foundation first produced policy plans for future Republican administrations in 1981, when Ronald Reagan was about to take office.

It has produced similar documents in connection with subsequent presidential elections, including in 2016, when Trump won the presidency.

A year into his term, the think tank boasted that the Trump White House had adopted nearly two-thirds of its proposals.

The Project 2025 report was unveiled in April 2023, but liberal opposition to the document has ramped up now that Trump has extended his polling lead.

The Republican nominee himself has distanced himself from the proposal.

"I know nothing about Project 2025," he posted on his social media website, Truth Social. "I have no idea who is behind it.

"I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal."

But the team that created the project is chock-full of former Trump advisers, including director Paul Dans, who was chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management while Trump was president.

Russell Vought, another former Trump administration official, wrote a key chapter in the document and also serves as the Republican National Committee’s 2024 platform policy director.

More than 100 conservative organisations contributed to the document, Heritage says, including many that would be hugely influential in Washington if Republicans took back the White House.

The Project 2025 document sets out four main policy aims: restore the family as the centrepiece of American life; dismantle the administrative state; defend the nation's sovereignty and borders; and secure God-given individual rights to live freely.