Jay Weber Show transcript 7-31-24 7:10am
It was about ‘this time’ last week- in which i said: we’ll have to wait until next week and a new round of polling to get a better sense of where this presidential race is now- because the quicky ‘Snap polls’ that are done right after a major ‘event’ that affects such races never accurately portray what the ‘net effect’ of the event is.
And this was a major, major ‘event’. Unprecedented in presidential history: a sitting incumbent was forced, bullied, and harassed-very late in the process- to drop out of the race and let the party leaders -completely engineer- a nomination for someone else.
Major event.
And so- one easy prediction was: the polls will immediately tighten up. Kamala Harris -just because she isn’t doddering Joe Biden- was going to inject ‘some new level’ of hope and excitement into their side of the aisle. Sure.
But- whether Harris’ entry here ‘completely changes the race’ is yet to be seen.
Well- it’s a week later-and better polling is starting to be released. What is shows is: Kamala Harris’ coronation-has- reset- the race-
But-
It’s only reset it ‘right back where this race was’ in April or May.
So far, the new polls show Donald Trump still leading by a few points nationally-and having an advantage in nearly every swing state. This is where the Trump/Biden numbers were for the first three or four months of the year-and for most of the last 9 months.
We are right back to square one-with Donald Trump holding a slight advantage over Kamala Harris-
And so- unless the ‘excitement continues to build’, and unless she can get a huge ‘pop’ out of the dem convention in three weeks- President Trump and the republicans still hold the advantage, here.
We now have two polls out-as of yesterday-that show Donald Trump leading Kamala Harris by three or four points nationally, depending on whether you are including the so-called ‘leaners’: the people who say they are leaning one way or another-but aren’t locked into their vote, yet.
And so- yes-the dems are ecstatic that they are ‘clear of Biden’, but their new nominee is still losing.
This is where I’d remind you of the reason that virtually all democrat lawmakers turned on Joe Biden after the disastrous debate and- over the next two weeks- when the polls show he was steadily eroding and ‘could not win’.
Please remember why it was that- nearly all democrats holding office-turned against Joe Biden: it was because they were headed to such a wipe-out ‘atop the ticket’ that many of them were going to lose their jobs ‘down ticket’, too.
For most of these congressional and state democrats who turned on joe-it was ultimately about their own selfishness: if he isn’t shoved off the ticket- we are in for a democrat wipe out. Huge numbers of us will lose our jobs, too.
Correct?
That was the final layer of ‘panic’ that set in, here, after Biden’s terrible debate performance.
Having Biden lose a close race was one thing: most of them, as incumbents, could still and keep their jobs.
But having Biden lose in a wipe out was unacceptable.
Well- look at where we are now-with the Kamala Harris ‘reset’.
It is a true ‘reset’. She isn’t immediately doing ‘anything’ for the democrat ticket that Joe wasn’t before the debates. The race is back to where trump is leading by slimmer margins-and maybe a ‘better run’ campaign with a ‘more appealing candidate’ atop it can surprise everyone and deliver the win for the dems after all.
Its’ at least ‘competitive again’, and with the dems ballot harvesting and cheating operations in the swing states- they can feel better about their chances.
This is where we are- and the next three weeks will tell us a lot: can Kamala Harris build her numbers from here? Or does the excitement over her start to wear off, with support for her starting to sluff off, again, as it was for Biden?
That’s the main question between now and the dem convention, folks.
One of those new polls that shows trump still in control of this race came from Harvard/Harris pollsters yesterday...and it shows some reassuring things.
So-bottom line-if Donald trump is still leading by three or four- still leading with independents. Still only loses women by four. Still gets 25 percent of the black vote and 44 percent of the Hispanic vote-he’s still in a very good position.
And no- Trump won’t get those percentages of minority voters on election night. He just won’t. Let’s not kid ourselves.
But- but-if that is what the polls show, now: if Donald Trump gets 15 percent of the black vote- and even 36 to 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, this race is his, folks.
You don’t have to believe that trump will do this good with minority voters- but if he does even ‘half as good’ with black voters as these polls suggest- he wins.
These are very strong findings from Harvard/Harris- especially after the ridiculous and relentless cheerleading we’ve seen for Kamala Harris over the last 9 days.
If this is where she lands? After all of that? The democrats are still screwed.
Meanwhile-the top three issues are still: the border, inflation, and the economy, with huge numbers of Americans saying inflation is their main concern.
Meanwhile- abortion ranks fourth as an issue-along with crime.
Well- okay-dems have an advantage on abortion-and a huge disadvantage on crime.
Add to this, the fact that this poll, too, verifies that most Americans now consider Donald Trump’s first term as president as a successful one-and yes- I’m heartened by these findings.
It’s just one poll-but- it’s one of the first serious ones-and one of the first to do a ‘deep dive’ since Kammy got coronated.
And folks-this is before Kamala Harris is really put under more intense scrutiny.
Trump has been ‘scrutinized’ 150 ways from Sunday. We know what sort of socks he wears when having sex, for heaven’s sake.
But even though she’s been ‘on the scene’ for years, Kamala Harris and her belief system and voting record have never undergone the sort of scrutiny that is already building.
This brings me to Nate Silver, next: fallen idol of the far left. The dems used to love this statistician and prognosticator when he was telling them what they want to hear. He is, himself, a democrat-
And yet- to his credit- Nate Silver has been telling some ‘hard truths’ to his own party and has been staggeringly honest about his findings- regardless of whether they would ruffle democrat feathers....
And today silver says: hey, Donald Trump is still a solid favorite to win.
And so- so far- the flop over to kamala Harris-has not- affected the democrat’s odds of winning much. That’s interesting.
Taking on Biden: Trump had a 66 percent chance of winning. Taking on Kammy. It’s a 61 percent.
I don’t know about you-but I’ll take that little ‘slide’ in our odds, given how this ‘could have gone’ if dems had swapped out Harris for a better candidate.
Silver says on ‘x’: here’s your headline. This race isn’t a toss-up. Trump’s still winning.
That was bound to burst a few ‘hope bubbles’ on the left, yesterday.
silver’s model currently has trump winning 280 electoral college votes against kamala...which would be ten more than needed.
And then we also have a polymarket odds making site- saying trump still has a 61 percent chance of winning.
This brings us to mark Penn and Alex Castellanos- party strategists. Castellanos told Bret Baier that the best way forward for trump and republicans is- the path we are taking-simply define Harris as the far left radical that she is.
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS: How does the former president change the dynamic? Obviously, J.D. Vance, as I talked to with Britt Hume and Mike Emanuel's piece, he's under attack for things he said years ago and how he's dealing with them now. It fits what you're saying about going after women, because clearly it fits that mold. How do they change the dynamic on their side?
ALEX CASTELLANOS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I think it's a very clear path. I think they have to, they understand that only half of the paint-by-numbers picture of Kamala Harris has been filled in, and they've got to go out there and prevent her from being new and the future, right, from being changed.
So what do you do? You say, there's nothing new about Kamala Harris. On the issues, boom, immigration, open border. On crime, bailing out people who attack police and set cities on fire. She's more of the same. A fresh face, you know, a fresh face on a car that's being wrecked and pulled by a tow truck, it's not going to work. So that's where I think they need to go.
And it's hard for Trump to move into the future, because he is such an intense opponent of what has failed. That's what populism is all about. But if he can lift his eyes over the horizon just a little bit and say, tell me what making America great again means, paint a picture of that for me. What's it going to be like if his campaign can do that just a little bit, it could change the whole race.
Mark Penn, meanwhile, the Clinton’s old dem strategist, admits that Kamala Harris’ best bet is to -not-talk about her record and- avoid reporters and sit down interviews for the next 100 days. Seriously. Penn says- Harris’ best strategy is: answer no questions. Listen.
BRET BAIER: From a Democratic point of view, Mark, what do they need to do? Obviously, you couldn't have scripted a better launch than she's had with very little media scrutiny. There will be times that, to James Carville's point, that it comes. How do they deal with this?
MARK PENN: Well, look, the best Democratic path here is she's within a couple of points. They got the convention. Conventions are usually worth a couple of points. Got a week of unimpeded message here.
She's gonna, I think, rally women, consolidate blacks, get young people back, and not answer any questions about anything, if possible, in the last hundred days. Because that worked for Joe Biden, and it would work for her, too.
BAIER: But a debate, she'd have to answer some questions.
PENN: Maybe there'll be a debate. There aren't gonna be three. And can Donald Trump pin her down the way that he was able to deal with Joe Biden? Well, she's gotten a lot more sophisticated, if you saw her recent appearances, than she was a couple of years ago when she started.
Credit to Penn for just coming out and saying it: if Americans ‘know’ who they’re voting for, they won’t vote for kamala. And so, she’s got to hide her past positions and answer-zero-direct questions.
photo credit: Getty Images
story credit: Fox News
audio version of the segment here > Polls still show Trump ahead