Republicans, Democrats see key issues differently in presidential race
A recent Gallup survey show what Republicans and Democrats say are the key issues in the 2024 presidential election.
Straight Arrow News
Imagine. It’s the day after.
Or maybe the day after the day after. Given the close race, we might not know the results of the Nov. 5 election for a while.
But sooner or later, it will happen. A victor will be declared.
On that day, America will be faced with either a president-elect Kamala Harris, or a president-elect Donald Trump. And with the stakes so high — with both sides convinced that the wrong choice means our country is doomed — one half of America or the other will be in shock.
Maybe … that will be you.
How did it happen? How could a “convicted felon” (BU Today), a “sexual predator” (The Guardian) who “sold out the U.S. to Russia” (USA Today), who tried to “upend the 2020 election” (Brookings), who threatens “mass deportations, detention camps, troops on the street” (Guardian), who pushes “baseless claims about immigrants ‘eating the pets'” (NBC News) and is an unprecedented “threat to democracy” (Project Syndicate) get a second term as president?
Or — alternately — how did a “Marxist, communist, fascist socialist” (Donald Trump) whose policies are “batshit crazy” (Lindsey Graham), who has “flip-flopped on… the electric vehicle mandate, expanding the Supreme Court, and heck, she’s even flip-flopped on plastic straws” (Sen. John Thune, R-SD), who is an “artless dodger” (Wall Street Journal) and known supporter of “gun confiscation” (NRA-ILA), and “killing babies” (Pope Francis), a woman who is “destroying our country” (Donald Trump), ever convince the American electorate to vote for her?
In corporate boardrooms, a common — and useful — exercise is the “premortem.”
What missteps were made? What attacks from the opposition altered the race? What — by gaming out the possibilities in advance — might have been learned?
Here, then, is a “premortem” on Election 2024. On one side: Kamala Harris. On the other side: Donald Trump.
To be very clear: we are not predicting who will win. To be equally clear: we are not saying who should win.
To complete this exercise, the underlying tactics driving the campaigns must be examined.
There are eight factors listed for each candidate, all that could hurt their campaigns for the presidency:
Here are some factors working against Trump’s bid for the White House:
The debate
Before a vast, mixed audience of 67 million TV viewers, two moderators, and an opposition candidate, Trump spun the same conspiracy theories, tall tales, and baseless accusations of pet-eating migrants and forced sex-change operations that are the life and soul of his rallies. But this time there was no friendly oxygen in the room.
All of America was watching.
So was Taylor Swift — the world’s most popular celebrity — who shortly after the debate endorsed Harris.
“We can’t unsee what we saw last night,” said conservative pundit William Kristol the next day. “And what we all saw is how radically unfit Donald Trump is to be president again.”
Race and ethnicity
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she Black?”
Trump spoke those words about Harris during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference. And it was just one in a long line of his statements and actions over the years seen as racist by many.
In 2011, Trump spread the lie that then-President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S.
In 2015, after riding down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his presidential run, he labeled Mexican immigrants as rapists while saying “some, I assume, are good people.”
Trump also spoke derogatorily about Asians during the pandemic, labeling coronavirus the “kung flu” and disparaged African countries as “shitholes.”
And, at the presidential debate against Harris in September, he said that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the pets of the people that live there.”
When Fairleigh Dickinson pollsters contrasted two sets of voter surveys, they found Harris and Trump tied 47 to 48 on five issues. When the race of the candidate was added to the mix, Harris’ favorability jumped 14 points: 53 to 39.
Fear vs. joy
Fear, disillusionment, low morale. No, we’re not talking 2024. We’re talking the post-Watergate 1970s. And Jimmy Carter captured it perfectly in what came to be known as his “spiritual malaise” speech: July 15, 1979.
“We can see this crisis,” he said, “in the loss of unity and purpose as a nation.”
True? Maybe. But not what voters wanted to hear, then.
When Ronald Reagan said, on July 17, 1980, that “we’ll restore hope,” and when he said in 1984 that it’s “morning in America,” they responded, decisively.
Enough despair. We want joy.
Trump came riding into his first term talking of “American carnage,” saying the U.S. is “going to hell,” that we’re “a failing nation,” and that violent immigrant groups would bring down the country. It’s a message he has never wavered from: under his leadership, America succeeds. Under anyone else’s, America fails.
In contrast, Harris, whose smile and laugh have been ridiculed by opponents, brought optimistic messaging to her campaign.
“Many…are exhausted from the negativity that had so overtaken the news cycle,” said Mashail Malik, an assistant professor of government at Harvard University. “The messaging about joy seems designed to alleviate some of this exhaustion and to offer an alternative to fear.”
Abortion
The former president stated that he did not support a national abortion ban, and would veto such a bill if it crossed his desk. Voters were skeptical during the campaign, even as Trump refined his stance to say that decisions about abortion should be left up to states. Many saw that as a dodge from responsibility ― it was Trump who placed justices on the Supreme Court that favored overturning Roe v. Wade.
Since the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe, some states have adopted strict limits on abortion. They include Florida and Georgia, which banned abortion after six weeks, before many women even know they are pregnant.
Harris, seizing on the Dobbs decision, made reproductive rights a key pillar of her platforms. She supported a federal law to protect abortion rights and restore Roe v. Wade. Harris said she would support ending the filibuster to make that happen.
Tim Walz
Democrats are sex-changed obsessed, cat loving, immigrant coddling, white-replacing radicals.
That was a large part of the Republican narrative — until Tim Walz, ordinary-white-guy-small-town-football coach, came along. A regular fella who happens to be totally at ease engaging with people of color, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities (like his son) and people with “exotic”-seeming names and backgrounds. People like Kamala Harris, who chose him to be her vice presidential running mate.
Voters made nervous by Harris were reassured by Walz. If a normal guy like that could get behind her candidacy, maybe others could, too. Walz modeled a way forward, for white folks uncomfortable with a changing America. More than that, he suggested that it was those who could not get with the program who were “weird” — the one dig that really seemed to get under the skin of the MAGA crowd.
Project 2025
Who knew that a 900-page policy document would be an effective weapon for Democrats?
Joe Biden did. So did Harris. They were fully aware that the playbook for the future Republican presidency — created by the Heritage Foundation — would reflect poorly on Trump and his running mate, JD Vance. So they pointed out the proposals listed in the proposal.
Eliminating the Department of Education. Banning transgender individuals from the military. Pushing for the construction of a wall along the U.S. southern border.
Harris, during the presidential debate with Trump in September, warned, “Understand in his Project 2025 there would be a national abortion ban.”
During the same debate, Trump repeated his campaign mantra of distancing from Project 2025: “I have nothing to do with Project 2025.”
No, he did not physically write the pages in the document. Yet it’s hard for Trump to feign noninvolvement in Project 2025 when his name is stated 312 times and at least 140 people who worked for Trump contributed to it.
A poll by liberal advocacy groups found that 75% associate the conservative plan with Trump, and 79% believe he supports the policies in Project 2025.
Two storms
First it was Hurricane Helene — which killed more than 220 people in North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Then there was Hurricane Milton, a storm so devastating that it literally made grown weathermen weep. Two monster storms, both occurring just when voters in those key states were making up their minds.
The response of the Biden-Harris administration was not to block $20 billion in relief to Puerto Rico or throw rolls of paper towels at the victims, as Trump did in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Instead, they fast-tracked emergency assistance in a way that could go toward winning them some votes in battleground states. Quick shelter accommodations, financial assistance and seeing Harris in storm-wrecked areas were part of the response.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump lied about the response and used the disaster to bash his rivals. He lied to those at his rallies saying that: recovery money went to immigrants, not storm victims; that there was a cap on FEMA funds; and that Democrats were going out of their way to hurt Republican voters in ravaged areas.
Voters and politicians from the affected states called out the mistruths, simultaneously praising the Biden-Harris administration for the response. Trump surrogates, like Majorie Taylor Greene, also claimed that Democrats controlled the weather — echoing an antisemitic trope.
Women of color
The possibility of the first woman president — and the second Black president — was enough to engage women voters, and especially women voters of color, in record numbers. A summer survey conducted by the Highland Project determined that if the election “were held today,” 78% of Black women voters would back Harris.
Democracy, the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law — everything Washington and Jefferson fought for in 1776 could be embodied by the great great-great-granddaughters of people they did not consider fit to be American citizens.
Here are some factors working against Harris’ bid for the White House:
Gender
Who would ever say, in the 21st century, that a woman wasn’t fit to be U.S. president? No one.
But possibly a number of people have thought it — and have not been willing to share those thoughts with pollsters.
“Harris’ biggest obstacle is her gender,” ran a headline in USA TODAY on Aug. 13. “Simply put, women have to do more than men to prove they are qualified,” Christine Matthews and Celinda Lake wrote.
There has never been a woman in the oval office. And such a thing is inconceivable to some, many of whom vote.
“She’ll be like a play toy,” Trump told Fox News in July. World leaders, he said, would “walk all over” Harris. “They look at her and they say, ‘We can’t believe we got so lucky.’”
Conviction and court cases
Trump is scheduled to show up in a New York City courtroom just weeks after the election and face sentencing after a jury found him guilty of 34 counts of fraud for covering up hush money payments to a former porn star who claimed she had a sexual affair with him. He faces as much as four years in a New York State prison.
If America elects Trump, he would be the first convicted felon voted into the highest office in the land.
If that happens, it’s a signal that voters didn’t believe Trump’s criminal trial was just. Or just didn’t care.
It also remains to be seen whether he will be required to pay judgments of $90 million in a federal defamation case and another $454 million after a New York judge found him liable for business fraud.
Two more federal criminal indictments — for Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and for allegedly refusing to return top secret defense documents — loom on the horizon. And finally, Trump remains a target of a criminal case in Georgia, charging him with election violations.
The Latino vote
Trump’s success in luring the Latino vote with his crude populism could be one of the most significant causes of a Harris loss.
For decades, Democrats could depend on automatic, widespread support from Latinos.
Not anymore.
In October, Harris maintained a 14-point lead over Trump among Latino voters, but that margin represented a steep drop from the three most recent presidential elections, according to an NBC/Telemundo/CNBC poll released in September.
It’s stunning, considering Trump’s almost nonstop trashing of migrants crossing the U.S. border with Mexico as criminals and parasites, threatening jobs and housing of ordinary Americans.
Yet Trump’s “Make America Great Again” promise of an economic revival has appealed to a large swath of Latinos, concerned about the rising cost of living.
And all his harsh rhetoric on immigration apparently did not harm him with Latinos — with 47% agreeing that Trump would do a better job securing the border and immigration compared to 34% for Harris.
Many factors are likely in play. Many Latinos are small business owners, drawn to Trump’s message of lower taxes and less regulation. Many Latino families are religious, and socially conservative on issues like abortion. And the Latino vote is not monolithic. Cubans and Puerto Ricans, established here for generations, do not necessarily vote in solidarity with new arrivals.
There is a historical irony in all this.
After Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama in 2012, the Republican Party was alarmed at its failure to attract Latino voters, and commissioned a study on how to improve its outreach to the community in future elections.
Then came Trump, who undid all of that. Andnow it’s the Democratic Party’s time for some soul searching.
The economy
Survey after survey showed that what Americans vote on — more than anything — is not civil rights, immigration, or any of the other issues of the left or right.
It is the economy.
By many measures, the U.S. economy has done well under Biden-Harris.
But in the one metric that counts with voters — inflation — it stumbled. Increased production, job growth, is abstract. Food that costs $4 when it used to cost $2 is something everyone can understand. The Democrats have not done a good job of addressing this pocketbook pain, and Harris’ economic panaceas, which some denounced as gimmes to first-time homebuyers, families with newborn children, and various interest groups may not be enough to convince enough voters.
Trump has not offered anything more solid. His big idea, the tariff, has been widely dismissed by economists. But Trump is not the one who’s been occupying the White House for the past four years. People are voting their current pain. And Harris could feel the consequences.
The Middle East
Arab and Muslim Americans, frustrated with Biden’s unconditional support for Israel, had hoped that Harris would take a different approach. That did not happen.
Harris did not commit to stopping, or setting conditions, for weapons sales to Israel. She defended what she described as Israel’s right to defend itself. Harris and the Democratic National Committee also refused to let a Palestinian speaker speak on the stage at the party’s national convention — a snub that made Arab and Muslim voters feel excluded.
One year into a devastating war — one that is expanding on several fronts outside of the Gaza Strip — Arab and Muslim voters said they could not vote for Harris.
Some voters worry that Trump, a staunch Israel supporter and Netanyahu ally, would be worse.
But it is the Biden-Harris administration that has held the seat of power during a year where Arab and Muslim American voters have felt anguish, outrage and trauma over the war, which they believe has amounted to mass murder, ethnic cleansing.
Their numbers, while not large nationally, matter in swing states like Michigan. If a large number of this Democratic-leaning populace votes for Trump, it could spell trouble for Harris.
Abortion
For two years, the unpopularity of the erosion of abortion rights in the U.S. has been seen by Democrats as a powerful issue that could help prevent Trump from gaining a second term.
They could be wrong.
While it was important with many voters, the issue has been put to the back burner by more pressing topics, including the economy and border security.
Trump bobbed and weaved through most of the campaign on abortion, while trying to win support of both religious conservatives and women who support a right to choose. His pivot to making abortion a state’s rights issue and opposition to a national abortion ban could resonate with voters.
Abortion may not have enough one-issue impact to propel Harris to the White House.
Race and ethnicity
Trump’s race-baiting is appalling to many, but it also resonates with many — folks who are honestly frightened by the changing demographics of America; who worry about the fact that by 2044 white people will be a minority; who conceive of the United States as founded on a shared ethnic background; rather than the principles expounded in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
If enough of those voters mobilize, Trump could come out on top.
Democrats can’t punch hard
While Harris has ridden the momentum of the switch from Biden, in both fundraising and popularity, it does not mean she will walk to victory in this election.
If that is the case, it could be a result of Democrats unwillingness to get down in the mud.
Trump is 78. He rambles and traffics in so many falsehoods that his speeches have become a rhetorical gridlock for fact checkers. And do we have to remind everyone of the broken promises, the midnight tweeting and overall chaos of his first term — especially at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic? Remember Trump’s suggestion to inject bleach?
This election campaign offered a plethora of opportunities for Harris and Walz to strike hard against Trump and Vance. For starters, there was Trump’s false claim of Haitian migrants eating cats and dogs. And there was Vance’s smarmy refusal in his debate with Walz to concede that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. That’s just two.
When Trump derided Haitians for allegedly feeding on the pets of Springfield, Ohio, residents, Harris laughed and shook her head. We don’t blame her for laughing. But she could have also stopped, pointed a finger at Trump and looked into the camera and said: “America, this man is a liar.”
She didn’t. She’s too polite. Democrats are too polite. And it could cost them the election.
Democrats could learn a hard lesson in this election. It’s not about policies. It’s about tactics.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6718cc98c08f4f69aeed2c939ed52412&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.northjersey.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Felections%2F2024%2F10%2F23%2Ftrump-vs-harris-2024-election-issues%2F75272362007%2F&c=11844586242950483116&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-10-22 22:12:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.