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Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump gestures during a campaign rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 9, 2024.
US election campaigns head into the homestretch
As election day nears, both parties are throwing everything they have into the final stretch of the campaign. For Kamala Harris and the Democrats, that includes a war chest of more than $1 billion that she’s brought in since she rose to the top of the ticket, an amount and pace observers say is likely record-breaking. The Trump campaign, by comparison, has raised roughly $850 million this whole year.
But amid concerns that the initial bump in momentum may be fading, the Harris campaign has undertaken a media blitz, including a series of interviews this week on “60 Minutes,” “The Howard Stern Show,” and the popular “Call Her Daddy” podcast. Whether it’s landed well is an open question. She has been criticized for not answering questions directly. The critiques come weeks after the Democratic contender was under fire for not doing any interviews at all.
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, had about $135 million left to spend at the end of August per FEC filings, but Trump is doing more on-the-ground legwork – notching 21 public campaign events in September alone, nearly twice the 13 that Harris and her running mate Tim Walz have done, combined.
The Trump campaign is also deploying a new get-out-the-vote model focused on people less likely to show up at the polls but who are leaning right — and it’s betting big on this approach, particularly in battleground states. Trump’s homestretch strategy has focused on attracting the votes of young men, as well as shoring up small but growing support from Black male voters. The MAGA campaign’s latest headache, however, was a new book by journalist Bob Woodward that claims Trump has kept in touch with Vladimir Putinsince leaving office, and that he sent the Russian president COVID-19 tests at the height of the pandemic when ordinary Americans were struggling to find tests.
Trump and the campaign deny the claims, but no campaign wants to be spending the dying days of the race fending off criticism of what a candidate says – or, in Harris’ case, doesn’t say.
Waffle House closed several Florida restaurants in anticipation of Hurricane Milton.
Hard Numbers: US Southerners “Waffle” about the weather, Rent inflation continues to ease in Canada, Investors get nervous about US election, Manitoba looks to slash machete sales
2.1: Rents in Canada rose just 2.1% on an annual basis in September, the slowest rate of growth since October 2021. The data marks the fifth straight month in which the rate of rent increases fell. Back in May, it was at a whopping 9%. At the provincial level, rents in Ontario fell more than 4%, pulled downward by a drop of more than 8% in Toronto. Meanwhile, in Saskatchewan, rents rose by 23.5% as a result of higher demand for the province’s relatively affordable housing.
20.9: How nervous are investors about the prospect of a disputed US presidential election? The Cboe Volatility Index, which measures the perceived risk of severe stock swings within a 30-day period, has risen 6 points since September and now stands at 20.9, a level that is usually associated with moderate to high expectations of turbulence. Fears about a disputed US election are part of that, according to investors.
5,000: Do you happen to be thinking of selling a sword, machete, or other large-bladed weapon in Manitoba? You’d better act fast. The province’s lawmakers are debating a new bill that would tighten the rules around the sales of such weapons. Only people over the age of 18 with a photo ID would be permitted to buy them, and sales records would be maintained for two years, with fines for individuals as high as CA$5,000 for rule breakers. The bill follows high-profile machete attacks in the province.The Likable Lies of Campaign 2024
Are likable liars the secret weapon of campaign 2024?
After the Tuesday night vice presidential debate ended, there was widespread praise about the demeanor of the candidates, Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. JD Vance. “Voters overwhelmingly characterized the debate as positive in tone,” wrote CBS News, which hosted the debate and then conducted a poll right immediately afterward. The BBC headline used the word “politeness” to characterize the debate. GZERO used “civility.” It’s true. A much-needed Midwestern decency prevailed throughout the VP debate, the expected personal attacks giving way to a wider policy discussion.
After watching the screed-filled mayhem about immigrants eating pets that characterized the Donald Trump-Kamala Harris debate, the VP face-off was like sipping a cold beer in the middle of a heat wave.
But something about this new political “decency” beer doesn’t taste right, and it’s causing a massive hangover. The common decency displayed by Vance and Walz cleverly masks constant deceptions, and yet that doesn’t seem to have any impact on the campaign. In fact, there’s more controversy about the candidates being fact-checked by journalists — that is their job! — than about candidates lying.
Vance won the debate because he had one job: Don’t look like the “weird” guy Democrats say you are, don’t insult women, don’t alienate voters by being the extreme Trump attack dog. He exceeded all expectations. He was prepared, likable, and polished, sawing off Trump’s rough edges with the candor and geniality that appeal to independent voters in swing states. On the surface, it was a master class and might well help secure Vance’s role as the Republican standard-bearer of the future. Below the surface, though, there was an indelible flaw: Vance kept lying.
For example, Vance claimed that Trump didn’t try to destroy the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare — but that he actually saved it! That was such a revisionist spin that it took me a while to even process it.
“WhenObamacare was crushing under the weight of its own regulatory burden and healthcare costs,” Vance declared smoothly, “Donald Trump could have destroyed the program. Instead, he worked in a bipartisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care.”
It sounds so reasonable that you might forget that it has no connection to reality. Trump repeatedly claimed his goal was to “let Obamacare fail” and, in 2017, he brought in the “repeal and replace” vote to finally kill it. That vote failed when Trump’s nemesis, the late Sen. John McCain, famously gave it the 1 a.m. on-the-floor thumbs-down. Claiming Trump saved Obamacare is the equivalent of “We had to destroy the village to save the village,” the logical contradiction that became a parody of perfidy during the Vietnam War.
Vance’s likable lies extended to the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump’s overt attempt to illegally stop the peaceful transition of power. “It’s really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January 20,” Vance said, as if the mob, the deaths, and the arrests of Jan. 6 never happened. The guy Vance replaced, former VP Mike Pence, has starkly contradicted this nonsensical claim, telling Fox News back in 2021 that he refused to comply with Trump and “his gaggle of crackpot lawyers” who “didn’t just ask me to pause. They asked me to reject votes, return votes, essentially to overturn the election.”
Just a reminder: Trump was impeached in the House of Representatives in 2021 because of his actions supporting the insurrection, and he was the first president in 150 years to be a no-show at the inauguration of his predecessor. Of course, Trump still claims the results of the election were fake, and this week he is facing new allegations about his potentially criminal actions leading up to the events of Jan. 6 as revealed in the recently unsealed legal brief from special counsel Jack Smith.
Later in the debate, it got worse, as Vance would not admit that the last election results were fair, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Rebranding Jan. 6 as a peaceful transition of power where a bunch of curious patriots took a friendly tour of the Capitol building is swampland in Florida that no sucker needs to buy.
Finally, Vance claimed that he “never supported a national ban” on abortion. “I did, during [sic] when I was running for Senate in 2022, talk about setting some minimum national standard.” Again, this sounds reasonable, and maybe Vance’s position has changed, but in 2022 he said on stage, “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.”
Walz also had his likable liar moments. He had two jobs in the debate: Don’t look like the radical the Republicans claim you are and do no harm. Walz simply had to keep up his straight-talk, friendly neighbor, America’s coach persona. Apart from being nervous off the top and ragged and jumpy in his points, Walz for the most part did no harm, even if he was roundly seen as losing the debate by a slight margin. But he also could not explain his past lies.
Back in 2014, Walz declared to a congressional hearing that “as the events were unfolding [in Tiananmen Square, China], several of us went in. I still remember the train station in Hong Kong." Except he didn’t. Walz was in Nebraska at the time. When asked about it in the debate, Walz was flummoxed and fumbled badly, first saying he gets “caught up in the rhetoric,” then admitting that he is “a knucklehead at times” and then, finally, “All I said on this was, I got there that summer and misspoke on this. That is what I have said.” He never admitted that he had lied but made the weird case that being a good guy makes this excusable.
Walz later claimed that Trump hasn’t paid taxes in over a decade and half, which is also not true. According to a report by the Committee on Ways and Means, Trump has paid taxes in some years, even if the rates were shockingly low. For example, he listed $641,931 in federal income tax in 2015 but only $750 in the next two years. Trump didn’t pay any taxes in 2020. Walz didn’t need to lie about Trump’s taxes as the evidence is already damning, but he did it anyway.
Revealing that politicians lie is about as shocking as saying the pope is Catholic. And to the credit of many organizations like CBS, CNN, and others, there were a lot of articles fact-checking the debate. Still, no matter how frequently it happens, you wonder why it doesn't cause an anaphylactic voter reaction? After all, someone who lies to voters in a campaign will, logically, lie to them in power, and who wants that? Would voters rather have likable over believable?
Four years ago, Newsweek published a survey with Redfield and Wilton Strategies that showed 54% of Americans agree that “lying has become more acceptable in American politics.” Voters don’t care about a lying candidate because the end justifies the means. A new study called “When Truth Trumps Facts: Studies on Partisan Moral Flexibility in American Politics” examined “explicit moral justification for politicians’ statements that flagrantly violate the norm of fact-grounding.” The study found that when lies help push the overall political aims of a candidate to victory, their supporters have no issue with it.
“A lot of people’s support for politicians who say things that aren’t true isn’t because they believe those statements per se, but they view that misinformation as supporting political goals that they believe in,” one of the authors of the study, assistant professor Ethan Poskanzer, told the University of Colorado.
The other factor at work here is sowing doubt in everything. The Steve Bannon “flood the zone with shit” strategy has tainted the political process, so partisan voters are urged to disbelieve anything that harms their candidate while believing everything their own leader says.
Lying can sometimes come off as crude, aggressive deception: “Immigrants are eating your pets!” And there are different kinds of lies: Some statements are blatant lies, others are exaggerations, and some are misleading, out-of-context statements used to make a point. So there are degrees, but let’s focus on the blatant lies because they are so obvious.
One other key factor to consider is frequency. Some candidates lie much more than others and so get called out for it more. In the presidential debate, Trump lied over 30 times while Harris told one lie and made a few misleading statements. Trump’s rate of lies might seem like a vulnerability, but he has cleverly turned it into an attack line, claiming that fact-checking proves that the fake news machine is biased against him. Repeat a lie, get called out for it, and claim you are the victim of a media conspiracy. It works. But it works even better when the candidate can do that and still be likable, and grab headlines for their decency, not their deception. That is what Vance and, to a lesser degree, Walz did.
In 2024, the likable liars may end up being the difference in a close election.
Iranian and Russian flags are seen in this illustration.
How US adversaries are messing with the election
China, Iran, and Russia are attempting to influence Americans ahead of the US elections in November, according to intelligence officials, and they’re using artificial intelligence to accomplish their goals.
Officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FBI briefed reporters on their findings on Monday, and ODNI released a one-page report to the public. Russia has been the most active of the three countries, using AI tools to boost former President Donald Trump and denigrate Vice President Kamala Harris, ODNI said. The Washington Post reported that Russia has doctored Harris’ speeches and used AI to “create false text, photos, video, and audio.”
Iran has used AI to create fake social media posts and news articles, focusing on polarizing issues such as the Israel-Gaza war. China hasn’t dipped into the election itself, but Beijing has used AI to “sow divisions on issues such as drug use, immigration, and abortion,” according to the ODNI report.
The findings are consistent with a recent Microsoft report about Iran’s attempts to meddle in the election, which also mentioned attempts by China and Russia to do the same. The ODNI said that the intelligence community is going to continue monitoring foreign actors’ attempts to influence the US election — especially those using AI to evoke public outrage, sow chaos, or affect the outcome of the vote.
A guide for the “undecided” US voter
There are less than two months before the US presidential election. Do you, dear US voter, know whom you are going to vote for? Chances are the answer is “yes.”
True undecideds are a rare species, especially this late in the cycle.
Back in the final days before the 2020 election, our satire series “Puppet Regime” went to find the last three of them in America: They were Lowly Worm, who had been living under a rock; Rip Van Winkle, who had been asleep for 20 years; and Pinocchio, whose nose grew every time he told a pollster he still wasn’t sure whom he’d vote for.
The point? In a deeply polarized country choosing between two starkly different candidates — one of whom has been a well-known quantity for almost a decade — there aren’t many people out there whose minds aren’t already made up.
The data backs this up. A recent poll in Pennsylvania, a major swing state, showed that just 3% of those registered “don’t know who they will vote for.” Meanwhile, 85% already had their choice set, and an additional 12% said they had a preference but could still potentially be swayed.
But even small numbers matter, of course. If recent elections are any guide, the margin of victory in the Keystone State will be about 1%. The same will likely be true of other swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona.
So, if you are one of the true holdouts who is still perplexed about whom to vote for — or whether to vote at all — we are here to help. We put together a list of the best reasons an imaginary moderate might vote for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.
Here goes.
If you vote for Kamala Harris, it’s because:
Protecting access to abortion is a major issue for you. Since the Trump-sculpted SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, it’s been a mixed bag for abortion rights. Some states have rejected the most restrictive laws — or look set to in upcoming referendums — while others have imposed draconian ones. Conservative activists have called for national-level prohibitions, either by Congress or executive action. Trump has given no indication he would stand in the way of either. Harris, on the other hand, has promised to sign national abortion protection into law — though that would require it to pass Congress first.
You think the richest Americans should pay more taxes. To be fair,you aren’t quite sure what Harris intends to do about grocery prices or housing – you like that she’s mentioned both, but her proposals sound a little heavy-handed – but at a basic level, you think inequality is a problem, and that the rich should pay a bigger share than they do today. You also like what she’s said about expanding child tax credits and giving a boost to small businesses. You are going on vibes here, but you buy her concern about small businesses and the middle class.
You think a certain kind of character matters for the presidency. Trump is chaotic. He lies a lot. He is a convicted felon. He has disputed a fair election and at least tacitly encouraged a riot protesting the transfer of power. Even if you don’t object to some of his ideas on the economy or immigration, you think at a minimum that it would diminish the presidency, and the country, to honor a person like this (again) with the most powerful job in the world. At a maximum, you think his impulses, coupled with a recently expanded interpretation of presidential immunity, would imperil America’s democratic institutions.
You think a US-led world order is important. You are well-informed enough to understand that the US supports both democracies and dictatorships around the world, but you also think that alliances with fellow democracies like NATO matter and that Washington should push back against efforts by the world’s most powerful non-democracies to expand their power and territory.
On the other hand, if you vote for Donald Trump, it will be because:
You miss the pre-pandemic economy. Poll after poll shows that voters think Trump will be better for the economy, likely because they have fond memories of the pre-pandemic good old days. In 2019, median household income saw the biggest spike in more than four decades — hitting arecord high of $68,700. The poverty rate fell to 10.5%, the lowest since records started six decades earlier, and prices for food and gas were much lower. To bring back the party, Trump has promised to cut regulation and lower the corporate tax rate to 20%. He’d also extend his 2017 tax cuts, which would give everyonea tax break, even if the largest would go to the wealthiest Americans.
You think the US should prioritize domestic industry and energy. Trump says the welfare of US industries and workers is more important than global economic integration. He renegotiated NAFTA (now USMCA) to appeal to those who believe past deals hurt American workers, and his willingness to impose tariffs on China resonates with voters concerned about Beijing’s economic rise and unfair trade practices.
Trump has proposed a 10% global tariff and a 60% tariff on Chinese imports, which could raise up to $3.8 trillion over a decade, even if raising the price of goods would also constitute a de facto tax on households. He also wants to unleash more American energy production and thinks that overemphasis on the green energy transition hurts US industries and hampers growth.
You think the US should keep its nose out of other countries’ wars. Trumpis overtly skeptical of foreign intervention, which aligns with voters who, after two decades of fighting in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, are fed up with wars that seem to go on indefinitely.
He believes the West has exaggerated the threat posed by Vladimir Putin and opposes sending more US military aid to Ukraine. China, he believes, is more dangerous than Russia because Beijing threatens to outpace the United States as the world’s dominant economic power.
You think the border is a big problem. As he did in 2016, Trump has put illegal immigration at the center of his campaign. The former president says he would militarize the border and conduct mass deportations of the undocumented. While his rhetoric sometimes veers into xenophobia or conspiracy, his emphasis on the gravity of the issue is in line with the broader feeling in the country. Gallup p0lls show that the majority of Americans view the situation at the US border to be a crisis and favor stricter asylum policies and more border control agents. Many of these voters blame Harris for the current situation at the border, since immigration was part of her portfolio as vice president.
You think he might not be a good person, but he tells it like it is. Democrats can make a mountain of moralistic condemnations of Trump — that he’s been indicted on criminal charges and incited an insurrection – but many voters don’t care about the political drama. They just want a president who speaks to their lived reality. Trump’s message of “America in decline” resonates with many voters living in communities where industries and opportunities have fled, where crime and costs-of-living crises have taken their place, and where politically correct pieties seem to take precedence over solutions to their problems.
_____
And the case for not worrying too much regardless of who wins? You probably think that whatever the excesses of Trump or Harris might be, a narrowly divided Congress and strong US institutions will restrain their worst impulses and ideas. There will be, you are confident, no “fascism” or “socialism” in America under either Harris or Trump. This raises a new question: Will you, unconcerned, fair-minded voter, bother casting a vote at all?
Well, who’s it going to be? Tell us what you think is the best case for and against each candidate here. If you include your name and where you’re writing from, we may include your response in an upcoming edition of the GZERO Daily, our flagship newsletter.
GZERO presidential debate scorecard: Rate the debate!
GZERO will try to declare a winner of Tuesday night's debate. Check out our scoring rubric. If you use it when you watch, let us know who you awarded the most points. Not feeling like keeping score? We also have bingo cards for your debate watch party here.
The tariffs strike back: Is this the end of globalization?
My political compass has been spinning lately, and not just because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted to ditching a bear corpse in Central Park before finally endorsing Donald J. Trump (that one caused a bit of political vertigo). My deeper confusion stems from the political debate about protecting our jobs.
It used to be, reliably, that the conservative right supported free trade and globalization, while the progressive left wanted protectionism for local industries.
Elections were fought on this, libraries were filled with studies on it.
For Republicans, Ronald Reagan’s 1988 Thanksgiving address was considered economic theology. “One of the key factors behind our nation’s great prosperity is the open trade policy that allows the American people to freely exchange goods and services with free people around the world,” the Gipper said.
That era ended under Trump’s first administration when he used two tools to impose tariffs on a wide-ranging series of goods: Section 301 (tariffs that combat unfair trade practices) and Section 232 (tariffs that protect national security). These tariffs hit almost $280 billion of goods and, according to the American Action Forum, increased consumer costs by over $51 billion a year. By the way, Joe Biden kept most of these in place. Recently, Biden went even further, slapping $18 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese-produced EVs, semiconductors, and critical minerals, among other things. This is all part of the industrial policy he ushered in under the Inflation Reduction Act. So both sides love a good tariff.
But in this campaign cycle — it’s as if a sequel titled “The Tariffs Strike Back” has been released — we must wonder: Is this the beginning of the end of globalization and the rise of a new age of tariffs?
Both Republicans and Democrats are making tariff-happy promises. Trump has mused on the campaign trail that he would like to impose a 10% tariff on all goods coming into the US.
“When companies come in and they dump their products in the United States, they should pay automatically, let’s say, a 10% tax … I do like the 10% for everybody,” the former president explained.
And it is not just in the US. Tariffs are being used everywhere.This week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau aligned with the US andannounced tariffs on Chinese-made EVs starting Oct. 1, and another 25% tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum.
“Actors like China have chosen to give themselves an unfair advantage in the global marketplace,” Trudeau said, “compromising the security of our critical industries and displacing dedicated Canadian auto and metal workers.”
He’s not wrong. China does have widespread, unfair trading practices. Using tariffs to rebalance against factors like low-wage workers or weak environmental standards is useful, as they can be to deal with trade imbalances. But it’s a slippery slope. Tariffs beget tariffs, and that starts a trade war where everyone loses.
Tariffs were critical to Trump’s first administration, especially as he renegotiated the NAFTA agreement with Mexico and Canada. But economists at places like the CATO Institute concluded that tariffs cost taxpayers anywhere from $50 to $80 billion in higher prices. “American consumers (both firms and individuals), not foreigners, paid for — and continue to pay for — the tariffs,” the experts wrote.
So why are they back? If Trump 1.0 taught politicians across the spectrum anything, it's that there are no votes in supporting globalization. Most states and provinces have lost jobs and plants to cheap labor in places like China and Mexico, and protecting jobs wins elections today, even if it means higher prices tomorrow.
And that’s exactly what it means. According to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, if Trump were to impose the across-the-board 10% tariff, it “would amount to a roughly $1,500 annual tax increase for the typical household, including a $90 tax increase on food, a $90 tax increase on prescription drugs, and a $120 tax increase on oil and petroleum products.” And there is a real debate as to whether higher tariffs, which aim to create jobs, actually do so.
A study from the US Department of Agriculture revealed that Trump’s 2018 tariffs on major trading partners like China, Canada, and Mexico cost billions due to retaliation. “From mid-2018 to the end of 2019, this study estimates that retaliatory tariffs caused a reduction of more than $27 billion (or annualized losses of $13.2 billion) in US agricultural exports,” the study said.
This is a case of Hobson’s choice: Keep some manufacturing jobs in your community, but face higher prices, lower productivity, and retaliation from other countries. After all, one tariff begets another, and the costs pile up. But the political gains are real, so protectionism is on the march again.
Trump’s VP running mate, Sen. JD Vance, recently defended tariffs and, to be fair, many countries have massive exceptions to free trade that include cutouts to protect certain industries with subsidies and quotas. In the US, national security is used extensively as a form of industrial policy — Trump, for example, imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, citing national security concerns. And in Canada, banks and milk and cheese farmers in Quebec are protected.
But Vance has gone further, arguing that tariffs in principle are a net economic gain. A tariff “causes this dynamic effect where more jobs come into the country,” Vance recently said on “Meet the Press.” “Anything that you lose on the tariff from the perspective of the consumer, you gain in higher wages, so you’re ultimately much better off. You have more take-home pay, you have better jobs,” he added.
By that logic, more tariffs would keep growing the economy, so where will they stop? That is the road to end any form of free trade and globalization.
Strangely, Vance’s argument not only flies against the conventional wisdom of his own party — the GOP has long advocated for free trade and open markets — but it also parrots what the left argued for decades as they fought free trade and globalization even as they were ridiculed by people like Reagan.
During Trump’s first term, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation published a piece called “Is the GOP Still the Party of Free Trade?” and concluded that they are not, especially after Trump took the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. That was a multilateral trade agreement with Asian countries meant to keep a strong US presence in Asia as a hedge against China. While 191 Republicans originally voted for it, that Republican Party no longer exists. “The effective abandonment of its free trade credentials sets the Republican Party on a perilous path,” wrote Phil Levy of the Reagan Foundation.
Democrats must be delighted that an argument they once lost so publicly is being relitigated. Now, both sides are arguing for the same thing and trying to outdo each other. It will be interesting to hear what Kamala Harris says about this as she finally reveals some policy.
We have now gone from embracing concepts like “nearshoring” and “friendshoring” for critical supply chain products like medicine and AI chips to picking winners and losers across the economy. This is 1970s industrial policy, and the distinction between the left and the right on this has become minimal.
Is this how globalization dies, one tariff at a time, in a series of trade wars and spats, Brexits and exits, until finally, the trade walls are back up, productivity plummets, and prices rise? Or is there a happy medium, where these global fights lead to a rise in both labor and environmental standards in places like China and Mexico and the cliched expression “fair trade, not free trade” actually becomes a reality?
Either way, it won’t be quick and, in the meantime, brace yourself for higher prices as your political compass keeps spinning wildly out of control.
Defining Kamala Harris at DNC 2024
From Chicago's United Center on the final night of the Democratic National Convention, Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, recaps the key takeaways from the DNC.
We're here in Chicago wrapping up the Democratic National Convention for 2024. You can see the balloons are falling behind us, and the benediction is going on as folks are starting to file out of the convention hall into what I think are going to be long lines to get home.
So a couple of key themes that jumped out over the four days of the convention. One was, of course, to introduce and define Kamala Harris, and what they sort of did was embrace her record as a prosecutor, giving her this persona as a loving family member, but a tough, no-nonsense person that you don't want to mess with. And that was a theme that was repeated over and over again in testimonials from her family and friends, and also a message pretty directly given by her.
Second, of course, they wanted to create a contrast with Trump, and the way they did that was to attack his character over and over again, talking about how, “They wouldn't trust him to move their furniture,” a really great line by Senator Elizabeth Warren, and making a contrast about the schemes and frauds and criminal convictions that are in his background versus, again, Kamala Harris's record as a prosecutor, standing up for a little guy.
And then, of course, another big theme, especially one that came out on day four tonight, was to define the Democratic Party as the party of freedom and the future of the USA. A lot of flags waving in the audience. There was an extended section speaking about the military and military strength, right in prime time. Clearly, Democrats trying to set themselves out to be the party that can defend America.
I would say three groups were really targeted over the course of the convention. The first is union members. There was a lot of shout-outs to organized labor, who are, of course, a key Democratic constituent. Black voters who are going to be absolutely critical to Kamala Harris' ability to win, particularly if they want to compete in Georgia and North Carolina. And then, Republicans, gettable on the fence Republican-leaning independents who don't like Trump all that much and want to feel comfortable voting for Kamala Harris. Very clear themes directed to those three groups throughout the week.
Overall, probably a pretty successful convention. Certainly played well here in the convention hall, but of course, it's how it plays on TV and social media that really matters.
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