IN MY US FOCUS GROUPS over the last month, we have heard from crucial voters in all seven swing states. I would like to say that our conversations in Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and Georgia and North Carolina point to a clear winner, but they don’t. What they have done is helped to reveal the forces at work. If we’re no closer to knowing the outcome of today’s election, we know more about what will have brought it about.
Here, then, is why Trump could win. After years of inflation, many say his presidency looks better in retrospect than it felt at the time. People look back on a time of relative prosperity – thriving businesses and affordable groceries – and a strong American presence in the world during which Russia and Iran were contained and the southern border was reasonably secure. The kinder political culture that many voted for in 2020 did not materialise. The Biden administration’s liberal approach to cultural issues rankled with many. The legal cases against Trump, together with what sounded to some like his opponents’ increasingly naggy and self-righteous tone – not to mention President Biden’s description of his supporters as “garbage” – bolstered rather than undermined his standing. The Democrats squandered trust by insisting that Biden was fully capable of a second term until the moment Kamala Harris replaced him on the ticket. The qualms that many felt at having a new nominee imposed on them without their say-so were exacerbated by her failure, or refusal, to be clearer about her policies and values. Voters wondered who would really call the shots in a Harris White House. Her public performances and interviews did not always inspire confidence, and people registered her insistence on talking about her opponent when asked about her own plans. Her talk of Trump as a “fascist” seemed to contradict her professed desire to end hatred and division. Some minority voters shifted, attracted by Trump’s record and persona and repulsed by what many saw as Harris’s pandering and the Democrats’ wider tendency to take them for granted.
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