The Binary Election.

A campaign in four parts.

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If former President Trump ends up winning the election, billions of pixels will be sacrificed on the altar of explanations. Previously, we described four ways the Biden White House and the Democratic Party more generally paved the road to a (possible) Trump victory. In a post before that one, we described the political “environment” that made and makes a Harris victory difficult, if not impossible.

A third way to look at the 2024 presidential campaign is chronological; what happened, when and what was the result. The chronological narrative (of the general election campaign) — think of it as a kind of Netflix series — goes something like this:

Episode #1 was the slow and then sudden collapse of the Biden re-election campaign. It ended with Biden’s disastrous debate performance and his eventual defenestration by Democratic Party leaders (Nancy Pelosi, basically).

Episode #2 was the anointment of Vice President Harris as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, the explosion of enthusiasm among Democrats that ensued and her surprisingly strong early performance as the party’s standard bearer. It ended with her trouncing Mr. Trump in their one and only debate.

Episode #3 was one advertisement and it’s astonishing how the “mainstream media” covered what was the key to Trump’s post-disastrous-debate revival. This from ABC News:

Millions of dollars from Republican groups and figures are being poured into anti-transgender ads criticizing policies that support the trans community, despite these issues being among the least important concerns motivating voters heading into the 2024 election, according to a recent Gallup poll.

It’s hard to imagine a more clueless analysis. The Trump campaign’s ad, entitled ‘Nonsense’, attacked Harris for backing taxpayer-funded gender transition procedures, ending with the tagline: “Kamala’s for they/them, President Trump is for you.” The various Republican “groups” ads were variations on the theme: Harris was for taxpayer-funded gender transition procedures, even for felons serving time in prison.

The ad(s) stopped Harris’s momentum cold, stabilized Trump’s campaign, and put him on the path to winning all four Sunbelt “battleground states” and maybe one or two of the Rust Belt ones as well. Which led to an outbreak of “bed-wetting” in elite Democratic Party circles, reminiscent of the extended “bed-wetting” that plagued the Biden campaign throughout his doomed re-election effort.

“We’re going to lose” was the off-the-record storyline amongst those elite Democrats and it was the product of the Trump campaign’s ‘Nonsense’ ad. (Not entirely, obviously, because Harris made a hash of various media interviews and had a understandably hard time getting her sea legs as a presidential candidate). But the ad, the most effective political television advertisement since the “Willie Horton ad” of the 1988 presidential campaign, was what changed the campaign’s direction and momentum. Harris was on the back foot. Episode #3 ended with all (or most) signs pointing to a Trump victory.

Episode #4 began with Harris as the underdog, charting a treacherous and narrow path to just 270 Electoral College votes (the minimum required for victory). Her campaign managers and operatives, having run out of convincing reasons why she might defeat Trump in the seven battleground states, offered themselves as the reason.

Specifically, they said theirs was the greatest ground game (Get-Out-The-Vote field operation) in the history of American presidential politics and she would squeak out a victory because of it.

And who knows, that might be true. Maybe. But it probably wasn’t going to be enough, by itself, to overcome Trump’s advantages in those seven “battleground” states. In order to win, the Harris campaign needed Trump’s help.

And lo and behold, with ten or so days to go, he started helping. This from Politico:

Donald Trump finished his final full week on the campaign trail the way he started it — with a set of grievance-fueled attacks that set off a firestorm among his critics, thrilled his supporters and drew a wary shrug from the Republican Party he dominates.

The former president started Sunday with a rally in which one of his opening acts described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage,” sparking outrage among Hispanic voters he will need in the swing state of Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

Then, he declared Wednesday that he would protect women whether they “like it or not,” further fueling a gender gap that could haunt him on Election Day.

And on Thursday, Trump said Republican former Rep. Liz Cheney should “face nine barrels shooting at her,” an apparent attack on her hawkish views that may alienate a small segment of the electorate he could need if the race against Vice President Kamala Harris is indeed as close as polls reflect.

It was vintage Trump — and evidence, yet again, of how little his campaign style has changed since he descended the escalator in Trump Tower more than eight years ago.

“This is what he always does,” said Doug Heye, a former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. “We focus on the crazy and that’s understandable, of course. But the consistency of how he does this — this is the disciplined message. He is saying precisely what he wants to say.”

Of Trump’s intent, Heye said, “He fires up the base, and focuses the attention on himself.”

The last ten days have been so bad, in fact, that Ann Selzer’s final Iowa Poll of 2024 found Harris “leading” Trump in Iowa by 3 percentage points (47%-44%); within the margin of error, yes, but stunning enough to make headlines around the world. Iowa is a monochromatic Red state.

(Sidebar: In 2020, Trump defeated Biden in Iowa by ~8 percentage points. Selzer’s final Iowa Poll that year had Trump winning the state by 7 percentage points and foretold a much closer national race than the mainstream news media was “reporting”. She’s one of the best pollsters in the United States.)

And so here we are. Tomorrow begins Episode #5. As things stand, Trump probably has a slight edge in 3 of the 4 Sunbelt battleground states, the three Rust Belt battleground states do seem much too close to call. The prospect of Trump running the table seems diminished, at best. She might surprise in two of the four Sunbelt states.

Which takes us back to the beginning. From the start, this election has always been binary. If Harris is the issue, Trump wins. If Trump is the issue, Harris wins. These past 8 or 9 days, Trump has inexplicably made himself the issue. It is possible he will end his political career by defeating himself.