Kamala Harris gives huge clue she knows her days are numbered | World | News
As the world holds its breath to see which US presidential candidate will scrape past the winning post in three weeks, the tension in the country is palpable. The race is in constant flux. And from my short stay here in the former swing state of Florida, it is clear that this will be one of the closest elections in living memory.
In the past, received wisdom dictated that where Florida goes, the nation follows. After all, it’s a state at the confluence of many key demographics, including Hispanics, Blacks, and a significant elderly population.
It almost always correctly predicts national trends – and while the former Democrat-backing state is now solidly Republican, there are indicators that this may still be true. As I have seen firsthand, Florida is unapologetically pro-Trump, with many election banners festooned across its southern half.
And if the polls are accurate, the rest of the country seems poised to follow suit. In the space of a fortnight, team Trump has managed to reverse Kamala Harris’s lead in six of the seven key swing states. Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia have all swung slightly in the former President’s favour. And Wisconsin looks like it may turn that way, too. While the polls could be wrong, they are still nail-bitingly close.
For Vice President Harris, who is facing a deeply flawed candidate in Trump, this is not a comfortable place to be.
So, what changed? It certainly wasn’t the sudden increase in Donald Trump’s popularity. After all, he has been at the heart of American politics for over a decade now. There are no surprises with him. No, the real story here is the collapse of Kamala’s campaign, which is now in panic mode.
Defenestrating Joe Biden in favour of his Vice President was always a gamble. And for a time, it seemed to be working. Kamala’s campaign quickly gained support, money, and much sycophantic media coverage, so much so that one could almost be forgiven for forgetting that her opponent experienced two assassination attempts since her nomination.
Nonetheless, the cracks in Miss Harris are starting to show. And with it, an eerie sense that it may all soon be over.
Her main problem is that the more Americans hear from her, the less they like her. Her word salads and incoherence haven’t gone unnoticed. And she has the misfortune of being unable to hide away like her predecessor for fear of saying the wrong thing. Every time she opens her mouth, her campaign slogan turns from ‘hope’ to ‘hopeless’.
Just look at this extract from a recent interview she gave to a US news outlet about tackling the country’s housing crisis: “Some of the work is going to be through what we do in terms of giving benefits and assistance to state and local governments around transit dollars, and looking holistically at the connection between that and housing – and looking holistically at the incentives we in the federal government can create for local and state governments to actually engage in planning in [a] holistic manner that includes prioritizing affordable housing for working people.”
Come again? Does this sound like the kind of candidate poised to lead the world’s most powerful country? Kamala’s ‘platitudes with an attitude’ routine is also grating and uninspired. She is also constrained by Biden’s legacy and her role as Vice President.
Her talk of “turning the page” and “charting a new way forward” largely falls on deaf ears, not least because voters recognise from someone already in power for the last three and a half years.
Her campaign also suffers from a huge gender gap (oh, the irony), with the VP trailing heavily with blue-collar, white males. Turning this into the ‘woman’ election wasn’t a wise move. In fact, legend has it that if you say abortion three times, Kamala Harris will appear.
Black men, too, are unenthused by the VP, so much so that the Democrats wheeled out former president Barack Obama to scold them for not supporting a “sister”. Maybe they will finally decide whether Kamala is black or Indian because I’m still unsure.
It’s clear that Harris’s ‘joy’ bubble has burst, and it’s easy to see why. Her campaign is confused, disjointed, and lacklustre. She has been unable to convincingly clarify her stance on many key issues, including fracking, illegal immigration, and the economy.
And if her “Haitians for Kamala” banner, which I saw driving down the I95 to Miami, doesn’t reek of desperation, I don’t know what does.
My gut feeling is that team Kamala knows her days are numbered. Unlike the ‘Red Wave’ predicted two years ago, a Trump victory won’t be by a large margin. But it will be a victory, nonetheless. And that’s all that matters.
