Why Harris vs. Trump is Closer Than You Think: Five Reasons Either Could Win in 2024

It’s still anyone’s race.

After what feels like an absolute eternity of an election cycle, we have finally, finally (!) arrived less than a week away from discovering the 2024 Presidential election winner. Everywhere I go, the air feels tense. Granted, I live in the Beltway, surrounded personally and professionally by people in political media and politics. Maybe I have a biased perspective, but this is undoubtedly the most divided time for our country in modern memory, and by far the most chaotic and pessimistic election cycle I’ve ever experienced.

No one truly knows what will happen on November 5th, and if they claim they do, they’re spinning their own agenda. Don’t trust them. That said, there are always tea leaves to read and early voting exit polls to analyze. At this very moment, yes, it is looking and feeling like the majority of the momentum is in Trump's favor. If forced to bet, I’d put my money on Trump bringing it home. However, the Trump campaign surrogates, who are fresh off an over the top Madison Square Garden rally are gloating and behaving as if they have already won and the contest is over. This, I assure you, is ill-advised. If there is one thing you can count on, it is that you should always be superstitious when it comes to politics, and you should never tempt the election Gods.

As for me? Well, you probably already know. These aren’t my people, these aren’t my candidates, this isn’t my vibe or my kind of politics. I find Donald Trump distasteful and completely unfit for office, and I find Vice President Harris incompetent and distrust her inability to clearly explain her policy beliefs. Just one example—does she support taxpayer-funded transition surgeries for illegal immigrants in jail or not? After watching her interview with Bret Baier, I still have no idea.

It’s easy to feel like people like me, and maybe people like you, are an endangered species wandering the wilderness alone. Sometimes I feel like a relic of a bygone era. I’m not a Never Trumper who let Trump turn me into a progressive liberal, nor am I a MAGA populist who abandoned the true ideologies of small government and personal liberty.

I told a friend this morning that I feel like Morpheus in The Matrix, screaming from an underground lair to my fellow “normies” (as we have been coined by the media this cycle) that we are, in fact, still here! But I won’t lie; this election cycle has felt especially lonely and isolating.

If you consider yourself one of my own, please reach out here to comment and share—this is what this space is for, and please know, I feel you. We’re in this together—today, on Election Day, the day after, and beyond. No matter who wins, I fear the future for different reasons. The hardest part of this is seeing so many of my friends scared and knowing that one segment of my friend group will be in pain no matter who wins. This is an era of fear and rage, and the only way out, my friends, is through.

In the meantime, here’s my quick and dirty analysis that’ll prepare you for any cocktail party, children's playdate, or Halloween gathering: Five reasons Trump can win, and five reasons Harris can win. We’re all busy, and your girl loves a “listicle” (that’s when you list reasons instead of writing a giant essay).

And finally, for your enjoyment, I’ve included photos of my very first Election Day in 1984, when I was two weeks old and my parents were voting in my dad’s second Congressional race. I’ve been doing this literally my entire life.

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Five Reasons Trump Can Win:

1. “It’s the economy, stupid.” James Carville’s infamous phrase remains true. The last four years have been economically hard for Americans. Grocery prices are up 20% from four years ago, gas is pricier, inflation is killing the middle and lower classes, and housing interest rates are so high that many can’t buy a home or move. Recently, on The View, Vice President Harris was asked if she’d do anything differently than President Biden, and she couldn’t name a single thing! Not one thing! For someone trying to distinguish herself from one of the least popular Presidents in polling history (next to Trump), this was an insane response. So, why do voters have a reason to believe she can fix the economy going forward and anything would be different from the last four years?

2. The crisis at the southern border and immigration. Democrats have biffed this one very badly. According to a recent YouGov poll, this is consistently one of the top three priorities for voters aside from health care and the economy. Everything from housing 200,000 migrants in New York City since the spring of 2022 (with a thousand new migrants a week coming into the city), to the Biden administration being on track to reach 10 million encounters at America's southern border, gives the impression that Democrats support open borders and have not taken this crisis seriously. The actual policy that has been put into place over the past four years has exacerbated the immigration crisis. I have always found this to be the progressive perspective on this issue—they are fine with illegal immigration as long as it is impacting people living on the poverty line in places like Yuma, Arizona, and Brownsville, Texas. But this isn't just a border state issue; it is a nationwide issue, and Trump's hard-line immigration stance is something voters are more in favor of.

3. Trump comes off more fun and relaxed than she does. Bear with me on this, but there is a lot of folklore that the candidate who looks like they are happy, enjoying themselves on the campaign trail, and overall having a good time with the American public, is the one who is going to win. This has shown up repeatedly throughout modern election history: JFK vs. Nixon, Bill Clinton vs. George Bush, Obama against Romney—you get the idea. Trump is having a good time. He is laughing and making jokes, spending a day working at McDonald's, going on all the broscape podcasts like Joe Rogan and Theo Von, peacocking at his Madison Square Garden event and many other rallies you've seen. He is having a good time; she... doesn't seem to be at all.

4. The culture wars have drained everyone. The era of cancellation, Me Too, and overall Red Scare hysteria about what can and can't be said in public and who can and cannot say it has exhausted the vast majority of Americans and has been widely perceived as a bridge too far. To quote James Carville again, he blames "stupid wokeism" for much of the Democratic Party's problems. This isn't even mentioning all the uncomfortable and insane things happening in children's education, women’s sports, the crisis of antisemitism on elite college campuses, and beyond.

5. Trump is not the incumbent, and his party is almost entirely united. He is also considered an outsider running against "the machine," no matter how absurd that is in reality. One of the most impactful statements I ever heard Trump say was, "They're not after me, they're after you, and I just happen to be in the way." It is easier to run as a perceived outsider not in power. The media hates him, academia hates him, Hollywood and entertainment hate him, everyone hates him except his supporters, and this has worked to his benefit. It is also easier for him to not have the albatross of the Biden administration around his neck like it is for Harris. Americans love change, even if it is coming in an unorthodox package.

Five Reasons Harris Can Win:

1. Women's rage, baby. This election is set to have the largest gender gap in modern history, with women siding with her and men siding with him. In 2022, Republicans were supposed to sweep Congress and the Senate with easy wins. Instead, Republicans squeaked out one of the smallest wins in American history (219 to 213), and Chuck Schumer held power as the Senate majority leader. A lot of the momentum for Democrats was driven by pro-choice women angry about the repealing of Roe and the perceived assault on abortion rights. We were surprised before—we can be surprised again. There is also the obvious factor that a lot of women don't understand why we haven't had a woman President yet and proudly claim the title of "childless cat lady."

2. Democrats are traditionally better at grassroots organizing and early voting than Republicans. They also just generally have more money. Harris has raised over a billion dollars and has a more sophisticated machine coming out of the DNC to help her across the finish line. This is going off information from the past, but it is hard to believe the Democrats' apparatus has completely fallen apart in the past few years.

3. Americans do not want to return to chaos. Trump is scary, unpredictable, vulgar, traffics in racist and misogynistic language, is a convicted felon on 34 accounts who called January 6th "a beautiful day." He is a man who has been accused of sexual assault and lacks any kind of character of someone I would put in office as dog catcher, let alone President. The Trump years were incredibly stressful and unpredictable, and time and time again, his personality and integrity issues are the reason many voters, especially a lot of suburban college-educated moms, simply can't pull the lever for him.

4. Harris is constantly underestimated. She has been a much stronger candidate than anticipated and has wholeheartedly given the Trump campaign a run for their money. Let's go back a few months to last summer after Biden's terrible debate performance that ended his career and the poll numbers he was at then versus Trump. No one could have ever predicted Harris would be the nominee, let alone take the election to a statistically tied position. Maybe this is something we only do to our women candidates, I am not sure, but she has been underestimated from the beginning and saved her party from a complete and total embarrassing obliteration this cycle.

5. There is a slight possibility Trump peaked too early last week. Politics is all about timing, and the collective panic about election day coming from Democrats and the celebratory enthusiasm coming from Trumpland can backfire. It ain't over until it's over, and once again, no one should be throwing confetti just yet.

And now, I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the legendary Arizona Congressman Mo Udall that has gotten me through many election nights in the past that I now pass on to you to use and share: "The voters have spoken—the bastards."

Thank you for reading and supporting me. Please share, subscribe, all the things; this is still new!

Love,

Meghan