Harris’ Race For Delegates, The New State of Play & The Not-So-Secret Service – Top 3 Takeaway
- Harris’ race to 1,976 was won. Today was set to be a pivotal day if the current vice president of the United States was to potentially be the next president of the United States. Instead, that day proved to be yesterday. We’re currently 104 days away from Election Day, 27 days away from the DNC, and just one day away from when the party’s leadership will meet to decide what next steps in their nomination process will be. Originally (and technically still currently), in large part to comply with Ohio law, Democrats were/are scheduled to hold a virtual vote of delegates set to take place between August 1st and the 7th in advance of the convention which would also ensure that no candidate drama would play out on the party’s convention floor. All bets were off save one possibility...if VP Kamala Harris could sure up the delegates necessary to win the nomination prior to plans potentially being changed tomorrow. As of now there are 2668 Democrat delegates, including Florida’s entire delegation, who’ve pledged their support to Harris. The magic number to win the nomination is 1976 – meaning that on her first full day in the race she got what she needed to have the green light to go into general election mode. Yesterday was the most pivotal day of her presidential campaign, and she was able to win it by staving off any potential competition. Had she not gotten there by tomorrow, she would have been at an increased risk of potentially not getting there at all – despite having been the overwhelming favorite to be the Democrat’s nominee (in the betting markets for example, Harris is being given a 32% chance of winning the presidential election. The next closest Democrat is Michelle Obama at 3% - somewhat notably Harris’ odds had risen ahead of Biden’s for a few days preceding Biden’s announcement). A protracted process would have meant Harris’ campaign would have had to spend resources, time and energy working on shoring up the nomination, and potentially defeating other challengers, as opposed to focusing her campaign on a general election matchup with Donald Trump. Harris’ race to get to 1,976 delegates was won on day one and now the only lingering drama is what the DNC will decide to do procedurally in tomorrow’s meeting.
- The new state of play. It’s safe to say this wasn’t the way that Democrat’s planned this election cycle to go. History is short on what happens from here – the only other comparative cycle to this one is the 1968 election that never came close to getting this far, as incumbent president Lyndon Johnson dropped out of the presidential race prior to clinching the delegates needed to win the nomination (March 31st). History didn’t prove favorable with Democrats in that cycle with Richard Nixon beating eventual Democrat presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey by 110 electoral college votes. As we switch gears into what’s unprecedented territory, which somehow seems fitting for this cycle, we’re not without a pretty good idea of what the current state of play happens to be. With wide swaths of Americans betting, some literally, on Joe Biden ending his presidential campaign, regular polling has been conducted with potential Trump challengers. None more so than the current Democrat frontrunner Vice President Kamala Harris. And what do the surveys say? The new state of play may be even more favorable for Trump than the previous one. In the RealClear Politics average of national polls Donald Trump’s lead over Joe Biden had most recently averaged 3%. In a two-way national race with Harris that drops to an advantage of 1.9%...but that doesn’t tell the entire story. When third party candidates are factored in, which may prove to be even more significant factors in this race with Biden out of the race than they were with him it in, the overall perspective shifts somewhat considerably. The most recent five-way polling nationally showed Trump with a 3.7% lead over President Biden. What does that look like with Harris at the top of the ticket? A 5-point advantage for Trump which is the largest average lead he’s shown nationally in any sequencing of polls against any potential presidential candidates in any of the three presidential elections he’s run. The new state of play appears to be trending Trump's way.
- The not-so-secret service. Monday was supposed to be the day we gained answers as to how the Secret Service managed to allow Donald Trump to be shot by an assassin that they’d been tracking well before the former and likely future President of the United States took the stage two Saturdays ago. Instead, Director Cheatle’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Monday was more of the same...starting with incompetence. Prior to the testimony of Cheatle being delivered to Congress it was leaked to the media. Representative Nancy Mace questioned Cheatle to her face about how that happened and whether it was potentially a political decision? Cheatle's answer. “I have no idea how my statement got out”. Mace called BS on that statement. In the grand scheme of things is it that big of a deal that the Secret Service director’s statement leaked in advance of the hearing? No. Is it concerning that the Secret Service director who presided over the utter incompetence that almost led to Donald Trump’s assassination doesn’t know how it could have leaked? Yeah, I’d say so. And as for takeaways from yesterday... Cheatle said “we failed”, but at the same time said she won’t resign. She said that the Secret Service was notified two to five times regarding a suspicious person (which in and of itself is suspicious, because was it 2 times or was it 3, 4, or 5 but also why wasn’t one time let alone multiple times enough to take decisive action to at least keep Trump off of the stage). She said she did “not have the details at this time” to be able to say if Secret Service agents directly interacted with the shooter prior to the attack. Cheatle said she can’t say if she’s prepared to fire people for the failures and said she won’t take any action until after there is a full report provided which isn’t expected for about 60 days. A couple of declarative questions that were answered were these...Cheatle stated that “for the event in Butler, there were no requests (for additional security by the Trump team) that were denied”. She also said when she spoke to Trump she apologized to him for the failure. I guess that’s something. But show of hands, how many people are confident that the person presiding over the Secret Service who can’t even tell you how her statement leaked, is competent to ensure that there aren’t future security leaks?