Trump and Harris rely on outside factors to drive stubbornly competitive race

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are in a race that refuses to go beyond the margin of error in elections despite historical developments, and external factors are starting to play an increasingly important role.

Two assassination attempts, a controversy, debates about conspiracy theories and theorists in the Trump campaign, and more have largely failed to move the electoral needle in any significant way, leaving players on the field looking for help from the stands ahead of Election Day.

For Trump, a recent attempt to change the way electoral votes are counted in Nebraska and changes to the rules in Georgia signaled an effort to gain advantage in key battleground states. Harris, meanwhile, is counting on abortion-related referendums for juice participation and hoping the firestorm around the North Carolina Lt. Governor and GOP gubernatorial candidate will overwhelm Republicans in the purple state.

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Taken together, the maneuvers serve as a way to find any advantage, even if it’s on the margins, in a race where poll after poll remains exciting.

“With a highly polarized electorate, a lot of these states and a lot of these elections end up winning or losing by the margins, so every little bit helps,” said North Carolina Democratic strategist Morgan Jackson.

“It’s an environment where a blowout is three points,” he added. “People are locked in. Forty-seven percent of people are locked in on one side, 47% are locked in in the other side, and the candidate who has the ability to move the needle on the margins is going to win.”

The need to find an advantage has been underscored in most national and other state polls, which rarely show either party with a lead outside the margin of error. Since the end of July, Harris’ average of 538 votes has not gone beyond a 3.7-point lead; That won’t leave Democrats alone or leave Republicans out of the game.

This isn’t for lack of trying.

The two assassination attempts on Trump are the kind of black swan event that would normally generate a flood of goodwill for a candidate. On the other hand, Harris’ debate performance and controversy over the former president’s remarks about legal immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, and her relationship with conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer could help elevate the vice president’s standing in the political landscape of the past.

But since each of the candidates has high levels of support, they are forced to look elsewhere for support.

Trump’s allies have enacted new vote-counting rules in Georgia, including relying on machines instead of counting votes by hand. The former president reportedly claimed the move would help eliminate fraud, but experts insist it would instead lead to more errors.

He also led a pressure campaign to have Nebraska’s electoral count be a winner-takes-all system, rather than distributing Electoral College votes by congressional district, offering Harris a window to get a vote in Omaha. That effort ended due to insufficient support from Republican state legislators.

Harris thinks a base empowered by abortion ballot initiatives will carry her to victory in target states like Arizona, Florida and Nevada. Robinson’s scandal, which involves, among other things, posts on a pornographic website chat forum in which he called himself a “black Nazi”, comes in the only swing state that has trended in Trump’s favor in 2020, which Democrats believe is reversible.

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“When it comes to abortion referendums, hand-counted votes, or Robinson, you’re not making any progress on anything here. You’re moving maybe a few thousand votes. So are these states going to be down to a few thousand votes? “That’s really the fundamental question,” said a former senior Trump administration official. ” he said. “You’re trying to take bits and pieces of yourself.”

The importance of external factors makes sense in a race where candidate Trump has universal name recognition. Harris is a major political figure who has room to improve voters’ perceptions of her, but she also has four years as a California senator and nearly four more in her current office.

“A little bit,” a source familiar with the Harris campaign’s thinking said when asked if they were surprised by the overall lack of action in the race. “We all know how well-defined and well-known Trump is, so it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s harder to change opinions about him. But given that voters don’t know enough about the vice president, I was by all accounts expecting a strong debate performance to move the needle for him.” He would have done more for you.”

“Look, (Trump) had the best 10 weeks of his political career this summer, and Harris had the best 10 weeks of any Democrat, and we’re exactly where we were three months ago,” Dave Carney added. GOP strategist and chairman of pro-Trump super PAC.

Leaning on external factors is not a completely original tactic.

Democratic strategist Karen Finney, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, said former President George W. Bush used anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives to drum up excitement among conservatives in 2004, and former President Bill Clinton traveled for a visit in 2106. He noted that he did. In deep-red stronghold Utah, a fundraiser was held to win over Trump-skeptical Mormon voters. The Clinton campaign also published an op-ed in a state newspaper.

“Campaigns are looking for places where they can gain even a small advantage, and sometimes that shows up in unexpected places,” Finney said. “Given how close the margins are, you don’t want to leave anything on the table.”

It is not clear how much the candidates will benefit.

Bush triumphed in 2004, but that victory was largely attributed to the country re-electing the commander in chief during the war. And it is known that Clinton lost to Trump.

But strategists on both sides said it was at least worth a try.

“There’s no one who doesn’t have an opinion on Donald Trump, and he’s not going to move,” said Peter Giangreco, a Democratic strategist and veteran of the presidential campaign. “So if you can’t influence participation, what else are you going to do?”

Trump and Harris rely on outside factors to drive stubbornly competitive race originally appeared abcnews.go.com