Newsfront
Trump Ahead on Issues That Matter Most
D
Former president must stay focused on exposing Harris’ progressive policies, says political expert John Fund. BY JOHN FUND
onald trump may still be elected presi- dent, but it will not be on the strength of his debating skills. His undisciplined approach to the Sept. 10
faceoff allowed his opponent to skate over her vague plat- form and dominate him psychologically. But progressives should curb their enthusiasm about the
ultimate impact of the debate. Premature celebration by the left breeds the kind of complacency that put Trump in the White House in 2016. Snap polls conducted after debates in 2016 and 2020
judged Trump to be the loser — and “bigly.” But when it came to the general elections, they underestimated his support. This suggests that Trump’s angry approach, divisive-
ness, exaggerations, contradictions, and lack of policy knowledge — are priced in with the electorate. A single debate doesn’t change that. And voters are still forming their opinion about Vice
President Kamala Harris, who is largely an unknown quantity. JL Partners, which polls for Britain’s Daily Mail news- paper, conducted an 800-person survey of independent
voters. Trump came out ahead on issues that matter most to voters. Independents said that Trump won the debate on the
economy, immigration, foreign policy, and Israel, while Harris won on abortion, healthcare, and democracy. The New York Times/Siena College poll taken just
before the debate found that voters view Trump as the more moderate candidate — 44% think Harris is too liberal, compared to just 32% who think he’s too conservative. That should alarm Harris supporters, given her deter-
mined effort to hide her ideology and not answer questions outside of controlled situations. While there is plenty of evidence suggesting there is a
ceiling to Trump’s support, his strength among low pro- pensity voters means his actual level of support will remain under the radar until the end. But there are still areas of concern for Trump. One, their candidate has a focus problem. His chances
of winning are dependent on successfully defining Harris as “weak, failed, and dangerously liberal.”
T
he day before the debate, the progressive New Repub- lic magazine mocked her evasive maneuvers to avoid
discussing her issues as “comical” and sloppily done. In fact, they revealed that the sections on policy that
were finally uploaded to her website just four days before the debate revealed “a simple but telling error. The page’s source code revealed that parts of the platform were copied directly from Biden’s campaign page.” How can Harris campaign as an instrument of change
when she plagiarizes the Biden-Harris campaign of earlier this year on policy? The New York Times poll found that more than 60%
of voters want the next president to represent a “major change” from Biden — and only a quarter felt that Harris represented that change. Trump failed to drive that point home.
Another area of concern is that Trump apparently is 44%
of voters think Harris is too liberal.
32%
of voters think Trump is too conservative.
VOTERS VIEW TRUMP AS THE MORE MODERATE CANDIDATE
12 NEWSMAX | OCTOBER 2024
not as good a negotiator as he thinks he is. Last spring, he agreed to the Biden campaign’s demand there be an early debate in June — more than three months before any pre- vious general election debate had been held. In hindsight, it’s clear that Biden made that demand
only to appease donors who were worried if he had the cognitive ability to handle a debate. His failure precipi- tated his replacement by Harris, a much more formidable opponent. It is important to remember one thing we’ve learned
since Trump descended that golden escalator at Trump Tower nine years ago: When all the corners of elite think- ing are in agreement that Trump is finished — whether it’s social media, Wall Street, the Beltway, or cable TV green rooms — you can be sure of one thing. They are often wrong.
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