Why it’s Trump’s election to lose

As both campaigns ramp up the rhetoric in the closing days, some positive signs for Kamala Harris do not outweigh the Republican’s advantage

Four days before the US election, both presidential campaigns are in a blind panic.
Early voting data, polls and election models all point to different results, and exhausted spin doctors on both sides of the aisle are trying desperately to spin the little information we have.
What we know for sure is that the swing states – the seven battlegrounds that will decide this election – are incredibly close.
The latest survey of those states, taken for The Telegraph by Redfield & Wilton Strategies between Monday and Wednesday this week, finds that Donald Trump now leads Kamala Harris in four out of seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina.
In the so-called Blue Wall, Ms Harris’s most likely route to victory, Ms Harris leads in only one of three states – Wisconsin. The candidates are tied in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The polls do not all agree on the result. An average, which combines all of the most recent surveys, shows that no candidate has a lead of more than two points in any swing state, apart from Trump in Arizona, where he is three points ahead.
If the aggregated scores were to be replicated on Tuesday, Ms Harris would win by a wafer-thin majority of two votes in the Electoral College.
These polls are not the ones being scrutinised in campaign headquarters on both sides. Each of the campaigns has their own polling and internal data from canvassing voters for the last few months, but neither is keen to share their results for fear of influencing the result to the other’s benefit.
Instead, the US media has been fed a diet of increasingly hysterical “internal memos” from the campaigns, which are tactically leaked to the press to generate useful stories.
One such memo, handed to the political website Axios on Thursday, purports to be addressed to Trump and his team from Tony Fabrizio, their top pollster.
“PRESIDENT TRUMP IS ON THE VERGE,” it says, adding that his position “nationally and in every single Battleground State is SIGNIFICANTLY better today than it was 4 years ago.”
David Plouffe, one of Ms Harris’s senior advisers, had the same message.
“Our sense is that [among] the people who’ve made up their mind in the last week, we’re doing quite well,” he told CNN.
At this late stage in the cycle, both campaigns must also contend with results from early voting, which add a new layer of speculation and analysis to the mix.
Figures from several major US pollsters on Friday morning showed Ms Harris has between a 19 and 29-point advantage among the 65 million American voters who say they have already cast their ballots.
The data shows that Trump is looking weaker than expected among elderly voters, who are generally more likely to vote early, and women are voting early in droves – which is good news for Ms Harris.
Balancing the various reports against the feeling on the ground, both campaigns have made some unusual strategy decisions in recent days, as they have moved to the “closing argument” phase of their election strategy.
For Ms Harris, that means a return to Joe Biden’s old tactic of scaring voters into choosing her on Tuesday, arguing that Trump is a “fascist” who would destroy American democracy and branding him unhinged”.
Polls show that strategy is not an effective way to win over undecided voters, although it may motivate existing supporters to head to polling booths on Tuesday.
Mr Biden unhelpfully suggested in a call with a Latino non-profit earlier this week that Trump supporters were “garbage”, prompting a furious backlash from Republicans, a swift cover-up from the White House and a statement from Ms Harris to distance herself from his remarks.
Trump, whose trademark fake tan has become even more extreme in recent days, has also turned the dial up on aggressive rhetoric towards his opponents.
At a rally in Arizona on Thursday night, he suggested Liz Cheney, the daughter of the Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, would not be such a “radical war hawk” if she had “nine barrels shooting at her”.
“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her…and let’s see how she feels about it when the guns are trained on her face,” he said.
The extreme language was seized upon by critics, including Ms Cheney who claimed his comments amounted to a death threat.
Trump has also taken to appearing at rallies wearing a long, dark coat, and arriving to a theme used by the Undertaker, a pro-wrestler who has backed his campaign. The effect is sinister.
As well as the new look, which Elon Musk coined “dark gothic MAGA”, the Trump campaign has also launched a series of lawsuits alleging election interference and voter fraud in multiple states, including Pennsylvania.
On Friday, a judge in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, agreed to allow the campaign to bring forward a lawsuit over long lines to collect mail-in ballots. The campaign claimed Republicans had been turned away.
In the final days of campaigning, both candidates are also emptying their bank accounts on splashy advertisements in the swing states.
The campaigns have spent a combined total of more than $1.3 billion during this election cycle, including more than $500 million in the last month alone.
Despite a cash injection for Trump by Mr Musk, Ms Harris has outspent him by a significant margin, fuelled by a boost in donations after she took over the Democratic ticket from Mr Biden in late July.
The latest offering from a Harris-backing PAC, is an ad that begins with a young man and woman having sex.
When their condom breaks, the man runs to get a contraceptive pill from her bathroom cabinet, only to be blocked by a Republican congressman who is cracking down on birth control.
“You can’t do this – I can’t have a kid right now!” the man says, only to receive the reply: “I won the last election, so it’s my decision.”
Another ad about abortion access, from the same group, is entitled “Republicans killing your wife”.
Trump’s supporters are also engaged in the battle over sex and gender at this election, with a series of ads portraying Ms Harris as obsessed with transgender rights.
Adverts by the campaigns, which include Trump’s and those of downballot Republicans, feature images of drag queens and transgender women.
In one, Ms Harris appears beside a person with a moustache wearing a dress. Another bears the slogan: “Crazy liberal Kamala is for they/them, president Trump is for you.”
Although some of the early signs are good news for Ms Harris, the momentum in this campaign is still on Trump’s side.
A Telegraph poll of the 25 swing counties that have voted for winning presidents in the last four elections finds him one point ahead, on 47 per cent of the vote to Ms Harris’s 46.
The betting markets, which rely on gambler’s instinct rather than pure data, heavily favour Trump.
Ms Harris has also been unable to arrest the decline in support for her among black voters, Latinos and Arab Americans, all of which were components of Mr Biden’s winning electoral coalition in 2020.
Although a majority of voters in those groups still support her, Ms Harris’s campaign is relying on large majorities and high turnout among those groups to counterbalance Trump’s strength among white men and the wealthy.
It is statistically almost impossible for this election to be any closer to call. Trump has the wind in his sails, and it appears the race is his to lose. Both sides have a nervous weekend ahead as the results approach.