Since losing the election in 2020, Donald Trump has not missed an opportunity to disqualify the person who, according to his unfounded reasons, stole his victory at the polls, the Democrat Joe Biden. More than three and a half years of mockery and ridicule that, paradoxically, seemed to come to an end after Biden lost by knockout the debate that faced them on June 27. As if the Republican had seen perfectly clear that Biden alone is enough to expose his weakness, as if he did not need to shake up any more – except for the occasional outburst on his social network out of force of habit – the disheveled Democrat. The nickname of Sleepy Joethat Trump coined for him in the last campaign, the sleepy Joe, was certified when he demonstrated live, as he admitted days later, that he almost fell asleep during the debate.
The Republican candidate’s string of nicknames, disqualifications and personal attacks has given way to an unusual silence, under which lies a calculation: the best scenario for his interests is for Biden, 81, to remain in the race amidst a sea of doubts about his suitability. The Republican, who has been accumulating good news lately – the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity and the subsequent postponement of the sentence in his New York criminal case – has not remained completely silent, as he has given several radio interviews and published messages on his Truth Social platform, but he has let the Democratic Party do the dirty work for him: the task of further wearing down candidate Biden with each new doubt. That is why he does not want anything, not even the announcement of who will be his running mate, to divert attention from the Democratic crisis.
Only the possibility that Vice President Kamala Harris could replace Biden has brought Trump out of his silence. Although the polls are in his favor — the Times/Siena College poll, published this week, gives him a six-point lead — the Republican is preparing a preemptive attack against the vice president, according to the website Axiosto denounce her liberal attitude, her hostility towards the corporate world, her ineffectiveness in border control – despite having been commissioned by Biden in 2021 to address the migration crisis – and, in short, her discreet time as vice president.
But the truth is that an eventual Harris candidacy would attract more women, who historically vote in greater proportion than men. 50% of female voters support Harris over Trump, compared to 44% who support Biden. The vice president embodies the defense of abortion that gave such good results to the Democrats in the midterm elections, in November 2022: since the revocation of the doctrine Roe vs Wade by the Supreme Court in June of that year, Harris has fought tirelessly for the reproductive rights of American women.
Furthermore, compared to the equally elderly Trump (78 years old), the vice president is 59 years old (she turns 60 two weeks before the election) and the image of energy and vitality that she projects – somewhat excessive, according to those who criticize her dances on TikTok – would undoubtedly be a brake on the speed and agility that Trump showed in the debate with Biden. Harris has the entire Democratic apparatus behind her, followed at a distance by the viable successor options of governors Gavin Newsom (California) and Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan).
For all this, the Republican took to his social network to unleash the first salvo against Harris. Known for her frank and easy laugh, he baptized her as Laffin (slang of laughingsmiling) Kamala. And giving a nickname is, for Trump, a sign that he takes his opponent seriously. “Respect to our potentially new Democratic contender Laffin’“Kamala Harris,” he wrote on Thursday. “She fared poorly in the Democratic nomination process [para las presidenciales de 2020]starting as number two and ending up defeated and dropping out, before reaching Iowa, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a politician highly talented! In another post, he called her “bad” and “pathetic.” And in a video to which the portal had access The Daily Beastin which the Republican appears in a golf cart, doubled down on the attack a day later, saying: “It’s so pathetic…”
Knowing what’s happening outside means understanding what’s going to happen inside, so don’t miss anything.
KEEP READING
Trump’s disqualifications would multiply according to many analysts if, less than four months from the elections, Harris chose as her second in the tandem a moderate, centrist Democrat from one of the seven swing states, whose voters can tip the result one way or the other in November. From Pennsylvania, for example, the state most courted by both candidates and where Trump will hold a campaign event this week. The hypothesis of a Kamala Harris accompanied by a new candidate would be a surprise factor for the electorate, and a complete unknown for Trump, hence his preference for Biden to remain in the race, as the president has assured twice this Friday that he will do. The next debate, on September 10 on ABC News, could be all or nothing for Trump if he has to face a new opponent.
A CNN poll released Tuesday found that independents support Harris, 43% to Trump’s 40% (and Biden’s 34%), and moderate voters like her too, 51% to Trump’s 39%. But Trump’s advisers believe Harris would fare worse than Biden with the Republicans. blue collars —workers, unskilled workers— of the so-called blue wall Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. There is no breakdown of support for Harris in the swing states, but both campaign teams consider them crucial.
In an uneven contest, only the calendar that sets the deadlines for the electoral process stands between the Democrats’ sea of doubts and Trump’s advantageous room for maneuver. At the two campaign events called this week – the one in Philadelphia and another in Florida on Saturday – the Republican could announce the name of his running mate, days before he is enthroned as the Republican candidate for the White House at the Republican Party convention in Milwaukee on July 18. The Democrats have one more month, until the convention in mid-August in Chicago, to repair the damage caused by Biden’s performance in the debate, and that means silencing doubts, avoiding internal crisis so as not to offer the enemy another target.
Follow all the information about the elections in the United States atour weekly newsletter.
.
.
_
