Democrats Think They Have One Last Ace in the Hole. Is It Real? | Opinion
Donald Trump Is Struggling To Win Over White Women—Here's Why
By Matt Robison
There are two ideas firing Democrats' desperate dreams right now. Both come from ancient Greece.
The first is democracy, which derives from the Greek root words meaning "people" (demos) and "rule" (kratos). Whether the people actually rule in America—or whether a minority grabs power for their mad king through a broken system and possibly some random luck—will be put to the test on November 5.
The second is the theatrical happy ending. No, really...ancient Greeks were passionate about theater, and especially fond of tragic plots where apparently unsolvable problems got fixed at the last moment through divine intervention. In practical terms, this meant using a crane to lower an actor playing one of their gods to the stage to deliver a magic solution in the final scene of the play. Hence the ancient term deus ex machina, meaning "god from the machine."
Harris on the Stump
Vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Riverside Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Oct. 18. KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images
Whether the seemingly inexorable problem of former President Donald Trump can be magically fixed at the last moment is also about to be tested, because Democrats have tried and failed to find a savior for almost four years and are now down to the final one.
The first attempt at a deus ex machina was the second impeachment. It very nearly succeeded. Seeing the Capitol shattered, senators fleeing for their lives, and police officers bloodied convinced Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell that "Trump is crazy" and had committed an impeachable offense when he sicced his supporters on Congress. McConnell very nearly voted to convict and thereby forestall another Trump run. But after relentless jawboning from re-converted Trump sycophants like Senator Lindsay Graham, he blinked, and the other Republican senators who might have voted to convict—if only they had McConnell's political cover—crumbled as well.
The next deliverer was supposed to be prosecution (it wasn't only Democrats putting their eggs in that basket: many Republicans, including McConnell, were quietly hoping that Jack Smith would be lowered to the stage to save them). This seemed like an obvious one: there was strong evidence of his crimes, and they were terrible.
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The problem was that Trump had stashed allies and enablers in key positions in the legal system, and like horcruxes, these MAGA power caches allowed him to keep clinging to life. Plus, with so many confusing legal details flooding voters' brains—and Fox News deliberately distorting facts and amplifying lies—half of America wasn't even aware of Trump's criminal cases well into this year.
As that hope began to fade, conservative constitutional scholars raised a new one: that Trump might already be constitutionally disqualified under the 14th amendment. But Supreme Court horcruxes saved him yet again (note: Trump led the dictionary definition of an insurrection, and the Constitution says people who do that can't hold federal office; so of course the Supreme Court said "yeah, yeah...we're with Trump." Strict constructionism everyone!).
Finally, following President Joe Biden's debate performance, Democrats put their stock in a new salvation: maybe the problem was that voters were seeing both presidential candidates as unfit for office for different reasons. All they needed was a new nominee to make a clearer contrast. Enter Vice President Kamala Harris, and following a near-perfect convention and debate performance, it once again briefly looked like the puzzle had been solved.
But now, the false dawn of post-debate Harris polling has darkened. Trump has clawed back swing state polling leads and has a slight edge in forecasts and betting marwkets. And so, the Democratic conversation is rapidly swinging to the one remaining thing that might provide a hidden edge: the "ground game."
There's nothing dramatic about this one. It includes all the dull campaign "field" operations like door-knocking, phone calls, postcards, and overall voter-wrangling that campaigns have done since forever. Harris has a major strength in this area, and as her advantage in the air war has failed to produce—and as reports have surfaced of major flaws in Trump's field operation—Democrats have started eyeing the ground game as the 11th hour rescue.
But is it real, and is it enough? The answers are actually "yes," and "quite possibly yes."
Harris' ground game is much stronger than Trump's by all accounts. Democrats have mobilized way more local volunteers, are spending a lot more money, and are much better organized. So, they're reaching a lot more voters a lot more often. By contrast, the organizations that Trump outsourced most of his field work to—including Elon Musk's America PAC—seem to be plagued by fakery and fraud, and are likely doing way less than they even claim.
And there is pretty strong evidence that an advantage in field makes a big difference: studies show that door-to-door campaigning can drive up turnout by several percentage points, phone calls and other get-out-the-vote methods can be almost as helpful, and that all of it can be particularly effective when delivered in a personalized way from volunteers, as Harris is doing. More outreach means more votes.
To be sure, there are some notes of caution. In 2016, Hillary Clinton's ground game was similarly strong, while Trump's was almost nonexistent. In 2020, the Biden campaign skipped on going door to door for most of the campaign, while Trump ran a fairly aggressive get-out-the-vote operation. So, an advantage in field is clearly far from predictive.
But in this election, it may be enough, especially because Trump is relying much more than Harris on infrequent and unlikely voters: exactly the kind of voters you would usually target in your ground game (as late as May of this year, even Biden was actually winning in New York Times polling among voters who voted in 2020; Trump's lead was built entirely on "voters who aren't paying close attention to politics, who don't follow traditional news and who don't regularly vote").
So, the last savior may lack dramatic flourish. But the Harris machine may well be the winning difference. Deus ex machina.
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