The Slump

Donald Trump can’t catch a break. 

Only a month removed from an attempt on his life and the woeful debate performance that forced President Joe Biden off the Democratic ticket, new polling suggests the Trump bump has faded and the Harris waltz is on.

Three thousand five hundred registered voters polled by Reuters/Ipsos across an eight-day timeframe made one thing abundantly clear this week—what once looked like an easy climb to the White House has, in the strangest of fashion, become arguably Trump’s toughest challenge yet.

Not only is he down by four percent among registered voters (he was down only one percent in July), Harris is suddenly torching Trump in key demographics (women and Hispanics). Harris, who led Trump by nine points among women and six points among Hispanics in July is now up 13 with both demos in August. More troubling, Trump’s lead among voters without a college degree, a demographic he relied on in his 2016 victory, has been slashed by half, from 14 points down to seven. 

And Harris has surprisingly—at least for Democrats—brought a fresh air to the race. In March, Reuters found that 61 percent of Democrats were voting for Biden as a means to “stop Trump.” Today’s polling found that a majority of Democrats now say they are voting for Harris, not against Trump. The Vice President’s ascendancy to the top of the ticket has allowed shy Biden supporters to become vocal Harris voters.

And it’s not just Reuters confirming the swing.

Data firm Target Smart told CBS News on Wednesday that “among young black women, registration is up more than 175%” across 13 states since Harris entered the race. 

“I more than triple-checked it,” said Target Smart’s Tom Bonier. “It’s incredibly unusual to see changes in voter registration that are anywhere close to this. I mean, to remind people, 175 percent is almost a tripling of registration rates among this specific group. You just don’t see that sort of thing happen in elections normally.”

And if things couldn’t get worse for Trump, Fox News dropped its latest poll Wednesday finding Harris has “closed the gap with Trump in the Sun Belt states.” 

“Harris is up by one percentage point in Arizona and by two points in Georgia and Nevada,” noted Fox, whose polling division found one bright spot for Trump, arguing the former president was “up one point in North Carolina.” 

Not so fast. Just as Fox News was giving Trump a narrow lead in North Carolina, the Cook Political Report was moving the state from Trump’s camp to a toss-up. A state that Trump led comfortably by a seven-point margin in July’s aggregated polling is now Kamala’s to lose.

Even Nate Silver on Thursday afternoon couldn’t overshadow what polls in state after state show—that the numbers have swung, in unison, toward Harris. 

Worse yet are the numbers for Trump’s greatest fighters—the Arizonan Senate candidate Kari Lake and North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson. 

In Arizona, Fox News finds Lake down 15 points and without a paddle. Phoenix-based pollster HighGround Public Affairs has Democratic challenger Ruben Gallego up 11. Despite a border plagued by drug and human trafficking, the Democrat Gallego is looking at a landslide while Republicans and their tough-on-the-border message are “hemorrhaging support” with Trump and Lake at the top of the ticket. 

“The playbook she used in 2022 is not working in 2024,” said Phoenix pollster Paul Bentz in response to the numbers. 

In North Carolina too, MAGA’s favorite son appears headed for a substantial loss. Though Trump and Harris are running neck to neck in the Sun Belt state, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is viewed unfavorably by more than half of the state’s voters, and polling aggregate FiveThirtyEight finds Robinson reliably losing the governor’s mansion by a wide margin.

And it’s not just the polling numbers that will have Trump heated over the Labor Day weekend. 

His social media app Truth Social is a digital graveyard, so much so that the former president has begun posting campaign ads and statements to his 𝕏 account. The stock price of Truth Social ($DJT) sank below $20 a share on Thursday, its lowest since going public and a far distant cry from its eye-watering $94 price tag in October of 2022. 

Amidst all of it, there was Trump on Wednesday resharing QAnon posts calling for military tribunals and “The Storm.” And although his allies in Congress and his political aides have publicly asked Trump to steer clear of personal attacks on Harris, Trump lobbed one of his most violent ones yet yesterday, suggesting that both Harris and the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton only achieved their positions of political power via sexual favors. 

Then, there was the incident at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday. 

What had at first appeared to be Trump’s finest moment of the week—a lockstep salute honoring the fallen U.S. service members who were killed during Biden’s botched withdrawal of Afghanistan—ended up being marred by controversy and made headline news for all the wrong reasons. 

“An ANC [Arlington National Cemetery] employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside,” read a tersely-worded statement by the U.S. Army on Thursday about the Trump campaign allegedly violating restrictions on using footage from the cemetery. 

“This was unfortunate” continued the letter which claims Trump staffers “unfairly attacked” a worker who attempted to stop staffers from taking images that could be used in political ads.

The Trump team later released a controversial video of his appearance on the former president’s TikTok account. (The clip has since raked up more than nine million views.)

A spokesperson for the U.S. Army reiterated in the statement that the Trump camp had been previously made aware of “federal laws that clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.”

Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita, whose job security has been the source of speculation as Trump struggles on the trail, posted a video Thursday of Trump at Arlington. LaCivita doubled down: “Hope this triggers the hacks at SecArmy.”

So has been the trials and tribulations of Donald Trump these last few weeks as he heads into the final barrel roll. The bounce he hoped to win from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s (sort-of) exit from the race remains questionable as the independent presidential candidate has been unsuccessful in removing his name from several all-critical battleground states he promised to abandon. 

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fought to get onto NC’s ballot,” read the headline from NC Newsline. “Now he can’t get off.”

And it’s not just North Carolina where Bobby can’t get off the ballot. In a cruel twist of irony for everyone involved, Kennedy looks set to remain on the ballots of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota as well. 

Trump still has the time and opportunity to turn things around but it’s difficult to deny the aspects of the 2024 race which now appear clear—if he is to win it, again, it will be Trump the underdog.