I hope you're right, but in 2016, Clinton thought the toss up and lean blue states were safe and chose to pile resources into lean red/safe red states like Missouri, Texas, and Indiana. Admittedly, the political landscape of 2024 is different. AZ was also targeted by Clinton and the rapid push left in Texas has them worried enough to pass laws to invalidate blue district votes. But still, I hope you're right and this isn't a huge gamble.
Atom
Maybe, and while a fair amount of Trump supporters do agree with Project 2025, I bet an equally fair amount of them believe him when he claims he doesn't know anything about it. Another large share knows it, but thinks the worst parts won't happen or at least won't effect them.
I have family that have been straight ticket Republicans their whole lives and voted for Trump. After Roe fell, they claimed they had no idea that would happen. They said Republicans had been saying they would ban abortion for years, and never thought they'd actually do it. They'll take the easy way out and ignore Project 2025 the same way until it happens.
NPR says it will go into effect in six months.
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/nx-s1-5154814/click-to-cancel-subscriptions-memberships-ftc-rule
Somewhere in West Texas, a non-profit company with a staff you can count on one hand is born to sue the FTC for damages claiming their finger muscles were atrophied by the lack of clicking or some other nonsense that will climb to a 6-3 vote.
I'm not sure why you're getting down voted, you're right. Going strictly by polls and ignoring registrations (which are trending favorable for R), strategy, finance, early voting, etc. Trump was neck and neck with Harris up to the debate. The debate say the sharpest shift toward Harris. Afterwards, he has been sticking to Golf and Rallies of his most loyal supporters, keeping him away from the general public. That put the polls back to a toss up.
If he did another debate, he's on display to everyone again and that won't go his way. Even if Harris fucks up, he's still a fascist in decline. His campaign knows he needs to stay in safe spaces until the election is over
Not a direct reply, but I wanted to add a more detailed answer to your question than "It's Fox". I think that's slight oversimplification. He's center right and has become isolated as Fox programing is speeding further* right to capture MAGA viewers before they fall off the political spectrum and into Podcast or OANN.
So yes, Fox is sprinting to the right and he's still employed by Fox, but he's also not one of their political talk shows. He does news and has tried to keep the news accurate, albeit through a conservative lense. NPR had this to say about him last year:
According to Baier's current and former colleagues, he stands very much alone at Fox News which has been pushed even farther to the right since the outset of the Trump years. Anchor Shepard Smith left Fox News in 2019 after primetime star Tucker Carlson targeted him on the air and the network did not publicly defend him. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace departed and two commentators who frequently appeared on Baier's show resigned in late 2021 after Carlson's avid defense of people who participated in the violent attack on the U.S. Congress in January 2021.
Some other details from that article are that he has done coverage contradicting the extreme programming from Carlson and tried to do hour-long coverage post 2020 election specifically to dispute Trump's election claims, but Fox didn't allow it.
So he's still at Fox while his other real-journalist colleagues have left, making him center right at best. I argue, while it may be a less than fair interview, any Fox viewer that is not ride or die MAGA, is probably watching his show. Those are the voters that may be salvageable and Fox is the #1 viewed news media outlet in the country by a huge margin, over one-million more than MSNBC (#2)
After the 2020 election, Bret Baier was isolated at Fox News https://www.npr.org/2023/04/10/1168753288/the-loneliness-of-fox-news-bret-baier
Spoiler, Walters is 100% buying the Trump Bibles anyway. All this does is open the bidding a tiny bit more. Sure, someone can do a FOIA request and ask to see the bids, but they'll ignore it. The Oklahoma State AG is currently sueing the Oklahoma State Department of Education for ignoring the AG's own information requests. It's just $5-6 million for Trump out of OK schools. But hey, it's one of the best school systems if you flip the list up side down.
He did also claim, on 9/11 mind you, that he now had the tallest building in Manhattan. Which wasn't even true.
Man, I can't believe 10 years of Trump and people are still doing this "sure, he said that, but he's actually a brilliant legal and political tactician and what he means is........"
The man is a moron, surrounded by the most hateful motherfuckers on the planet. He says what he Fucking means.
Thank God JD Vance, a white man, is there to protect black women specifically from seeking abortions. We all, conservative white men, know that they, black, don't understand what they are doing. /S obviously
Recognizing that this is an opinion piece, it's still far from comforting.
Ugh, sure his fringe picks have not faired well. Turns out Trump is one of the few people that can pull off Trump-ism. But if hardly call 1 win/1 loss ratio a repeat "electoral loser"
Sure, she has set fundraising records, but Trump has billionaires backing him with obscene sums of money and even offering to directly buy votes. That's not even accounting for whatever secret funding sources Trump has and Russia isn't legally required to disclose their efforts to the FEC.
That's nice....I wish I could say the same.