To follow up on the post below, I’m not sure I agree with what seems like the relative pessimism, if I’m reading it right. But look what TPM Reader JL says about the saturation bombing of mailers. I at least read this a bit differently. It sounds like they’re sending these things out indiscriminately to people who are solid Democratic partisans.
I live in the swingy PA-7 district of the state, and I think there is something going on with the Trump strategy that bears watching. My wife has been receiving Trump mailers at about three times per week for the past month (interestingly, I have not). There is nothing in a good campaign data operation that would indicate she’s persuadable to vote for Trump. I’ve talked with friends who are connected to campaigns all over the state and they’re reporting some of the same things. I think our status as a likely decider state has the Trump campaign indiscriminately carpet-bombing houses with mailers and YouTube ads.
Is it working? I don’t know. But it is strange that the Harris numbers aren’t tracking much with the poll numbers in Wisconsin and Michigan, and that Harris is running behind Casey’s numbers in his Senate race. TPM has talked a lot about how Trump has missed the window to predefine Harris nationally, and I tend to agree. But at least here in PA, I think they’ve done a more effective job at least at the state level, and it’s the electoral votes that count after all.
I’m really unsure what to make of the race here, but I do think Harris has a lot of work to secure the state and at least needs to be more present both physically and in non-traditional ad channels. I am not certain Shaprio would have helped, but I am hoping the Harris campaign is on the ground enough to know that Trump is doing a mass ad campaign that probably is flying below the news radar compared to the splashy nature of TV ad buys. My sense of things is it doesn’t seem implausible that Harris loses PA while Casey wins handily and Susan Wild gets re-elected for my district’s congressional seat (she is one of the most vulnerable Democrats in Congress because it’s a real 50/50 district). That would be a weird outcome that probably would be an implication of the Harris strategy if it were to happen. But right now? It seems possible.
The wild card is young people. I am in higher ed. They are energized by the possibility of Harris compared to Biden. She could run up numbers with them with the right strategy.
