Has Kamala Harris given up?

Yesterday CNAV reported that Kamala Harris went on the defensive, campaigning in “blue” States. Later came word that the Harris campaign is sending nearly $25 million to the Democrats’ down-ticket campaign committees. Such reallocation happens often – but this is the earliest and largest such transfer in several Presidential election cycles. Interpretations for this move are as many and varied as the outlets giving the interpretation. Those interpretations vary from supreme confidence in victory – to a desperation move.

How much is Kamala Harris sending?

Politico made the first report of the reallocation. It consists of:

• $10 million each to the Democratic Congressional and Senate Campaign Committees (DCCC and DSCC),
• $2.5 million to the Democrats’ State legislative campaign arm, and
• $1 million each to campaign committees supporting candidates for governor and attorney general.

In the 2020 election cycle, the Democrats sent $5 million to the DCCC and $1 million to the DSCC. They made these transfers in the middle of October.

Politico sounds an optimistic note, in Democrat terms. They insist that Harris has outraised Trump in monthly intake, and is sitting on a mountain of cash. So from their point of view, sending $24.5 million to down-ticket campaign committees shortly after Labor Day makes sense. Jen O’Malley Dillon, Harris’ campaign chair, said:

The vice president believes that this race is about mobilizing the entire country, in races at every level, to fight for our freedoms and our economic opportunity. That’s why the vice president has made the decision to invest a historic sum into electing Democrats up and down the ballot.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), head of the DSCC, said the extra money will

help Senate Democrats reach more voters, increase the strength of our campaigns and ensure Democrats protect our Senate majority.

Politico’s Jessica Piper expressed hope of synergy between the Harris campaign and “strong” down-ticket campaigns.

But Breitbart reminded readers that these transfers come after the worst week the Kamala Harris campaign has had. She didn’t get a post-Convention bounce, and did so poorly in a CNN interview that she avoids the press. Harris also took part in attacking the Gold Star families who invited Trump to lay a wreath in memory of their thirteen relatives who died three years ago in a bombing at the Kabul Airport. The backfire from that episode is still reverberating.

Further perspectives on fundraising

Breibart’s Bradley Jaye reminded readers of other perspectives. True, the Kamala Harris campaign is raking in more funds now than the Biden campaign was doing. But big-money donors were withholding funds from Biden after his disastrous June 27 debate. They believed he would lose, and were cutting their losses. Harris took the standard away from Biden, and the donors unfroze their purses. That’s why Harris has so much money to throw around.

But, says Jaye, directly disbursing funds, in such amounts, suggests that Kamala Harris cannot campaign effectively for down-ticket candidates. The candidate at the top of the ticket should always be able to say, “Vote for me and my team.” Instead she’s parting with $24.5 million of her own campaign cash – money she should be spending promoting herself. (And Jaye likely isn’t buying the synergy argument Jessica Piper of Politico put forward.)

Mike LaChance at The Gateway Pundit, commenting late last night, put the matter more bluntly in his headline:

CUTTING THEIR LOSSES?

Indeed he asked:

This is very telling. As you may recall, one of the reasons why panicked Democrats wanted to get Joe Biden out of the race is because they feared he would cause the party to lose control of the Senate and prevent them from regaining the House.

Why would they take millions away from the Harris campaign with such a short distance to the election?

About Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:

This news also comes after Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump. He said he would withdraw from the ballot in ten States where his presence might detract from Trump’s numbers., Though he did not name the States, Ballotpedia’s map of toss-up, tilting and leaning States provides some clues:

• Arizona, Georgia. North Carolina, and Wisconsin are now toss-up States.
• Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania tilt Democratic.
• Florida leans Republican.

That makes eight – and in fact Kennedy has asked authorities to withdraw him from the ballot in six of these. The six are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Of these, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin have refused – so Kennedy is suing to force their hands.

But today came word of another State where he asked to withdraw from the ballot: Virginia. Unlike Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, Virginia’s Secretary of State did as he asked. That’s telling – because Virginia is one of the three likely Democratic States where Harris, her husband, and Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) scheduled new campaign appearances. (The other two are Minnesota and New Hampshire.)

This last indicates that Kamala Harris doesn’t really have the $24.5 million to spare. Or does she?

Why is Kamala Harris doing this?

A Presidential campaign, with an election seven weeks away, can have only three reasons for behaving this way:

1. Kamala Harris is so confident of winning election that she is willing to send millions of dollars to candidates who normally would expect to ride her coattails.
2. Harris genuinely believes in the synergy Jessica Piper of Politico invoked: strong down-ticket campaigns could help her own campaign.
3. The Democrats no longer think Harris has any coattails to ride, and convinced her that spending that money on her own campaign would waste it.

The facts on the ground do not support such confidence. When she and her legacy media allies attacked those Gold Star families, they counterattacked with breathtaking and unprecedented force. Furthermore, as mentioned, she has seen fit to campaign in likely Democratic States. Virginia, for one, might be less likely than supposed, since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has seen fit to withdraw his name from that ballot.

Only one other thing would support the confidence Politico’s Piper so blithely assumes: a Cheat Machine. This likely involves registering non-citizens to vote and expecting those non-citizens to vote in federal elections. It also might involve “irregular proxies” exploiting loopholes in voter ID requirements. So one might expect to see many “voter identification affidavits” filed at voter check-in, in lieu of showing acceptable identification.

Reasons for Republicans to remain confident

Donald J. Trump, for his part, has reason to be confident in eroding the Democrats’ “Cheater’s Baseline.” Even a candidate intending to cheat his way to electoral victory, must have an adequate baseline of genuine votes. If Biden didn’t get 81 million votes, he definitely got enough to manufacture the rest. The votes he got were his Cheater’s Baseline.

That baseline must consist of a good proportion of nonwhite voters. Yet Trump is outperforming his 2020 numbers among Hispanic voters. A Reuters-Ipsos poll shows Hispanics preferring Trump over Harris, 42 percent to 37 percent, on the immigration issue. Those numbers are very close to those from the broader electorate (46 to 36).

X influencer “DC Draino” shared numbers showing Trump outperforming himself among all demographics.

Worse news came when Amazon Alexa users caught Amazon red-handed giving Harris illegal in-kind aid. Alexa, a robotic AI-driven household assistant, typically answers a householder’s questions with information it draws from the Internet. In this regard Alexa behaves like the ship’s mainframe aboard USS Enterprise NCC-1701(A)(B)(C)(D) in the Star Trek franchise. According to Christina Laila (The Gateway Pundit), several users reported blatantly biased behavior by Alexa in response to users’ questions about Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. In short, Alexa supported Harris, responding with Harris campaign talking points. Users asking about Trump got a boilerplate disclaimer about “not promoting specific candidates.” Finally Amazon stopped that behavior and begged users to excuse the “error.”

What should Republicans do about this?

Republicans must redouble their efforts. That $24.5 million could do considerable damage. More to the point, Republicans have every reason to press their campaigns as hard as they can:

State legislatures draw Congressional districts in most States, per the “Times, Places and Manners Clause” of the Constitution. (Article I Section 4 Clause 1.)

Several State legislatures have joined a National Popular Vote Compact. When that Compact commands 270 or more electoral votes, its members propose to assign their electoral votes to the ticket winning the national popular vote. This is likely an illegal interstate compact, entered into “without the consent of the Congress.” (See Article I Section 10 Clause 3.) Nevertheless it behooves Republicans to take control of the legislatures involved, and reverse the joining of that Compact.

Senators confirm the appointments of federal judges. About half the federal judiciary, and at least three Justices of the Supreme Court, are ideologically corrupt. Ideally they rate removal from the bench on impeachment for, and conviction of, infidelity to the Constitution. Certainly President Trump deserves the chance to replace as many of them as retire or “take senior status.”

Donald Trump almost couldn’t govern in his first term, because he didn’t always control the House. Republicans need to flip the Senate back this year, and cannot afford to write off one single seat.

In the meantime, Republicans should watch out for a repeat of the Stairstep Syndrome from the Election of 2020.