Is The Race Tightening?

A new poll suggests it is but I'm skeptical. Also, is Kamala Harris ducking the media? and I have kind words for a terrible American and

I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.

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Lions Win!

The most important story of the weekend! Super Bowl LIX, here we come!

Correction

A quick note about last week’s post. In discussing Kamala Harris’s foreign policy bonafides, I said Richard Nixon was a “very good foreign policy president.” I should have caveated that. The opening to China and the pursuit of detente with the Soviet Union both had an enormously positive impact for years to come — and he deserves praise for both.

Having said that … I’ll return to something I wrote a few years ago about Nixon’s foreign policy record.

His decision to bomb and then later invade Cambodia led to the ascendance of the Khmer Rouge and the death of a million Cambodians. He escalated the bombing of North Vietnam to get a final peace deal, which led to horrible civilian casualties. Then, when that deal was reached, his political problems at home over Watergate helped to undermine the case for continuing to support South Vietnam. There was also the deposing of Prime Minister Allende in Chile, Nixon's virtual nervous breakdown during the Yom Kippur War (although Kissinger's subsequent shuttle diplomacy paved the way for the Camp David Accords) and, the stain of Watergate badly undermined the US image in the world.

I wrote this in 2011 and didn’t even mention his support for Pakistan’s brutality in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. Gary Bass wrote an extraordinary book about this episode called “The Blood Telegram.”

So Nixon’s record is far more mixed than what I wrote last week. Thanks to those who corrected me.

Where Do Things Stand in the 2024 Election

Yesterday, the New York Times released its latest national poll, showing Donald Trump ahead by one point over Kamala Harris - 48-47.

Credit where credit is due to the Times’ polling guru, Nate Cohn, for pointing out that this result is a bit outlier-ish.

To me, the result is a bit surprising. It’s the first lead for Mr. Trump in a major nonpartisan national survey in about a month. As a result, it’s worth being at least a little cautious about these findings, as there isn’t much confirmation from other polls.

There are many reasons to be skeptical about this poll (even though, by and large, NYT/Siena is an above-average pollster). First, among registered voters, Harris is winning 74% of the Black vote and has a one-point lead among those 18-29. In 2020, Biden won 92% of the Black vote and had a 24-point advantage among the 18-29 cohort … so these numbers seem a bit wonky. It will be a surprise if Harris doesn’t get 90% of the Black votes or wins the 18-30 demographic by less than 20 points.

Having said that, these results are not wholly implausible. It’s possible that Harris’s polling was artificially high from a combination of Democrats rallying around her after Biden’s withdrawal and the boost she received from the Democratic National Convention. Now, things are returning to normal. There also hasn’t been a high-quality national poll in nearly two weeks, so maybe the Times’ is picking up on a shift in the race that will become more evident as more polling emerges. Still, not much has happened in the past two weeks to dramatically shift the race.

However, the poll gives Trump a one-point lead in a race that appears to remain rather close.

Fivethirtyeight

So, truth be told when you factor in the margin of error, maybe it’s not that terribly outlier-ish. I advise throwing this poll on the pile, focusing on the polling averages, and getting on with your day. I still think this is Harris’s race to lose because of Trump’s low ceiling.

But that doesn’t mean she can’t lose.

Is Harris Ducking The Media?

Kamala Harris is not talking to the media — and the media is not happy.

From Axios last week.

With 60 days left in the race, and at the very moment she's presenting a different ideology than four years ago, Vice President Harris isn't getting subjected to the media scrutiny typical for a presidential nominee, Mike and Alex Thompson write. 

Why it matters: Harris is copying President Biden's self-protection media strategy — duck tough interviews and limit improvisational moments.

Some, including Alex Shephard at the New Republic, think this is a bad political move for the Democratic nominee.

This is the Harris-Walz media strategy in a nutshell: Avoid the press at all costs, even when asked questions that should be layups. The Democratic ticket, or perhaps those who advise them, seem to believe that nothing good can come from talking to the media—that answering questions only invites negative coverage of pseudo-scandals (like Walz relatives endorsing Trump) instead of the real issues at stake in November. If this sounds familiar, it’s because President Biden employed the same media strategy in his reelection campaign. That didn’t work out so well for him—and it may not for Harris, either.

I’m of two minds about this. As a journalist, I think Harris should be talking to reporters. It’s never good for democracy when a presidential candidate limits their engagement with the Fourth Estate because it means that voters are less informed about their policy views. I’m a firm believer that sunshine is the best disinfectant.

From an analytical perspective, I’m less convinced this strategy is wrong, particularly for now.