Election Update 1: The Most Important Week in this Election is About to Start

Also: The Dems (Small) Chance of Holding the Senate, It Comes Down to Montana

Hello All,

A New Weekly Series for the Rest of the Campaign

I thought for the rest of the Presidential Election Campaign I would do one post a week on what I consider to be the most important issues of the past week (and the one upcoming)—a weekend update of sorts for the US vote. I’ve been writing at least one and sometimes two or even three pieces a week on the election for a while now, and for the next 80 days its not like US politics are going to be less eventful. As such, I will from now on aim to get this out more towards midweek in contrast to the Ukraine weekend update.

For those who have followed me because of the Russo-Ukraine War, I’ve actually spent my career teaching and researching different aspects of US politics—including public opinion, presidential politics and the making of policy. I’m also a political nerd.

So far I hope my analysis has been useful to people. I’ve had a few themes in 2024 so far. The first, starting in February, was that Biden needed to withdraw and the Democrats needed a fresh start if they were to have a better chance of keeping the White House (and not losing all of Congress as well).

The Democrats Need to Make a Bold Move--Now

The reason I believed Biden was in trouble was that he was significantly under-performing in core Democratic constituencies.

The 2024 elections: Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

When Trump was shot I tried to argue very much against the current wisdom that it would help his chances.

The Assassination Attempt Will Probably Not Make Trump More Likely to Be Elected

And when Trump a few days later chose Vance, I argued that this would provide the Democrats an opening as Vance would be an extreme, divisive and not popular choice.

JD Vance and Ukraine: We can say now what Trump wants--and its not good.

I’ve also been very lucky in that achieving a small level of prominence in the last few years, Ive been able to strike up conversations with people with far greater knowledge of the Republicans and Democrats than myself. One of the most interesting and important is an important figure who did an anonymous interview with me about Trump, the state of the GOP and the election.

A Senior Republican Speaks About the GOP and Ukraine

I hope to have another anonymous interview with this person very soon.

What I want to do is use these updates to explore some themes that most interesting me, and they will allow more discussion of some Congressional races as well (see below).

So I hope you enjoy these!

Next week’s political update will come out right after the most important speech of the campaign so far (more on that below). Indeed, as its shaping up it could be one of the most important speeches in modern US political history.

The Most Important Week

Its hard to under-rate the importance of next week’s Democratic Convention. It starts on Monday August 19 and lasts until Thursday August 22. There will be three things that matter in the convention—two significant speeches and the overall tone. They are:

Done underestimate the potential importance of Harris’s acceptance speech.

Kamala Harris’s Acceptance Speech on August 22. This is arguably the most important speech of the political campaign so far, and could end up as the most important speech of this entire election (which would make it one of the most important speeches in modern US political history as I said above). Though sometimes we overrate the importance of convention acceptance speeches (they can give very short term bumps in the polls and be forgotten in a week or so), in this case I don’t think we can.