Is Kamala Harris Heading Towards Victory?

The signs may be there while the media chooses to look elsewhere.

Whether in 24 hours or in a few days, we will soon know who won the 2024 election. Media figures will point to any of a number of signals that portended the outcome, but already I think many of these, though blurry, are right in front of us. Yesterday I tweeted that these indicators clearly show Trump is losing, but for months a different media narrative—one fed by herding polls—has undercounted persistent evidence of Harris’s strength.

Just this past week, however, a shift occurred. Trump’s racist Madison Square Garden rally set off a spiral of bizarre stunts and worsening polls, including one from Univision showing marked shifts against Trump among Pennsylvania’s Latino voters. While at the outset of his political career Trump seemed larger than life, this campaign continues to reveal a man profoundly diminished. Meanwhile, Harris has taken a page out of Michelle Obama’s classic 2016 convention speech, but with a twist: 

When they go low, we go big.

So before the fog of war lifts, it’s worth examining a few crucial areas where Harris has outmatched an ever-smaller Trump with a thoroughly superior campaign:

The day before the election,Trump’s rally in North Carolina was at a small venue and reportedly 30% empty.

Crowd size. It shouldn’t matter, but in a campaign against Donald Trump, crowd size is everything. After three campaigns, whatever excitement he used to generate has evaporated—at least judging by the emptiness at his rallies. As I showed on YouTube yesterday, Harris’s crowds have dwarfed Trump’s, an achievement worth more than just bragging rights: The tens of thousands of attendees at a typical rally go on to become foot soldiers for the campaign, telling two or three others in their network that they, too, should vote for Harris. Concentrated in the swing states, this chain reaction has been having an effect, one that mirrors the next crucial signal of her strength:

Ground game. An organized get-out-the-vote apparatus is crucial in any election, but the infrastructures of both campaigns could not be more different this year. Whereas Trump has outsourced most of his canvassing to Elon Musk’s America PAC, Harris has doubled down on a sprawling operation. While Musk seems to be doing to Trump’s ground game what he did to X, Harris’s superior strategy continues to be made possible by the third clear indicator:

Enthusiasm. It’s been undeniable since she announced her candidacy. As rally-goers spread the word and armies of volunteers hunt down every undecided voter, Harris has electrified Americans in a way that Trump simply hasn’t matched this time. Look no further than her unprecedented surge in approvals. 

Social Media Engagement. If 1960 was the first TV election, and 2008 the first digital election, then 2024 may well go down as the first truly social media election. While both campaigns have spent heavily on a variety of platforms, Harris is the runaway favorite on the likes of TikTok and Instagram, demonstrating her unique appeal to a broad cross-section of voters. But nothing tells a better story of the race’s lopsided enthusiasm gap than the last crucial signal of a coming Harris win:

Fundraising. Never in American history has a candidate raised so much money so fast. By early October, the Harris campaign had already raised $1 billion in under three months. While Trump relies on a small group of billionaires, Harris taps an unending font of small-dollar donors whose contributions have fueled an advertising campaign that’s outgunned Trump across media.

We will have to wait to learn the details, but the signs of a Harris win are clear and building. And whatever the precise outcome, Harris has already won, in a sense–by revealing Trump’s true smallness. Though the story of this election has been one of razor-thin margins and coin-toss probabilities, politics is the business of creating the future, not predicting it. As Trump flails down the homestretch, Harris’s pitch is the choice between dark demagoguery and steady, effective leadership. The big difference is that she has more people making that pitch—and even more who want to listen.

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Thank you so much for joining No Lies Detected. I’ll be releasing pieces here every Sunday at 6p ET where I’ll disentangle the political narratives created by the media and amplified by internet.