Back in August, I posted an opinion that the 2024 Presidential campaign was going to be decided by a very unusual strategic decision by Donald Trump: he decisively shifted his campaign from focusing on him alone to creating a ‘unity team’ ticket with RFK Jr. Soon that ticket would include his VP pick JD Vance, entrepreneur and world's richest man Elon Musk, former Democratic Presidential nominee Tulsi Gabbard, and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. That ticket — which included former prominent Democrats — was intended to appeal past party lines to Independents and disaffected former Democrats. It would, I argued, beat the Harris-Walz ticket.That was August. At the time, Trump was behind Harris in the polls by five points and over ten per cent of the electorate was still undecided with independent voters making up a historic 49% of the voter base — and were especially prominent in the swing states. By the end of September, AtlasIntel — the most accurate polling firm from the 2020 race — was showing a steady movement of independents to Trump over Harris by a 2 to 1 ratio. Trump had started to beat Harris on the issues, personal favourability and voting intention. Just last week, AtlasIntel released their final poll before the election showing Trump ahead of — and more liked than — Harris, with better polls in 5 of the 7 swing states. .HANNAFORD: Just how lucky can Trump get?.What gave Trump such a boost? Looking back there are four elements playing in his favour:First, Harris is a weak candidate. She didn’t win the nomination. It was conferred on her. She didn’t have to compete for hearts and minds in a nomination process. The fact she was untested shows in her heavily scripted appearances. In 2020, she had run in the nomination and was the least popular of the 2020 Democratic nominees.Second, her first major decision was picking Tim Walz as her Vice-Presidential running mate. It surprised everyone. Normally a nominee uses that pick to diversify the ticket and secure a swing state. But Walz is as liberal as Harris and governs liberal stronghold Minnesota. The alternative choice was Josh Shapiro, the moderate governor of swing state Pennsylvania. She should have picked Shapiro. Walz’s personality and misleading statements about his work, military service and trips to China have hurt the campaign.Third, the Trump team has dominated podcasts.Every couple election cycles, a new communications medium confers an advantage to the campaign that adopts it. Back in the 40s it was FDR on radio. In the 60s it was JFK with TV. In the 80s it was Reagan with direct mail. In the 90s it was Clinton with email. Last decade it was Obama on social media — and Trump on Twitter..Today, its podcasts.Run by independents, podcasts have loyal listeners, open long-form formats and tend to be irreverent, entertaining and comparatively unstructured. They are hugely popular. In the AtlasIntel cross-tabs, the biggest complaint of Independents — and the largest contrast to Trump — was lack of insight into what Harris stood for. A single podcast like Joe Rogan interviewing Trump can pull more than 40 million viewers. That’s 20x what any network is expected to draw these days. Fourth, is free speech. During the pandemic response, expert doctors opposed to federal dictates were treated as the perpetrators of ‘misinformation’ and cancelled from social media. Important scientific debates and perspectives were scrubbed, and even well known physicians with technical concerns were dismissed or cancelled.For many, the pandemic response — especially decisions that hurt childhood learning and health — are still being felt. That experience has placed the politics of free speech, dissent and ‘mis/disinformation’ front and centre in this campaign. Anti-Israel protests and moments when the Harris campaign has been treated to softball questions and edited interviews have only intensified the discussion of free speech as an antidote to media/political bias.Finally, RFK Jr’s “Make America Healthy Again” riff on the MAGA label is a theme millions of independent voters — women in particular — care greatly about. The explosive impact of chronic disease, obesity and mental health issues on the nation in general and kids in particular is hard to overstate. A stunning 50% of American children are now obese. RFK Jr has been talking about these issues for two decades. Written off by some as a conspiracy theorist, his long-standing focus on whole foods, health, a more regulated pharma industry and the current vaccine protocol has drawn in millions of independents.The impact of the range of topics and personalities the Trump unity ticket brings to the table is extraordinary. A woman who may have found Trump distasteful as a candidate on his own is now voting for a team that includes RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Trump’s unity ticket strategy, combined with the vast reach of their podcast strategy has created the chance for independent voters to vote for a much wider range of interests and personalities when they cast a vote for Trump.After a year of five major lawsuits, a raid on his home, two assassination attempts and losing in the polls as recently as September, Trump has the most extraordinary personal resilience.That resilience plus the instinctive idea of a unity ticket and the willingness to embrace podcasts have set him on track to win this election.It all that started this August when he shook hands with RFK Jr. and let Americans vote for a team instead of an individual.
Back in August, I posted an opinion that the 2024 Presidential campaign was going to be decided by a very unusual strategic decision by Donald Trump: he decisively shifted his campaign from focusing on him alone to creating a ‘unity team’ ticket with RFK Jr. Soon that ticket would include his VP pick JD Vance, entrepreneur and world's richest man Elon Musk, former Democratic Presidential nominee Tulsi Gabbard, and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. That ticket — which included former prominent Democrats — was intended to appeal past party lines to Independents and disaffected former Democrats. It would, I argued, beat the Harris-Walz ticket.That was August. At the time, Trump was behind Harris in the polls by five points and over ten per cent of the electorate was still undecided with independent voters making up a historic 49% of the voter base — and were especially prominent in the swing states. By the end of September, AtlasIntel — the most accurate polling firm from the 2020 race — was showing a steady movement of independents to Trump over Harris by a 2 to 1 ratio. Trump had started to beat Harris on the issues, personal favourability and voting intention. Just last week, AtlasIntel released their final poll before the election showing Trump ahead of — and more liked than — Harris, with better polls in 5 of the 7 swing states. .HANNAFORD: Just how lucky can Trump get?.What gave Trump such a boost? Looking back there are four elements playing in his favour:First, Harris is a weak candidate. She didn’t win the nomination. It was conferred on her. She didn’t have to compete for hearts and minds in a nomination process. The fact she was untested shows in her heavily scripted appearances. In 2020, she had run in the nomination and was the least popular of the 2020 Democratic nominees.Second, her first major decision was picking Tim Walz as her Vice-Presidential running mate. It surprised everyone. Normally a nominee uses that pick to diversify the ticket and secure a swing state. But Walz is as liberal as Harris and governs liberal stronghold Minnesota. The alternative choice was Josh Shapiro, the moderate governor of swing state Pennsylvania. She should have picked Shapiro. Walz’s personality and misleading statements about his work, military service and trips to China have hurt the campaign.Third, the Trump team has dominated podcasts.Every couple election cycles, a new communications medium confers an advantage to the campaign that adopts it. Back in the 40s it was FDR on radio. In the 60s it was JFK with TV. In the 80s it was Reagan with direct mail. In the 90s it was Clinton with email. Last decade it was Obama on social media — and Trump on Twitter..Today, its podcasts.Run by independents, podcasts have loyal listeners, open long-form formats and tend to be irreverent, entertaining and comparatively unstructured. They are hugely popular. In the AtlasIntel cross-tabs, the biggest complaint of Independents — and the largest contrast to Trump — was lack of insight into what Harris stood for. A single podcast like Joe Rogan interviewing Trump can pull more than 40 million viewers. That’s 20x what any network is expected to draw these days. Fourth, is free speech. During the pandemic response, expert doctors opposed to federal dictates were treated as the perpetrators of ‘misinformation’ and cancelled from social media. Important scientific debates and perspectives were scrubbed, and even well known physicians with technical concerns were dismissed or cancelled.For many, the pandemic response — especially decisions that hurt childhood learning and health — are still being felt. That experience has placed the politics of free speech, dissent and ‘mis/disinformation’ front and centre in this campaign. Anti-Israel protests and moments when the Harris campaign has been treated to softball questions and edited interviews have only intensified the discussion of free speech as an antidote to media/political bias.Finally, RFK Jr’s “Make America Healthy Again” riff on the MAGA label is a theme millions of independent voters — women in particular — care greatly about. The explosive impact of chronic disease, obesity and mental health issues on the nation in general and kids in particular is hard to overstate. A stunning 50% of American children are now obese. RFK Jr has been talking about these issues for two decades. Written off by some as a conspiracy theorist, his long-standing focus on whole foods, health, a more regulated pharma industry and the current vaccine protocol has drawn in millions of independents.The impact of the range of topics and personalities the Trump unity ticket brings to the table is extraordinary. A woman who may have found Trump distasteful as a candidate on his own is now voting for a team that includes RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Trump’s unity ticket strategy, combined with the vast reach of their podcast strategy has created the chance for independent voters to vote for a much wider range of interests and personalities when they cast a vote for Trump.After a year of five major lawsuits, a raid on his home, two assassination attempts and losing in the polls as recently as September, Trump has the most extraordinary personal resilience.That resilience plus the instinctive idea of a unity ticket and the willingness to embrace podcasts have set him on track to win this election.It all that started this August when he shook hands with RFK Jr. and let Americans vote for a team instead of an individual.
