US election race has changed

With 84 days to go, it may be that the US presidential election remains Donald Trump’s to lose, as The Wall Street Journal has concluded. But with Kamala Harris having erased the lead Mr Trump had over Joe Biden, and slightly ahead in several national polls and leading by four points in three of four crucial swing states vital for victory, questions are being raised about whether Mr Trump will blow another election as he did in 2020.

The economic and security fundamentals could hardly be more propitious for Republicans. Workers are unhappy about the decline in real incomes and the chaos that has spread from the Mexican border. The Biden administration’s progressive cultural policies created resentment. Wars are raging in Europe and the Middle East; China poses a greater threat.

Voters want change. Yet the polls appear to be leaning increasingly to Ms Harris. They doubtless reflect many Democrats returning to the fold after being reluctant to vote for another four years of Mr Biden. But Ms Harris “at age 59, also presents a youthful contrast to 78-year-old Mr Trump … She’s trying to steal the ‘change’ mantle with her focus on the future, and she’ll succeed if Republicans can’t wrap her in the Biden record and her progressive San Francisco views”, the Journal noted.

That sums up the difficulty Mr Trump faces amid signs he has been unnerved by Ms Harris. He is scrambling to find an attack line that works. His usual fallback position of personal abuse and invective – including assertions she doesn’t like Jewish people when she has a Jewish husband, ugly attacks on her racial identity, and references to her as “dumb” and having “a low IQ” – appear to be working against the former president. So are his campaign addresses in which he appears preoccupied by the past, griping about the prosecutions brought against him and what he still claims, without evidence, to have been the “stolen” 2020 election.

As the Journal said, the political reality is that Mr Trump “has a ceiling of support that is below 50 per cent because so many voters dislike him”, as previous elections showed. The change in Mr Trump’s fortunes in the few weeks since last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee is clear. His nomination of JD Vance as his running mate appears to have done little to reassure voters. His tactics against Mr Biden worked. But that race is over. Mr Trump would do well to heed the message that he is in a close race that requires discipline and consistent messaging. Ms Harris is to the left of mainstream America. But she presents the prospect of a relatively youthful, forward-looking change.