The election is exceptionally and historically close. Not only does the presidential contest sit on a knife's edge, per polling averages, the House and Senate are also in flux. If aggregated state-level polling is approximately accurate, the battle for the White House is a coin flip. The Cook Political Report projects Republicans stand to gain two-to-five US Senate seats, though they're simultaneously in danger of losing control of the closely-divided House of Representatives. For the GOP, the top two issues this campaign season have been the economy and immigration. The Trump campaign is airing ads showing Kamala Harris praising 'Bidenomics,' and various right-leaning groups have featured the infamous clip of her drawing a blank when contemplating whether she'd have done anything differently than Biden over the past four years.
In the latest example -- an ad produced and aired by Preserve America PAC -- notice how it highlights two major issue themes, in addition to international chaos:
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What have the closing days of this campaign brought us? A weaker-than-expected, albeit still decent, GDP report. A worse-than-expected core inflation report. And now, a disastrous jobs report, as Katie covered this morning:
JUST IN: Dismal jobs report released showing the U.S. added just 12,000 jobs in October, falling well short of economist estimates of 110,000.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 1, 2024
46,000 manufacturing jobs were reportedly lost.
October was the worst month of job growth in nearly four years.
“The government… pic.twitter.com/cUy52zIaTq
BREAKING: The Labor Department has revised the last TWO jobs reports LOWER by a combined 112,000 jobs.
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) November 1, 2024
Initially reported numbers showed that the US added 254,000 jobs in September which was just revised down by 31,000, to 223,000.
At the same time, the August jobs report was… pic.twitter.com/t4x6xge44G
A massive miss on job creation projections in October, a devastatingly small number of jobs created, a net loss of private sector jobs, terrible manufacturing numbers (down 46,000 jobs), and downward revisions of the last two months' reports, totaling approximately 112,000 fewer jobs in August and September, combined. "Bidenomics is working," Kamala Harris has proudly declared on multiple occasions, adding, "we are very proud of Bidenomics." On the immigration front, Kamala Harris was challenged at a recent CNN forum about her administration's abysmal border crisis record. Her bottom line conclusion -- in retrospect, after 10 million illegal crossings -- was, "I think we did the right thing.” Yesterday, new charges were filed, stemming from a violent episode in Chicago:
BREAKING: Chicago police announce Sidi Mohamed Abdellahi, 22, a Mauritanian national, has been charged with terrorism, a hate crime, attempted murder, and more after he allegedly shot a Jewish man walking to synagogue and fired at first responders.
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 31, 2024
Evidence obtained from the… pic.twitter.com/OnX0gFHoXR
"Evidence obtained from the suspect's phone allegedly showed that he planned the attack and sought Jews as targets." This man was one of the millions of illegal immigrants released into America under Border Czar Harris. He joins a growing list of those who've been subsequently charged with violent crimes in the United States. In this case, authorities say his crime was motivated by anti-Semitic bigotry. It was a terrorist attack. He shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he fired at responding officers and paramedics who were caring for the Jewish victim he intentionally targeted. Kamala Harris is on the record against using the terms 'radical Islamic terrorism' and 'illegal alien,' both of which apply to this terrible development:
Kamala Harris says we must have the courage to reject offensive concepts like “radical Islamic terrorism” and “illegal alien.” pic.twitter.com/Yq07CSBV46
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 26, 2024
She refuses to even accurately identify threats by name. On their top issues, major items in the news (though national coverage of the Chicago attack has been largely muted or absent) are making Republicans' closing arguments for them. That would seem to be politically advantageous for them. If they do, indeed, win on Tuesday, the signs will have been everywhere. If they lose, the recriminations will be brutal.
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