10 Dates: One of which may Shake the World

 We have all heard so much about each candidate and their supporters in the closing days (garbage-Liz Cheney facing enemy fire-low October job numbers). As a history buff (nerd? rank amateur), I have assembled 10 dates prior to last week that may have determined this race.

TRUMP WINS

September 14, 2022: DeSantis sends 50 migrants mostly from Venezuela from Texas to Martha's Vineyard. As more migrants are sent to Northern cities, these cities are stressed for resources. Some residents of these cities resent the priority/special treatment that the local government is giving to the migrants. Thus begins an erosion of Democratic support amongst black and Latino voters. This effects urban centers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and to a lesser extent Wisconsin. It also affects the narrative that the governors of Florida and Texas are just racists who hate people of color.

March 31, 2023: Trump is indicted in New York City on 34 counts of business fraud regarding his authorization of hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress and producer. This was first of many charges against Trump in this cycle to get Trump in a court room. Rather than be put off by the accusations against Trump, his supports rally to his defense. Trump explicitly makes the case that he and his supporters are victims of selective prosecution and abuse on June 9, 2023. "In the end, they're not coming after me. They're coming after you — and I'm just standing in their way,"

February 27, 2024: In the Michigan Democratic primary, Biden, although running unopposed, faced a 13% uncommitted movement. This movement spurred by progressive Arab-Americans reinforced the sobriquet, "Genocide Joe." This movement continued to spread in earnest on college campuses beginning in April 2024. The campus demonstrations fed the Trump the narrative that the elite universities were hot beds of anti-American and anti-Semitic sentiment. Further that DEI initiatives subverted the educational process and that the streets were out of control. This affected the Jewish vote...traditionally Democratic... the races on the margins in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin 

 A memorial to Stanford University students who fought in the Spanish-American war.

June 27, 2024: The Biden/Trump debate exposed Biden's age infirmities in speech and physical manner. 

Biden: And I’m going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the – the total initiative relative to what we’re going to do with more Border Patrol and more asylum officers.

TAPPER:  President Trump?

TRUMP:  I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.

This debate forced Biden out of the race and increased Trump's lead in the polls. While they polls have been back and forth, the perception remained that Harris and the Democrats covered up Biden's infirmity and can't be trusted to govern.  A runner up date in this category is April 25, 2023 when Biden announced his plan to run for re-election thereby stopping a legitimate Democratic primary and leaving Harris just over three month to run her campaign.

August 25, 2024: Kennedy drops out of the Presidential race. At the time these were the national polling numbers: 46% prefer Harris, 45% prefer Trump and 7% prefer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. That 7% moving to Trump helped shore up his support amongst disaffected voters including anti-Vaxxers, young single men, and the 'so-called' double haters who didn't like Trump or Biden (Harris). 

HARRIS WINS

January 6, 2021: The insurrection. On that day most American believed that Trump was unfit to serve as president. At the time, Americans disapproved of the protestors by a nearly 4 to 1 margin. While over time this sentiment has eroded, moderate Republicans and even Trump administration figures have decried both the riot and Trump's responsibility for it. This lingering stain moved the needle in the suburbs towards Harris.

June 24, 2022: Supreme Court overturns Roe V. Wade. After 50 years, the Supreme Court rules against the women's right to choose on a national level and turns abortion into a question for the states. This triggers total abortion bans in 13 states, partial bans in 28 others. Harris support for women's reproductive health is sincere and full throated and resonates with voters in a way that Biden could not.

July 21, 2024: Harris clears the field and gets the nearly unanimous Democratic nomination just 2 weeks later. Harris shows a political astuteness and savvy that impresses Democratic stakeholders and national media alike. She begins to shake her 2019 campaign image as a fire-breathing progressive to a center left Democrat broadening her appeal without losing Progressive support.

September 10, 2024: Trump/Harris debate. Harris began the spectacle by introducing herself to Trump a move that may have unnerved Trump. She further unnerved Trump as "she taunted him for his crowd sizes, his past bankruptcies, his inherited wealth and more. Mocking Trump’s stature on the global stage, Harris claimed that world leaders laugh at him — a barb aimed squarely at his personal insecurities." The most memorable line of the debate...'they're eating the dogs,' a false claim about Haitian migrants in Ohio. This cemented the image of Trump being unconcerned with the facts, overly emotional, and a racist.

October 3, 2024: Harris and Liz Cheney campaign together in Ripon, Wisconsin the birthplace on the Republican party in 1854. Tim Walz said of the event, '"I'm as surprised as anybody of this coalition that Kamala Harris has built, from Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift and a whole bunch of folks in between there," Walz said. "They don't all agree on everything, but they are truly optimistic people. They believe in a positive future of this country, and one where our politics can be better than it is." This push especially for moderate suburban Republican women was the tipping point in the battle ground states.