Something To Start Looking For In A Few Weeks. And No, It’s Not Polling

You know, no matter how much kaboodle a campaign rakes in, somehow or other it’s just never enough. That’s why you keep getting goddamn text blasts from the campaign up until midnite on the night before the election.

To a certain extent this is true for the Democrats, but not as bad. Even though they have something like six vulnerable Senate seats to protect, the Harris Walz campaign isn’t the only one minting money right now. The DNC, DSCC, and DCCC are all reporting record hauls, as are grassroots organizations. And with the spike in volunteers, candidates should have all the resources they need.

This is not true for the Trump campaign or the RNC. Last I saw, Trump campaign small money donations were down 64% from their 2020 level. With Lara the Songbird running the show at the RNC, as much money as Daddums needs is being diverted to his lawyers. And many of the critical swing state GOP parties are in such disarray they can’t even pay their own bills, much less fund campaigns. And neither can the RNC.

Here’s where this becomes important and can come into play to give you a clearer picture of where races are going. We’ll deal with the presidential race in a minute, but we’ll start with the Senate races, since we should start to see those results come in earlier.

Right now, while the presidential race is within the margin of error with Harris holding a seemingly durable 3-3.5 lead, since she took over as nominee, you can’t say the same for most of the Senate races. In most of the battleground states, the Democrats have leads of anywhere from 4-15 points. And even 64 days out, double digit leads are a steep hill to slog.

Normally, a national campaign like the RNSC and the RNC would wait until somewhere in the middle of October to start making end of life decisions as to which Senate campaigns to continue to support, and which ones to pull the plug on.

But this is not a normal cycle. The RNC, the RNSB and the RCCC are all cash starved, and there’s no relief in sight, since almost all e-mail and text blast advertising is going out under the Trump campaign website. And the longer these double digit leads last, especially if Harris opens up and holds a lead outside of the margin of error, the more judicious the deep pocket donors are going to be in where and how much they put into this swirling drain.

Here’s my advice. Starting no later than October 1st, and maybe even the third week in September, start watching the news for GOP announcements of ad buys in particular states, as well as ad drops in states the GOP was going to spend in, but cancelled the buy. This will especially be true if primo groups like 538.com, The Cook Report, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball all start taking particular Senate races off of the map for the GOP as being likely or safe Democratic. That’ll give you a heads up on which races the GOP thinks they can salvage, and which are deceased equines.

It’s the same for the Democrats, but mirror image, and like a martini, with a twist. The Democrats are on offense in all of these states, not defense. So, if you start to see the DNC and the DSCC start pulling ad and infrastructure from races like Casey in PA, Baldwin in WI, and Rosen in NV, the Democrats are feeling confident in their internal polling that these are pretty safe.

Here’s the twist. Watch for where they do put it. Two likely candidates would be Tester in MT and Sherrod brown in OH. Shoring them up could make all the difference in the world. But then look where else they start to spend cash.

Right now the GOP is on defense, and behind the 8-ball. Both Cruz in TX as well as Scott in FL are well within the margin of error against their Democratic opponents. If the Democrats start pumping long green into those races, it can mean one of two things. One, they feel that the Democratic challengers have a legitimate shot at those seats. Two, If the Democrats start pumping money into those races to tighten them up, then the GOP is going to have to start pumping money they don’t have in order to protect what they already hold. Which is money gone from other tight races, again expanding the map.

The presidential race is pretty much the same, except without the Senators, and it will probably start a little later. If, especially after the debate, Harris starts opening up leads outside the margin of error in blue wall states like PA, WI, MI and MN, and holds them, then you may see the DNC and the campaign start to move money around to places like NV and Az, trying to open some daylight. Hell, they can always move it back if need be. But if they do, then once again it’s sign that the campaign and the DNC are comfortable with their internal polling, much more accurate than public polling that the leads are durable.

And for your Labor Day, here’s a bonus. You’ll know that the DNC and the Harris campaign are really feeling confident in how things are going in at least most of the swing states if they start pumping cash into Josh Stein’s Democratic gubernatorial race in North Carolina against MAGA turd blossom Marc Robinson. A Stein blowout could provide enough Democratic votes to flip North Carolina. And if that happens, it’s lights out for Traitor Tot. The more you know.

I thank you for the privilege of your time.