Why is the election so close?

A little over a week ago, former first lady Michelle Obama had a moment of reflection while campaigning in Kalamazoo, Michigan. “I have to ask myself, why on earth is this race even close?” she asked. The crowd roared, but Obama didn't laugh. It is a serious question and one that deserves serious consideration.

The most notable thing about the 2024 presidential election, which had no shortage of surprises, is that about half of voters still support Donald Trump. The Republican's tenure in the White House was a series of disasters, culminating in his attempt to steal an election after voters rejected him. And yet polls suggest Trump is virtually tied with Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

In fact, this underlines how surprising the depth of his support is. Although he has dominated American politics for much of the last decade, he has never been particularly popular. As Democratic strategist Michael Podhorzer wrote, there has been a consistent anti-MAGA majority in the United States. Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 by splitting the field and then won the Electoral College in November despite losing the popular vote. In 2020 he lost significantly. In 2018, the GOP was defeated in the midterm elections. By the 2022 midterm elections, Trump was no longer in office but attempted to win the election in his place, resulting in notable Republican underperformance. Still, Trump has a good chance of winning the largest share of the popular vote in his third attempt this year — now that Americans have had nearly a decade to become familiar with his utter inadequacy — and could even win a majority.

Read: Trump: “I need the kind of generals Hitler had”

Trump's term in office was characterized by chaos wrapped in catastrophe rather than incompetence. He avoided major wars and lowered taxes, but otherwise failed in many of his goals. He neither built a wall nor did Mexico pay for it. He neither defeated China in a trade war nor revived American manufacturing. He did not disarm North Korea. His administration was marred by a series of scandals of his own making, including one that led to impeachment by the House of Representatives. He witnessed a series of moral crimes: his callous handling of Hurricane María, the cruelty of family separation, his disinformation about COVID, and the distribution of aid to punish democratic areas. In the end, his attempt to thwart the will of American voters was an attack on the tradition of peaceful transfer of power that dates back to the nation's founding.

A common explanation for Trump's popularity is that voters are amnesiac about his time in office. That may be true, and it might be more understandable if Trump had spent the time since leaving office transforming his identity into something less controversial, as many Republicans urged him to do.

However, he doesn't have that. Instead, he has amplified many of his most egregious traits. In recent years, the FBI has unearthed some of the country's most sensitive secrets on a ballroom stage and in a bathroom at Mar-a-Lago, where they had been arbitrarily hidden (this came after his 2016 campaign criticized his opponent, Hillary). . Clinton, adamant about her handling of her email security). The former president was also charged with dozens of crimes and convicted on 34 counts. In a civil case, he was accused of raping the writer E. Jean Carroll (he denies this) and of committing business fraud worth millions of dollars.

His 2024 presidential campaign is based on two main promises: a mass deportation of illegal immigrants and retaliation against his political enemies. He said he wants to use the military against domestic enemies, a category that he has made clear begins with elected Democrats. As I wrote after his October 27 rally at Madison Square Garden, his message is hate and fear. The Atlantic'S Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg recently reported that Trump complained that he wanted generals like Hitler and that an aide allegedly attacked a staffer at Arlington National Cemetery who was trying to stop Trump from using him for crude political machinations. Every administration has a few disgruntled employees; No other administration has ever seen so many former top officials say that a president is a fascist, a liar or unfit to be president.

Harris is running a very different campaign. In contrast to Trump's dark vision, she has spent most of her short campaign promoting a cheerful, patriotic vision that has traditionally resonated with American voters. Harris has been criticized for providing too few details about her plans and granting too few interviews, and more details and more transparency are always better. But Trump is just as vague, if not more unclear, about his plans—his statements about his plans on tariffs and child care, for example, are downright naive—and he has avoided or canceled several interviews with interlocutors who are not considered friendly.

Some of the important reasons the election is so close are structural and have little to do with Trump or Harris. Basic features of the election favor the Republican candidate: voters in the United States are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, and voters around the world have punished incumbents. Although Harris is not the president, she is having a hard time figuring out how far to distance herself from Joe Biden and the administration in which she serves as vice president. Americans are also angry about the economy, and while the U.S. has weathered the post-COVID world and global inflation better than any of its peers, it's no use saying it doesn't make sense if voters don't feel it and believe.

Read: The case for Kamala Harris

Trump has also benefited from the media environment. A strong right-wing press has chosen to become, in effect, a wing of the MAGA movement. Harris receives scrutiny from both the mainstream press and the conservative press, but only receives it from the mainstream. Some parts of the mainstream press still appear to be at a loss as to how to cover Trump. Additionally, Trump has benefited from enormous attention outside the traditional news media. Podcasts have become an important source of support for him. Also

Harris ran the shortest presidential campaign in history, a result of Biden's late exit from the race. There is no clear answer as to whether a longer term would have helped or hurt her, although some Democrats worry that she did not adequately introduce herself to the nation during that time. Astonishingly, her campaign has spent much of the past few weeks attacking Trump rather than emphasizing the positive case for her – pushing aside the message that had given her a small lead in the polls and embracing the message , which had been a loser for Biden .

In many ways, Harris is a completely conventional Democratic candidate—both to her advantage and to her detriment. One would imagine that this would be enough for a small lead against a candidate as divergent as Trump. In fact, this is exactly the approach Biden used to defeat Trump four years ago. But if the poll is correct (which it may not be, no matter which direction), then many voters have stuck with Trump or turned to him. For many others, the proximity of the race is equally astounding. “I don’t think it’s going to be anywhere near as close as they say,” Tony Capillary told me at an Oct. 21 rally in Greenville, North Carolina. “That should be around 93 to 7 percent.” He is sure that Trump will win when the votes are in – by a significant margin.