Trump leads Vice President Kamala Harris by 16 points among men, while Harris holds a 16-point advantage among women across all the battleground states, according to a Sunday New York Times/Siena College poll. The voters, featured on journalist Mark Halperin’s “The Morning Meeting,” expressed surprise at backing Trump, saying they no longer trust the media’s portrayal of him.
“I can’t believe I’m voting for Trump,” a law school student named Lauren said, telling Halperin she has only voted for Democrats in past elections. “It started with COVID things … For me, this election is like a referendum on the elites way more than it is anything about Trump or Harris. specifically. And I recognize, like I live in D.C., I’m about to be a lawyer. It doesn’t matter.”
“After years of being yelled at about misinformation and disinformation and conspiracy theories, and after, like, for this past, year actually doing my research on what Trump did, not just what he said, but what he did in his first term and realizing the media’s lies and then seeing the media’s lies this past year, I mean the amount of work that you have to do as someone who’s not surrounded by a conservative bubble to actually figure out like the nuanced truth of what’s going on is insane,” she added.
Lauren also said she is backing Trump because of Israel, criticizing Harris and President Joe Biden for their handling of antisemitism. She also said she was “really inspired” by the team Trump has assembled during his 2024 campaign.
Halperin asked Lauren later if she is “pro-choice” and she said she was, but added she favors “keeping abortion to the states,” which Trump supports.
“I feel like a lot of his positions are pretty moderate and I think that moderate positions are best for the country right now,” she added.
“I think I’m supporting Trump, which is crazy for me. I very much resonate with what Lauren said earlier,” a California voter named Megan said, adding that the people she knows who are around her age of mid-twenties to early thirties appear to be supporting Trump.
“I think that COVID had a huge impact on how I view the media … it really led me to question a lot of what the media was saying, which sort of, you know, led me to look into a lot of other things. And I sort of had always bought into the media narrative around Trump, which I now disagree with,” she added. “I don’t agree with Trump on a lot of things and I’m very pro-choice, but there are certain issues that I really think that he is right on about.”
The sitting President ended his bid for a second term. His opponent was charged with dozens of made up crimes. Corporate media has become apoplectic in their coverage of the news. A presidential candidate was nearly assassinated. Twice.
But through the maelstrom of crazy circumstances remains a very stark reality: Our nation is in big trouble facing existential threats at a scale not seen since the Civil War.
I am confident in three things.
That last note will certainly ruffle feathers. Even Bible-believing Christians might take offense for many reasons. Some take this stance as not believing in free will. But my worldview is what drives me to work harder knowing that I do not know my place in His plan and therefore all I need to do is fight the good fight with all I have.
For that reason, I want to write my final column ahead of the election as a reminder of the three issues driving voters.
James Carville was right when he said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” This is normally the most pressing issue deciding elections at the federal level. Ironically, it doesn’t always work at the state, county, and local level as we’ve seen with the most desolate voters repeating their mistakes for decades in blue areas.
Unfortunately, the campaigns haven’t put the appropriate level of effort into disseminating their actual economic plans. Trump mentions tariffs often and promises to cut taxes but his campaign should have explained the inflation issue better. They had an opportunity to educate Americans on the Inflation Reduction Act and remind them that Kamala Harris was the deciding vote.
I’m not a campaign advisor for a reason. I’m sure well-paid analysts and experts would tell me that the messaging behind inflation would be too complex if they dove into the details, but I believe in this digital world it wouldn’t have been hard to drive the message home. For whatever reason, there’s still too much emphasis on :30 second pump up pitches and 1:00 minute attack ads. Maybe it works, but I believe with the right messaging the details could be brought to light.
Regardless, the economy is a clear advantage for Trump and if we need a final day message, it should be that Kamala Harris has only promised more of the same as we’ve seen for the last four years.
The border crisis is apparent to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear, so there’s no need to dwell on this issue. We are being invaded and it is going to destroy this nation if it’s not stopped immediately.
The Trump campaign messaging on this has been solid. The only thing I would have added is more of an emphasis on an unavoidable fact: American citizens struggling in urban areas are the most negatively impacted by the border crisis.
It’s funny that the one time an issue truly affects the “underprivileged” is the only time Democrats are unwilling to talk about it. They’ve said climate change harmed minorities more. They said Trump’s tax cuts harmed the poor. They said just about everything is racist, misogynistic, transphobic, or otherwise detrimental to a protected class. But they won’t admit the border invasion does the most harm to the people they pretend to protect.
This is unambiguously a huge argument for Trump.
I’ll keep this one short because I’m one of those radical pro-life purists. Yes, I want abortion banned altogether, but I know that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
I also know that the chances of any abortion legislation hitting the next president’s desk are nearly nil. The hypothetical nationwide abortion ban that Trump keeps getting asked about will never happen and, contrary to Project 2025’s wishes, no Republican in DC is seriously considering it. Trump said he’d veto it if it magically appeared.
The hypothetical codification of Roe v. Wade would only hit Kamala’s desk if Democrats control both the House and Senate and then the Senate ejects the filibuster. The massive election shenanigans required for that would be at a scale I do not believe Democrats are willing to use. I could be wrong, but I hope I’m not.
This means that all of those voters, mostly Democrats, who are voting based on the abortion issue are putting a nothingburger on a pedestal. This election will have very little impact on their rights to murder preborn babies. As we’ve seen since Roe v Wade was overturned, it’s not like abortions have been reduced. They’ve risen.
It’s in God’s hands. We have to do our part, vote, get the word out, and hope that we make it through this cycle unscathed. But as always, we still have to get the Word out by spreading the Gospel.
I can’t wait for this election to be over.
]]>Trump says that states should be able to decide whether, and to what extent, to restrict abortion. Harris, as well as some Senate candidates, claim in their ads that electing Trump would lead to a “national abortion ban.” That’s unlikely, since Trump says he would veto such a ban if Congress ever passed one. “Veto,” Merriam-Webster tells us, is the opposite of “approve.” Ya don’t say.
Harris, in contrast, says that states should have no say at all and that Congress must prevent them from limiting abortion in any way. As a senator, she co-sponsored the Women’s Health Protection Act, federal legislation that would prohibit state or local governments from doing anything that could, even potentially or indirectly, limit abortion. This would include measures that large majorities of Americans, in pro-life states or even nationally, support, such as bans on elective abortions after a certain point in a pregnancy.
But it gets worse. Not only would the Women’s Health Protection Act prevent any pro-life laws or policies going forward, it would require state and local governments to repeal any already on the books. In other words, no state anywhere in America could, no matter how its citizens felt about it, ever have any laws, rules, regulations, practices, or anything else that could conceivably (yes, that pun was intended) limit abortion in any way.
Today, 41 states prohibit abortion during different stages of pregnancy. Fourteen of them ban abortion from conception, four after six weeks, two after 12 weeks, two after 15 or 18 weeks, and 19 after 20 weeks. Lest you think that these abortion “bans” actually prevent many abortions, nearly 94% of abortions nationally occur before 12 weeks.
The Women’s Health Protection Act would require every one of these 41 states to repeal its abortion ban. Mississippi’s 15-week ban, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2022, covers only 4% of abortions, but it still has to go. Utah’s 18-week ban only prohibits about 2% of abortions, but it’s still too strong. Eleven states ban abortion after “viability,” or when an unborn child might live outside the womb. That’s generally considered to be at about 24 weeks, but that law is also out the door.
Harris’ claim that the Women’s Health Protection Act simply “codifies” Roe v. Wade is not only false, but it’s especially deceptive coming from a lawyer who should know better. Even the Supreme Court in Roe said that states may ban abortion after viability and used words such as “mother” and “unborn children” more than 100 times. Except for the “W” in its title, the Women’s Health Protection Act doesn’t even use the word “woman.”
Roe v. Wade did not require taxpayers to pay for elective abortions, but this act would. Roe v. Wade also allowed states to require at least some level of parental involvement, such as notification or consent, when a young girl gets an abortion. This act would not.
In other words, the Women’s Health Protection Act would prefer coercion of a girl to have an abortion over any chance that her family or friends might help her decide otherwise.
Abortion is on the Nov. 5 ballot, and the choice is pretty stark.
Abortion advocates like Harris call themselves “pro-choice” but, it turns out, want to deny any choice to anyone about whether to protect human beings in the womb.
Thomas Jipping serves as senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Heritage is listed for identification purposes only. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect any institutional position for Heritage or its Board of Trustees.
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