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While the Democratic National Convention has demonstrated the optimism about Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy, her opponent Donald Trump has quietly had a great week.
Harris’ entry into the 2024 race after President Joe Biden dropped out has energized Democrats. She saw a surge in polls, while her campaign has reportedly raised a staggering $500 million in the month since she joined the race. At the convention’s fourth and final day on Thursday, she accepted her party’s nomination.
Trump, the Republican nominee, has appeared to struggle to adjust to Harris as his new rival, sparking a backlash earlier this month after he questioned the vice president’s racial identity.
But this week, his campaign has received several pieces of welcome news.
A number of leading bookmakers on Thursday had Trump as the favorite to win November’s election. All had Harris as the favorite as recently as Tuesday.
And a poll of battleground states published on Tuesday found Trump narrowly leading Harris in Pennsylvania and Arizona, and tied in Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Three other surveys showed Harris trailing Trump in Pennsylvania.
Speculation is mounting that independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to drop out of the race and back Trump. Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, discussed the possibility that Kennedy could “walk away right now and join forces” with Trump to prevent Harris from winning in November. Kennedy’s exit would be a bigger boon to Trump than Harris, polls have suggested.
Trump said on Tuesday that he was open to offering Kennedy a role in his administration if he drops out of the race.
“I like him a lot, I respect him a lot,” Trump said during an interview with CNN’s Kristen Holmes. “I probably would if something like that would happen. He’s a very different kind of a guy, a very smart guy, and I would be honored by that endorsement certainly.”
And there have been worrying signs about the economy—widely viewed as the top issue in the 2024 race—that could pose a challenge for Harris.
The economy added 818,000 fewer jobs between April 2023 through March this year than originally reported, the government announced on Wednesday. The downgraded estimate follows a July job report that was worse than expected, leading economists to suggest the Fed had waited too long to cut interest rates to support the economy.
Harris announced a sweeping set of economic proposals last week aimed at lowering the cost of groceries, housing and other goods, prompting some criticism.
The Trump and Harris campaigns have been contacted for comment via email.
Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Northeastern University told Newsweek that both Trump and Harris “will have good days and bad days” in the lead-up to the election.
“Sometimes supporters and campaigns are more motivated when they think they’re behind than when they believe they’re ahead,” he said. “All this means is that the race remains anyone’s to win—or anyone’s to lose. It’s close, as it has been all along, and as it’s likely to remain until the bitter end.”
Panagopoulos said he expects that “we’ll continue to see small shifts in the polls that, because preferences are so evenly split, could suggest a different front-runner at different times, but estimates are likely to remain within the margin of error—a statistical tie with no clear poll winner.”
Thomas Gift, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, agreed, saying that while polls “clearly show Harris breaking in the right direction, it’s important to remember that she’s still in her honeymoon phase.”
Gift told Newsweek: “As the media subjects her to more scrutiny and she’s forced to get concrete about her policy agenda, it’s not hard to envision momentum shifting back to Trump.
“Harris didn’t earn her status as the most unpopular VP since Dan Quayle for nothing. She’s still fundamentally the same candidate she was back in 2019 when she flamed out of the Democratic primaries because of a lack of support and resources.”
