Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00with me on set is our international affairs commentator, Doug Herbert. Good to see you,
00:04Doug. How are you, Jenny? There's 87 days to go until election day, a lot can happen before then.
00:11But for the moment, Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz really seem to be packing arenas on
00:16their campaign trail. What are your takeaways? In terms of democratic presidential politics?
00:20This is a different planet we've been living on, not just since Joe Biden withdrew from the race
00:24on July 21st about three weeks ago, but especially in this one week, this first week of barnstorm
00:31campaigning against these five battleground states, both Kamala Harris and her newly minted
00:36running mate Tim Walz together. I mean, it's been a spectacular in terms of an extravaganza,
00:41almost like a show, right? You have had packed rallies, you've had stars turning out,
00:46you've had hipster folk bands, you know, at these rallies, you've had cheering packed crowds,
00:51you had a record crowd at one of those rallies in Detroit, Michigan. She's literally swept across
00:56the three so-called blue wall states, those are the northern battleground states of Michigan and
01:01Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but also going down to what's called the Sunbelt states,
01:05two of the three of them, notably Arizona and Nevada, also packing arenas there. What we
01:11really can note is this surge of energy and enthusiasm and some people have likened it
01:16once again to the energy of the days of Barack Obama's first presidential campaign in 2008,
01:22not a second one, which was more of a sort of slow going campaign and sort of expected he was
01:26going to win, but that first one, that energy, that excitement, especially for a younger generation,
01:30which really is too young, the Gen Z, so to speak, doesn't remember that. This is really
01:36the first time they are having this high octane, highly energized, very dynamic campaign and
01:42they're seeing it and living it with their own eyes. And it's a sharp contrast for now,
01:46and I'm underlining the words for now, with the Trump campaign, which whatever their spokespeople
01:51are saying, however they may be spinning it, have clearly been on the defensive, at least in the
01:55past week, in the face of this momentum, this unexpected and yes, it was unexpected reversal
02:01of fortune. First, Joe Biden dropping out, Kamala Harris quickly rising to the top of that ticket
02:07with the endorsement of Joe Biden, then being endorsed by her party and then choosing Tim
02:11Walsh, who has so far really seemed to rally the party, this unity and the Trump campaign has
02:16really been caught on the back foot. Privately, Trump has been almost enraged. He's been said to
02:22call Kamala Harris a bitch, something that his campaign spokespeople staunchly deny, say he does
02:28not use that language with respect to the vice president, but you could clearly see frustration
02:35there. They don't quite know what to do and as if to sort of pile on the bad news for the Trump
02:39campaign, you've had in the past couple of days, those new polls showing that among likely
02:44registered voters in the Times-Siena, highly respected poll, that Kamala Harris and Tim Walsh
02:49ticket have pulled ahead by around four points in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, once again,
02:54key northern battleground states that are pivotal to winning the White House. Bad news for Trump
02:59and this morning we get news that Trump campaign saying was hacked by some foreign hacker,
03:04believed to be Iran. Details still coming out about that.
03:08So the first week was full of energy and momentum, as you say, but many expect the
03:12road ahead to get tougher. Yeah, you said at the top, right, 87 days till election day. And,
03:17you know, for a lot of perhaps our European or other people in the world watching this, viewers,
03:21I think 87 days, most European elections haven't even begun yet when there's 87 days to go.
03:26In an American election, 87 days is literally an eternity. A lot can happen.
03:31The big issue here is right now. Yes, it's the honeymoon phase, a proverbial honeymoon.
03:35They have their momentum. They have that energy. They have the from the slow Biden phase to now
03:40this new dynamic that everyone is embracing in the Democratic Party. But it's the independent
03:45in the swing voters. We can't talk about them enough in American presidential politics because
03:50there's an electoral college because it comes down to those battlegrounds. What really matters
03:54is a handful, tens of thousands, maybe one hundred thousand votes in the entire country of almost
03:59330, 340 million. That's what it comes down to. These voters are going to vote mostly on economic
04:04cost of living issues, the price of petrol, the price of housing, the price of groceries.
04:10In the Sunbelt, she desperately needs the Latino block of voters. Biden was part of his coalition
04:15in 2020. She needs to get them. She doesn't really have a lot of their support yet. She
04:20needs to bring them over and convince working class, especially Latino voters in the Sunbelt.
04:25Why should you vote for me? Economy, immigration,
04:28border issues, very big. Watch that space in the weeks ahead.