Regarding the muted-mic, no-audience in the room presidential debate tonight (rules here), my sage advice for Vice President Harris is to look more presidential. Forget all that media-hyped stuff about provoking her opponent into saying something silly. If she does that, she runs the risk of appearing manipulative. All he has to do is not take the bait and he wins the night, plus a few days of positive media coverage. Besides, there is a very good chance he will look unhinged, no matter what she does. Why re-fight a battle she has already won? Because Harris is the debate favorite with her much-noted prosecutorial skill set, Trump is the debate underdog and he gets bonus points by doing “better than expected.” If he shocks everyone and appears surprisingly dignified, he wins big. Yes, the muted mic helps Trump in that regard. But them’s the rules. Harris’s job is not to manipulate Trump; It is to show that she is the ‘adult in the room,’ the one who can be trusted to make sober presidential decisions. Don’t assume everyone already knows that. Many voters like Trump; Many can’t stand him. People know him already. Her, not so much. She has to sell herself, not squander her credibility by trying to trap her opponent. Forget the Perry Mason theatrics. Just be smart, more relaxed and warm and likable, persona qualities she already has.  A little humor wouldn’t hurt. Sure, have a couple of zingers for the opponent, and attack when appropriate. But, think JFK vs. Nixon – the way the former revealed himself to an audience who already knew the latter. Let Trump be the angry, yammering fool. Don’t be too defensive or explain too much. Roll out an eloquent vision of a more hopeful, prosperous and united America.

On the eve of the presidential debate, the polls mostly indicate that, nationally, the presidential race is pretty close, with a trend in the right direction for Harris. But another numerical consideration is the numbers of the demographic change, and for Dems, the news from North Carolina is pretty good. As “the team at Carolina Forward” writes in an e-blast: “Since the 2020 election, North Carolina has added almost 400,000 new residents. With natural growths, deaths, comings-of-age and new neighbors, hundreds of thousands of new voters will be casting ballots for the very first time in our state this fall….In 2020, Trump won North Carolina by his slimmest margin of victory in the entire country: just 73,000 votes, or 1.3%. So the dynamic “churn” in our state’s electorate matters a whole lot. This week, we’re doing a deep-dive into what those population changes might mean politically. Further, “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, North Carolina has gained about 396,000 new residents since 2020. Nearly all (95%) of this growth has been from net in-migration – people moving to North Carolina. Contrary to popular misconceptions, the top state sending new residents to North Carolina is Florida, followed by New York, Virginia and South Carolina, in that order. According to the NC State Board of Elections, there are over 217,000 more registered voters in the state today than there were during the 2020 election, and many more than that are net-new– in other words, voters who were not registered here four years ago….In 2020, Donald Trump scraped out a narrow win in North Carolina by about 73,000 votes out of approximately 5.5 million cast….In 2024, Kamala Harris is quite likely to hit a 30-point margin in Wake county over Donald Trump. It’s entirely conceivable that she could hit an eye-watering 40-point margin in Mecklenburg county.”

In addition to demographic trends, the latest NC polls are also pretty decent for Dems. As TonyDem4life notes at Daily Kos, “A Survey USA poll that dropped today has Harris leading by 3 points….According to WRAL,, “Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are in a statistical tie in North Carolina, but Harris appears to have a slight edge, according to an exclusive WRAL News Poll of the 2024 presidential race….Harris leads Trump by 3 percentage points — a close result in this key battleground state, but one that represents a substantial improvement for Democratic hopes in North Carolina from the last WRAL poll, in March, that found Trump leading by 5 percentage points.”…..

• Harris is up in the suburbs 49% to 44%, a result that almost entirely matches the overall statewide result.
• Trump leads Harris among suburban men, 47% to 45%.
• Harris leads Trump among suburban women, 54% to 40%.

UPDATE:

ANOTHER POLL just dropped. New Quinnipiac poll finds Harris leading Trump in North Carolina by 49-46, same as Survey USA poll earlier today. ”

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