‘Nothing persuades anyone anymore’: Insiders from the Trump and Harris campaigns get candid about their election fears

In 27 days, Americans will go to the polls. Yet it remains unclear whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump has the edge in a byzantine electoral system that will determine the next American president.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report’s most recent poll of the swing states shows Harris with a two-point lead over Trump in Arizona; Trump two points ahead in Georgia; and Harris with three, one, and two-point leads in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, respectively.

The Democratic candidate also has a single-point advantage in Nevada and is tied with Trump in North Carolina, a state that no Democrat has carried since Barack Obama’s first presidential run in 2008.

All of those contested states are showing Harris well within the polling margin for error — in essence, a statistical tie everywhere. That makes the race to the 270 electoral college votes each candidate needs to claim victory an extremely difficult one to call.

Over the last week, The Independent reached out to insiders with both the Trump and Harris campaigns to get a sense of where each campaign feels that they stand.

By and large, both the Republican and Democratic candidates were circumspect about the closeness of this unprecedented election contest.

One Trump-aligned operative was candid enough to admit that the surprise switcheroo atop the Democratic ticket caused by President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race put the ex-president and his advisers on the back foot. And Trump’s debate performance against Harris — one that was at least as bad as Biden’s performance when the two men squared off in late June — did not help things.

But the Trumpworld veteran said the campaign’s brain trust believes the worst is behind them and sees a path to victory