Sunday, during CNN’s coverage of the Democratic National Convention, former Obama political adviser David Axelrod said if the election were today, it could go for Republican former President Donald Trump, despite Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris’ lead in some national polls.
“David Axelrod, how encouraged should Democrats be?” host Anderson Cooper asked. “Is there a danger of them actually being kind of too euphoric?”
“Yeah, I’ve been talking about this for some time,” Axelrod replied. “Look she has made extraordinary progress. We were all in Milwaukee a month ago, and there was euphoria there and a sense that this race was over, that they were going to win by a landslide, perhaps sweeping big majorities in the house and Senate and things have changed dramatically. But this is still a very competitive race if the election were today, I’m not sure who would win, and I think it may well be President Trump because it’s an Electoral College fight. And in those battleground states, we were looking at national numbers, right at the top of this program. That’s I mean, it’s misleading.”
“And I’ve said several times here that, you know, for Democrat to win those battleground states, they have to have a significant lead in the Electoral College,” he continued. “Remember, Joe Biden won by seven million votes nationally last time, and a margin of 45,000 votes or 44,000 votes in the three closest battleground states combined. So she’s right to be telling people it’s good to be enthusiastic, that enthusiasm is really, really important for the Democratic Party. But you have to turn that into energetic action in order to win the election. I think that’s going to be part of what you hear here.”
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