The Campaign Reset Is Complete

Chuck Todd: “Early polling indicates a renewed interest in the campaign overall — and it’s not just polling. The fundraising has been a bigger boon than even the most optimistic Democrats anticipated. The various ‘attention metrics,’ like TV ratings and social media trends, also show interest in the campaign is up near levels in 2008 and 2020, two of our higher interest/turnout elections of my lifetime. That’s after having been down at unusually low levels before.”

“And then there’s the collapse of the third-party candidates. A Biden-Trump rematch was a perfect storm for a rise in the third-party presidential vote share. And at times, some polls showed the share of non-major-party voters hitting nearly 25%.”

“That is no longer the case, and I highly doubt we will see the combined third-party vote get into double digits. It has been especially fascinating to watch the collapse of support for Cornel West and Jill Stein, who are both running to the left of the Democrats and very aggressively on the issue of Gaza.”