Why Kamala could win

livemint.com:

An assumption in Republican circles is that Kamala Harris can’t win, and it is reasonable to think so. She becomes the carrier of the Biden economic burdens; her performance in office has been poor; her favorables are worse than Mr. Biden’s; she is a committed woman of the left and likely no match for the ascendant, post-assassination-attempt Donald Trump.

All true. Focus, however, on another assumption: that this is Mr. Trump’s election to lose.

Also true, but the smart money won’t skip past those last two words—“to lose." Of the cascade of recent historic events, history may record the most determinative was Mr. Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention. The idea that it was Mr.

Trump’s election to lose emerged after the assassination attempt. Mr. Trump survived, rose triumphant and sat at the convention looking like a man who by God’s grace was alive to carry on.

With Mr. Biden refusing to admit reality about himself or his election prospects, and his party in disarray, Mr. Trump had been handed the election on a silver platter.

All he had to do was deliver a statesmanlike acceptance speech and pocket the election, with or without Mr. Biden in the race. Instead, once past his moving words about the attempt on his life, Mr.

Trump gave a shopworn, meandering stump speech. After all his travails, controversies and wars with the Democrats, this was a chance to show himself to the entire country as the president. Instead he gave them something familiar—Trump.

If Mr. Trump couldn’t pull himself together to deliver a solid 60-minute case for his candidacy then, there is no reason to expect he will do so in the campaign ahead. This election will be decided by independent and undecided voters in seven states.