While the only poll that really matters is on November 5 –

2016 and 2024 are vastly different. Trump is a vastly better known quantity today than he was eight years ago.

Twice impeached; utter mishandling of a global pandemic; organized a violent attack on the Capitol which sought to overturn a free and fair election; convicted on 34 counts so far; populated SCOTUS with fascists who A) overturned a very longstanding protection for reproductive freedom, B) shielded him from appropriate legal consequences, and C) set him up to be a pre-Magna Carta king if he retakes the office of President. Not to mention his increasing slide into utter lunacy, going on about sharks and electricity, Hannibal Lecter, windmills; pimping retail products from donors; openly selling policy decisions to oil companies and others.

His challenger, Kamala Harris, is not Hillary Clinton. While I absolutely believe that Clinton was by far the better choice in 2016, the right had painted her as unlikable and “corrupt” (Narrator: she wasn’t) for too long. Harris (and Walz) are likable, and hopeful, and progressive; and they are actively and successfully challenging the Trump campaign’s claims while easily brushing off their opponents’ attacks.

At the same time, Trump has selected a terribly unpopular running mate, who seems unhealthily obsessed with children; Trump is barely campaigning (feel-good rallies in safely red Montana aren’t campaigning); he’s completely stopped even trying to speak to voters who aren’t already in the cult.

This Harris/Walz campaign is different for the Democrats, in a way that hasn’t been seen for a long, long time. The Democratic Party is famous for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, yes, but we saw an encumbent president drop out of the race after all the primary ballots were in, and the party immediately coalesced around Harris. That’s a kind of party unity on the American left that hasn’t happened for decades. The GOP no longer corners the market on standing together, at least as far as presidential campaigns are concerned. I am hopeful that some of that makes its way into Congress, and I am confident that that level of unity - which must continue to be developed and protected - will result in a Democratic success in November.

It won’t be over in November, of course. We’ll have to fight off the ludicrous and empty legal challenges as well as armed “protesters.” There was violence on January 6, 2021, and there will be violence again, more of it. Failing to recognize that in this article demonstrates its British author’s misunderstanding of American politics.