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00:00Two months to go until the US presidential election.
00:04Yesterday's US Labour Day traditionally marking the start of what's known as
00:08the final stretch of the race.
00:10Both the Trump and Harris campaigns focusing on some key swing stays
00:14that will likely decide the outcome.
00:16It is then a frenetic nine-week sprint to a November 5th voting day
00:21that many regard as perhaps the most consequential election
00:24in modern memory.
00:25The state of the presidential race though in early September
00:28often seen as a pretty decent indicator of where things are likely to end up
00:33at the polls on election day.
00:35Well, international affairs commentator Doug Herbert
00:37is joining me here on set.
00:38So Doug, nine weeks to go.
00:40Would you believe it?
00:41Where do we stand?
00:42Yeah, nine weeks goes like that in American politics, Stuart.
00:46Look, I think the danger here is oversimplifying things.
00:50The narrative has been an amazing bolt out of the starting blocks
00:55for Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, in the past few weeks.
00:59And the momentum has been with them.
01:01And yes, she has done what Biden was unable to do,
01:05which is to start in some national polls pulling away from Trump.
01:09That is solidifying her lead on the national level.
01:13Now, I need to say I'm going to show our viewers and you some poll numbers
01:17from the latest poll ABC News and Ipsos conducted August 23rd to 27th
01:22after the DNC.
01:23I'm going to tell you why we need to take those poll numbers with a grain of salt.
01:27And they come with a big asterisk.
01:29So you see this all registered voters.
01:31Kamala has a four-point lead, 50% to 46%.
01:35Among likely voters, perhaps a more important number,
01:37those voters actually say, yeah, not only am I registered,
01:40but I'm also going to go to the polls.
01:42That's a six-point lead, 52% to 46%.
01:45Now we could take that down and I will say why you should really,
01:49if not disregard that, take it with a grain of salt.
01:51We know about the Electoral College, right?
01:53We have done reports on the Electoral College.
01:56It was devised in the U.S. as the system,
01:58the intent being to give small, often mostly rural states as much weight,
02:05if not more weight than more populous ones,
02:07the ones with the urban centers and the dense media markets.
02:10A lot of critics of the Electoral College say that the result is that
02:14you are giving way too far representation to areas that have almost no one in them
02:20at the expense of big cities and metropolitan areas in the U.S.
02:23That said, given that, when you ask me where things stand today,
02:27the picture is much tighter in the so-called battleground states.
02:31And Stuart, when I speak about battlegrounds today,
02:34I really divide it into two fronts.
02:36You have the so-called Rust Belt states where the working class bastions are
02:40in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
02:43And Pennsylvania is where Kamala and Joe Biden jointly appeared for the first time yesterday.
02:48Talk about that in a second.
02:50Then you have the so-called Sun Belt states, which are in the Sun Belt, right?
02:54The Arizona, the Nevada, the Georgias, the North Carolinas.
02:59Now, Harris, according to these most polls, remember,
03:02we're talking about averages of polls, has slim lead, very modest,
03:07very modest in the Rust Belt in those three northern states.
03:12She has – it's razor thin with Trump slightly leading in the Sun Belt right now.
03:17And if you look at the overall picture in these battlegrounds, as of today, Stuart,
03:21the overall picture is Trump has a lead, a very slight one, in four of the seven battleground states,
03:27which is why I say those numbers need to be taken in that larger context.
03:32You talked about Kamala Harris and Joe Biden appearing together for their first joint campaign.
03:36At Pennsylvania, it was union stronghold.
03:39Let's have a listen to Kamala Harris, what she had to say.
03:44Because unions helped build America, and unions helped build America's middle class.
03:52For generations in Detroit and across our nation, the brothers and sisters of labor
03:58have stood together to righteously demand fair pay, better benefits, and safe working conditions.
04:08And let me say, every person in our nation has benefited from that work.
04:15Kamala Harris there really saying how good unions have been for the U.S. and continue to be.
04:21And how important are they in this election?
04:23And I suppose the answer to that, Stuart, is very important, not important.
04:28And what do I mean by that?
04:30About one in ten American workers of voting age are members of unions.
04:35That's ten percent.
04:36Now, from a European perspective, that's nothing, right?
04:38So unions are talked up in general election campaigns.
04:41They do have big, perhaps outsized political influence, especially in these rust belt states
04:46where the working middle class are major constituencies.
04:49But on the national map, unions are not as important, for better or for worse.
04:54That said, the Democrats historically have done very well with unions, right?
04:58They're supposed to be the party of unions.
05:02Way back in 1992, Bill Clinton won the unions by over 30 points.
05:06Back in 2020, how did Biden do?
05:09Well, he won the unions by not as well as Clinton did, a little over 20 points.
05:13Did better than Hillary Clinton did.
05:15The problem is the narrative's been changing.
05:18Whereas historically you said, well, it's a no-brainer.
05:21Of course, the Democrats are the working class party.
05:23They're for the unions.
05:24The Republican Party has managed through its strategists, through its narrative,
05:29to rewrite that script and to start to bring more and more unions
05:32and working class voters to their sides,
05:34flipping these former so-called sort of blue states more in their favor.
05:38So now you have what some say is a paradox of a billionaire candidate
05:44who the Democrats say has never in his career championed the worker,
05:49all of a sudden drawing a lot of sympathy and support
05:52from some pretty big influential working middle class union groups,
05:56including the Teamsters Union,
05:58which hasn't explicitly endorsed Donald Trump and the Republicans,
06:01but has a dalliance with him and may do so.
06:05So the Republicans have been siphoning support on the union front.
06:10The unions are no longer a sure bet for the Democrats.
06:13That's what's interesting about this narrative.
06:15A lot of people would say, how is that possible?
06:17The Republicans have never been the party of the working class or the middle class.
06:20But in this election, all bets are off,
06:22which is why you see Kamala Harris, Joe Biden fighting tooth and nail
06:26for every union vote they can get.
06:28And what about Trump?
06:29Him and J.D. Vance scheduled to campaign together later on in the week.
06:33But Trump's been having some difficulties on the campaign trail.
06:36Yeah, Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance.
06:38Now, like you said, these are difficulties that they minimize downplay,
06:41say are artificial difficulties fabricated by their rivals,
06:44their Democratic rivals.
06:45But a big one in the past week or so, which we've reported on,
06:48is what was called a political stunt by the Democrats at Arlington National Cemetery,
06:54one of the most solemn institutions in America,
06:57a cemetery where military veterans are buried.
07:00And in one of the most sacred, sacrosanct parts of that cemetery,
07:04Section 60, as it's called,
07:06Trump had a campaign stop with family members of some of the 13 troops
07:12who were killed during the messy American withdrawal from Afghanistan
07:16at Abbey Gate and Kabul Airport.
07:18And there was an incident in which Arlington Cemetery and the Army says
07:24a cemetery worker who tried to say you're not allowed to campaign
07:27in Arlington National Cemetery, it's against the rules, it's against federal,
07:30it's a federal violation, that there was apparently a scuffle
07:33and that the aid at the cemetery was somehow manhandled
07:38or harassed by one of the Trump campaign people.
07:42Trump denies it, but hasn't released any footage to prove what happened in the incident.
07:47It has left a bad taste, but some of the Army people who were there with him
07:51at the cemetery have signed a statement supporting Trump,
07:53saying he's the real one who sticks up for military veterans,
07:56even though he has denigrated them on many, many occasions
08:00and is seen by the Democrats as a total hypocrite
08:02when it comes to honoring America's military veterans.
08:05This has left a sour taste, staging a political campaign in Arlington National Cemetery.
08:10He's not the first one to do it, but he's the first one to have this angry reaction
08:13to criticism of doing so.
08:15J.D. Vance on the campaign trail has also been caught out time and again
08:21for what are perceived as misogynistic statements
08:24and not seeming too human in his everyday reactions with people on the campaign trail.
08:30Also, the Trump campaign this week postponed what was supposed to be a gala fundraiser
08:35for his New Jersey golf course for people who participated in the January 6, 2021
08:41Capitol insurrection, the storming of the Capitol, defenders of those people.
08:45That was postponed for unknown reasons.
08:48The campaign didn't give a reason.
08:49Perhaps it will still take place, but if so, only after the election.
08:53So he's been a little bit on the defensive, even though if you speak to the Trump campaign,
08:56they say they're in poll position, they're doing fine, nothing to see here, move on.