Are Republicans Giving Democratic Voters a Reason to Vote

According to the polls the presidential election in the US is close. That is nothing new. It was close in 2020 and it was close in 2016. However, this closeness just seemed to happen in the last six weeks and it happened because Republican leaning pollsters flooded the political scene with polls saying the race is tight. Hell, I believe Donald Trump even stated that his campaign paid for pollsters to do just that.

My question is why? This election is going to come down to turnout. As I have stated before in this space there are more voters who dislike Donald Trump than like him so if they come out to vote he loses. So, it would be in his best interest to attempt to convince them to stay home. However, a race that looks close could do exactly the opposite. 

One of the reasons why Donald Trump won in 2016 was because everybody and their brother was stating that Hillary Clinton would win. I believe that convinced many Bernie Boys to stay home. They really did not like her as a candidate and that combined with the notion that their votes were not needed was all the motivation they needed to sit out the 2016 election. The result is history.

Then after four years of President Trump everybody that wanted him gone came out in droves. The result was an increase in votes for the Democratic candidate of around 6 million in 2020, while the number of votes for Donald Trump stayed at 2016 levels and he was history.

So, if Donald Trump and the Republicans want a result more closely resembling the 2016 election they should be encouraging the notion that Kamala Harris has a much better chance of winning than Donald Trump. That might convince those who do not like him but are also not that comfortable with a woman of colour being President to stay home. A close race may convince them to do otherwise.

If there is some grand strategy for the Republicans to push the narrative that the race is tight I cannot see it. Maybe the Republicans are worried about turning out their vote so showing a tight race would also convince them to show up too. Or maybe Donald Trump does not want to be seen as losing the election going into election day because of his fragile ego. Or maybe it is a whole other reason that I cannot see. Whatever the reason, I cannot believe encouraging potential voters of your opponent to vote is a sound strategy when their are more of them than your own voters. But what do I know?