Why Is This Race Close?

The cause may be economic disparities between the educated and the uneducated. The Democrats are trying much harder than the Republicans to address this. But many less educated white voters are just so frustrated that they want to burn everything down and the Trump is offering to do that. Trump is also basically seen as offering to smite their perceived enemies, like immigrants and non-whites and feminists and gays, even though they aren't actually to cause of these voters' woes.

So how is it possible that this is not a done deal? I’m not sure there’s a definitive answer, but I can throw out a few theories.

One obvious potential factor is that Harris would be the first woman to serve as president and commander in chief. It amazes me that the preceding sentence can be written in 2024 — decades after the careers of Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir and so many other women who have led their nations in peace and war. But, again, here we are. . . .

White voters without a college degree are a key component of Trump’s base, and two recent polls — one by the New York Times and one by CNN — showed Harris with a huge deficit of roughly 35 points to Trump among this segment. That is worse than Biden did against Trump in 2020, when he lost this big demographic by 32 points, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Whites without a college degree make up 42 percent of the electorate[.]

From Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post.