Labor Day, the beginning of summer, as we joke in Northern California, and the end of it for most everyone else. Also, this is traditionally when the political campaigns are expected to really kick into high gear.
But this year, those campaigns have been going at warp speed for some time now. And now that there are roughly two months until Election Day, the candidates for President are locked in essentially a dead heat.
Nationally, according to the polling site 538, Kamala Harris is 3.2 percentage points ahead of Donald Trump, close to where statisticians believe she needs to be to be able to squeeze by in enough of the six swing states to eke out a victory in the Electoral College.
As of today, Harris is ahead in all six of the battlegrounds, by 3.2 in Wisconsin, 2.4 in Michigan, 1.2 in Pennsylvania, 0.7 in Nevada, 0.5 in Georgia, and 0.2 in Arizona. She has also pulled within 0.4 of Trump in a seventh state, North Carolina.
In a week, the candidates are scheduled to meet face-to-face for the first time ever. It may well prove to be an awkward way to get to know one another, on the debate stage with millions of voters looking on via electronic media.
He’s painted her as a dangerous radical; she’s painted him as dangerously weird. Over the coming week, both will continue to circle each other warily, like boxers in the ring.
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Back here, the days are sunny and hot. The chickens are laying tons of eggs. The goats are grazing. The tomatoes ripen on the vine. The nearby fruit stand has raspberries deep red in color.
The sky is a certain shade of blue this morning and it looks to be getting even bluer.
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