About time. Talk about an 11th-hour choice. But at least they got there eventually.
That decision could well have been motivated by Trump's racist tirade at MSG. Not much has moved the needle for a few weeks, but that high-profile rally might actually be something that affects the outcome of the election favorably for Harris. Was this our October surprise? And if so, who benefits more from it?
Immediately after the Puerto Rico insult, three big Puerto Rican names - Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin - also endorsed Harris. Harris was already going to get most of the Puerto Rican vote, since the highest concentration of Puerto Ricans abroad is found in New York, which is solidly blue, but all Hispanic people are apt to recognize that it's not just the Puerto Ricans that MAGA consider garbage.
Florida also has a lot of Puerto Ricans, and that state is solidly red at the presidential level, but they've got a Republican senator (Rick Scott) fighting for reelection in a fairly close race (Scott was up by 3 points before this MSG stunt), so this may cost the Republicans that Senate seat.
It was an interesting strategy on the part of the Trump campaign to go full-throated racist in the home stretch of the campaign, and to do so in a blue state not up for grabs. It seems like it was hoped that this would motivate people who mildly preferred Trump and who weren't all that motivated to vote would be energized to get out and vote for such racism because it was so in-your-face, and that that would appeal to them.
That's quite a gamble, since it is fairly likely that such ugly extremism is off-putting even to Trump-leaning potential voters. The kind of bigot that would be attracted by such rhetoric is already strongly motivated to vote for Trump.
Trump voters aren't going to become Harris voters whatever either of them does, but what can happen is that more or fewer who prefer one candidate over the other get out and vote because of this stunt. Consider all of the people who don't consume political news who have heard Trump called racist, but don't know whether to believe that. These headlines, which have gotten widespread coverage on shows like Good Morning America with largely apolitical audiences, help answer that. Trump has directly confirmed that narrative by having a featured speaker hurling racist insults at Trump’s highest profile rally of the election, comments the campaign has tried to walk back, but not Trump himself.
This might cause some would-be Trump voters to stay home, and it may motivate a lot of Latinos and blacks including the men, who seem to be suspicious of a woman leader and more reluctant to vote for Harris than their sisters, wives, and daughters, to either not vote for Trump if that were the plan or motivate them to get out and vote for the woman candidate given how Trump has so visibly and unabashedly trashed these men as well.
