LILLEY: Democrats looking desperate as Trump gains momentum

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If you want to know how the U.S. presidential election is going, you can look at the polls or look at how Democrats are acting. Over the past week, Democrats from Kamala Harris on down are becoming more extreme in their rhetoric against Donald Trump, calling him a fascist and comparing him to Adolph Hitler.

These are the kinds of steps a losing campaign takes; a winning campaign would step away from such rhetoric. It’s a sure sign things aren’t going well for Harris.

“Yes, I do,” Harris said to CNN’s Anderson Cooper last week when he asked Harris if she thought Trump was a fascist.

We’ve seen a debate about garbage and racist jokes in the presidential race, though President Joe Biden’s comments may cause the most damage.

At Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, which Democrats kept comparing to a Nazi rally, Tony Hinchcliffe, a man who tells off-colour jokes at roasts for a living and has insulted every celebrity he’s been on stage with, made a joke about Puerto Rico.

“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Hinchcliffe said.

Just over a week before voting day, it was dumb of the Trump campaign to have Hinchcliffe on stage as his jokes tend to insult every person, place or thing in his path. The Democrats seized on it, though, claiming it was proof that Trump and the Republican Party in general are racists, but they forgot they had George Lopez on stage.

Speaking at a rally in Phoenix in support of Harris, Lopez referenced Trump’s promise to build a wall with Mexico.

“You better build it in one day because if you leave that material out there overnight,” Lopez said with a dramatic pause while looking around and suggesting the building material would be stolen.

For the Democrats and their media partners, double standards are nothing new.

What really could hurt the Democrats, though, is Biden calling anyone who supports Donald Trump “garbage.” That’s not the kind of rhetoric that wins over swing voters and it’s reminiscent of Obama’s reference to clingers or Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” outburst.

“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden said on a call with Latino voters earlier this week.

Sure, he might have been trying to rally voters to Harris’ side, but this will push potential swing voters away. Imagine being called garbage by a sitting president, especially during a tight election race.

Since August, shortly after the Democratic National Convention, polling has been moving in Trump’s direction. Last week, Trump led in every single swing state, according to polling aggregators Real Clear Polling and 270towin.com.

With less than a week until the majority of Americans cast their ballots, Harris can at least point to a slight lead in Michigan, but she’s trailing in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

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The betting markets are clearly giving Trump the advantage at this point, though. Polymarket has Trump with a 66% chance of taking the most electoral college votes, while Harris has a 34% chance.

Over at Real Clear Polling, their “no toss-up state” electoral college map gives Trump 287 electoral college votes to Harris’ 251. There is a very real possibility that Trump could end up with 312 electoral college votes to 226 for Harris – the winning candidate needs 270 or more electoral college votes to take the White House.

While there is no doubt that Harris has improved on the campaign she was handed – Biden was starting to lose ground in places like Virginia, while Trump was walking away with states like Michigan and Pennsylvania – she has not closed the gap and the momentum remains on Trump’s side.

Harris has to win every northern swing state to take the White House, a scenario that is looking less likely.

Something could shift a few votes over the weekend, but barring that the 45th president will become the 47th and Trump will occupy the White House once again.