The post-coup honeymoon period for Kamala Harris is finally coming to a screeching halt. As many of us predicted, the polling bounce that the dim-witted California cackler-in-chief generated from shivving Joe Biden aside and supplanting him atop the Democratic Party presidential ticket proved to be short-lived. That's not to say that Kamala's presidential bid is fully toast. Of course it isn't. On the contrary, the polling continues to be neck-and-neck: Kamala leads in some national and key swing-state polling, and former President Donald Trump leads in some of that polling as well. Overall, on the various prediction markets and among the top political forecasters and prognosticators, the outcome of the presidential race right now seems like a veritable coin-flip. At this point, the election could truly go either way.

But it shouldn't be that way. The political fundamentals in this race have long favored Republicans and the Trump-Vance campaign—not Democrats and the Harris-Walz campaign. The general popularity and the American people's approval rating of the incumbent Democratic administration's handling of all the nation's major issues—the economy, inflation, immigration, crime, and foreign policy chief among them—is somewhere between very, very bad and outright catastrophic. The Biden-Harris administration is wildly unpopular, and Kamala Harris has been there standing by Uncle Joe's side every step of the way. The Democrats' best bet is thus to shift the electoral terrain away from the actual substantive issues driving voter enthusiasm and toward (1) other lesser issues, such as abortion and "our democracy" (whatever that even means); and (2) completely non-substantive terrain, such as making the election a vague "vibes" contest or a referendum on alleged GOP "weirdness" (look in the mirror, guys!).

The challenge for Republicans is thus a simple one: Wage the 2024 electoral fight on the appropriate terrain. To wit, every single day remaining in this election cycle that is not spent pounding the campaign trail on the economy, inflation, immigration, and crime is a day wasted. I elaborated on this crucial theme in my most recent syndicated column, as well as the opening monologue of the most recent radio episode of Newsweek's "The Josh Hammer Show."

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Our highlighted Newsweek op-eds from the past week includes selections from former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), Paul du Quenoy, Naftali Balanson, Gordon G. Chang, and Mark R. Weaver.

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