If you are under the impression that the 2024 presidential election cycle has lasted a veritable lifetime, then know it's not just you! It is all of us. Yet mercifully, we are finally approaching the finish line.

The fundamentals of this race continue to militate strongly in favor of Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and down-ballot Republicans. The American people are known for their fickle, ever-changing political preferences, and all the polling data right now points strongly in favor of the opposition party and opposition presidential candidate. Based on pretty much every empirical metric we have—the popular "right track" versus "wrong track" polling binary, the American people's approval rating of the Biden administration's handling of all the major issues (economy, inflation, immigration, etc.) affecting the country, and more—Trump and Vance should cruise to victory next month. The fact the polling is still as tight as it currently is speaks more than anything else to the deeply polarizing nature of Donald Trump as a dominant political (and cultural) figure in the collective American psyche.

I have certainly blown my political predictions before, but, for whatever it may (or may not!) be worth, I do think Trump and Vance are going to prevail. The American people are simply too adamant—and too unanimous—that the incumbent administration has epically failed the electorate on myriad crucial fronts so as to send the current vice president back to Washington, D.C. as our next commander-in-chief. Kamala Harris also did herself no favors whatsoever on Tuesday, when she confessed to the lady hosts of The View that there is not a single Biden administration policy from the past four years that, in hindsight, she would have approached differently. Um, really? Given the administration's horrific approval ratings, this raises a somewhat awkward question: Is Harris trying to lose? I jest, but she seriously could not have answered that question any worse.

The Harris campaign has struggled in balancing how to not entirely disown her boss's deeply unpopular presidential record, on the one hand, with presenting herself as an outsider and "change agent," on the other hand. Apparently, Harris has finally decided—here in the home stretch—that she is going to ditch the thoroughly unpersuasive "change agent" shtick and run as the de facto incumbent that she so clearly is. Better to just embrace it than deny the obvious, I suppose. But in the current political environment, that is not going to work out well for her.

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Our highlighted Newsweek op-eds from the past week includes selections from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Daniel Hagari, Lila Rose, Philip Pilkington, Paul du Quenoy, and Ed Husain.

We will be back in your inbox next week. To my fellow Jews, I wish you an easy Yom Kippur fast and a gmar chatima tovah—may you be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life!