Politics

Why new polling should be a wake-up call for the Democrats

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Blue Light Newsroom

Why new polling should be a wake-up call for the Democrats

This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 13 episode of “Ayman.”

With just a little more than three weeks to go until Election Day, the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is a dead heat. New NBC News polling released Sunday has the race tied, with Harris and Trump both at 48% nationally among registered voters. It’s a noticeable drop from last month’s NBC News poll that had Harris leading Trump by five points within the margin of error.

What if adhering to presidential norms is the thing hurting Harris’ campaign?

When Harris entered the race in July, she brought with her a wave of momentum and excitement. So, just a few short months later, many may be asking: How did we get here? How is the race still this close?

After all, Trump has been opting out of debates in favor of interviews with podcast bros, ranting nonsensically about circles , and even appearing at Coachella — of all places — in a last-minute Hail Mary attempt to win support in blue states.

Meanwhile, Harris has been acting like a presidential candidate. She’s been holding town halls with voters and spent all of last week going on a heavy-duty media blitz. But what if that’s the problem? What if adhering to presidential norms is the thing hurting Harris’ campaign?

After all, she’s positioned herself as a new candidate for the future. It was a message anxious Democrat voters needed to hear after President Joe Biden caved to pressure and dropped out of the race. But since then, she hasn’t distanced herself from Biden, instead, she’s held on tight to him and his policies.

In two different interviews in just the past few days, Harris was given the opportunity to explain how her presidency would be different from Biden’s. But the best the vice president seemed to come up with was telling Stephen Colbert, “I’m not Joe Biden but I’m not Donald Trump.”

The problem is, that distinction may not be enough for voters. The closer she’s kept herself to Biden’s unpopular policies, especially on Gaza, the more harmful it’s been for her campaign.

Instead of meeting with leaders of the Uncommitted Movement to ease their concerns about Israel’s assault on Gaza and create daylight between Biden’s stance on the war and hers, Harris is touting the support of Republicans like former Rep. Liz Cheney. She’s even promised to convene a bipartisan counsel of advisers, including Republicans, on policy should she win.

Compare the vice president’s polling position today to Trump’s in 2016. Eight years ago, he was a complete political novice. Voters had no idea how he would govern but they still voted him into office. Today, his supporters know exactly who he is and who he’ll be as president. So much so that, according to USA Today’s David Jackson, Trump is polling better today than he was in 2016 and 2020.

The closer she’s kept herself to Biden’s unpopular policies, especially on Gaza, the more harmful it’s been for her campaign.

This should serve as a wake-up call for the Harris campaign. With Trump, the American people know what they’re getting. He stands for fascism authoritarianism and the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.

But the question for Democrats in this last stretch remains: What are you for? What is Harris for? And, in the end, will it be enough to stop Trump and his authoritarian vision for the country?

Ayman Mohyeldin

Ayman Mohyeldin is an BLN anchor who has long reported on the Middle East and the Arab world. He is the host of “Ayman” which airs Saturdays and Sundays at 7 p.m. EST.

Allison Detzel

contributed

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

7 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”