State of the race.

It all comes down to Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada. And maybe, just maybe, the second congressional district of Nebraska.

Here’s where things stand in the most important U.S. Presidential election since, well, the last U.S. Presidential election. The Real Clear Politics average of polls shows former President Donald John Trump (ticker symbol: DJT) leading President Joseph Robinette Biden (ticker symbol: OWASCO) in six of the seven swing states that will again decide the election. Despite angst over lingering Bidenflation, high-interest rates to control it, the President’s deliberately open border, and Dem-enabled crime and homelessness, I predict that Democrats will close the current polling gap with their vaunted ground game, “yuge” fundraising advantage, leverage over Big Tech censorship and down-ranking, and dependable disinformation from their Big Media pals, none of whom were the least bit interested in fairly covering Tony Bobulinski’s explosive testimony on the foreign influence-peddling of the Biden family. Absent another pratfall, Mr. Biden will be up 3-4% come November. The reluctant Biden base––currently threatening upheaval over Gaza and Biden’s failure to go full Commie––will come home to the nanny-state Machine that provides them patronage and cover.

But, as often in a republic––which, contrary to Democrats’ “threat to democracy” canard, we indeed are, per Article III, Section 4 of our Constitution––national popular vote totals don’t reveal much. Democrats, per usual, will blithely run up the popular vote tally in their blue bastions of California, Illinois, and New York, but will be scratching, clawing, bribing, and bamboozling their way to every last harvested ballot in the seven states that matter: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The secret to their recent swing state success has been to counter the cultish appeal of “the blue-collar billionaire” with four words: “Trump is a fascist.” That Goebbels-level whopper comes in many guises. Trump is a “Russian spy,” “authoritarian,” “dictator,” and “monster.” It doesn’t help that their own party’s candidates often fit the same caricature. Today’s Democrats are masters of projection if nothing else.

Trump has done himself no favors, often confirming, in tone and rhetoric if not deed, Democrats’ worst paranoia. He is cartoonishly narcissistic and incorrigibly oppositional down the smallest ad hominem slight. Republicans say that makes him a “fighter.” Democrats say that makes him “Hitler,” minus the vegetarianism fetish.

Except for 2016, the Demonic Don strategy has worked swimmingly, covering up the sundry sins of Democratic governance. In every major and minor election since 2016, Democrats have out-performed Trump and Trump-backed candidates. So, it was no surprise that when it came time to reelect the senile, schmaltzy, flailing, and frozen-gaited Mr. Biden, the Democratic masterminds who brought us the perversely effective Steele Dossier lies, Trump/Russia collusion hoax, Huntergate, FISAgate, and Trump Derangement Syndrome writ large, would again go full “fascist,” never mind that their Millennial minions have no clue what the word means nor that an anti-interventionist, pro-prison-reform, states-rights, war-eschewing populist like Trump is hardly an example of it. These are not the most nuanced attack dogs. Certainly not JFK’s “best and brightest.”

But having screamed “Nazi!” one too many times, the Democrats’ “Trump-is-a-fascist” trope is suddenly failing. Trump does not scare Middle America nearly as much as Democratic lawfare and dereliction of duty. Americans have seen the footage from the year-long J6 Committee infomercial and it no longer frightens them quite like the BLM/Antifa stormtroopers they saw up close and personal during the 2020 Summer of Insurrection. An “undocumented” migrant raping and murdering an innocent college girl out for a run only adds to the fear. The surge of illegal migrants––nearly eight million new ones on Biden’s watch to go with the 9 million already here––has the country on pins and needles as the dire effects of Biden’s open border head north and east into the Rust-Belted belly of this beastly election.

A Democrat-dominated Department of Justice that uses “novel” and “untested” theories of law to selectively punish the regime’s chief political opponent––where are the cases against other New York real estate tycoons who overstated the value of their assets?; they must have donated to Democrats––is the true “threat to democracy,” as the party of slavery and Jim Crow cynically mints new seats in Congress through the sanctuary city process. In their hubristic overreach, Democrats have managed to achieve what no amount of GOP campaigning could: turn Trump the Braggart into Trump the Martyr.

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact overstep that set in motion the resurrection of Agent Orange. Maybe it was Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s preposterous elevation of misdemeanor porn star payola into a strangulated felony. It certainly was capped by New York District Attorney Letitia James’ brazen violation of the 8th Amendment‘s clear admonitions: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” In no fair and sane universe does Judge Arthur Engoron’s outrageous $460 billion punishment and usurious bond—which the vindictive James, who egregiously campaigned on “getting Trump,” can collect––skirt those admonitions. The 5% of undecided voters who will decide this election are gobsmacked by these abuses of state power, helping give Trump an early polling lead. This has Democrats ready to jump off tall buildings or light the powder keg of an American intifada.

In the second season of the epic television series Mad Men, creative director Don Draper delivers one of his trademark truisms: “If you don’t like the conversation, change it.” Don was instructing a muckety-muck involved in what was to become the publicly traded Madison Square Garden (MSG) on the difference between public relations and advertising. The owners of Penn Station were being hammered in the media for their short-sighted plan to demolish the Beaux-Arts masterpiece and replace it with the comparatively gauche “Garden.” Public relations can only hope to soften the conversation, Don explains. Advertising changes it.

Like Don Draper, Dems are hoping to change the conversation from Trump the victim of Democratic overreach to what has consistently worked of late: the “right” to an abortion. Of course, as the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs, there is no constitutional “right” to an abortion, let alone any medical procedure. But there is a consensus behind Bill Clinton’s salient dictum that abortion “should be safe, legal, and rare.” With legislatures in Alabama, Florida, and Texas going full right-wing on the question, the post-Dobbs opening for Dems has gotten wider.

But Trump’s new Dobbs-inflected moderation––leaving the abortion question up to states––has Dems running scared. With their Orange-is-the-New-Black(shirt) trope sputtering, and Trump eviscerating the claim that he is a pro-life extremist––his position is left of Europe, which bans abortion-on-demand at 15 weeks––Democrats have framed the issue around the Supreme Court. “Trump did this” claims a sick and cynically misleading new Democratic ad, implying that Trump appointed the Justices that overturned Roe V. Wade. But a push for a federal law that legalizes abortion on demand right up until birth in all 50 states is not exactly popular in the church-going Midwest or Hispanic Catholic Southwest. Such a law would ensure a Democratic defeat.

So Democrats have pushed referenda that constitutionally protect “the right” to abortion at the state level but are silent on the nuances of the topic. These referenda have proven immensely successful, even in ruby-red states like Ohio and Kansas, driving otherwise recalcitrant Democrats to the polls. Throw in Biden's unfair and unconstitutional student loan forgiveness push and the recent FDA decision to laughably reclassify today’s potent marijuana as a safer Schedule III drug and the Dems have a new winning strategy to excite their base: abortion and pot. If Rajneeshpuram taught us anything, it’s that a stoned and promiscuous populace is a malleable one.

Will it work? The November abortion referenda in Arizona, Florida, and Pennsylvania will guarantee a massive pro-choice Dem and Independent turnout. That Trump is also on the ballot will offset only some of the referendas’ motivating power, so he will still likely lose already razor-close Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But Trump will again win Florida (Desantis will ensure that), North Carolina (Northeast lefties conquered Virginia, but North Carolina holds out), and Ohio (the heart of Trump Country). He will win back Georgia (Fani Fatigue has set in).

This most existential of elections will come down to Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada. Hispanics are trending Orange––Trump has captured nearly 50% of their support in new polling––but recent Arizona abortion drama makes the Grand Canyon State closer than polling suggests. If Trump wins Michigan––where Gangsta Don’s popularity with urban black men is trending upward––the election is over. If Trump loses Michigan, he has to carry both Arizona and Nevada and somehow flip the Bacon/Biden Nebraska Congressional District 2 back red—either straight up (highly improbable with a more formidable Democratic opponent in CrotMo neighbor Tony Vargas) or by state legislators changing Nebraska to winner-take-all-–so he gets a tie and triumphs in the GOP-controlled House. Likely? No. Possible? Yes. No surprise that Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen is the most popular man in MAGA-Land right now.

In an era marked by a string of black swan electoral events, a razor-thin repeat of 2000 is in the cards. Whether an unhinged country can survive the trauma is another matter. But that fear of another violent left-wing insurrection might be the Democrats’ true trump card: swing voters may keep “ridin’ with Biden” to avoid another four years of Trump-deranged and violent Democratic drama.