Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike ... What day is it? ...

Kamala Harris literally ditched the press pool on her trip you can’t make this up! pic.twitter.com/zgSAbwPF87

— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) August 13, 2024

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That gap has closed. In the New York Times/Siena College polls released this past weekend, just as many likely voters across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin viewed her favorably (50 percent) as unfavorably (48 percent).

That doesn’t mean it will last, though: Trump’s campaign has started an advertising barrage in battleground states, trying to paint her as “dangerously liberal.” That could dent her favorable ratings, especially as scrutiny of her record ratchets up following her initial campaign rollout.

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CNN: "Would it kill you guys to have a press conference?"

HARRIS SPOX: Kamala holds rallies so she can read from her teleprompter!

CNN: "A campaign rally is not a press conference."

HARRIS SPOX: "We're gonna be having a sit-down interview here before the end of the month."… pic.twitter.com/TaVI6qLGci

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 14, 2024

From Ed: This comes from Daily Wire, which notes that Jim Acosta -- Jim Acosta! -- has tired of the Silence of the Kams.

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Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a press conference Thursday at his Bedminster golf course -- his second press conference in a week -- as the campaign continues to put the pressure on Vice President Kamala Harris to hold a robust media availability.

"It has been 24 days and Kamala Harris continues to duck and hide from the media -- no interviews and no press conferences since she announced," said communications director Steven Cheung in a statement.

From Ed: Hey, if you're digging the Final Word and want to get into the conversation in the comments, sign up to become VIP and VIP Gold members! Become a HotAir VIP member today and use promo code COMMIEWALZ to receive a 50% discount on your membership.

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Doocy to KJP: When did you guys learn that Vice President Harris wants to distance herself from Bidenomics? pic.twitter.com/9RNzUcitGQ

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 14, 2024

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Vice President Kamala Harris, hoping to distance herself from President Biden's unpopularity on the economy, plans a new focus on middle-class worries and woes.

Why it matters: Beginning in North Carolina later this week with her first policy speech, and continuing next week with the Democratic convention in Chicago, Harris will tell Americans — most for the first time — who she is and how she'd govern.

From Ed: I wrote about that here.

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Reporter asks about inflation.

President Biden: "I told you you're going to have a soft landing...my policies are working. Start writing that way, okay?" pic.twitter.com/sHebANBv06

— CSPAN (@cspan) August 14, 2024

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Former President Trump on Wednesday questioned the legality of the Harris campaign editing news headlines within Google search ads in response to Axios reporting. ...

"Wow! Google and the Harris Campaign are manipulating stories. Is this legal?" Trump wrote on social media.

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Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday vowed to restore the American Dream and drive down the cost-of-living in the United States during a policy speech in Asheville, N.C.

"On my first day back in the Oval Office, I will sign an executive order directing every cabinet secretary and agency head to use every tool and authority at their disposal to defeat inflation and to bring consumer prices rapidly down. We'll do it very rapidly," he declared. "From the day I take the oath of office, we will rapidly drive prices down and make America affordable again."

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TRUMP: "[Kamala's] waiting for me to announce it so she can copy it!" pic.twitter.com/c2tlxMOFDl

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 14, 2024

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In the 2000 presidential election, the Republican Party only held the narrowest “leaned” identification advantage over the Democratic Party among rural voters, 51% vs. 45%, according to Pew Research Center data. But it was a number that grew substantially and widened over the next 10 years, so by the 2010 midterm elections, the GOP held a 13-percentage point advantage over Democrats among rural voters.

Today that number has doubled. If you wonder why, ask New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who writes incessantly demeaning rural voters, penning think pieces such as “Can Anything Be Done to Assuage Rural Rage?” or political scientist Tom Schaller and journalist Paul Waldman, who wrote a book called White Rural Rage arguing that rural people are a unique “threat to democracy” and prone to violent tendencies.

There is an argument to be made that the Democratic Party has become the party of the elites. Their candidate for president, Harris, has never won a race that required her to appeal to rural voters. She won Democrats in California by going further leftward than her opponents to reach that goal.

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Karine Jean-Pierre tells @SelinaWangTV that Pres. Biden was "not aware" that Hunter Biden attempted to gain support from a U.S. ambassador in 2016 to arrange a business meeting on behalf of Burisma.

"The president has never done business with his son." https://t.co/oXeNrsSltD pic.twitter.com/gCNgbjogw7

— ABC News (@ABC) August 14, 2024

Note from Ed: From now on, all my remarks in Final Word posts will be in italics to differentiate them from text from other sources. The quotation marks are too clumsy for setting the latter apart.