00:00 Introduction
00:28 Polling Consistently Underestimates Trump
01:23 Swing States Pack a Powerful Punch
03:18 Mood of the Country
06:37 Trump's Trade Policies a Big Concern for NZ
09:22 Kamala’s Billions & Billionaires’ influence
13:06 Energetic Elon Musk
16:12 Jeff Bezos and Washington Post
Our next event: The World Through the Eyes of Australia, India, Turkey, Ireland and Argentina
Don’t miss out! Worldly Women of Wellington on Nov 6
Tim Groser - former NZ ambassador to Washington, former Trade Minister
On polling: data is an aid to judge, but no more than that. The seven swing states matter. Trump support is consistently underestimated in polls (and more broadly as a figure) while accurate for Democrat support. Data suggests a narrow Trump victory but margin of error is there. Small number of votes will decide it.
What’s the mood of the country? The mood of country is another way of looking at it - the undecided middle (in NZ ~40% of the vote). And according to a recent survey only 27% of US voters think the country is moving in the right direction.
Harris had done a poor job in separating herself from the incumbent - Biden
Trump’s proposition on trade most concerning - would he actually implement this?
But I'm very concerned about his position on trade, obviously. What he's proposing is far more extreme than what he did on China, which itself astonished me. And I just almost can't believe that he would actually implement this.
Fran O’Sullivan, NZ Herald, NZ Inc
If it was just down to money, then Harris should win - backed by billions - three times more than Trump
Aside the debate with Trump, where she scored points with a wonderful prosecutorial style, Harris has been flaccid in media interviews
Harris has performed extraordinarily bad with journalists in interviews
Trump excels at generating news value uncannily, the fist pumping photo after the assassination attempt for instance; he has the ear of the “common man” - serving McDonalds, driving a rubbish truck
Billionaires like Musk & Bezos motives and influence coming to fore. Musk may play role has ~20 federal probes, and Washington Post-owner Bezos is a tech titan hedging his bets. Though not running, Musk highly active campaigning with questionable tactics.
Bezos for first time in many years did not let Washington Post as publisher run an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris - upshot has lost 10% of paid subscribers in past week. If Trump wins, two richest men of the world holding sway with their platforms, and in Musk’s case in office - to a degree which Rupert Murdoch can only look on with envy.
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