“That could affect polling because the way that the weighting is done based on past voting patterns or whatever could all be off if you’ve got a lot of Republicans who are quietly disengaging from the Republican Party.”

I heard a similar story in Wisconsin last week from military veteran Tiffany Koehler, a Republican who ran for the state assembly in 2018.

She says some of her neighbours – including elected local officials – do not support Trump’s antics but still have lawn signs endorsing him.

“Knowing who they are, and their character, I think they’re afraid to say they’re not going to vote for Donald Trump because they know the repercussions politically and professionally,” Koehler says.

And in Arizona, I spoke to Kevin Wenker, a former pastor who voted for Trump in 2016 and was bullied out of his congregation for turning against the former president. He now appears on billboards proclaiming his regret to the world.

Wenker cited first-hand knowledge of people who aren’t planning to support Trump at the ballot box, but simply don’t want to suffer the same fate he did by openly admitting it.

“They’re being quiet about it because there is a very strong minority, and a very strong MAGA group here in Arizona, which can make it difficult for you if they know that you are actively opposed to Trump,” he told me.

To what extent there is indeed “a quiet Kamala” voting bloc out there is unlikely to be known until after the November 5 election.

For now, however, the polls show the race remains extremely close, just as it has been for months.

The latest FiveThirtyEight poll of averages shows Kamala Harris 1.4 percentage points ahead of Trump at the national level, but the pair are statistically tied in four of the seven battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. Trump is ahead in the remaining three swing states: Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona – but only by one to two points.

However, history shows the polls can be notoriously wrong: as recently as the 2022 US midterm elections, polls suggested there would be a “red wave” that would give the Republicans control of both the House and the Senate. In the end, it was more of a trickle.

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It’s also worth noting the support that former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley received against Trump when she sought the Republican presidential nomination earlier this year.

In the critical battleground of Michigan, for example, Trump resoundingly defeated Haley, but she still received 26 per cent of the vote (or 297,124 votes). And even after she dropped out of the race, she won 16.5 per cent of the vote in Pennsylvania (157,581) and almost 13 per cent in Wisconsin (76,841). In a tight election, those numbers could make a difference.

It’s no coincidence the Harris campaign has spent the past few weeks aggressively targeting these kinds of swing voters in the hope they will shift allegiance.

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The vice president has joined forces with other Republicans, including former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, to make her case. Both have endorsed her.

She has also given speeches that are remarkably similar to those Haley gave during her presidential primary battle with Trump, particularly when it comes to foreign policy.

“If Donald Trump were president, Vladimir Putin will be sitting in [the Ukraine capital] Kyiv — and understand what that would mean for America and our standing around the world,” Harris said last week.

And in Michigan on Saturday, former first lady Michelle Obama made her first appearance on the campaign trail, where she appealed directly to conservative women by telling them: “If you are a woman who lives in a household of men that don’t listen to you or value your opinion, just remember that your vote is a private matter. Regardless of the political views of your partner, you get to choose.”

The Harris campaign’s aim is to embolden “shy Kamala” voters to support her. In a week, we’ll find out if it has worked.

Until next time.

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