Key Takeaways:
• Election Dynamics: The presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is highly competitive, with voter turnout determining the winner in key battleground states.
• Policy Outlook: Both candidates are expected to maintain current tariff policies, and tax policy changes will be minor.
• Call for Unity: ASI Power Summit speakers Will Hurd and Donna Brazile emphasized the need for bipartisanship and unity to restore the country’s fracturing divide.
Call it a jump ball.
That was the metaphor two highly experienced political pros used to describe the potential outcomes of the massively important races for the presidency and control of Congress in the United States this November.
Will Hurd, a former Republican congressman, CIA agent and AI expert, and Donna Brazile, an author, leading Democratic strategist and chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, offered the characterization during the opening keynote of the 2024 ASI Power Summit – a conference for promotional products industry leaders being held at the Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego, CA, from Oct. 13-15.
Moderated by ASI President & CEO Tim Andrews, the session gave attendees important insights into the political outlook for the nation, with topics ranging from potential tariff and tax policy to the need for greater bipartisanship and cross-aisle bridge-building.
‘It’s All About Turnout’
Both political gurus agreed that the presidential race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump will be won by the candidate that does a better job of motivating supporters to get out and vote, especially in battleground states.
As many as 40 states, Brazile said, are already more or less a lock for “red” or “blue”; getting a higher number of people to the polls in contested states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia is the key to prevailing in November.
“It’s all within the margins,” said Brazile.
“More unites us than divides us.”
Will Hurd, former Republican Congressman
Tariffs & Taxes
Meanwhile, the pundits also discussed how tariff and tax policy may go under either Harris or Trump. On tariffs, Hurd believes there won’t be dramatic change from current practices. The Biden administration, of which Harris is a part as vice president, has retained import tariffs on China that Trump implemented and has even expanded levies on items like steel and aluminum.
Hurd doesn’t see Harris departing dramatically from that approach if elected, or Trump backing off his hard-line stance on tariffs.
“I don’t see major swings on tax policy,” Hurd said, noting that a big question is whether tax breaks put in place under Trump will be continued or allowed to sunset in 2026.
As for taxes, Brazile believes Harris will advance an effort to beef up child tax credits and gain subsidies to support the expanding rosters of people signed up for Obamacare.
Brazile also offered insights into the rollercoaster the Democratic party went through recently at the top, with Harris replacing President Joe Biden over the summer and engineering a campaign for the White House nearly from scratch.
Of special significance perhaps to promo purveyors, Brazile noted that collateral like yard signs, merch, etc. – all of that for Harris had to be whipped up practically at once after she became the blue party’s candidate. The effort has been successful, according to Brazile.
“I’ve never before seen what I’ve witnessed during the last 100 days,” she said.
“We need to just stop thinking about what makes us different. We are together. We just don’t think of ourselves as being one people, but we are.”
Donna Brazile, Democratic strategist
Calls for Unity
Hurd and Brazile – both moderates – shared too about a trend they find troubling: Tensions within their own parties that have been created by populists who are pulling, increasingly, to the more extreme right or left.
The panelists agreed that the resulting divisiveness – both in and between the nation’s two main political parties and society more generally – is weakening the United States at a time when it’s especially important to come together to combat the growing threat of China’s government, which is working tirelessly to overtake the United States as the world’s major power.
Rather than dig into division, leaders and everyday Americans have to come together, find common ground and give of themselves for the greater good.
“More unites us than divides us,” said Hurd. Added Brazile: “We need to just stop thinking about what makes us different. We are together. We just don’t think of ourselves as being one people, but we are.”
