FITSNews Political Stock Index – 10/30/2024

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America’s ‘Divided States’ are less than a week away from determining whether former U.S. president Donald Trump will triumphantly return to office – or whether vice president Kamala Harris will make history as the nation’s first female chief executive.

This race couldn’t be closer, people…

Trump and his running mate JD Vance head into the final week of the race with 219 electoral votes all but locked up. Meanwhile, Harris and her running mate Tim Walz seem guaranteed of getting at least 212 electoral votes. The remaining 107 electoral votes? They are definitionally up for grabs…

As of this writing, RealClearPolling averages have Trump ahead in five of seven key battleground states: Arizona (+2.5 percent), Georgia (+2.4 percent), Nevada (+0.5 percent), North Carolina (+1 percent) and Pennsylvania (+0.7 percent). Meanwhile, Harris enjoys narrow leads in Michigan (+0.5 percent) and Wisconsin (+0.2 percent).

Since last week’s index was published, Trump has extended his leads in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania – but lost ground in Nevada and surrendered his leads in Michigan and Wisconsin. Again, though, all of these swing states remain well within the margin of error for most political polls.

Also, were Trump to wind up winning the four states in which he picked up support, he would win the election.

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Also worth tracking? According to RealClearPolling, there are two new swing states to track: New Hampshire and Minnesota. Both states were firmly in Harris’ camp earlier this month, but her leads there have evaporated according to recent surveys.

As the 2024 cycle approaches its moment of truth, keeping your political portfolio up to date has never been more critical. Who is rising? Falling? Holding? As it has from the beginning of this wild ride, FITSNews Political Stock Index has got you covered. For more than a year, our founding editor Will Folks and political columnist Mark Powell have been monitoring the unprecedented insanity of the 2024 election cycle. As noted, each installment of our index assesses of how our subjects fared over the previous week. Positive reports don’t reflect endorsements, and negative ones aren’t (necessarily) indicative of vendettas.

We just call ‘em like we see ‘em…

To view the most recent index, click here. And to get your historical fix, click here.

Got a hot “stock tip” for our consideration? Email Will (here) and/or Mark (here). Just be sure to include “Palmetto Political Stock Index” in the subject line.

Where should you invest your political capital this week? Let’s roll…

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PUERTO RICO

STOCK: RISING

What started as a tempest in a teapot boiled over by midweek. But considering how close we are to Election Day – and considering the 2024 race is hold-your-breath close – the tiniest of gaffes could wind up being the difference between victory and defeat.  

During an otherwise exuberant weekend Trump rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe referred to Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage.” That comment triggered Democrats, who are always on the prowl for opportunities to be offended. The outrage machine promptly kicked into overdrive, successfully stoking some serious indignation.

So far, advantage Harris.

On cue, though, president Joe Biden – on the prowl for any opportunity to remain relevant – felt the need to insert himself into the situation. During a call with progressive Latinos on Tuesday, Biden remarked “the only garbage I see floating out there are his supporters.”

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WATCH: President Joe Biden: "The only garbage I see floating out there is [Trump] supporters." pic.twitter.com/9teSUOytqC

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) October 30, 2024

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Egad.

The gaffe – far worse than Hinchcliffe’s original insult – was a flashback to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 slandering of Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables.”

“Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half the country,” Trump’s running mate, senator JD Vance, said. “I hope Americans reject it.”

Instantly, #GarbageGate turned into advantage Trump.

The White House then compounded the damage via a ham-fisted damage control attempt, disingenuously arguing that when Biden said “his supporters,” he was referring to the comedian – not Trump.

For once, Trump took the high road in responding. Speaking at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the former president uncharacteristically said, “(Biden) doesn’t know. You have to please forgive him. Please forgive him for not knowing what he said. Terrible, terrible, terrible to say a thing like that. But he really doesn’t know. He really, honestly, he doesn’t.”

Then, to claim the issue once and for all, Zoraida Buxo -one of Puerto Rico’s two “shadow senators” – endorsed Trump.

It’s unusual, to say the least, that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico – which has precisely zero votes in the Electoral College, could be an eleventh hour spoiler that helps determine the next president (one way or the other). But in an election in which nothing has been usual, nothing is surprising anymore.

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NIKKI HALEY

STOCK: FALLING

Speaking of politicians on the prowl in search of relevance, Trump’s former rival for the Republican presidential nomination continued to grasp at any opportunity to raise her profile… even if it meant hurting the ticket she previously “endorsed.”

Trump gave Nikki Haley an ambassadorship. He gave her a speaking slot at the 2024 Republican national convention. How has she repaid him?

By running against him, tepidly supporting him, being MIA during the pivotal homestretch of the race… and finally by making harmful eleventh hour comments likely to undercut him with a key voting demographic.

During an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Haley took aim at Trump for the former president’s “bromance” with Vance – which she said was off-putting to women.

“This is not a time for them to get overly masculine with this bromance thing that they have,” Haley said. “This bromance and masculinity stuff, it borders on edgy to the point that it’s going to make women uncomfortable.”

Last time we checked, Haley was very comfortable with right-of-center alpha males… but that’s another story.

Haley also slammed a political action committee run by billionaire Elon Musk for a since-pulled social media spot referring to Harris as a ‘c’ word – purportedly “communist.”

“You have got affiliated PACs doing commercials about calling Kamala the ‘c’ word or speakers at Madison Square Garden, you know, referring to her and her ‘pimps,’” Haley said. “That is not the way to win women. That is not the way to win people who are concerned about Trump’s style.”

So was Haley offering Trump friendly advice? Or (more likely) driving the point home for undecided female voters in the hopes they turn against him?

Either way, Haley is dead to MAGA… which means her 2028 presidential aspirations are dead on arrival.

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KAMALA HARRIS

STOCK: HOLDING

Can the presidential nominee who received precisely zero votes in this year’s primaries close the deal with the American people? That’s the big question in the closing days of this campaign. Democrats were euphoric when Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid last July and begrudgingly acquiesced in a party coup… errr, Kamala Harris’ anointing as progressive standard-bearer.

Polls showed an accompanying uptick for the pinch-hitter presidential stand-in, turning a likely GOP blowout into a nip-and-tuck affair.

Then September rolled around and – like the morning after a rambunctious fête – some people began asking, “What the hell have we done?”

The 3.5 percentage point lead Harris enjoyed during the height of summer began slipping away as autumn drew nearer, and Harris entered the final week of the campaign barely besting Trump at the national level. More significantly, as the calendar advanced her numbers in several key battleground swing states grew shaky – and then grew worse than shaky.

Backed by a $1 billion war chest, though, Harris remains a serious contender. Presenting what she called her “closing argument” in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday night, Harris told thousands of cheering supporters that “on Day One, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list. I would walk in with a to-do list.”

Never mind Harris has been in office for the past four years with nothing to show but a record she’s now running from…

Harris’ agenda would explode government spending – including a generous downpayment of other people’s money for first-time homebuyers, an economic plan that would benefit black men to the exclusion of women and males of all other races and, of course, price controls.

Oh, yeah, she’ll be a uniter, too… unless you are among the tens of millions of Americans her boss called “garbage.”

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TIM WALZ

STOCK: FALLING

Democrats are loathe to admit it, but Tim Walz is turning out to be the biggest clunker of a running since the GOP was saddled with Dan Quayle. Yeah, he’s that bad. The only difference? The MSM gleefully reported on Quayle’s every gaffe – yet continues to run interference for the Minnesota liberal.

Papers on the other side of the pond are less beholden, though. Among them? The (U.K.) Daily Mail, which has published several incredibly incriminating articles about Walz over the last few days.

The gist of the coverage? Walz loves China. He really, really loves China. In fact, he once had a youthful romance while teaching there more than thirty years ago. The problem? His paramour’s papa was a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official.

According to The Mail, Jenna Wang says she met Walz in 1989 when he was teaching English at No. 1 High School in Guangdong Province. She was teaching English at No. 8 Middle School when Cupid’s arrows struck. Because CCP bosses would look unfavorably on the liaison, their youthful romance stayed on the down low.

“Tim was very passionate and very romantic,” the now 59-year-old Wang recalls. “I still remember dancing with him to our favorite song, ‘Careless Whisper.’”

Wang apparently believed the couple was headed to the altar.

“We were deeply in love, and I wanted to marry him and start a family,” she said.

Walz had other ideas. As the time neared for his return home, he asked whether she really loved him or was looking for a quick visa to the U.S.

“This was very offensive,” Wang recalled.

And with that, their affair of the heart drifted into “things that might have been” territory.

After his selection as running mate, Democratic press flaks spent much of the summer pushing the narrative that “Tim Walz is redefining masculinity.” Sounds an awful lot like the old definition to us.

Oh well, thankfully he’s got his support for tampons in men’s bathrooms to fall back on…

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DROP BOX BALLOTING

STOCK: FALLING

Early voting is on fire in the Pacific Northwest. Literally.

Americans (including folks here in South Carolina) have shown their support for early voting with an emphatic “Hell yeah!” According to the Florida Election Lab, as of 4:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday (October 30, 2024) more than 57.5 million citizens had cast their ballots heading into the last week of campaigning.

But not all of them will be counted. Police say incendiary devices were used to torch two ballot drop boxes near the Oregon-Washington state line. Authorities suspect a third incident earlier this month in Vancouver, Wash. is likely related.

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?Ballot drop boxes with completed votes have just been set on fire in Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR. Expect more wild stuff this week. Stay vigilant. pic.twitter.com/qTXHPXZc2h

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) October 28, 2024

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Adding insult to injury, officials say there’s no way of knowing whose ballots were destroyed. So there’s no chance for those people to vote again, meaning their voices will not be heard on Election Day.

Investigators say the devices that torched the drop boxes had markings that read “Free Gaza” and “Free Palestine.” They’re the favorite rallying cry of progressives, the same people who also ceaselessly proclaim, “Our democracy is in danger!”

Like the billowing smoke from the ballot boxes, the irony is so thick you could choke on it.

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WAR ON CHRISTMAS

STOCK: RISING

Here we are on the cusp of yet another Yuletide. But this year, a major retailer will ring in the season without mentioning its signature event.

Neiman Marcus – the upscale purveyor of all things chic and outlandish – has gone full Woke. The high-end retailer has banned the name “Christmas”— from its Christmas catalog!

That’s right. The department store legendary for catering to fabulously wealthy (and very conservative) Texans for decades has rechristened (err… renamed) its 98-year-old “Christmas Book” the “Holiday Book.”

It’s yet another dismal milestone on the national descent into cultural dreariness. Public schools long ago scrubbed “Christmas Vacation” – replacing it with the generically bland “Winter Break.” Want to watch a Christmas television special? You’ll have to catch a rerun of one made before 1990 when the expungement of Christmas for our collective vocabulary began in earnest.

“But there is no ‘War on Christmas!’” liberals loudly snort. The evidence suggests otherwise. Just flip through the “Christmas Book” and see for yourself.

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