The Hill: Maybe Joe Biden was a stronger candidate than Kamala.

With the Nov. 5 election just over a fortnight away, here is an intriguing thought experiment.

By most accounts, the election is still a horse race too close to call.

Um, no. Nice cope, though.

But although Vice President Kamala Harris quickly assumed the presidential mantle from Joe Biden and put in place an impressive start-up, October has not been particularly kind to her. Donald Trump has closed the electoral gaps, and some believe he is actually leading.

No matter who wins, we have to ask: Would President Biden have been a better candidate and choice despite suffering from the effects of age and 81 years? Further, suppose that the disastrous June 27 debate with Trump had not taken place, or that Biden had been firing on all cylinders that night. Would Biden have been forced to withdraw? And whether Harris loses or wins, some will ask whether Biden might still have been a better candidate.

Bob Woodward's new book, "War," might not be dispositive in representing Biden's strengths and weaknesses. The book does add weight to this thought experiment, though. Woodward paints a very positive picture of Biden's ability to lead and to govern despite making mistakes, most notably the disastrous withdrawal from Kabul.

Woodward also reports that Biden's obvious decline was physical and not mental. This was caused in part by prior medical conditions accelerating the effects of age on a body. There were also the strains of high office; the president refused to limit his overworked schedule despite valid criticisms that he was on near-permanent holiday in Delaware or Camp David.

Bob Woodward is a huckster and a fraud.

Yes, you're all saying that. Why are you all saying that?

Bob Casey and Tammy Baldwin don't believe Kamala is winning. We know this because they're running ads claiming that they stand with Trump on key issues.

Two Democratic senators facing reelection in battleground states are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into adverts that play up their support for Donald Trump and his policies, according to an exclusive analysis of broadcast data.

It suggests they are trying to win over Trump supporters to hold their seats, even if it undermines Kamala Harris' campaign.

In key counties in Pennsylvania, Sen. Bob Casey has shifted the bulk of his TV advertising to a 30-second spot entitled 'Independent' that features a married couple comprising a Republican and Democrat explaining how he 'bucked Biden to protect fracking and he sided with Trump to end NAFTA and put tariffs on China.

'And in Wisconsin, Sen. Tammy Baldwin has made a similar move with an ad that emphasizes how she worked with Trump on ensuring U.S. iron and steel is used in infrastructure projects.

Between them, they spent $650,000 on those two ads in the four days up to Monday, according to an analysis of data collected by AdImpact which monitors election advertising.

'And in Wisconsin, Sen. Tammy Baldwin has made a similar move with an ad that emphasizes how she worked with Trump on ensuring U.S. iron and steel is used in infrastructure projects.

Between them, they spent $650,000 on those two ads in the four days up to Monday, according to an analysis of data collected by AdImpact which monitors election advertising.

The move is most distinct in Pennsylvania.

From Monday, 'Independent' was the only advert Casey's campaign was running in the Erie, Harrisburg, Johnstown and Pittsburgh areas, according to the analysis.

Yet in the deep blue Democratic areas of Wilkes-Barre and Philadelphia his campaign is running a different ad, entitled 'Selling Out America,' which attacks his opponent.

'It is like he is running two campaigns, which is not a stupid thing to do,' said a person familiar with political ad buying.

'But it is also fair to say that in much of the state his closing message is a pro-Trump message.'

The ad includes a 2017 headline linking the Democrat to Trump's policies. 'Casey supports Trump's trade order,' it says.

The race is finely poised. A slew of recent polls shows that Republican Dave McCormick has eaten into Casey's lead.

On Monday, the Cook Political Report moved the race from 'lean Democratic' to 'toss up.'

Bob Casey voted with Biden more than almost any other Democrat Senator -- but now, two weeks before the election, he's an "independent" and almost Trump's running mate, huh?

Nate Silver wrote a list of 24 reasons why Kamala "might" -- or will, I'd say -- lose.

Harris is the favorite to win the popular vote, but the Electoral College bias favors Republicans by about 2 percentage points. In an era of intense partisanship and close elections, this is inherently difficult for Democrats to overcome.

Inflation hit a peak of 9.1 percentage points in June 2022. It has abated now, but prices remain much higher than when Joe Biden took office, and voters are historically highly sensitive to inflation. Democrats can also plausibly be blamed for it given intensive increases in government spending during COVID recovery efforts.

...

Incumbent parties worldwide are doing very poorly, and the historical incumbency advantage has diminished to the point where it may now be an incumbency handicap instead given perpetually negative perceptions about the direction of the country.

...

Illegal/unauthorized immigration increased substantially during the first few years of the Biden/Harris administration amid a rising global backlash to immigration.

Harris ran far to her left in 2019, adopting many unpopular positions, and doesn't really have a viable strategy for explaining her changing stances.

The cultural vibes are shifting to the right, and the left continues to pay a price for the excesses of 2020 on COVID, crime, "wokeness," and other issues.

Voters have nostalgia for the relatively strong economic performance in the first three years of Trump's term and associate the problems of 2020 with Democrats, even though they weren't in charge at the time.

Dude, Fauci and Birx were in control of this country's covid policy and they are obviously hardcore authoritarian leftists.

...

Many men, especially young men, feel lost amidst declining college enrollment, contributing to a rightward shift and a growing gender gap.

...

Harris is seeking to become the first woman president. In the only previous attempt, undecideds broke heavily against Hillary Clinton, and she underperformed her polls.

Trust in media continues to fall to abysmal levels. One can debate how to attribute blame for this between longstanding conservative efforts to discredit the media, a secular decline in trust in institutions, and various overreaching and hypocrisy in the press. But it's hard for even legitimate Trump critiques to penetrate the mass public. Trump's conviction on a series of felony charges hardly made any difference, for instance.

...

Foreign policy might not matter much to voters, but the world has become more unstable under Biden's tenure. There has been a decline in democracy worldwide and an increase in interstate conflict, crises in the Middle East and Ukraine, deteriorating US-China relations, increasing immigration flows because of global instability, and a pullout from Afghanistan that negatively impacted Biden's popularity.

The Israel-Hamas war split the Democratic base in a way no comparable issue has split the GOP base.

There are more left-leaning third-party candidates than right-leaning ones, and the former leading third-party candidate (RFK Jr.) endorsed Trump and undermined Harris's post-convention momentum.

The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has become a huge Trump stan and is doing everything in his power to tip the election to him. Twitter/X remains an influential platform among journalists but has shifted far to the right. Elon and Silicon Valley have also created a permission structure for other wealthy elites to advocate for Trump explicitly and provided a new base of money and cultural influence.

Trump was very nearly killed in an assassination attempt, and then there was a second one against him. The first attempt was closely correlated with an increase in favorability ratings for Trump, and polling shows he's considerably more popular and sympathetic than in 2016 or 2020.

Oh right, that little thing the media has done its best to pretend out of existence.

Harris has been running on vibes and has failed to articulate a clear vision for the country. It might have been a good strategy if the "fundamentals" favored her, but they don't.

"Media reporter" Brian Stelter (who is a potato) claims that it's the right making the McDonald's stop a "three day story," and not the left for raving about it in their latest bout of hysteria: