Get ready: Massive pools of dark right-wing money are soon going to clobber us. Will Democracy survive this onslaught by the morbidly rich?

Democrats are giddy right now; the substantial lead that Donald Trump had held over President Biden for months has largely vanished as the matchup has changed to Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. In the 10 polls aggregated by RealClearPolitics since Biden’s withdrawal, Trump has lost three points and only leads by one. In the DailyKos/Civiqs poll, Harris leads Trump 49–45, Reuters puts the race at 43–42, and Morning Consult has it at 47–46.

Trump is blustering in ways that indicate he thinks he’s losing (yesterday’s presser at his shabby golf motel was particularly pathetic), while J.D. Vance’s poll numbers are in the toilet—or the couch—and showing no indication of recovery any day soon.

That said, other lessons from this and recent past years should keep Democrats from easing up or becoming overconfident. The official beginning of the election season is still almost a month away, and the big money pledged by right-wing and neofascist billionaires hasn’t even shown up yet.

While over a hundred million pissed-off women and the widespread concern that Trump and the GOP are determined to destroy the American system of government seem like a powerful force, history tells us big dark money could overcome even those substantial tailwinds.

We saw this played out here in Portland just last month. Susheela Jayapal (sister of Pramila) was a well-thought-of and successful Oregon politician, on the board of the Metro government that oversees the three counties that make up the Portland metro area. She had a long list of great accomplishments and was a shoo-in to replace retiring Democratic Congressman Earl Blumenauer—until the America Israel Public Affairs Committee came into our district and dropped millions into the race with a deeply dishonest smear campaign.

I was getting a large four-color hit-piece flyer........

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