With that said, it's amazing to consider some of the knuckleheads who aspire to this position. I've been watching presidential elections like many people watch sportsball since the late 1970s, and I've seen some real humdingers — Mike Dukakis, for instance. But this year is different; this year has seen the advent of the worst presidential candidate in living memory. Resolved: Kamala Harris is the worst presidential candidate in history, and it's getting to the point where it's impossible to evade this conclusion — even for the partisan legacy media. So, why, then, is this still such a close race?

See Related: Trump vs. a Sock Puppet: How Is This Even Close?

With a little over a month to go, the race is tightening, and Kamala Harris's standing in the key battleground states is starting to slip. As of this writing, she's losing ground in the RealClearPolitics averages in those key states, although she retains a very, very narrow lead in several:

• Arizona: Trump +1.6
• Nevada: Harris +0.4
• Wisconsin: Harris 0.7
• Michigan: Harris +1.8
• Pennsylvania: Harris +0.8
• North Carolina: Trump +0.6
• Georgia: Trump +2.2

However, the trends are significant; a quick look at Pennsylvania's polling shows a trend away from Harris and towards Trump, although the contest for must-have Pennsylvania's 19 electoral votes remains close. This shouldn't be the case — and perhaps it isn't. Kamala Harris's many weaknesses as a candidate are becoming too obvious to ignore.

The primary challenge facing the partisan legacy media involves the impossibility of getting Vice President Harris to answer even one direct question. She's not being evasive, mind you; she just quite simply doesn't know how to respond. Watch an interview, no matter how gently the softball questions are lobbed at her, she can't answer. Not won't — can't. Her word salads are not evasive; they are just all she has. My colleagues Nick Arama and Bonchie have both presented us with examples:

See Related: Kamala Does Trainwreck Interview With Stephanie Ruhle, Who Admits Harris Didn't Answer Questions 

WATCH: Scott Jennings Roasts Kamala Harris After Her Hilariously Bad Interview With Stephanie Ruhle

On Wednesday, Nick wrote:

Ruhle actually presses her -- how are you going to make them pay then, without having them leave the country. Harris doesn't answer the question and check out the look on her face as Ruhle then tells Nicolle Wallace about it. 

Ruhle: "How do you find that line to make sure corporations are paying their fair share, but they're not leaving our country?"

Kamala: *Dodges the question* pic.twitter.com/5iAjqynNRg

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 25, 2024

Look at Kamala Harris's expression and her body language in that interview. She wasn't expecting to be challenged — and she doesn't have an answer to give. A few months ago the newly-anointed Harris could have walked into the interview confident of a friendly reception and of not being pressed for actual answers, but we seem to be getting to the point where even the partisan media can't ignore this any longer. It's not just the cluelessness — it's the dishonesty. On Thursday, my colleague Teri Christoph informed us how even the hyper-partisan network CNN can't deny Kamala Harris's dissembling anymore. 

See Related: CNN Catches Kamala Telling a Massive Lie About Trump During Disastrous Interview

Teri writes:

Yes, she claimed that Trump lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs even before COVID T-boned the American economy. That's not even a little bit true, which CNN was quick to point out.

Facts First: Harris’ claim is false. Trump presided over a gain of 414,000 US manufacturing jobs, not a loss of “at least 200,000,” before the Covid-19 pandemic hit. And the loss for his entire presidency, start to finish, was 178,000 manufacturing jobs, not 200,000 or more as Harris said.

CNN fact checker Daniel Dale elaborated that those 414,000 manufacturing jobs were added during the period of January 2017, when Trump took office, to February 2020, the month before COVID-related lockdowns began. It took some special Kamala math to come up that 200,000 number. In other words, she lied.

We could be charitable and write the vice president's statements off to mere ignorance, rather than dishonesty, but that's getting more and more difficult by the day. A few months ago we could have admitted that Harris was fed these talking points by a staffer and didn't bother to check for herself, but this far into the campaign, it's hard to see how this was anything but a deliberate lie; she has to have seen the actual numbers for herself by now. Or has she?

The game may be changing. The polls are starting to show a trend back towards the Trump/Vance ticket. Even the partisan legacy media is apparently growing weary of Kamala Harris's serial dissembling and her inability to answer even the softest of softball questions. And the comparison between candidates couldn't be more stark in this sense; ask Donald Trump a question and you'll get a direct answer. You may not agree with the answer, but you'll get one, and it will be direct and to the point. Without the full-blown support of the legacy media, Kamala Harris would be lagging much farther behind in the polls - but she may be losing that support. Her weakness as a candidate, her unsuitability for the position of President of the United States is becoming more and more apparent every day, and not even the leftist legacy media can deny it anymore. 

Kamala Harris probably still has the support of Rachel Maddow and "The View," both of which have dozens of viewers. But the networks who make a show of doing actual reporting are starting to demand answers the Harris campaign can't give. Will that eroding support be enough to tip the election?

For that, we're going to have to wait a few more weeks.