Then there is the renewed rioting in Philadelphia after Walter Wallace Jr, a black man armed with a knife, was shot and killed by police. The rioting has been all over the news, with images of looters breaking into stores and walking off with televisions and appliances. It is hard to fit those images in the ‘peaceful protest’ box. This unrest just days before the election will unnerve suburban voters in Pennsylvania and plays right into Trump’s image as the ‘law and order’ president. Such unrest also will drive a portion, however small, of urban black voters in Philly and elsewhere to vote for Trump. Each vote the Democrats lose is one they can ill afford to lose.

Though a continent away, two events in Europe also are helping Trump. First, the exploding COVID infections shutting down Europe will spur some voters to dismiss Biden’s attacks on Trump’s pandemic response. Because the media and Democrats spent so much time from March to August castigating Trump and praising European leaders for their pandemic response, Americans seeing the massive rise in cases in Europe will forgive Trump a bit, especially given that the death count in Europe is now greater than it is in America and new daily infections are well above the US rate.

The second event is the double beheading in France by an Islamic jihadist this week.