It’s pretty obvious Kamala Harris’s candidacy changes the 2024 presidential race more than a little, and I wrote at New York about one avenue she has for victory that might have eluded Joe Biden:
During her brief run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, Kamala Harris was widely believed to be emulating Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign strategy. She treated South Carolina, the first primary state with a substantial Black electorate, as the site of her potential breakthrough. But she front-loaded resources into Iowa to prepare for that breakthrough by reassuring Black voters that she could win in the largely white jurisdiction. She had the added advantage of being from the large state of California, where the primary had just been moved up to Super Tuesday (March 3). For a thrilling moment, after her commanding performance in a June 2019 debate, Harris seemed on track to pull off this feat, threatening Joe Biden’s hold on South Carolina in the polls and surging in Iowa. But neither she nor Cory Booker, who also relied on the Obama precedent, could displace Biden as the favorite of Black voters or strike gold in the crowded Iowa field. Out of money and luck, Harris dropped out before voters voted.
Now Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for 2024 without having to navigate any primaries. But she still faces some key strategic decisions. Joe Biden was consistently trailing Donald Trump in the polls in no small part because he was underperforming among young and non-white voters, the very heart of the much-discussed Obama coalition. Can Harris recoup some of these potential losses without sacrificing support elsewhere in the electorate? That is a question she must address at the very beginning of her general-election campaign.
There’s a chance that Harris can inject a bit of the Obama “hope and change” magic into a Democratic ticket that had previously felt like a desperate effort to defend an unpopular administration led by a low-energy incumbent, as Ron Brownstein suggests in The Atlantic:
“Polls have shown that a significant share of Americans doubt the mental capacity of Trump, who has stumbled through his own procession of verbal flubs, memory lapses, and incomprehensible tangents during stump speeches and interviews to relatively little attention in the shadow of Biden’s difficulties. Particularly if Harris picks a younger running mate, she could top a ticket that embodies the generational change that many voters indicated they were yearning for when facing a Trump-Biden rematch …
“In the best-case scenario for this line of thinking, Harris could regain ground among the younger voters and Black and Hispanic voters who have drifted away from Biden since 2020. At the same time, she could further expand Democrats’ already solid margins among college-educated women who support abortion rights.”
Team Trump seems to believe it can offset these potential gains by depicting Harris as a “California radical” and a symbol of diversity who might alienate the older white voters with whom Biden had some residual strength. Obama overcame similar race-saturated appeals in 2008, but he had a lot of help from a financial collapse and an unpopular war presided over by the party of his opponent.
Following Obama’s path has major strategic implications in terms of the battleground map. Any significant improvement over Biden’s performance among Black, Latino, and under-30 voters might put Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina — very nearly conceded to Trump in recent weeks — back into play. But erosion of Biden’s support among older and/or non-college-educated white voters could create potholes in his narrow Rust Belt path to victory in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
These strategic choices could definitely affect Harris’s choice of a running-mate, not just in terms of potentially picking a veep from a battleground state, but as a way of amplifying the shift produced by Biden’s withdrawal. Brownstein even thinks Harris might consider following Bill Clinton’s 1992 example of doubling down on her own strengths:
“The other option that energizes many Democrats would be for Harris to take the bold, historic option of selecting another woman: Whitmer. That would be a greater gamble, but a possible model would be 1992, when Bill Clinton chose Al Gore as his running mate; Gore was, like him, a centrist Baby Boomer southerner—rather than an older D.C. hand. ‘I love Josh Shapiro and I think he would be a great VP candidate, but I would double down’ with Whitmer, [Democratci consultant Mike] Mikus told me. ‘I don’t think you have to go with a moderate white guy. I think you can be bold [with a pick] that electrifies your base.’ I heard similar views from several consultants.”
Whitmer’s expressed disinterest in the veepstakes may take that particular option off the table, but the broader point remains: Harris does not have to — and may not be able to — simply adopt Biden’s strategy and tweak it slightly. She may be able to contemplate gains in the electorate that were unimaginable for an 81-year-old white male incumbent. But the strategic opportunity to follow Obama’s path to the White House will first depend on Harris’s ability to refocus persuadable voters on Trump’s shaky record, bad character, and extremist agenda. Biden could not do that after the debate debacle of June 27. His successor must begin taking the battle to the former president right now.
Kerry is putting it away tonight.
Kerry is competent again, and Bush is uneven and has made some big mistakes. He really blew it on immigration, religion, and Social Security.
Looks like Kerry is now up in LV’s too in the WP poll, and gained a bit in LV’s in the ABC poll (the two polls use the same data, but interpret it differently based on their own formulas).
Lets hope Kerry can put it away tonight.
Alan,
This does not seem like a likely answer. The Republicans are certainly engaging in dirty tactics but it seems implausible they would tell Gallup what they are up to and the number of Dem votes they are trashing.
I have not seen a good answer to the question of why Gallup (and other polling orgs) are skewing their results so strongly to the Rs either in LV/RV or in party identification. So, anyone? Alan’s thought is maybe just too disgusting for me to want to believe. Also, the sheer amount of the skew is too large to be accounted for by dirty tricks in some swing states. Is Gallup hoping to scare Dems into fight harder? Do they want a close race to improve news ratings (my fave since news orgs buy the Gallup results)? Is Gallup hoping to get more Repubs into office by creating making them appear stronger than they really are?
I am surprised to see Alan Abromowitz stating that GOP turnout has exceded Democratic turnout in recent Presidential elections. I thought that Democratic voters had exceeded Republican voters by about 3 points in recent presidential races.
coldeye and gabby,
Marshall has followed up with this link to a report from Oregon, confirming what coldeye wrote:
http://www2.kval.com/x30530.xml?ParentPageID=x2649&ContentID=x47627&Layout=kval.xsl&AdGroupID=x30530
The head of the canvassing group used to be executive director of the Arizona state Republican party. Reports are that the GOP funded his group, though the Oregon state GOP denies that he worked for them. There’s a report that the same organization (Voters Outreach of America) is also active in West Virginia.
From a link posted on TPM:
Bush concedes PA?
http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/extra/archives/001039.html
Those of us here in Pennsylvania may not have George W. Bush to kick around anymore — at least not in person. The New York Daily News — which
is traveling with the President in Arizona today — says that no Pennsylvania TV markets were in Bush’s top-ten spending list last month, and an aide has told the newspaper that no visits from W. to the Keystone State are in the works anytime soon.
Don’t be so quick to dismiss Gallup’s methodology on LV. After all, they probably know what the Republicans voter suppression strategies are. In term of voter turnout, this analysis is likely correct. However, many of the democaratic voters who turn out may end up not being able to vote, and many of those who do vote may not see their vote counted.
Gallup is probably relying on Republican inside information in coming up with its LV numbers.
News flash — the Chicago Tribune released separate polls today for the midwest battleground states (IA, MN, WI, OH). They show Kerry ahead of Bush by 2pts in OH and MN, and 4 pts in WI! He is behind by 2 pts in IA. Plus, there were 5-8% undecided in each state — that basically translates to an extra 2-4 points on Kerry’s side of the margin. Plus, these results are for LVs — can’t find RV results, but those are very likely even better, since Kerry has been stronger among RVs than LVs all season.
Only one set of polls, but still VERY encouraging — are the Cheeseheads finally coming home?!
Midwest Meg, I think Ruy has said the last week or so is the time when the LV is most useful, but only as the race actually closes.
Tony, that news is truly distressing. They’ve always engaged in dirty tricks, but this time the army of Bush brownshirts is a reflection of the men at the top. This time they flaunt the law in a cavalier fashion which reveals their true nature as anything but American.
Tony,
We’ve seen the same tactics here in Portland, OR. Groups collecting registrations and throwing out the Democrats.
Ruy-
Thanks for the RV data. I tried looking for RV info online yesterday and could only get LV.
Various-
This will be somewhat off topic, but speaks to some of the challenges we’ll face on election day.
I just got this from Josh Marshall’s http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com site. Apparently the GOP has paid some people to go get registration cards from potential voters, and then they tear up those who register Democratic. There’s some evidence of this from Las Vegas. This strikes me as the sort of dirty trick that could get very intense attention very quickly.
Marshall got the report from this site:
http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2421595&nav=168XRvNe
Here’s a quote from the article:
“We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me,” said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.
Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.
In Ruy’s opinion, at what point in the campaign are LVs the more reliable polling group than RVs? Two weeks from election day? A week before?
Or does conventional wisdom not exactly apply in this election, which looks like it will draw a huge number of first-time or occasional voters?
Does anyone know whether the polls pick up or distinguish how many people voted early? I remember reading articles about several states where people could vote as early as the beginning of September. If that vote was heavy, when Bush had his huge bounce, it could matter. Is there any data?
Who actually performs this poll? Is it Zogby, who I respect? Interesting article on Zogby in new New Yorker.