We all look at poll numbers, but it’s important to read them in a way that improves your knowledge rather than making you doubt they matter at all, as I tried to explain at New York:

With Democrats’ substitution of Kamala Harris for Joe Biden, it’s looking very much like the very close election we originally envisioned for November has returned. And why shouldn’t it have? There has been exactly one comfortably decided election in this century (Barack Obama’s 2008 victory over John McCain), the two major parties are in equipoise, and three-time Republican nominee Donald Trump has polarized American politics to an almost incredible degree.

Now, an increasingly attentive public is paying a lot of attention to the presidential election. It’s a good time to review some of the mistakes people tend to make in seeking to follow and interpret the polls.

Don’t get fooled by outliers.

When a poll favorable to one candidate or the other comes out, that “team” is very likely to hype the numbers as absolutely true and predictive of a great landslide to come (that’s particularly true of Trump’s MAGA fans; Democrats have been burned by poll-driven irrational exuberance too many times). Some pollsters are prone (deliberately or not) to partisan bias, but any one survey by any pollster can, for statistical reasons, turn out to be an outlier.

There are two simple ways to avoid the temptation to overreact to individual polls: (1) utilize polling averages, which tend to greatly reduce the importance of outliers, and (2) look at trends in the results found by specific pollsters over time.

This year, there are a host of polling averages available. Some (notably RealClearPolitics and, to a lesser extent, Decision Desk HQ) use simple arithmetical averaging without any adjustments or weighting of results, while others (FiveThirtyEight, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and FiveThirtyEight founder and now independent analyst Nate Silver) have sophisticated methodologies that seek to place a premium on higher-quality and more recent data. I personally prefer FiveThirtyEight’s averages, which are easy to navigate and aren’t quite as loaded with junk polls as RCP’s. But any of the above averages are a lot better than reliance on any one pollster or any one result.

Pay attention to margins of error and other methodological issues.

In close races where small swings in polling results can seem huge (particularly those in which the lead, however small, changes hands), it’s easy to forget that every reputable poll is accompanied by a “margin of error” reflecting the size of the sample and thus the likely range of possible underlying numbers (which, in turn, is modified slightly by a “confidence interval,” which is typically 95 percent). A recent national poll from Emerson College showing Harris leading Trump by a 50-46 percent margin had a margin of error of 3 percent, which means the results for either or both candidates could be off by that percentage. Thus a relatively robust Harris lead is actually “within the margin of error” (amounting to 6 percent in terms of the difference between the candidates) and could be misleading. To put it another way, no really close lead is safe and could represent an illusion.

The margin of error can become really large in subsamples of particular parts of the electorate (e.g., voters under 30, voters with or without a college education), which some pollsters compensate for with “oversamples” of particular groups of interest. When you see a poll with a finding that seems really odd (such as Trump leading among young voters or ringing up 30 percent of Black voters), always look for the size of the sample and the margin of error. This is why large-sample polls (all else being equal) are generally more reliable and why state polls are typically less accurate than national polls.

Until fairly recently, there was a very strong preference among polling experts for surveys based on live telephone interviews, until (a) cell phones began replacing landlines in households and (b) the unwillingness of Americans to respond to phone-poll solicitations began making it very difficult (and expensive) for old-school pollsters to get a representative sample. Now there remain “gold standard” pollsters (e.g., New York Times–Siena or Ann Selzer’s Iowa poll) that rely almost entirely on live-caller surveys but that now pay extra attention to the design and weighting of samples (e.g., by comparing them to verified voter files from the most recent election). There are also perfectly reputable polls that utilize refined, online voting “panels” and other methods. Pew found after the 2022 midterm elections (when pollsters had an excellent record) that “17% of national pollsters used at least three different methods to sample or interview people (sometimes in the same survey), up from 2% in 2016.”

FiveThirtyEight’s database of pollster ratings remains an essential tool for separating good from bad polls, based not just on accuracy but on transparency (pollsters who won’t tell you how they reach their results should not be trusted). But in general, you should beware of small-sample, one-day polls that are clearly designed to grab headlines.

Don’t confuse poll release dates with survey dates.

For varying reasons, pollsters (or, more often, the media outlets that pay for and sponsor polls) don’t always release polling data the minute it’s collected. So it’s possible a “new” poll will represent old data. For example, some media folk jumped on a Fairleigh Dickinson poll of the Harris-Trump race that was released the day after the Democratic National Convention ended and that showed a “post-convention bounce,” even though much of the polling was conducted before the DNC began. Keeping in mind the gap between the surveying and the reporting of results is important any time people look for a “bounce” from some significant event (particularly a candidate debate). Indeed, it’s wise to wait a few days after such an event to look for polling data since much of the impact is likely to come from secondary coverage rather than live viewership.

Pay attention to respondents’ likelihood to vote.

It obviously matters a lot whether the people polled and reported as favoring one candidate or another actually turn out to vote. But it’s not always easy to separate the participating sheep from the nonparticipating goats until fairly close to Election Day. This is why most pollsters stick with samples based on registered voters until they conduct a “switchover” to likely-voter surveys shortly before early voting begins (others, like Times-Siena, offer both registered-voter and likely-voter results much earlier).

There are different forms of “likely-voter screens” with different strengths and weaknesses. Some focus on stated voter intentions, which can overestimate turnout because people don’t like to admit they might find something better to do on Election Day than fulfilling their civic obligations. Others emphasize past voting behavior, but that obviously doesn’t work for newly eligible voters and may miss surges in turnout among voters who did not participate earlier (this has been one factor frequently cited as contributing to the underpolling of Trump voters in 2016 and especially in 2020). Likely-voter screens are especially important in non-presidential elections, when turnout is often low and variable.

Much higher percentages of registered voters participate in presidential elections, making assessments of likelihood to vote somewhat less essential. In the past, the application of likely-voter screens has often produced improved numbers for Republican candidates since they were disproportionately drawn from segments of the electorate most likely to vote (e.g., older voters). That may be less true in the Trump era, in which Democrats have improved their performance among both highly educated and older voters, while Republicans are doing better among non-college-educated voters who aren’t quite as likely to vote.

Finally, it should be noted that some polls (typically “issue polls” that don’t measure candidate preferences and some job-approval or favorability polls) don’t even screen for voter-registration status but use samples of “adults.” These results should be taken with a few grains of salt.

Be aware of polling errors.

One by-product of this era of close elections and partisan balance is that polls can get the outcome “wrong” even if they are reasonably accurate. It’s also important to note that national presidential polls estimate the national popular vote, not the results in the Electoral College (both George W. Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016 won the latter while losing the former, and in 2020 Trump came within a whisker of winning while pretty decisively losing the popular vote). So, for example, in 2016 the final polling averages at RealClearPolitics showed Hillary Clinton leading Trump by 3.2 percent. She won the national popular vote by 2.1 percent. That’s a pretty small error. But sparse state polling gave no hint that Trump was going to win the historically Democratic states of Michigan and Wisconsin — and thus the election. So when Trump did win by the equivalent of an inside straight, a lot of shocked observers felt betrayed by the polls, and some concluded they were worthless. They weren’t — at all — but they were, of course, not flawless.

Polling error was actually more evident in 2020. RCP’s final averages showed Biden leading Trump by 7.2 percent; he actually won the popular vote by 4.5 percent, a margin small enough to get Trump within reach of another inside straight in the Electoral College. Postmortems of this relatively poor showing didn’t reach any clear conclusions, but explanations often focused either on the pandemic conditions that greatly affected both polling and voting or on a continued problem pollsters were encountering in identifying Trump voters. Either explanation was consistent with the excellent record of the polls in 2022, when the pandemic had subsided and Trump wasn’t on the ballot. So there’s no reason to assume the polls will be right or wrong in 2024. But Harris supporters will pray that she is far enough ahead as voters vote that she can win in the Electoral College. And a big win might also reduce the very high odds that Trump and his supporters will again fight against certification of a defeat.

Some insights from “Time for Change Model Predicts Close Election with Slight Edge for Kamala Harris” by Alan I. Abramowitz, author of The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump, at Sabato’s Crystal Ball:

The assumption underlying the Time for Change model, which has an excellent track record in predicting the outcomes of presidential elections since 1992, is that the results of these contests are largely determined by three factors: the popularity of the incumbent president, the state of the economy, and the number of terms that the president’s party has controlled the White House.

Not surprisingly, the more popular the incumbent president and the stronger the economy, the better the candidate of the president’s party tends to do. Less obviously, the incumbent president’s party does better when it has held the White House for a single term than when it has been in power for two terms or longer. That is the “Time for Change” factor, and it has a surprisingly strong relationship with the results of presidential elections. Since World War II, the candidate of the president’s party has won 7 of 9 elections after a single term in office but only 2 of 10 elections after two or more terms in office. The public appears to be more reluctant to vote for a change in direction in Washington after only four years than after eight or more years and in 2024, Democrats will be defending the White House after only four years in office. So even though Harris is not a first-term incumbent running for reelection, she does benefit from something of an incumbency bonus in the model because she is seeking just a second straight term for her party in the White House.

Abramowitz notes, further:

Plugging in President Biden’s net approval rating of -18% in late June and the estimated second quarter growth rate of 2.8% in real GDP along with the fact that Kamala Harris will be defending the White House after a single Democratic term in office, the Time for Change model predicts narrow Democratic victories in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. The predictions are a Democratic margin of 2.6 percentage points in the national popular vote and 281 electoral votes, only 11 more than the minimum of 270 needed to win an Electoral College majority.

Based on these results, clearly the safest prediction that we can make about the 2024 presidential election is that it is likely to be very close. Both the predicted popular vote margin of 2.6 percentage points and the predicted electoral vote margin of 24 votes are much smaller than the standard errors of the two regression equations. Adding to the uncertainty of the predictions are the highly unusual circumstances of the 2024 election, especially the replacement of the incumbent president at the top of the Democratic ticket by the incumbent vice president. These results are based on the assumption that Kamala Harris will enjoy the normal advantage that goes to the candidate seeking just a second-straight party term in the White House (typically this person is an incumbent who was elected to the party’s first term in the previous election, but Harris is not).

It certainly would not be shocking if Donald Trump were to win either the popular vote or the electoral vote in the 2024 presidential election. It would also not be shocking if the outcome turns out to be an Electoral College misfire, a split between the popular vote winner and the electoral vote winner. That has happened twice since 2000 and it almost happened again in 2020. Nevertheless, both the popular vote and the electoral vote models give a small advantage in the 2024 presidential election to the Democratic ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz over the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and JD Vance.

Harris has thus far waged a remarkably effective campaign, leading up to Labor Day. If she can hold the current trend line for ten  more weeks, Abramowitz’s ‘Time for Change’ model will look even stronger.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter and co-author with John B. Judis of “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?,” is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Democrats are not just happy, they are ecstatic. Harris has surged into a modest lead over Trump in national polls and is doing well enough in swing states for her to be a slight favorite (53-47) to win the Electoral College and therefore the election. The Democratic National Convention seems to be a smashing success with delegate enthusiasm at a fever pitch.

The enthusiasm is understandable. They thought they were going to lose, now they think they’re going to win. Everything is going great!

But that’s them—partisan, liberal-leaning Democrats who are no doubt fully reflective and then some of the increasingly college-educated character of their party. Working-class voters however can restrain their enthusiasm.

Let’s take a look at some data. First up, the new Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll.

1. In this poll, Harris is ahead of Trump by 3 or 4 points, depending on whether other candidates are included on the ballot test. But among working-class (noncollege) voters, Harris trails Trump by 7 points while leading among college-educated voters by 20 points. This is both somewhat worse than Biden did among working-class voters in 2020 (deficit of 4 points) and somewhat better than Biden did among college-educated voters (advantage of 18 points).

2. The same pattern applies to white voters; Harris is doing somewhat better than Biden 2020 among white college voters but somewhat worse among white working-class voters. And among nonwhiteworking-class voters she is still underperforming. Biden carried these voters by 48 points in 2020; Harris is ahead by only 29 points.

3. Among the working class, Trump gets a 47 percent retrospective job approval rating while Harris gets just a 34 percent rating. Among the college-educated, it’s just the reverse: Harris gets 47 percent job approval and Trump gets only 38 percent.

4. Working-class adults are still significantly more pessimistic about the state of the nation’s economy than the college-educated: 78 percent say the economy is not so good or poor compared to “only” 62 percent among the college-educated.

5. On the all-important issue of the economy, working-class respondents trust Trump over Harris by 15 points. But the college-educated trust Harris over Trump, albeit by a small margin (3 points). The pattern is exactly the same on inflation/rising prices, which was asked separately.

6. Despite Harris’s recent tough talk (well, commercials) on the border, working-class adults trust Trump over Harris to handle the border situation by 16 points while the college-educated deem them equally trustworthy. Interestingly, Hispanics actually trust Trump over Biden by 3 points to handle the border.

7. On crime and public safety, working-class adults trust Trump over Harris by 9 points, while the college-educated are the reverse, trusting Harris over Trump by 9 points.

8. Finally, Trump is slightly favored by the working class (one point) over Harris on “protecting American democracy” while the college-educated trust Harris over Trump by a wide margin (20 points).

The Democrats—still the college-educated party after all these years! Next up: The new CBS News poll. Several questions here highlight the different—and more jaundiced—attitudes of working-class voters compared to college voters. (Note: CBS does not report an overall education split but only whites by education.)

1. In terms of their personal/household situation, 60 percent of white working-class voters say, “I have just enough to meet my basic expenses” or “I don’t have enough to meet my basic expenses.” By comparison, just 35 percent of white college voters make such a gloomy assessment. And 72 percent of white working-class voters describe the national economy as fairly or very bad.

2. The poll asked voters what they thought would happen with the price of food and groceries if Harris or Trump is elected. White working-class voters believe by 43 points that these prices will go uprather than down if Harris is elected but believe by 26 points that these prices will go down not up under a Trump presidency. White college grads are less negative on Harris by 11 points and less positive on Trump by 21 points.

3. The poll also asked voters about what might happen at the border with migrant crossings under Harris or Trump. White working-class voters by 45 points think migrant crossings under Harris would increase rather than decrease, while under a Trump presidency they believe by an overwhelming 75 points that such crossings would decrease not increase. Again, white college voters are much less likely to see a Harris presidency as increasing border crossings or a Trump presidency as decreasing these crossings.

And finally, the latest Fox News poll.

1. In terms of favorability, working class voters give Harris a 44 percent favorability rating and Trump a 52 percent favorable rating. College-educated voters are basically the reverse: they give Harris a 54 percent favorability rating and Trump just a 38 percent rating.

2. Consistent with the Post ratings on which candidate voters trust on key issues, working-class voters prefer Trump over Harris on the economy by 13 points, on crime also by 13 points, on foreign policy by 17 points, and on border security by 27 points (on the latter, even Hispanics trust Trump over Harris by 17 points). In contrast, college voters favor Harris over Trump on the economy by 6 points, on crime by 7 points and on foreign policy by 10 points. And they “only” favor Trump over Harris on border security by 5 points.

Now, none of this is to say that Harris doesn’t have better issues with working-class voters that are important, particularly abortion but also health care. And it is also true that Harris has made up significant ground with these voters since Biden cratered in the polls shortly before he dropped out. But the yawning gap between the views of working-class and college-educated voters remains, as does the gap between their voting intentions (the latter confirmed by sources of running crosstab averages—see here and here).

When Democrats are feeling frisky, they would do well to remember this. Most of their activists live and work in environments where they are surrounded by other college-educated voters as do most of those who cover and write about politics. Their universe is different from that of working-class voters; what plays so well in their college-educated bubble does not typically play nearly as well in the universe inhabited by working class voters.

But, Democrats might say, we are working on this! Harris is taking backall of her unpopular stuff. We’re now tough(er) on the border—at least in commercials and in our platform (love the land acknowledgement!). We’re going to bring prices down with our anti-price-gouging plan! We’re trying on our patriotism hat again! And how about what Barack Obama said!

On the latter, it is true that Obama has not forgotten the ancient wisdom of the Obama era. But hey, he’s Obama so I’m not sure how many points the Democrats get for that.

In truth, most of what Democrats are doing and saying today amounts to, as befits their status as a Brahmin left party, a kind of Brahmin populism. It combines a mild-mannered and scattershot populism—a far cry from Bernie Sanders’ class-oriented populism of 2016—with an underlying commitment to a very wide array of social justice and “equity” issues that the working class detests.

The more-or-less plausible goal is to reconstitute the Biden coalition of 2020. They may or may not make it. But they shouldn’t kid themselves on the underlying weakness of their coalition. They are notreconstituting the Obama coalition or anything close to it, as I showedin a recent analysis. As Michael Cuenco tartly points out:

Consider that when Obama last ran, the Midwest was still known as an impenetrable Blue Wall, while Florida and Ohio were still purple states. When Bill Clinton gave his acceptance speech in 1996, the Democrats were competitive throughout large swathes of the South. During that period, they had gone on to win not just Clinton’s Arkansas and Al Gore’s Tennessee, but states such as Kentucky and Louisiana too.

The story of the last three decades has been one of political success for Democrats, who have won the popular vote in seven out of the last eight elections. Yet it is also one of narrowing political constituencies and pyrrhic victories, as the party attracted college-educated professionals at the expense of the non-college-educated majority. In particular, non-college-educated whites were lost, but in recent years they have increasingly been joined by significant numbers of non-college-educated minorities. As recently as 2007, “56 percent of voters without a degree were Democrats or leaned Democratic, while 42 percent were Republicans or GOP leaners”; today, Republicans hold “a six-percentage-point advantage over the Democratic Party,” according to Pew Research.

Of course, the selection of Tim Walz as Harris’s running mate is supposed to help the Democrats claw back some of that lost working-class support. Besides the obvious point that vice-presential picks typically don’t matter much, this seems doubtful given his own electoral record in Minnesota, where his support as governor has skewed toward highly-educated metro areas.

Indeed, even granting Walz the sincerity of his advocacy on economic issues, he fits quite comfortably into the Democrats’ current Brahmin populism. As Gregory Conti points out in an excellent Compact article on the vice-presidential picks:

Tim Walz’s ascension looks…to be fully in keeping with the [Democrats’ shifting coalition]. For if woke has peaked, Harris seems not to have known it when she selected him. Given that Harris appears now to want to backtrack from and minimize her distinctly far-left messaging in 2019-20—which ranged from the sublime (working to bail out rioters and affirming the righteousness of the disorder of summer 2020, calling to decriminalize illegal border crossings, endorsing a ban on fracking) to the ridiculous (getting sucked in by the Jussie Smollett hoax)—it is curious that she made Walz her running mate. For there is nary an enthusiasm of contemporary cultural progressivism that he has not indulged to the hilt. Reflecting the left’s recent hostility on the subject, he has no affection for—or understanding of—the American tradition of free speech. He was a Covid-maximalist, both in his personal conduct and far more importantly in public policy, having set up a snitch line for reporting transgressions of the state’s innumerable and ineffective NPIs and vigorously defending school closures. In contrast to the trend of European social democracies toward greater caution on the issue, Walz has made Minnesota a spearhead for gender-affirming care for children….This is not the record of Joe Biden in ’08, or Tim Kaine in ’16, but something close to a replay—and perhaps a magnification—of the Harris persona in ’20.

In sum, it’s a long road back to the working class for the Democrats. As they leave their convention, with visions of electoral sugar plums dancing in their heads, they should remember that they still have far to go.

From “Early Voting Set to Begin in the 2024 Election: What to Know” by Aneeta Mathur-Ashton and Julia Haines at U.S. News: “Election Day is less than 80 days away, but voters in more than a dozen states will be able to vote as early as next month….In Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, voters can cast their ballots as early as Sept. 16, less than 10 days after Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump face off for a debate, the first since she took over the Democratic ticket in July. The candidates are circling a second debate, reportedly in October, that could potentially occur after early voting has begun in some states….The landscape of the race has changed dramatically in the last few weeks and voters in these states will fill out their ballots well before millions of other Americans, with other states starting early voting later in October. Some offer early voting in person, while others offer the option by way of absentee ballots.” Here’s the skinny on three possible  swing states, which have early voting dates in September: “All elections in Arizona must support early voting, including ballot-by-mail voting and in-person early voting. Early voters receive a ballot at their voting location and must not take the ballot away from the location….Voters on the Active Early Voter List can request to receive a ballot by mail. The completed ballots can be dropped off at official ballot drop-off sites or voting locations throughout the county that issued them and have to be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 5….The last day to register to vote in the state is Oct. 7….Voters in Pennsylvania can cast a ballot as soon as Sept. 16. Voters can pick up their ballots at county election offices and have the option of filling them out there, mailing them in or dropping them off later. The last date to apply for a mail ballot in person is Oct. 29 at 5 p.m., and the last date to drop it off is 8 p.m. on Election Day….Matt Heckel, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of State, says the state handles early voting differently than other states….“Once a county’s ballots are finalized and printed, a registered voter can apply for their mail ballot in person at their county election office, complete it, then submit it all in one visit,” Heckel says….Voters in the [VA] commonwealth will have the chance to cast their ballots in person and by ballot drop-off as early as Sept. 20, according to Andrea M. Gaines, external affairs manager with the Virginia Department of Elections….Voters can apply to vote by mail and, after receiving a ballot, can return it by mail, in person to a local general registrar’s office by 7 p.m. on Election Day or to a drop-off location. If returning a ballot by mail, it must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by the office by noon on Nov. 8.”

Among the  numerous articles about the effects of RFK, Jr.’s endorsement of Trump, here’s what G. Elliott Morris and Mary Radcliffe write about it in “How much momentum will RFK Jr.’s endorsement give Trump?“at ABC News via 538: “Kennedy’s bid failed to garner enough support to contend in any state, and support for him in national polls fell by nearly half after President Joe Biden dropped out of the running to be the Democratic Party’s nominee….Our analysis of the polling data suggests Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump will have a minimal impact on the race. Kennedy, who has consistently polled around 5 percent since Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee, was drawing roughly equally from both Trump and Harris, with that support coming from both traditionally Democratic and traditionally Republican groups. His endorsement of Trump may marginally help the Republican among white, male, and older voters. But the effect of his departure on overall support for either candidate will be small.” Morris and Radcliffe deploy a couple of wonky methods to crunch available polling and demographic numbers to reaffirm their argument that the effect will be small. But sometimes small effects swing elections.

Nebraska is not considered a swing state at the moment. But it could be consequential in the presidential election, as Ed Kilgore recently noted. Meanwhile,  Margery A. Beck of Associated Press reports that “Nebraska voters will choose between two competing abortion measures to either expand abortion rights or limit them to the current 12-week ban — a development likely to drive more voters to the polls in a state that could see one of its five electoral votes up for grabs in the hotly contested presidential race….Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen announced Friday that the rival initiatives each gathered enough signatures to get on the November ballot, making Nebraska the first state to carry competing abortion amendments on the same ballot since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022….Nebraska also becomes the last of several states to put an abortion measure on the November ballot, including the swing states of Arizona and Nevada where abortion ballot measures could drive higher voter turnout. Others are Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana and South Dakota. New York has a measure that supporters say will effectively guarantee access, though it doesn’t mention abortion specifically….One of the initiatives, like measures on ballots elsewhere in the U.S., would enshrine in the state constitution the right to have an abortion until viability or later to protect the health of the pregnant woman. Organizers said they submitted more than 207,000 signatures….The other measure would write into the constitution the current 12-week ban, with exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the pregnant woman. Organizers said they submitted more than 205,000 signatures….It’s possible voters could end up approving both measures, but because they’re competing and therefore cannot both be enshrined in the constitution, the one that gets the most “for” votes will be the one adopted, Evnen said.”

At The American Prospect David Dayen addresses an important, but largely ignored question of consequence , “Will the Senate Take Off the Handcuffs?” As Dayen writes, “In the Democratic National Convention hall, in side events in hotel ballrooms and conference centers, and on the campaign trail, lawmakers and candidates are promising big change. They have promised to codify Roe v. Wade and end the assault on reproductive rights. They have promised to end gerrymandering and voter suppression in a pair of consequential voting rights bills, the For the People Act and the John Lewis Freedom to Vote Act. They want to address affordable housing, and child care, and paid family and medical leave, and child poverty; they want to transform the tax code; and so on….To accomplish all of this, or at least to make it unencumbered by artificial constraints and rules and processes, they need to end the circumstance whereby a minority of members in the U.S. Senate get a veto over everything the chamber does. At the heart of the entire agenda that this convention’s pitch is predicated upon is the imperative to reform the filibuster….Republicans will not vote for abortion rights or voting rights; under a 60-vote Senate, those bills will fail. You could technically get tax reform and care economy investments done the way it was done in 2022 in the Inflation Reduction Act, by using budget reconciliation. But that carries with it complicated rules about spending limitations within the ten-year budget window….The only way to ensure the full agenda can be passed without constraints is by ending the filibuster….“The two folks who have been most opposed to filibuster reform are Manchin and Sinema, and both are retiring from the Senate,” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), at a pen and pad briefing on the sidelines of the DNC. The inference is that, with Manchin and Sinema out of the way, the Senate can get on with doing the people’s business….The filibuster has evolved into a constant block on progress. Democrats are promising to change the world, but will they change the Senate rules to make that happen?” All of which presupposes that Dems hold their Senate majority in November.

Like a lot of Democrats, I’m exhausted at the end of this exhilarating week, but did want to offer my insta-reaction to Kamala Harris’s big speech in Chicago that I wrote for New York:

Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech was relatively simple, almost stripped back, but laser-focused on a few objectives: introducing herself with autobiographical details that other speakers have been citing all week; defending herself forcefully against the attacks to come on her intelligence, strength and common-sense policy objectives; and making a clear and concise case against Donald Trump. She did not bother to defend the Biden administration’s record, and presented herself as focused on the future. It will not be easy for Republicans to depict this tough-sounding, highly articulate woman citing traditional American values and speaking to a crowd of flag-waving delegates as a “communist” or a “radical leftist” or unintelligent, as Trump has often done. And while she did not descend into wonkiness, she did describe enough of a policy agenda to create a real debate with Trump and his party.

As for her delivery, the contrast between Harris’s crisp, forceful, coherent and succinct presentation and Trump’s rambling screed in Milwaukee will be grist for the mill for some time. Indeed, this should make Democrats savor the upcoming debate, where there is every prospect for Harris to show up her opponent as the narcissistic would-be tyrant she spoke of in this speech. It was a fine start for the short sprint to November 5, and it showed she is not complacent but is determined to fight for swing voters while keeping her base excited.

Now on to the debate!

There are lots of good “takeaway” articles about the Democratic convention (See here, here, here and here, for example)  Nearly all of the wrap-up articles note how well-produced it was and cite it as likely to produce a nice ‘bump’ of indeterminate length for Harris-Walz. Here are some excerpts from “Democrats rejoice as ‘joyful’ Kamala Harris puts them back in the game,” Ed Pilkington’s analysis at The Guardian:

On Tuesday, the Obamas added their own ideas on how to tackle Trump. Focus by all means on fears of a possible second Trump presidency – “the deep pit in my stomach”, as Michelle put it – but also bring him down to size, make him look as small as he is.

A good point, and somebody needed to say it. Pilkington notes, further:

It was fitting that the most forceful put down of Trump during the week came from Harris herself. “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man,” she said. “But the consequences of putting him back in the White House are extremely serious.”

She invited her audience to contemplate what Trump would do if he were returned to power, fortified by the recent US supreme court ruling that makes him largely immune from criminal prosecution.

“Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails,” Harris said, “and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency.”

A party leader unleashed. A new mood of positivity and optimism. Fresh ways to hit Trump. The Democratic party emerges from the convention in much more robust health than it entered it.

Also,

Messages were pumped out designed to soothe the doubts of wavering voters. A Harris presidency would be tough on crime, good for your family’s budget, lower your middle-class taxes, secure the border – and do all this with compassion and kindness, not the other side’s disparagement and hate.

The convention repeatedly bashed Trump for overturning abortion rights, driving the point home with heart-wrenching accounts from women denied health care in states with abortion bans, including a woman raped by her stepfather aged 12 and a second woman who miscarried in her bathroom having been turned away from hospital.

“This is what’s happening in our country because of Donald Trump, and he is not done,” Harris said.

In addition,

Latest polls put Harris just a few points up over Trump in battleground states like Wisconsin without which Harris will have difficulty prevailing. That’s a dramatic improvement on Biden, but it is still well within the margin of error.

Meanwhile, Trump is not letting up on his pursuit of darkness. As Harris was preparing to address delegates on Thursday, he was down at the US border with Mexico scaremongering about “hardened criminals pouring into our country”.

Will it work? Nobody knows.

What Democratic strategists do know is this. If they let their party faithful leave Chicago, turn off the TV, sit back and relax as they bask in the glow of so much talk of joy and freedom and a new beginning, then they lose.

As conventions go, this one had many more ups than downs. On the whole, was it was much better than any other in recent memory. Democratic leaders and rank and file should now prepare for the Republican’s all-out assault and mobilize an unrelenting counter-attack, one which will show that 2024 Democrats are ready to win.

E, J, Dionne, Jr. explains how “Harris can seal the deal this week by being new, improved — and loyal” at The Washington Post: ““New and improved.” It’s one of marketing’s most hallowed slogans. The idea behind it is doing wonders for Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party. Hanging on to the benefits of offering a brand-spanking new choice to Americans while remaining loyal to President Joe Biden is one of Harris’s central challenges at her party’s convention this week. Getting it right will make her president….What’s remarkable is that switching candidates has also reduced Democratic vulnerabilities on issues that were working for Trump. In a poll from the Financial Times and University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business released last week, 42 percent of voters said they trusted Harris more to handle the economy, compared with 41 percent for Trump. That’s a seven-point improvement over Biden’s July numbers….So, on one of most vexing issues facing Democrats, Harris has room to level the playing field or tilt it in her favor. She’s trying to do this by offering fresh policies and emphasizing issues that had slipped from the top of Biden’s agenda — notably family leave, child care and elder care.”

Kyle Kondik reports that “North Carolina Moves to Toss-up, Setting Up November Battle for Magnificent Seven Swing States” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “The polling bolsters the case for North Carolina to be a Toss-up, given that the race there is basically a tie right now, and its polling is broadly in line with the other 7 states (although there is, of course, variation). The familiar 2000-2020 electoral pattern of Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina being redder than Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin is also present in the polls. It is perhaps a little surprising to see Nevada polling among the redder group (at least in the “average of averages”), although Harris is actually slightly ahead in 2 of the 3 averages in Nevada. Regardless, Nevada is the one state on this list where we have a fair amount of experience with polls understating Democrats. On the flip side, Democratic margins were routinely and often heavily overestimated in Wisconsin polls in both 2016 and 2020, so it being the second-bluest state in these averages merits a little skepticism too….We do think Michigan is still the best candidate to be the bluest state among these in 2024 again, and North Carolina the best candidate to be the reddest, but it wouldn’t take much to change this alignment in some way. It’s not a stretch to imagine Arizona moving to the left of Nevada, given that the latter is more working-class and thus perhaps more amenable to the current GOP than historically Republican but more suburban-focused Arizona. We addressed the differences between Georgia and North Carolina above. Again, we’re skeptical North Carolina will be more Democratic than Georgia, but there’s also not a ton of daylight between the pair, currently. And all 7 of these states are close enough that we think they should be grouped together in our ratings, at least at the moment….Now that the election is getting closer and we are almost past the conventions, the polls probably should carry more weight, imperfect instruments though they are. We’ll be watching to see if Harris can maintain or build upon these polling numbers after the Democratic National Convention concludes. If so, it may be that one or more of these “Magnificent Seven,” to borrow the famous movie title, won’t be Toss-ups anymore.”

 In “The New Silent Majority that will deliver a Blue Wave” J. Nash Bowie writes at Daily Kos: “Yes, polling shows a close race. I think the polls are wrong (in terms of percentages—the trends are probably more accurate). I think there is a new Silent Majority in this country who are ready to move beyond the chaos, hostility, and division. They are young adults who don’t answer pollsters. They are suburban and rural wives who don’t want to make waves by coming out in support of Democrats but who know how important it is to elect them. It is Black and Latino voters who had tuned out over the last couple of years but who will come home in big numbers. It is disaffected Republicans who can’t stand Trump (a lot of whom voted for Nikki Haley in the primary) and who recognize the dangers of Project 2025. I strongly suspect that polling is not capturing these voters….This is not just wishful thinking or naive “unskewing”. Over the last two years, we’ve seen polling consistently miss outcomes that favor Democrats and liberalism. The last example is just a few days ago in Wisconsin when the GOP tried to slip in two constitutional amendments to disempower the Democratic governor in a petty act of revenge—polling had those amendments passing by 3-10 points and they ended up going down to defeat, one 57-43 and the other 58-42. There are dozens of examples like this, and almost none going the other way….I know that predicting a Democratic win evokes the horror of 2016 and the hand-wringing mantra, “Don’t get complacent!” (nevermind that 2024 is almost nothing like 2016). The win I’m predicting is based entirely on the expectation of hard work, a large volunteer army, smart strategy, flush campaign coffers, and high energy. And so far, this expectation is bearing out in ways far beyond my wildest dreams. As far as I can see, Democrats are the polar opposite of complacent right now.”

As a admirer of RFK and his brothers, this report, “RFK Jr. expected to drop out of race by end of week, plans to endorse Trump: Sources” at abcnews.com and many others like it at various news outlets, felt like a gut punch. The extended Kennedy family, which includes Sargent Shriver, who ran as a vice presidential candidate on McGovern’s ticket, played such a storied role in the modern Democratic Party. JFK brought a rare spirit of hope to the nation before he was assassinated. His brother and campaign manager, RFK, enhanced the party’s commitment to compassion and eloquence before he was assassinated. Teddy Kennedy was a tireless Democratic senator who led his party’s opposition under Republican presidents. All were strong, no-nonsense Democrats, leaders of vision who built bridges of hope, not walls of division. Along comes RFK, Jr. to pervert this great legacy. If he endorses Trump it will be a sad, twisted conclusion to his family’s remarkable role in history. I remember thinking as recently as a few weeks ago, ‘surely he will drop out and endorse the Democratic ticket.’  I hope he reconsiders his endorsement.

Some perceptive observations from “At the Convention in Chicago, Kamala Harris Can Seal the Deal” b y Jeet Heer at The Nation:

Writing in The Atlantic, the veteran political analyst Ronald Brownstein makes a powerful argument that this week’s Democratic National Convention could be one of the history-making ones, thanks to the fact that Kamala Harris, like Clinton before her, remains for much of the public an unknown quantity—a blank slate ready to be filled in. Brownstein contends that “no presidential nominee in decades has approached their convention with a greater opportunity to reshape their public image than Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Aside from the comparison with Bill Clinton, Brownstein also notes, “Harris is the first nonincumbent since Hubert Humphrey in 1968 to claim either party’s presidential nomination without first enduring months of grueling primary contests. Because Harris did not experience the setbacks and triumphs that come from waging such a fight, public impressions of her are uncommonly shallow for a nominee on the convention’s eve, strategists in both parties agree.”

While acknowledging that the current era of partisan polarization means candidates have only a narrow room to rise (or, conversely, to sink), Brownstein makes a convincing case for 2024 offering Harris the chance to solidify her standing in a way that is essential to her presidential bid.

Harris heads into the convention already riding a wave of enthusiasm. But if Brownstein is accurate in gauging the opportunity the convention presents, Harris has a chance to catch an even bigger wave—one that would ensure a solid electoral victory.

Heer notes further, “It seems America is hungry for a fresh face—a fact that has already allowed Harris to take a lead in polls and election models (notably that of Nate Silver, who was bullish on Trump but now sees Harris as the favorite). Political analyst Joshua A. Cohen estimates that more than 100 Electoral College votes that were previously leaning toward Trump have shifted toward Harris—an astonishing reversal that puts the Democrats in a far more favorable position.” Also,

Harris has the wind at her back precisely because many Americans who hate Trump had also been dispirited by Biden. So far, they seem willing to give Harris a chance. Harris’s challenge is to turn these feel-good vibes into a fully mobilized electorate ready to flood the polls on Election Day.

Harris will be helped by the fact that she is not just a fresh face in the campaign. She also has a gripping biographical story that speaks to the emerging America. Harris’s late mother was an immigrant from India, and her father is an immigrant from Jamaica. Donald Trump has tried to use Harris’s multiethnic family history as a wedge to divide Black voters by absurdly claiming that Harris is not really Black. But the meeting of Harris’s parents is a very American story, one that speaks to an optimistic vision of the country as a haven for all. It is also a story that serves as an eloquent rebuke to Trump’s xenophobia and racism.

So far, Harris has been chary of defining herself as anything more than a generic Democrat, a profile reinforced by her pick of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Harris has made a few policy pitches that are gratifyingly progressive, notably her promise to fight corporate price gouging on food and to provide financial support to low-income first-time homeowners. With the eyes of the nation watching the DNC, Harris would be well-advised to offer many more such policies to help economically struggling Americans. That would turn a feel-good event into durable political support.

Heer adds, “Barack Obama, the most skilled living orator in American politics, will take the stage on Tuesday. Former first lady Michelle Obama will speak the same evening, as will Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff. Emhoff’s prominent role at the event stands in contrast to Melania Trump’s silent, sullen presence at the GOP convention. The following evening’s highlights include speeches from Bill Clinton and Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate. Harris herself will be the primary speaker on the final night of the convention on Thursday.”

Heer concludes, “The danger of a divided—and divisive—convention is real. Harris’s ability to navigate the Israel/Palestine divide is the first big test of her political acumen. Harris has a difficult task ahead of her, but if she can manage to secure the votes of wavering parts of the Democratic coalition, this convention will truly be historic.”

Some signs that Georgia is already confounding Trump’s electoral college strategy from “1 big thing: Trump’s devil-in-Georgia problem” by Jim Vandehei and  Mike Allen: “Polling released yesterday by the N.Y. Times and Siena College showed Harris opening up a Sun Belt route through the fast-growing, diverse states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. That gives her an alternative to the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which were President Biden’s only plausible path….Harris had narrowed Trump’s lead among likely voters in Georgia to 4 points (50% to 46%, with a margin of error of ±4.4 points). In the Times-Siena poll in May, Trump enjoyed a 9-point Georgia lead….Between the lines: Harris’ rise in the state is partly, but not entirely, due to Black voters, who make up one-third of the state’s electorate….Harris is a more effective messenger on reproductive rights in a state with a controversial ban on abortions after about six weeks….A top Democratic operative told us Harris “is just a much better fit than Biden for the Georgia electorate, which has younger and more Black voters. Much easier to see Stacey Abrams and [Sen. Raphael] Warnock firing up the pews” for Harris than for Biden….As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, Trump’s campaign and biggest aligned super PAC spent four times as much on TV ads in the Peach State in the two weeks after Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee than in the rest of 2024 combined….Of the $37 million in ad buys the Trump campaign has placed over the next week or so, almost $24 million (65%) are in Georgia, Democratic campaign strategist Doug Sosnik points outin The New York Times….The growing urgency of Georgia can also be seen in the Trump campaign’s long-range ad buys. The Trump campaign’s share of TV spending planned in Georgia doubled from 21% in August to 43% in September and 46% in October, according to calculations for Axios by the ad-tracking firm AdImpact….Trump has placed advance ad buys for this fall in only two states. Wait for it … Pennsylvania and Georgia.”

At The New Republic Greg Sargent reports that a “Brutal New Poll for J.D. Vance Reveals a Big Trump-MAGA Weakness,” and observes regarding Vance ”

• He is viewed favorably by only 24 percent of independents, versus 39 percent unfavorably.
• He is viewed favorably by only 23 percent of self-described moderates, versus 41 percent unfavorably.
• He is viewed favorably by only 22 percent of 18- to 39-year-olds, versus 44 percent unfavorably.
• He is viewed favorably by only 32 percent of women, versus 40 percent unfavorably (interestingly, Vance fares a tad worse among men).
• He is viewed favorably by only 28 percent of Hispanics, versus 39 percent unfavorably.
• He is viewed favorably by only 9 percent of Blacks, versus 50 percent unfavorably.
• He is viewed favorably by only 32 percent of suburbanites, versus 42 percent unfavorably.
• He is viewed favorably by only 33 percent of college-educated whites, versus a striking 55 percent unfavorably.

Unsurprisingly, Vance is viewed positively by non-college whites (+9 points), rural voters (+13 points), and white evangelicals (+37 points)….To be fair, Vance has more time to improve his image, as large percentages of voters still have no opinion of him.”

Here’s an encouraging graph:

“Kamala Harris, as widely previewed, gave her first major economic address today,” Robert Kuttner writes at The American Prospect. “Two key themes were cutting housing costs and resisting corporate price-gouging of consumers. She also proposed restoring the refundable Child Tax Credit and topping it up to $6,000 a year for new parents in the first year, as a baby bonus. Take that, J.D. Vance….The toughest of these policy areas is housing. Unless the federal government spends massive sums to increase the supply of affordable housing, the cost of both rental and owner-occupied homes will continue to outstrip incomes….In the absence of a supply strategy, Harris’s proposal of a $25,000 subsidy for first-time homebuyers, though beneficial, will bid up prices. Her commitment to build three million new affordable units over four years, using a mix of tax incentives and grants to local governments for innovative approaches, is a decent start, but only a start. Two other good housing ideas that chime with her attack on predatory corporations are measures to remove the tax advantage from Wall Street speculators in housing and stopping predatory AI tactics for raising rents….Harris’s general emphasis on price-gouging is a policy area where government can make a huge constructive difference without spending large sums. It is good economics and smart politics on several counts….First, it vividly connects with the issue of inflation where ordinary people feel it. Grocery store prices have increased only slightly over the past year, but consumers remember exactly what a quart of milk or a dozen eggs cost before the supply shocks of the pandemic. In addition, supermarket profits are notably higher than before the pandemic, which means that prices should have moderated more….Second, the plan reframes the issue from whether Biden or Trump was better at containing an abstraction known as inflation to how corporate concentration opportunistically drives price hikes. The right remedy for that ill is not slowing the economy generally, as the Federal Reserve has done, but going after the root cause. This is also a useful shot across the Fed’s bow…Third, the approach recasts the struggle as ordinary people vs. predatory corporations rather than impersonal forces, with Harris in the role of champion of beleaguered consumers….There has been a lot of chatter about whether Harris is positioning herself to the left of President Biden and whether that is a good idea. Supposedly, by moving left, Harris risks alienating swing voters. But swing voters also buy groceries. The only voters whom Harris risks alienating by championing consumers are large corporations and their allies. They have few votes.”

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter and co-author with John B. Judis of “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?,” is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

There’s been a lot of good news lately for the Harris campaign. Every national polling average has her ahead of Trump with margins ranging from 1 point in the New York Times average to 3.1 points in Nate Silver’s average (average lead = 2.1 points).

Silver’s state-level polling averages, which are relatively aggressive in incorporating new information, have Harris enjoying big improvements relative to Biden every swing state and now has her ahead in all these states except for Georgia and North Carolina. Moreover, his forecasting model makes her the favorite in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and tips her as a 57 percent overall favorite to take the Electoral College.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that Harris is still running significantly behind where Biden and Hillary Clinton were at this point in the 2020 and 2016 cycles. Using the RCP averages (538 does not provide 2016 averages but their 2020 average closely tracked the 2020 RCP averages), at this point Biden was ahead of Trump by 7.7 points and Clinton was ahead by 6.8 points. That compares to the current RCP average of 1.1 points.

Moreover, looking at the “Rustbelt three”—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—which loom so large in this election, here are the RCP averages for this point in the cycle for 2024 Harris-Trump, 2020 Biden-Trump, and 2016 Clinton-Trump in that order and for each state:

Michigan: +2.4/+6.7/+6.8

Pennsylvania: -.2/+6.4/+9.2

Wisconsin: +1.2/+6.5/+9.4

Given that Clinton lost all three of these states in 2016 and Biden carried them by an average of only 1.6 points in 2020, this pattern does not inspire confidence. In general, and particularly with these data in mind, the race is still way too close for comfort.

Of course, just because the polls tended to underestimate Trump support in 2020 and 2016 both nationally and in key states doesn’t mean they are today. But that remains a possibility. As Sean Trende notes:

[T]here is a sound social science concept of which we should be aware. In fact, it is particularly dangerous right now. It is known as partisan non-response bias. The idea is this: When events favor one political side or the other, partisans become more (or less) likely to take a poll.

The intuition is this: After Biden’s disastrous June debate, Democrats really didn’t want to talk about the election. Republicans on the other hand, wanted to talk about nothing else. It was probably the best time to be a Republican in a presidential election since, well, Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama in the first presidential debate. Some of Trump’s poll lead in July probably was due to a newfound Republican eagerness to respond to polls.

At the same time, Democrats are overwhelmingly engaged right now. They have reason to believe they just avoided a near-death scenario and potential wipeout. They have a new presidential nominee, about whom they are overwhelmingly excited, and they like the vice presidential selection. They would love nothing more than to talk to you, or a pollster, about the 2024 election.

Unfortunately, there is no way to know for sure whether this is happening or not. But it could be in which the case the race, already close, may be closer than it looks. If you’re the Harris campaign you want to keep this in mind and take appropriate evasive action. “Kamalamania” may be more fragile than it appears.

A relevant cautionary tale is provided by an earlier example of a politician suddenly ascending to be their party’s standard-bearer and rocketing into the lead. This is the example of “Jacindamania” where Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand in 2017 replaced Labour leader Andrew Little who appeared to be headed to a landslide defeat (sound familiar?). Her candidacy caught fire and very soon her party was in the lead. But the conservative party, the National Party, counter-attacked, aiming withering fire at Ardern’s considerable vulnerabilities. By the time the election arrived the National Party actually out-polled Labour and Ardern by 7 points. (She was still able to form a government, but only by forming a coalition with New Zealand’s right-populist and green parties.)

This suggests a missing part of the current Trump campaign that is no doubt helping Harris—disciplined, withering fire directed at Harris’s vulnerabilities, of which there are many, has been lacking. Trump, by general consensus, has done a poor job on this politics 101 part of his campaign, indulging his proclivities for dwelling on various pet beefs, rather than concentrating attacks where they would most hurt his opponent (see this brutally effective ad from the McCormick Senate campaign in Pennsylvania for how this could be done). If he continues on the former course, the Harris campaign may continue to dominate; if he and his campaign take the latter path, Kamalamania may go the way of Jacindamania.

The question for the Harris campaign therefore should be how to armor themselves against such a turn in the campaign. This is where recovering the ancient wisdom of the Obama era could come in handy. Harris is perfectly willing to disavow previous unpopular positions on controversial issues and allude in very general terms to a current position that is closer to the center of public opinion. But what’s she’s not willing to do is piss off the left. And unless you’re willing to piss off the left, you can’t convincingly and durably occupy the center of American politics. That’s the real insurance against a counterattack by the GOP.

Obama understood this. He was willing to piss of the left in pursuit of a broader coalition. Here are a couple of examples but there are many more.

On immigration:

“We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants to this country.”

He added that those who employ people living in this country illegally “disrespect the rule of law.”

On energy/climate change:

“We need an energy strategy for the future—an all-of-the-above strategy for the 21st century that develops every source of American-made energy.”

He added that his administration had “quadrupled the number of operating oilrigs to a record high” and “opened up millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration.”

Different times, different politician for sure. And of course the progressive left within the Democratic Party is much stronger now than it was then. But the principle remains valid. If you want to define yourself as being in the center of American politics you have to be willing to piss off those who are constantly trying to push you out of the center.

This is particularly important for the Harris campaign among difficult demographics like white working-class voters, where recent improvement—particularly in the Rustbelt—has been key to the campaign’s improved fortunes. These voters could stick or they may be just visiting; much will depend on whether the Harris campaign can convince them she is truly a different kind of Democrat than what she used to be.

It seems like a long time ago but it really wasn’t when Democrats generally understood the need to aggressively capture the center and, if the left stood in the way, the need to push them aside. Clinton and Obama understood this and they prospered accordingly. What seems to have happened is that intense criticisms within the party of various policy actions of these leaders—some justified, some not—have induced a collective amnesia about that era’s political wisdom. As a result, today’s Democratic leaders are now absolutely terrified of pissing off the left even where it would be greatly to the party’s benefit to do so.

It’s time to recover that ancient wisdom. The stakes are high and the time is short. Democrats can’t afford to rely on Trump’s incompetence to cede them the center of American politics. They must seize it.