Kamala Harris has ended an extraordinary month.
In that short time, he completely changed the 2024 presidential election. He is leading in most national and battleground state elections, and there are real signs of enthusiasm for his candidacy everywhere, from packed stadiums to record campaign contributions.
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All this was hard to imagine before the resignation of President Joe Biden, when the majority of Americans viewed him negatively. His previous presidential bid did not go well. His record in national politics gave him plenty of baggage, including a high-profile role on immigration policy in the Biden administration and a series of unpopular policy statements in his last presidential campaign.
But Vice President Harris turned his fortunes around anyway — and quickly. It’s clear that many Americans didn’t have a strong opinion of him, and after a month of well-delivered speeches and cheerful appearances in the national spotlight, he’s successfully brought himself back into the country. Now, more voters in battleground states say they have a favorable than unfavorable view of him — no small feat in an exhausted and divided country.
But this extraordinary turnaround wasn’t just about Harris. It was also about the huge dissatisfaction of voters with the rematch between Biden and Trump, which had brought anxiety and consternation to millions. In an instant, Harris’ candidacy offered these voters what they had been craving: something new, different, and more hopeful than that dreaded rematch. It opened up years of pent-up democratic enthusiasm. It allowed Harris to bring the joy back.
As a result, he has become a certain kind of candidate for change. No, he does not represent change in politics or party, but he does represent the promise of a new beginning. He has also turned former President Donald Trump into something of a status quo, or even a candidate of the past — not the political status quo, but the candidate of a contentious and grueling decade of American political life.
That was enough to give Harris an introduction to his convention. If history is any indication, his lead could widen further in the next poll as tens of millions watched his nationally televised speech.
Whether that lead lasts through November depends in part on the answers to these questions:
Is this just bouncing?
Harris has made a good impression, but has he made a lasting impression?
If there’s a risk to his current numbers, it’s that he’s driving poll “bounce” — a political sugar high fueled by a positive but unsustainable event-driven media presence.
These voting anomalies are common after debates or deals, and Harris’ last month has some of those characteristics. He benefited from several events that allowed him to bask in the national spotlight: his participation in the pageant; democratic approval of his candidacy; his vice presidential pick. Then came the Democratic convention, a textbook case for a media-fueled rise.
As the name suggests, bounces usually don’t last. But sometimes the bounces shape the race permanently – they become bumps, if you will. For example, the 1992 presidential election was permanently changed by the Democratic convention, when an unpopular but still ill-defined Bill Clinton united a divided party and helped drive Ross Perot out of the race (he returned to the race in the fall).
If Harris’ position remains mostly after the spotlight fades, the next question is whether his support is flexible enough to withstand the difficulties ahead. So far, he hasn’t faced any real adversity on the campaign trail — no glaring missteps, difficult news breaks or tough investigative stories. At some point, expect this to change; it usually does.
This much we do know: Harris’ outlook is not set in stone. In a CBS News poll conducted before the convention, only 64 percent of registered voters said they knew what he stood for. This provided him with an opportunity to redefine himself in the last month. It also means that it is not safe to assume that his position is sustainable today.
Can Trump Redefine Harris?
Harris didn’t just improve his position over the past month; Trump and the Republicans failed to define him in a negative light.
Here’s a little of what the Republicans and Trump have tried:
— He has hired DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).
– He only recently became Musta.
— He is Comrade Kamala: a radical communist.
– He laughs like crazy.
– He’s a “kama-chameleon” whose positions vary depending on the environment.
— Nickname: Kamabla (I think this should be pronounced “Kama-blah” – like she’s “blah”).
— Nickname: KamalaCrash (he makes the market crash).
– His troops are produced by artificial intelligence.
– He is a liar and a Canadian.
– He’s not smart.
None of these have so far appeared to be landing. Why not? It is worth dividing them into a few categories.
Personal attacks. For the most part, they have collapsed. There’s one obvious reason: these attacks don’t really hit his invulnerability.
There is no scandal or claim that he is part of the swamp. Frankly: There’s really no reason to like him as a person on this list, regardless of what you might think of his politics.
The notion of a clean slate is a big deal in today’s cynical age. It’s a particularly big deal against Trump, who feeds off a sense of a broken, corrupt system that caters to elites, not the public good. If there was one missed opportunity at the recent convention, it may have been that Harris didn’t build on this further by promising to take on corruption, corporate power and special interests in Washington.
Problem-based attacks. These have gained more traction, but not by much. In previous New York Times/Siena College polls, less than half of voters in the battleground state said Harris was “too liberal or progressive,” despite leading a left-leaning presidential campaign five years ago.
One reason “Comrade Kamala” hasn’t landed: Harris isn’t a hero of the activist left like Sens. Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. He embraced many progressive positions in 2019, but he did so to earn the support of the left—not because he was its natural champion. In fact, his campaign was criticized for clearly not standing for much of anything.
Attack his consistency. The audience may not see him as Comrade Harris, but they will see the “Kama Chameleon” thing. A majority of voters in the most recent Times/Siena polls agreed that he is a flip flopper on the most important issues.
There is a vulnerability here, but the “flip-flopper” is usually not the most effective attack. It takes special circumstances for a “flip-flopper” to derail a candidacy, such as flip-flopping in a way that undermines the credibility of the candidate’s core message.
John Kerry and Mitt Romney, for example, tried to campaign against the very positions — the Iraq War and “Obamacare” — that their opponents claimed to have supported in the past. If Harris was campaigning against “Medicare for All,” his past support for the policy would be a big problem, but that’s not the case here.
Republicans seem to know this, and have taken a different approach, arguing that his 2019 views on fracking, immigration and other issues represent his “real” views on the issues.
Attacks on him race and gender. After initially calling Harris a DEI hire and questioning his race, Trump has largely moved away from identity-based attacks. And interestingly, she’s rarely been attacked in a way that seems to center on her gender. The punch of his laugh is one exception, but not one that resonates. Even her critics aren’t saying she’s “fierce” or “unpleasant,” as some previous female presidential candidates have been called.
Why have such attacks failed? That’s probably worth an article in itself, and there are many possible explanations – including sexist ones like Harris’ smile and the “cheerful” campaign that fits society’s expectations for women. Whatever the explanation, these attacks are not central to Trump’s campaign, at least not yet.
Attack for not representing yourself change. In recent days, there’s been a new line of attack: he’s just more of the same failed Biden-Harris administration practices.
So far, there hasn’t been a funny nickname or a New York Post headline for this attack, but its meaning is obvious. Unlike the others, it has to do with his early strength in the campaign: the perception that he represents change.
In previous Times/Siena battleground polls, half of voters said he would bring “the right kind of change” to the country, slightly more than said the same for Trump. Whether Harris’ power is on solid ground depends in part on why voters were so disaffected with Biden and the state of the country. It’s been a key issue throughout the cycle, and even without Biden at the top of the ticket, it still has the potential to decide the election.
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