October 29, 2024 - 3:30pm
With just over a week to go until election day, the presidential race is looking closer than ever. This is bad news for Kamala Harris: after holding a steady three-point lead in the national polling average for much of September, her margin over Donald Trump is down to just 1.4 points. Swing state polls also went from showing a slight Harris advantage to a dead heat. In several high-quality election forecasts, Trump has now pulled slightly ahead of Harris, giving him better odds of winning. According to reporting from Axios, many top Democrats now believe their candidate will lose.
Some may be left wondering what caused this shift, but the truth is that the clues have been apparent for some time. Early in the campaign, Harrisâs team seemed to make a calculated decision that because of how little time was left until 5 November relative to a normal presidential campaign, they might be able to coast on positive media coverage of her â and negative coverage of Trump â and thus did not take many risks to define her in the eyes of the public. For example, it was over a month before she sat for her first interview with a news network or released any policy ideas. Instead, the campaign relied on relatively safe biographical spots.
When Harris did begin meeting the media, she often gave vacuous answers and spoke in vague terms, as if trying above all else not to provide ammunition with which she could be attacked.
Instead, she has promised that âweâre not going backâ and trumpets a ânew way forwardâ. The first of these mantras is obviously an implied indictment of her opponent, making clear that she will serve as a bulwark against the Republicansâ efforts to pass further abortion restrictions. This resistance is certainly a top priority for many Democratic voters.
Then we come to âa new way forwardâ, perhaps an intentionally ambiguous platitude that seems designed to appeal to as many people as possible without offering any details on what, exactly, it means. It also seeks to cast Harris as an agent of change, though the clear difficulty with this goal is that she is the Vice President of the incumbent administration. On the one hand, she says that she wouldnât have done a single thing differently from Joe Biden; on the other, she promises to represent a ânew generation of leadershipâ.
This paints a picture of a candidate who has some idea of what she stands against but still has trouble articulating what she stands for. The problem with this is that having a basis for oneâs candidacy â a north star that guides one toward the ultimate objective of winning an election â helps keep the ship upright in the face of hardship. In the absence of that, a candidate can get knocked off course.
In the final stretch of the campaign, Trump has homed in on a specific line of attack against Harris: that, deep down, she is a radical whose reformation as a moderate canât be trusted. This is exemplified in a massive ad buy hitting Harris over her controversial past positions regarding sex-reassignment surgeries. Rather than rebut his attacks, she left things open to interpretation yet again, stumbling over her words before saying: âI will follow the law.â This embodied the lack of a core narrative about what she stands for, and it risks leading some voters to decide they canât trust anything she says.
Instead of working on developing a positive vision for her candidacy down the home stretch to win over the undecided voters who will tip the election â as past winning nominees have done â Harris has doubled down on her anti-Trump attacks, the latest of which is calling him a âfascistâ. The aim appears to be to strike fear into the electorate, relying on negative partisanship to push her over the top. It notably harks back to Hillary Clintonâs strategy in 2016 â which, of course, preceded a loss to Trump.
Harris could still win, but her campaignâs decision to take the path of least resistance to the presidency â to emphasise Trumpâs flaws rather than tell a compelling positive story about the Democratic candidate â may be backfiring at the worst possible moment. Weâll know how serious a misstep this was soon enough.
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SubscribeHereâs an interesting experiment. Go to Club Shay Shayâs YouTube page and read the comments on his interview with Harris. Then go to Joe Roganâs page and read the comments on his interview with Trump. Very revealing.
I paid a visit to the comments sectionsâŠ. Just donât see anyone supporting Kamala. I did watch the Rogan/Trump interview but donât know if I have the courage to watch anymore Shambles. It has been so much already. Did she cackle a lot?
I donât have an issue with Trump, but no way on godâs green earth could I watch him ramble for three hours. Iâll watch the various clips.
I did it in 3 sessions. It was actually very interesting.
Quite the eye opener, thanks.
Wow, that’s quite something.
Phew! Your orange daddy has the Joe Rogan comments going for him, Jimmy – I guess that means he’s president already?!?!
The only people who have time for that sort of nonsense are the chronically unemployed or the completely obsessed.
Which are you, Jimbo?
Politics of fear is such a risky strategy as it is very hard to gain people from the other side – especially late in the day. With the EU referendum, remain offered nothing positive and simply tried to terrify the electorate. I initially intended to vote remain but as the weeks went on was increasingly won over by the positive leave messaging. As soon as I no longer believed the message of fear from the Remain side I was never going to vote to stay as they offered no reason to do so.
âTrump is evilâ may get lots of cheers from ardent Democrats. But as soon as someone decides that he is not evil they have very little reason to vote Democrat.
Itâs interesting. The fear message worked spectacularly during Covid.
I think it worked because, in the early months, the message was plausible. I don’t think the brexit fear mongering was ever plausible (unless you already believed it(
Do you people have the faintest idea of what you are talking about?
Seriously, all Trump has is fearmongering, mainly about immigrants.
Getting absolutely monstered in a debate? Throw out some lunacy about Haitian immigrants – completely legal immigrants – eating pets. Lose your place when trying to say something non completely inane about the economy? Mexicans are rapists! You get the picture.
You people live in an absolute fantasy world!
Looking at his record, Trump has a message of peace…e.g. more Abraham Accords, jaw jaw not war war…
I love to see Champagne Socialist howling alone at the moon. I bet his family thinks he’s a barrel of fun, too.
Rather a nonsense comment. Like it or not he has given many concrete positions. Also with regard to ILLEGAL aliens. His position is welcomed by huge majorities in the United States–as well as Great Britian and most of Europe
Trump will have brilliant people in his administration like Elon Musk and Robert Kennedy and a stellar vice president .Look at the backing the inane Harris has , actors and singers .
But that’s mainly because we weren’t given an alternative to vote for.
Most studies show that negative campaigning is more effective because it has a much greater emotional impact on people.
Hence fearmongering by pols.
One problem is that the terms âfascistâ and indeed âgenocideâ have lost all currency through over and inappropriate use.
This is all starting to feel a bit like the UK election in the sense that the Democrats will likely lose it and the Republicans win mainly by default.
Like Sunak (and Theresa May for that matter), Harris just doesn’t seem to know how to campaign. You’ve got to show some life, some energy, show at least something positive. You know, look like you’re actually trying and really want it. And if you can’t front up to mildly challenging pre-programmed interview questions, how on earth are you going to cope with Putin and Xi ?
That is precisely the textbook definition of âvacuousâ. Do people on the left really wonder why she is not polling well, even against the evil orange man? Whatâs amazing to me is that a little less than half of the electorate will vote for her. They almost pulled it off.
Have you morons been listening to Trump ramble his way through even the most softball interviews. You think he’s got Xi and Putin worried? You think they are nervous about him playing YMCA instead of negotiating?
I think it’s more likely that a little MORE than half the electorate will vote for her, but she’ll lose the Electoral College, a la Hillary Clinton and Al Gore.
Here’s the thing: It’s not “a little MORE than half the electorate will vote for her . . .”
Rather, it’s “a little More than have the electorate will vote AGAINST Trump.”
So, we have people voting for Trump, and people voting against Trump. Harris, herself, really doesn’t enter into the equation because no one really knows where she stands, or–if they have such opinions–believe her “stands” are more will ‘o the wisps subject to change at any moment if doing so is advantageous. We’ve not had, in my lifetime, a presidential candidate who is so utterly lacking in conviction, purpose, or vision.
The main reason I want Trump to win is because he’ll project strength and a “don’t mess with this” attitude on the world stage and that is the only language Putin will understand and respect. It’s primitive, but it is the world we are living in right now. Harris projects nothing except weakness and uncertainty.
I also like the team assembling behind Trump and have been consistently impressed by JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard.
The OP is right about Harris not really having anything to stand on except a vague feeling of “joy,” er, not being Donald Trump.
Hillary had the same problem. And it’s not a coincidence that neither was picked in a fair primary – back in 2016, as we all know now, people like Debbie Wasserman Shultz put their thumbs on the scale in a process that was otherwise likely to give Sanders the nomination. And in 2024, the Dems bypassed the primaries entirely by hiding Biden’s cognitive decline until the last moment. I’ve written about this theme on my own substack, in a post called “For Democrats, Embracing ‘Democracy’ is a Last Resort.”
https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/for-democrats-embracing-democracy
Chances are, if the Democratic Party had let voters pick a candidate out of a big primary field, they’d have ended up with someone with an actual vision for the future that people could get excited about. But they chose not to do that, and now they get to live with the consequences.
They want somebody who is easy to manage. That’s why they selected Joe and Kamala
Harris is the unwanted candidate. Her flaws were well known. Two or three years ago, the Commentariat had comprehensively written her off as a potential successor to Biden. She can’t define her candidacy because she is merely the last minute replacement for doddery Joe. The ultimate compromise candidate, vacuous, mediocre. A Clintonista retread. A member of the Progressive Aristocracy. And the voters know it.
No disrespect, but you left out âcynical diversity hireâ.
Indeed.
If she wins it will be because a lot of women have a problem with Trump . Some may even believe the then most recognisable man in New York walked into a womanâs changing room in Bergdorf Goodman and molested a woman ten years older than him . ,
Rightly so. A jury certainly did. Let’s hope my fellow Americans dump the adjudicated rapist into the dustbin of history.
Harris is an idiot, a truth this commentator (and many others) misses. If you start with that as your assumption, it all makes sense. Her answers are vacuous because she is vacuous. She doesn’t articulate fresh ideas because she has no capacity for ideas in general. She is a “machine” candidate, the likes of which are chosen, like Joe Biden, because they don’t have original thoughts and, therefore, can be easily manipulated from behind the scenes.
My issue with Harris, apart from her being vacuous of course, is that whatever she says sheâs going to do as president, however vague, begs the question as to why she hasnât done any of these things as VP in the past four years? As far as anyone can see sheâs done very little as VP apart from laugh.
Itâs not enough to be a happy woman, at least I donât think thatâs all thatâs required of a president?
Even the laugh is fake .
Agree with you all but what if, heaven forbid, she wins guys, what if she wins?
This is the shoddiest bit of journalism I have read in some time. I’m no fan of Kamala, but in the short time she has been campaigning, her “platitudes” and “vacuous” answers contain more positive substance than any MAGA hate being delivered by her orange opponent. How long have you been drinking the kool aid? I am a little disappointed that “Unherd” would enable a cheap shot like this one through the platform.
Trump is the candidate running on fear and hate not Harris.