Defining Harris Will Define the Race

It feels like shouting into a void these days to discuss policy issues, the records of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, or their positions on those issues. The national political press has closed ranks around Harris and Walz so uniformly that nothing but “vibes” seems to get through, and Harris has so far taken disappointingly little grief for avoiding all questions from the press. Republicans will have to drive home their own message on their own dime with advertising, because even Donald Trump’s gift for attracting free media isn’t doing very much — and is undermined when Trump abandons his famously lax discipline and does things such as attack Brian Kemp.

It remains true that Americans don’t tend to get serious about elections until after Labor Day. In some states, that’s an ingrained habit: Wisconsin hasn’t even held its Senate primaries yet, and voters in the state are used to waiting until as late as mid September just to find out who the candidates are. The Trump-Vance campaign and other Republican campaign arms appear to have plenty of money to dump on advertising in the battleground states, and Trump now says that he’s willing to debate Harris three times in September on three different networks, if she’ll agree.

There’s little that Trump can do to change his own image. What Trump and Republicans need to do between now and the end of September is define Harris (and to a lesser extent Walz) in the public mind. The picture that is being sold right now is false, but it is also not yet set in stone, and a lot of voters would like to know more about the Democratic ticket. Consider two recent polls.

First is a national poll by Marquette Law School. “The survey was conducted July 24-Aug. 1, 2024, interviewing 879 registered voters nationwide, with a margin of error of +/-4.1 percentage points. For likely voters, the sample size is 683 with a margin of error of +/-4.7 percentage points.” It shows Harris leading Trump 52 percent to 48 percent among registered voters and 53 percent to 47 percent among likely voters.

The poll reflects the striking improvement in Harris’s favorability rating among registered voters following her elevation to the top of the ticket — striking both because her favorability was so consistently negative for so long and because she has done absolutely nothing in the interim to change it. All she did was get a promotion that was handed to her by Nancy Pelosi and company, receive a torrent of friendly press coverage, and benefit from the sigh of relief that accompanied Joe Biden’s departure from the campaign. Marquette shows her favorability at -3 (47 percent favorable, 50 percent unfavorable) after twelve consecutive Marquette polls dating back to early 2022 had found her at -14 or worse, and eight of the last nine had her at -20 or worse. When last polled in May, she was at -24 (35 percent favorable, 59 percent unfavorable). Trump’s rating also improved in the poll, to -8, likely reflecting the immediate aftermath of his shooting.

Consider perceptions of Harris’s ideology. Ten percent of those polled described her as conservative or very conservative, 19 percent described her as moderate, 30 percent said she’s somewhat liberal, and 41 percent said she’s very liberal. That puts her to the left of the typical voter, as 37 percent described themselves as conservative or very conservative, 36 percent described themselves as moderate, and 27 percent as somewhat or very liberal — the “very liberal” group being just 12 percent.

This is an opportunity for Republicans because both Harris and her chosen running mate have arch-progressive records that any reasonable person would describe as “very liberal” on that scale. Yet six out of ten voters are unaware of this.

Voters already give Trump an edge over Harris on a number of issues, including immigration and the border (53 percent to 35 percent), the economy (49 percent to 37 percent), foreign relations (44 percent to 41 percent), and the war in Gaza (46 percent to 32 percent). Harris has the edge on “ensuring fair and accurate elections,” abortion, and more traditional Democratic priorities such as health care, Medicare, and Social Security. But by far the two biggest issues cited by voters as the most important were the economy (38 percent) and immigration (15 percent), which are Trump’s strengths. Drawing voters’ attention to those issues, and to Harris’s record and positions, is crucial.

Of course, personal characteristics matter, too, but much of that will follow the defining of Harris on the issues. The Marquette poll shows voters giving Harris an edge on age, integrity, temperament, and “shares your values,” while Trump has the edge on “strong leader” and “strong record of accomplishments.”

Now consider a Blueprint poll by a centrist Democratic group that tested messages against Harris as well as potential responses (naturally, this being a Democratic poll, the authors reassure us that every Harris vulnerability is fixable with the right message). The poll notes that Harris is not yet as sharply defined for voters as Trump is:

Voters are eager for fresh messaging in this race–voter perceptions of Donald Trump are mostly solidified, so their appetite for Trump-centric content is limited. In fact, 71% of voters say their minds are made up about Trump and that there is absolutely nothing that could change their opinion about him. Just 57% say the same about Vice President Harris, with 20% saying either that they’re open to changing their minds about her or that they don’t really have any views on her and need to learn more.

Six anti-Harris messages were tested. Three were highly effective: that she “has been an absolute disaster on immigration” as “border czar,” that Biden and Harris have let inflation run out of control, and that Harris “is a San Francisco liberal who represents the extreme far-left socialist wing of the Democratic Party” and wants to turn the whole country into California. The latter attack cited taxpayer-funded health care for illegal immigrants, gender-reassignment surgery, and reparations (all of which she has endorsed). A fourth attack, on the legitimacy of the “coup against the will of Democratic voters” giving her the nomination, was weaker but still surprisingly pointed. On the other hand, the pollsters found little traction in more personalized attacks such as that Harris is an unqualified DEI hire, slept her way to power, and has no children of her own.

Again: Add it up, and the real vulnerability for Harris is her being defined by her left-wing record and by failed Biden policies. The pollsters offer findings that Harris can best push back by showing that she’s a tough-on-crime prosecutor, believes in strong enforcement at the border, and is fighting for a lower cost of living — all things that can and should be rebutted by her record.

No campaign is won by a single thing, but the chief emphasis of Republicans over the next six weeks, if they intend to win, needs to be on where Kamala Harris has stood on the issues and what she likely still believes in. And they’ll have to do that work against the tide of media propaganda.