On any given day for the past two months, if you opened a newspaper or magazine, or tuned in to cable or broadcast news, or listened to the radio, there’s a good chance you encountered political analysis that concluded that Kamala Harris and the Democrats were running rings around Donald Trump and the Republicans.
And every now and then, that analysis was right.
Objectively, the Democrats did have a successful convention, with few protests and an enthusiastic response to the speakers. Harris had a much better debate than Trump did. On the stump, Trump is often erratic and unfocused, while Harris is relentlessly — some might say “robotically” — disciplined in delivering her message. The Democrats have a gargantuan fundraising advantage.
And yet, in those big seven swing states . . . it’s still a toss-up, with the Sun Belt states looking a little better for Trump, and the “blue wall” upper Midwest states looking a little better for Harris, but no state looking out of reach for either candidate. (Harris’s biggest lead in those seven swing states in the 538 average is 2.5 percent in Michigan.)
Harris had little to no convention bounce in her polling numbers, and little to no boost to her polling numbers after the debate.
In other words, there’s a glaring flaw in the conventional wisdom and analysis: If Harris keeps winning so many daily news cycles and big events, why do those wins never or so rarely translate into more people wanting to vote for her? We keep hearing that abortion is going to be a game-changer for Democrats — Michael Steele predicts that Harris will win Florida because of the issue — and that Harris and Walz are running on “joy” compared to the dour gloom of the Trump campaign, and so on.
If everything keeps coming up roses for Democrats, why is this race neck-and-neck?
The Harris campaign is delivering the message it wants to deliver. “Turn the page.” “Project 2025 is scary.” “She’s a former border state prosecutor.”
But the message that the Harris campaign wants to deliver may not be what it takes to win, or certainly not to win decisively. Assume that roughly mid-40-some percent of Americans will never vote for Harris or are absolutely locked in for Trump. There’s another 5 to 10 percent of Americans who look at Harris and aren’t convinced she would be all that different from the disappointing status quo. Or who think her lack of detail in her policy proposals is a sign of ignorance, or a much more far-left agenda than she’s willing to admit.
Maybe generic platitudes aren’t the smartest strategy. Maybe the Harris camp’s decision to avoid so many interviews and press conferences are convincing a small but key slice of Americans that she’s hiding something, or she can’t handle the pressure, or she’s crippled by imposter syndrome. Or maybe these voters don’t trust her because Joe Biden proved to be a hapless geriatric with a poor memory though she insisted he was not.
Also note that Tim Walz started with higher favorable numbers than unfavorable numbers, and those numbers are growing closer together in the more recent polls.