For Kamala Harris, the timing of the big campaign events of the past month has lined up just about as perfectly as she and her team could have wished. President Biden announced he was quitting the race one month ago, on July 21.
Then on August 6, Harris selected Tim Walz, and despite the belated recognition that he lies a lot – Axios gently calls him “a gaffe factory” – Harris was carried along by a wave of ludicrously generous coverage of Walz. (Amazing how Walz can be a “gaffe factory” without doing any interviews or press conferences, hm?)
Then this week, on August 19, the Democratic convention began, and candidates usually get some sort of minor bump from the conventions, as party allies and the nominee get four nights to make a prime-time sales pitch for themselves.
So for the Trump campaign, the good news is that Harris has enjoyed one solid month of just about the gushing, cheerleading mainstream media coverage you’ll find this side of Barack Obama or Beto O’Rourke… and the race is pretty much a tie.
Harris leads by 1.5 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics head-to-head matchup, and 1.6 percentage points when the minor party candidates are included. She’s up by a point in Wisconsin and two points in Michigan.
Trump leads by two-tenths of a percentage point in Pennsylvania, the same margin in Arizona, one point in Georgia, 1.4 percentage points in Nevada, 1.2 percentage points in North Carolina. That’s a jump ball race.
After the Democratic convention, the road ahead gets harder for Harris and Walz.
Robert F. Kennedy may withdraw from the race and endorse Trump; that may well give Trump another percentage point or two, or three, just where he needs them.
At some point, Harris is going to have to do an interview or press conference, and she’s inevitably going to make some gaffes, and the same goes for Walz.
The debate on September 9 looms, and Harris will have to give answers off-the-cuff. If Trump is prepared, he will do some damage.
Add it up, and we’re probably at or nearing the high water mark for Harris. At the convention, you’ve heard a lot about how smart, tough, accomplished and determined Harris is. And yet, she’s still the woman who flamed out in the 2020 Democratic primary, and who had an approval rating in the upper thirties for most of her time as vice president. That number has rebounded… to 41 percent. Her lone policy proposal has been labeled “full of gimmicks” by the Washington Post editorial board; Post economics columnist Catherine Rampell concluded, “it’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is,” and Obama economic advisor Jason Furman concluded, “this is not sensible policy, and I think the biggest hope is that it ends up being a lot of rhetoric and no reality. There’s no upside here, and there is some downside.” Harris’ instincts have not changed.
Yes, most of the media loves her, but most of the media always loves the Democratic candidate.
This is a winnable race for Donald Trump — which is not the same thing as saying Trump will win this race.