If the developing trend continues Harris will be fighting for her political life. Pictured: Former US President Donald Trump. Photo Credit: Donald Trump Jr./X.
Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee in the easiest walk to a major party nomination in history. Requested to make about a hundred phone calls to secure her spot atop the Democratic ticket, she had overcome years of doubt within her party to become its standard bearer. Many people who played a large role in assuring her ascendancy had openly mused that if President Joe Biden were replaced his substitute could not be Kamala. She could not beat former president Donald Trump. She could not win a national election. Yet on July 21, when Biden said he would be stepping down, these same people ignored their instincts and publicly endorsed Harris.
As Mark Halperin, the Joey Chestnut of political consumption, astutely observed in his Aug. 28 2Way report, “NEW POLITICAL POLLING ON HARRIS ‘SUGGESTS THAT NATIONALLY AND IN BATTLEGROUND STATES SHE’S NOT AHEAD.’” Summing up the obvious concerns that most in the press have ignored or hidden, Halperin asks the tough questions about Harris, “Why did (she) seem like a bad choice for some? Besides her history as vice president and as a presidential candidate not being particularly good at managing her staff, not being particularly good under pressure, not being particularly good at taking tough positions and sticking with them, not being particularly good at explaining herself, why did she become the nominee?” We can guess that she was a better choice than Biden because she was not an elderly man who had lost his fastball. She was part of the Biden-Harris administration and carried the burden of that association. The only other candidate in that same boat, as Halperin points out, would have been Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Other candidates could have claimed a fresh start, no Biden baggage.
Her emergence as the candidate occurred while the Biden-Harris administration remained unpopular in the view of the American people. Without objection, she became the ideal nominee even though many in the Trump camp celebrated her selection because she would not represent a clear break from the present occupant of the White House. They knew she would win back some voters who had become dissatisfied with Biden, those who belonged to the Obama coalition (younger non-white and younger female voters), but what about her deficits? Halperin insightfully points out the weeks of the most favourable and unbalanced press coverage in the history of modern presidential campaigning and then lists her downsides.
First, in an honest assessment of America, she’s a relatively young woman of colour with no large credentials in national security. How many women of colour have won statewide office in Pennsylvania? Second, her flip-flopping on issues has not been fully litigated. Lastly, she has no national electoral record, having never won a primary, and not even a delegate in her only campaign four years ago. Halperin then spoke the words that must have awakened leading Democrats from their month-long haze of joyful celebrations, pep rallies, and good, good vibrations (apologies to the Beach Boys). “I’m here to tell you that there’s some public polling already and there’s more coming; there’s some private polling that suggests that nationally in the Battleground States, she’s not ahead. She might be on paper but well within the margin of error and there’s some Battleground States now where I think Donald Trump’s on this trajectory to be ahead.”
Halperin goes on to suggest that neither the interview she held with Dana Bash on CNN nor the debate will impact the reality that comes mid-September after the Trump campaign has had a chance to open up some of Harris’ weaknesses to greater scrutiny, Trump will be ahead in the Sunbelt states, ahead in Pennsylvania, and competitive in Michigan and Wisconsin. This would put the Democrats back to where they were with Biden before the debate. There would be a single path to 270 votes. The three Great Lake states and a congressional district in Nebraska. As Halperin says, he does not know that this will happen, but he has reason to believe it could. If it does, Democrats will find themselves in a scary place with a candidate who has never won a presidential election, who lacks sure-footedness on the trail, and who has a record of crumbling under the pressure of tough questions.
A tweet from Patrick Rufinni, one of the best Republican strategists, sheds light on what Halperin suspects: “In this house, we believe Pennsylvania registration trends matter. Trump has a rock-solid base. He’s polling better than 2020. Electoral College bias is real. Harris is the de facto incumbent. Incumbent parties are losing globally.” Each of those statements is hard to impossible to argue with. Pennsylvania voter registrations are trending Republican if the numbers are to be believed. In addition, the Trump campaign thinks that male voters make up the majority of the undecideds in the battleground states and they favour Trump on all the major issues except for abortion. In effect, whatever the polls may say today, Trump feels confident that once these voters weigh in, they will move him ahead. That means Harris and the Democrats will be left with one route to victory and that one very uncertain.
I am not sure that Halperin is correct, but after weeks of winning news cycles, a successful convention, and sycophantic press coverage Harris should hold a substantial lead. As Halperin cautions, “I’m warning those of you who want Trump to lose that by the middle of next month there’s a real possibility based on what I’ve seen in public and private data that Harris will be where Joe Biden was. One Electoral College path and not a particularly strong hold on it.” If Pennsylvania slips away, and I believe it will, Kamala Harris will spend the rest of her life regretting her decision to take Minnesota governor Tim Walz over Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro. It will linger like Hillary Clinton’s choice to pass on a campaign stop in Wisconsin in 2016. Elections in America are close. Gaining the edge matters and ignoring the signs has consequences. If the developing trend continues Harris will be fighting for her political life wishing she had made the obvious choice instead of the clever one.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who now works part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, where he earned a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
