Analyzing the Harris Campaign

Her Candidacy Comes with Strong Advantages and Disadvantages

Now that Joe Biden has left the race, and the Democratic Party has completely aligned behind Vice President Kamala Harris, it’s good to take a moment and assess how this race fundamentally changes. To be sure, the creeping forward of the primary schedule for the past 25 years has expanded the election season to encompass the whole election year calendar; now we go back to the schedule that most campaigns prior to 1980 were conducted, with the convention ending leading into the general election season. If France and the United Kingdom can do this within a month or two, so should we.

Kamala Harris’s Strengths and Advantages

The fact that the party got in line behind the Vice President should not be lost on anyone. She was on all the ballot access and FEC documentation and with Biden getting out having obtained most all the pledged delegates, Harris was the only candidate capable of keeping the $90 million+ that the Biden re-election campaign had accrued. That’s no small stack of cash, but it was completely eclipsed by the fundraising bonanza Harris inherited in the 24 hours after Biden’s announcement. Kamala now sits at the top of a moneymaking operation not seen since Obama first became the nominee in 2008.

Likewise, areas of concern for Biden when he was the nominee seem to have been wiped away overnight. Young voters are energized again, black and female voters who had been complacent if not outright bored by Biden are now reinvigorated. Biden was sitting on a potential electoral collapse, with the states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania being his Alamo. With the increased volatility of her electoral base, Harris now has an opportunity to expand the map and compete elsewhere, helping secure better odds of winning in November. Almost immediately, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia come back into play and North Carolina is not out of the question. This allows her latitude that Biden didn’t have; she can lose one of the blue wall states and still have paths to victory.

The timing could not have been better. She’s been shining this week in the glow of her candidacy, and the next two weeks are going to be dominated by Olympic coverage. While it is hard for any candidate to break through that, Trump will have an even more difficult time trying to get news coverage. Then comes the Democratic Convention the week after. That’s essentially a four or five week honeymoon period before her numbers start to come back down to normalcy. She should enjoy that right until Labor Day when the home stretch begins.

Now let’s look at the matchup against Trump. Trump’s whole theory of the case was that Biden was too old and incompetent to run for re-election. In the span of minutes, that argument was turned on its head. Now, Trump becomes the oldest party nominee in American history, and his verbal gaffes, speech non sequiturs and rambling monologues seem more cringe-y. Every time Biden spoke, it reminded voters of his age, and the same will occur everytime Trump grumbles and rants psychotically.

In addition, Harris, as a prosecutor, is uniquely established to take the case to Trump on his lack of morals and convictions. She can play up how she threw crooks like Trump into jail for his felonies and it will play like Mozart to the ears of the voters. When she is at her best in speaking engagements, its when she is making these kind of arguments and contrasts. The more she focuses on her opponent, the better her odds of winning. Trump is a singular magnet for that kind of attention and she will not let it go to waste.

Likewise, the issues of focus change somewhat. So long as it was a referendum on Biden and his Presidency (in most cases, incumbent races always are this way), Trump could sling mud and throw red meat to his base and there was no consequence. Harris has the distinct advantage of not being the incumbent; in fact, Trump was the only one of the two that HAD been President at one point. Harris has the opportunity to run an outsider campaign while being the epitome of an incumbent insider. It’s a really strange dynamic (because former Presidents hardly ever run again), but she can certainly use that to her advantage. Lastly, looking at the issues again, the single biggest one that comes back into the limelight is the abortion issue and the Dobbs decision. It had been on the backburner a little since two old men can'treally speak authentically on this issue; she can, and the grassroots fire that propelled every special election and local referendum on the issue can grow into an outright blaze. Women voters are going to feel strongly empowered with a Harris candidacy, and where Hillary Clinton faded down the stretch, Democrats are going to do their darnedest not to let that happen again.

Weaknesses and Disadvantages of Kamala Harris

Lost in much of the positive coverage is the fact that Kamala Harris isn’t a perfect candidate. Few really are. She has distinct disadvantages as well that will matter down the road.

First, she is not a very good manager of those below her. This was evident when she first ran for President in 2015 and never even made it to the first primary. Her staff can be wreckless and do things on their own, not always for the good of the campaign. #KHIVE, which can be outright toxic at times, needs to be reined in and Kamala has not demonstrated she is capable of doing that yet. The good news on this is that she inherited Biden’s national campaign operation, which is much more stable and appealing to a general electorate. However, every candidate likes to put their own people and own stamp on important positions. How this campaign morphs from a Biden led one to a Harris one is something to pay attention to.

The second is ideological. Harris appeals strongly to the left flank of the party but has rarely, if ever appealed to the centrist, moderate groups of voters that decide elections. People already in the Democratic camp will be much more energized, but it remains to be seen how the middle of the electorate feels towards her. Early reactions are positive, with Never Trumpers and moderates just happy Trump is now more likely to lose than he was last week. However, as the race continues and the message continues to be feeding red meat to the Democratic base, does that mitigate this crowd some. We’ll see.

The third is the gender gap. The good news on this is that Kamala is a godsend to women voters, and she has already raised her approvals among this group for Democrats from 56% to close to 60%. She may even surpass 60%, we’ll see. But that means that 40% of women aren’t likely to vote for Harris. If the electorate is even 50/50 men to women (it isn’t, but its pretty close), that means Harris has to bring in about 40% of men to her cause. This is something I’ve been harping on for awhile, and it plays a pivotal role in those Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where the swing voters are white males. More good news here is that by expanding the map to Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada, she is less reliant on white male voters and can appeal to voters of color making up the difference like Obama did. Nonetheless, that still means appealing to 36% of white male voters, and it’s going to be close to if she can do that. Keep an eye on those numbers.

The last is a matter of personality. To be sure, there are many different kinds of Presidents. There are policy wonks and geniuses. There are arguers and lawyers. There are backslappers and scotch drinkers. There’s a give and take between the qualities that make a good elected official and those that make good candidates. There is no question she has the intelligence and gifts to be a very good President, but she needs to do better personally in her interactions and speeches to survive the job interview of an election. The good news is that this is most necessary during the primary season when access to candidates is much more one on one. The bad news is that she’s still going to have to change her persona somewhat to survive the next four months. Harris’ personality does not always make for the best of candidates, much like many professors and elite lawyers tend to. She can come across as condescending and arrogant, relying too much on righteous indignation. She can come across as lecturing and scolding.

Her and her supporters’ reflexive answer to that is that it is sexist and racist to point that out and that it is just “mansplaining,” yet many of the people I hear say this about Harris are women, and black men have been just as quick to point it out. Not to mention, that specific retort, “mansplaining,” alienates a lot of people she needs to win an election and plays right into her opponent’s arguments against her. If she is going to win, she (and more importantly her surrogates and staff) are going to have to abandon the use of sex or race as a shield. Where sexism and racism are self-evident, she doesn’t have to point it out, Americans are smart enough to know it when they see it and cringe from it as you would expect, and she looks above it by simply ignoring or deflecting from it.

Otherwise, she should just ignore perceived microaggresssions and move on; Americans don’t like fixation on these issues, particularly where it is unwarranted. If I were her advisor, I would not even play up being a woman or person of color; it’s not like we can’t see it with our own two eyes or will forget. Obama’s best campaign moments were when he downplayed race and instead discussed how we are all human and Americans, themes that united rather than divided. I am not the only one who thinks this; here is Jonathan V. Last discussing Harris’ first campaign rally in Milwaukee earlier this week:

I completely agree with the above. She should play up her meritorious record as a prosecutor, as a Senator, and as a Vice President, as people will respond better and more affirmatively to that than to the demographic issues that prove far more divisive. Let Trump make those arguments— he’ll be doing Harris a favor as swing voters will rightly recoil from his offensive broadsides.

She’s running to be President of ALL Americans and her appeal has to be broad enough to enompass all Americans to some degree. Successful candidates soften their hard edges to appeal to a broader base of people; Harris is not going to be the exception to that.

Can She Win?

Most definitely. Much moreso than Joe Biden could have expected this year. The Democratic Party just went all-in on a pair of sevens by switching out Biden and just won a huge pot. Right now, their stack is a hair bigger than the Republicans on the other end of the table, and its a completely new card game. Right now, its all about momentum and if Harris can carry this into September, even November, we could be talking about the first Madam President in the history of the United States. If I were her advisor, I would pick a solid V.P. candidate (all the names I hear being mentioned are top notch choices) to campaign in the Rust Belt, which she doesn’t quite relate to as well. Then I would focus Kamala in the states of Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and maybe Pennsylvania, leaning heavily on labor and Joe Biden for that last one. The more she can inch those southern and sun belt states into the D column, the better her odds.

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, may become the nation’s First Gentleman. He’s been a fixture on the campaign trail for his wife and seems to be enjoying it as much as Travis Kelce enjoys a Taylor Swift concert.

Melania on the other hand has been largely absent from the campaign trail.

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

“It’s a whole new ballgame.”

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff