- No way of getting around this: What we’re now seeing in the campaign is at the very outer bounds of what I thought was possible with a Biden-to-Harris switch. We’re now looking at a four-to-five point move in Harris’ direction over just two weeks. My bullish scenario was Harris resetting the campaign to the status quo ante before the big debate — at which point Biden was not in a bad position but was clearly if slightly behind. From there, a more dynamic Harris campaign uses the remaining three months of the campaign to battle its way into a lead. That’s not what we’re seeing. Harris is holding all of Biden’s strength in the Blue Wall states, adding to it and then also moving the southern tier states into contention. Her current popular vote margin is moving into the range a Democrat needs to win the election.
- From the moment Harris got in, I noted the critical battle of defining her public image. I noted yesterday that that is a fight the Trump campaign is so far decisively losing. They’ve put out messages in recent days explaining that they’re still devising a plan for how to define her. That’s an astonishing admission. Because that window is closing. Obviously there’s a lot of campaign to go. But the initial definitions usually stick. This week is likely to be taken up by free media generated by Harris’ VP pick. In two weeks from today the Democratic convention starts. In other words, we’re heading into the part of the campaign which is mostly a commercial for the Democrats. The GOP did that three weeks ago. That was their commercial. But they ran their convention against the wrong candidate. The Trump campaign is in a tight position because their own party commercial period was swamped by the candidate switch. There’s a sizable shift in Harris’ direction. And the Democrats’ campaign commercial window, even if it doesn’t result in more poll gains, is going to hold a lot of the press attention for the next couple weeks.
- There’s an appetite brewing in major segments of the political press for Harris’ momentum and press dominance to end. The Times had a piece a week ago saying Harris’s “honeymoon” was ending and that she had to find new ways to keep up her campaign’s momentum. That turned out to be editors trying to manifest a reality into existence. It didn’t work. The Hotline just ran a couple pieces arguing that Harris will soon have to start dealing with policy issues, which she allegedly hasn’t. A National Journal piece headlines: Harris’ Reasons for Running Remain Murky: The vice president has yet to succinctly define her vision for the United States. Wanting to know where a candidate stands on big issues is certainly reasonable. But Harris is pretty clearly running mostly on Biden’s policies. Her positions on the big issues are clear. Her electoral interest is to keep her momentum moving forward and not get picked apart by press questions. Reporters want to dig into details. A lot of this is code for wanting her to shift to talking about Gaza and inflation. She doesn’t want to do that. As long as the story is her rise she’s not under a lot of pressure to do either, at least not on anything but her own terms. Either way, this is a press dynamic to keep an eye on.
