The Campaign That Pushed Harris Into a Tie With Donald Trump

A closing act that battles for the middle class again can change the race.

The Harris campaign had been moving effectively into at least a 3-point national lead, with impressive margins in the key battleground states, until it stalled and slipped into an effectively tied race. Knowing why will enable Democrats to close the high-stakes 2024 campaign with a focused campaign that engages voters and wins.

Election margins shift on this scale when the competing party bases get more people united, registered, and turned out to vote.

Biden was slipping to at least a 3-point deficit when he passed the torch to Kamala Harris. I was sending daily emails to the Biden team. The reason I was confident she would reverse the slide and move into a big lead was because Biden was underperforming with the young, millennials, unmarried women, Blacks, and Hispanics. Three in five Democratic base voters thought the country was on the wrong track. She was looking at a base that was discontented and wanted visible change.

The full article can be read at The American Prospect.

Trump Is Laser-Focused on the Final Duel. Harris Is Not.

That will put Trump and Vance in the White House.

This is a change election increasingly dominated by two dominant factors. The most important is voters choosing which leader will stand with the hardworking middle class being hit by high prices and the cost of living, while the big corporations make super profits at its expense.

And the second is who will get control of the border and immigration, while U.S. citizens get in line for public services.

Likely voters put cost of living 18 points higher in importance than the border, but both of them well above everything else.

You can see voters’ increased anger in the double-digit rise in those choosing those two issues. This is how voters are expressing their feeling of being victimized and wronged. With both, they see changes in the policy offer that will make their lives better if the right side wins. They get excited about bold offers, like the expanded monthly tax credit and big corporations paying their fair share. They also like closing the border or building a wall.

The full article can be read at The American Prospect.

Will Democratic Reformers Save America?

Donald Trump has reshaped the electorate, but by focusing on the cost of living, Harris could still make meaningful gains.

We are five weeks away from Election Day in the 2024 presidential election, and the right-wing populist party led by Donald Trump is competitive.

Nonetheless, the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris will likely win. She has a 3-point lead in national polls. And according to my new poll for Democracy Corps, as well as most surveys in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, she has momentum in the Rust Belt. She is winning by about 2 points in each state, putting her ahead of Joe Biden’s razor-thin margins four years ago. Our poll shows increased support for Democrats in the House and Senate battlegrounds as well.

The full article can be read at The American Prospect.

The Success of Messaging at the DNC

Democrats are hitting all the notes that have eluded them.

Vice President Kamala Harris has accomplished amazing things in four weeks and is poised to be victorious in the 2024 presidential election. She may also be setting the stage for a win so big even Trump’s claim that illegal immigrants robbed him of his victory won’t be sustained for very long. That is a win for democracy. But she may also be able to achieve what is considered a landslide in our polarized times. That would give her a government majority and a win for social democracy.

What is happening?

The full article can be read at The American Prospect.

They Don’t Want Trump OR Biden. Here’s How They Still Can Elect Biden.

Our new survey of these voters shows how the president can still win their support.

President Biden and Donald Trump have now each won enough delegates to ensure their respective presidential nominations. Yet we are facing an election in which an unprecedented share of voters desperately wish that the two major parties don’t nominate these leaders.

We’ve had such “dual haters” before. In 2016, when Hillary Clinton faced Donald Trump, they comprised 18 percent of the voters and they played a pivotal role in putting Trump in the White House. They gave Trump an over 20-point margin in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

This year, the “dual haters” are 23 percent of the electorate, and they will not be easy voters for Biden to win. Right now, he is losing them by 8 points in a two-way contest and by 10 in the multicandidate field.

These numbers come from a survey of 2,500 potential voters in battleground states that Democracy Corps and PSG Consulting conducted at the end of 2023, which included 500 over- samples of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians at the end of the year. Our survey used the thermometer scale used by the University of Michigan’s National Election Studies, asking voters to give “warm” and “cool” ratings on a 100-degree thermometer.

The most important finding was the share of these “dual haters” who are potential swing voters. Fully 45 percent are independents; 51 percent are moderates. Only 4 percent are “very conservative.” And a 55 percent majority say they’ll vote for independent candidates, led by Robert F. Kennedy. In a simulated race against Biden, 57 percent said they’d choose Nikki Haley.

This is a group of voters that could break for Biden.

The full article can be read at The American Prospect.