I’ve written about it here, and I talked about it during our latest pondcast with Bill Hangley Jr., This is a terrible election cycle to be an incumbent at the top of the ticket, and I predicted that if either Joe Biden or Donald Trump dropped out, their respective replacements would instantly jump out to a lead and be favored to win the November presidential election. In other words, people want to punish someone in charge, and they don’t much care who the replacement might be. This would favor Trump except he’s running for a second term. He’s not new. He’s not change. He’s part of the system people wan’t punished. Given a choice between Biden and Trump, the people were saying “neither.”
For the same reason, I didn’t think Kamala Harris was the ideal replacement for Biden. It was nothing particular to her, but she was still part of the Biden administration. Someone completely fresh would be better. But she doesn’t have to be ideal to benefit from the strong voter preference for someone new. She’s being showered with praise for how her campaign has rolled out on a dime, and she deserves some praise. She’s hit all her marks, she has a good freedom message and she’s strong on the stump, and her choice of Tim Walz as a running mate was well-reasoned and well-received. But she really didn’t need to be perfect, as Nate Cohn explains:
Seventeen days later, Kamala is brat. The donations are flowing. Arenas are packed for her rallies. The groundswell of support isn’t coming from just the Democratic base, either. Her favorability ratings have surged in recent polls, with now almost half of voters saying they have a favorable view of her. She’s taken a narrow lead in the polls against Mr. Trump, and she might still be gaining.
How did Ms. Harris do it? What’s striking is that she didn’t have to do much. Mr. Biden’s decision to drop out, and her entry into the race, instantly electrified the Democratic Party, and she’s ridden an enormous wave of pent-up enthusiasm for a new face and fresh energy.
It’s worth pausing and thinking about all the things she didn’t have to do to pull this off — the kinds of things that desperate campaigns might try, or that might have made it into a West Wing episode, like a new policy platform, a new message, a soaring speech or an exhaustive news conference. She’s backed away from earlier left-leaning positions on fracking, the border and Medicare for all, but there hasn’t been the need for a Sister Souljah moment scolding the left to redefine her as a centrist. Instead, she has campaigned as a mainstream Democrat, with the usual Democratic message focused on issues like abortion and Mr. Trump’s criminal conduct.
My only quibble here is that her freedom message is different from Biden’s protecting democracy message even if it’s closely related. I’d also add, that far from trying out some Sister Souljah moment, she embraced the left by picking Walz, and that seems to have helped rather than hurt. It’s important that the Democratic base is fired up. But, according to my analysis, it’s the swingy voters who are happiest, because they’re the ones who were most dissatisfied with the choice between Biden and Trump. Now they can vote for someone else, and that’s exactly what they’ve been telling pollsters they wanted to do for more than a year.
It definitely matters that Harris looks like a much better campaigner than she did in 2020, and that she and Walz and projecting joy and optimism to contrast with the dour, apocalyptic hatred of the Trump/Vance ticket. But I truly believe that if it had been Trump who dropped out, his replacement would be receiving most of the same boost in energy and good will that Harris/Walz are enjoying.
The lack of ideological component to this is what we saw in the British and French elections, where the Tories and Emmanuel Macron’s party were decimated in favor of the left in the U.K. and to the benefit of fascists in France. The only reason Biden was holding almost even here is because Trump shared the same incumbent problem.
I now see Harris and Walz as favored to win, with the only doubt introduced by the Electoral College and possible shenanigans related to non-certification of state election results by MAGA election officials. Because this isn’t an ideological battle, but a battle for newness, I believe Harris had the correct instincts in picking Walz. His strong progressive record is largely irrelevant. What matters is that he’s new, energetic and extremely likable. It shows that Trump was on the right track when he chose Vance over retreads like Marco Rubio, but Vance’s problem is that he’s not likable. Yes, he holds some extremely weird, offensive and unpopular beliefs but the policies of the running mate rarely matter. It’s the meanness of those policies rather than their substance that hurt Vance, because he can’t promote or defend them with a smile.
One policy issue that I think is really still potent in this election is women’s reproductive rights, and Vance is an albatross on everything related to women. The policy issue that has the most salience for the right is immigration, but that was true in the U.K. too and Labour went on to have one of it best ever election results. Unhappiness with immigration will keep Trump and Vance from completely collapsing, but it won’t put them over the top. They’ve been pushed into the role of the incumbents, and that’s not where you want to be in this election cycle.
Small quibble, the Fascists really didn’t win much in France.
Is the title of this article off? Walz?
yes, thanks. D’oh.
As noted by others, you may want to change the headline. Otherwise, I need to look around to see if there are any reports or analyses on where these local MAGA officials may be and what damage they can do.
Really good analysis, thanks. A couple of additional thoughts:
1 – Walz is a “progressive” only because Minnesota Dems had a trifecta and passed a bunch of stuff like free school lunch for all, and don’t beat up trans kids, and abortion access, and pro-labor laws. Before that he was a “moderate” from a center-right rural district and one of the most bipartisan members of the House. The most important thing about picking him is no key party faction had issues with him (as labor did with Kelly, and progressives did with Shapiro on Gaza and student protests). The joy and chemistry he and Harris exude is a bonus, and the voter reaction is made possible by the party unity (and relief after weeks of agonizing about BIden).
2 – It’s not just that Harris is a better campaigner than she was four years ago; and that she’s getting the “newness” vote. It’s also that she and the Democrats have done a superb job of “blocking and tackling”, I.e., the nuts and bolts of campaigning. Everything from Biden’s withdrawal/endorsement of her, to her calling 100+ party leaders in 10 hours, to locking up a majority of delegates within 48 hours, to the party faction/affinity groups for Harris Zoom calls, to the VP pick, to the messaging (and message discipline), to this swing state campaign swing before the convention has been executed about as well as it possibly could be.
3 – As for GOP attempts to steal the election, the primary task (as I see it) for 99% of us is to focus on winning Nov. 5, and by as large a margin as possible. If Harris sweeps MI, PA, WI in the north and AZ, GA, NC, NV in the south/west, then that’s the single biggest factor blocking Trump’s 2nd attempt to overthrow a presidential election.
In addition to Marc Elias and the hundreds of Dem lawyers who’ll be doing election integrity work at polling stations and in courthouses, I hope there’s a team quietly putting together a political strategy for short-circuiting Trump’s attempted overthrow, and that the strategy includes “Uncle Joe” using the full powers of his office (including DOJ, DHS, DOD, NPS, etc.) to squelch any such attempts.