At the time this is typed Project 538 poll averages find Democratic Presidential Nominee Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly ahead of former President Donald Trump in the “Blue Wall” states of Michigan (15), Pennsylvania (19), and Wisconsin (10) – enough [with the Nebraska Second District (Omaha; 1)] to provide her with 270 Electoral College votes if the polls are accurate (she also leads in Nevada, 7; nice to have but not enough by itself to compensate for a loss of any Blue Wall state) – but trailing MAGA Presidential Nominee former President Donald Trump by similar narrow margins in Arizona (11), Georgia (16), and North Carolina (16). (As I have obsessively observed in these pages, if the Vice President wins Michigan and Wisconsin but loses Pennsylvania, she loses the presidency unless she can win either North Carolina or Georgia and pair it with a Nevada win.) I have the same twin gut reactions now as I had the day after the Democratic Convention: that if the election was held today, Mr. Trump would win (he has entrenched, implacable support, and a record of scoring better on Election Day than polls indicate); and that there is still time for Ms. Harris to eke it out if she’s savvy – although we’re now into the late innings.
The Vice President and Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee MN Gov. Tim Walz face a conundrum: “Joy” took them as far as it could – it brought them essentially even with the Trump-Vance ticket – but it hasn’t put them notably ahead, and their progress has stalled. In clips of her recent appearances I have seen, Ms. Harris looks visibly tired – no longer on the emotional high she felt through her debate with Mr. Trump. At the same time, while Mr. Trump and MAGA Vice Presidential Nominee U.S. OH Sen. JD Vance can be and are unscrupulous spewers of lies and hate – it’s their campaign brand — Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz cannot afford to get into a mud wrestling match without damaging their brand.
Ironically, in one sense the campaign has turned out to be a contest between President Joe Biden and former SC Gov. Nikki Haley after all: Mr. Trump is seeking to capture swing state men (black and white) who had been leaning toward Mr. Biden before he withdrew but polls indicate are less enthusiastic about Ms. Harris, while Ms. Harris is seeking to capture those Republican primary participants sufficiently disenchanted with Mr. Trump to have still been voting for Ms. Haley, another woman of Indian ancestry, weeks after Ms. Haley suspended her campaign and Mr. Trump had become the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.
Lately, there has been a lot of discussion among pundits in the media we follow about Republican voters claiming to be torn about the upcoming presidential election, who allegedly maintain deep reservations about Mr. Trump (perhaps: “I know that he’s a fascist fantasizing about a return to the 1950s, and he’s lying about the 2020 election, and he’s a convicted felon, and he incited the Capitol riot, and I wouldn’t want him around my daughter, but geez, I’ve voted Republican all my life …” 😉 ). These voters are supposedly still looking for what has been described as a “permission structure” to vote for Ms. Harris and against Mr. Trump.
In a way, these “Permission Seekers” are the most exasperating of the Trump adherents to me; unlike the racist nationalists supporting Mr. Trump (who make clear who Their Guy is), or those supporting him out of religious fervor (whether or not misplaced), or the willingly credulous (who support him because they trust alt-right propaganda outlets), or those understandably stressed by price increases [who unfortunately have not made allowances for the fact that the (albeit now-receding) inflationary surge they confront was arguably an unavoidable consequence of Democratic COVID relief that kept them afloat in the pandemic’s wake], the Permission Seekers know better. They know Mr. Trump is unfit to be President of the United States. While some may cite party loyalty to cloak uglier motives, some are seemingly genuinely paralyzed by the notion of abandoning a lifetime’s political paradigm.
(An aside: these Permission Seekers have naturally caused me to research the behavior of … lemmings. Apparently, lemmings don’t mindlessly follow each other over cliffs; such is a myth attributed to a 1950s documentary. It thus appears that the average lemming has a greater sense of independence and discernment than these conflicted Republicans.)
If the reporting and polling I’ve seen are accurate, Ms. Harris needs to make inroads with three currently reluctant voter segments to win: Republican Permission Seekers; White Male Biden Leaners; and Black Male Biden Leaners.
To woo the Republican Permission Seekers, I would like to see the Harris Campaign cut a number of 30-second spots highlighting each of Mr. Trump’s most glaring weaknesses, in which Mr. Trump does the talking (with Ms. Harris to provide a voice-over conclusion; see below), and run them staccato, such as: (1) January 6th: “If you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore,” followed by scenes from the Capitol riot; (2) Abortion: the clips in which Mr. Trump pledged to nominate anti-Roe v. Wade Justices, and his bragging about the result; (3) NATO: the clips of Mr. Trump praising Russian President Vladimir Putin and declaring the he wouldn’t care if Russia invaded a NATO country; (4) Display Mr. Trump’s social media post calling for termination of the Constitution to overturn an election he clearly lost; (5) Social Security and Medicare: the clip in which Mr. Trump states they need to be modified; (6) COVID: note the 1 million American deaths, and the respective clips in which Mr. Trump first suggested that the virus would just go away and later that it could be cured though an injection of bleach; and (7) Immigration (I think Ms. Harris needs to address it): use Republicans to describe how conservative the border bill was, followed by the clip in which Mr. Trump says to “blame me” for its failure.
I would end each spot with Ms. Harris voicing, in a truly neutral, even tone – not ironic, pejorative, or in any way confrontational: “Do you want to go back to that?” Such ads would, if well done, hit hard and align with Ms. Harris’ oft-repeated declaration, “We won’t go back,” while allowing the Permission Seeker to come to his/her own conclusion.
The Democrats’ reportedly have the war chest; they’d better use it.
Next, if the polls are accurately reflecting that Ms. Harris has lost some of the support Mr. Biden had among swing state white males before his withdrawal, one can infer – no matter how good or able a man Mr. Walz is, or how fine a Vice President he will be if elected – that if Ms. Harris picked Mr. Walz to hold this demographic segment, the pick probably hasn’t brought the returns she hoped for. [Before all you Walz supporters go back on the warpath against the Noise 🙂 , let me add that a close friend with a child living in Michigan recently told me that her child has indicated that the pivotal progressive Michigan Muslim voter segment is sufficiently motivated by the Israeli-Hamas conflict that if Ms. Harris had picked PA Gov. Josh Shapiro (whom I preferred) – a staunch defender of Israel – instead of Mr. Walz, Ms. Harris would have lost Michigan, which instead now appears to be her safest swing state.] However, the answer to the White Male Biden Leaner challenge seems straightforward: to the extent finances allow, get Mr. Biden on the road to encourage these voters. (The campaign cost of having a President of the United States barnstorm must be daunting.) I wouldn’t have Mr. Biden campaign in the big cities; I’d have him land (Air Force One, all the trappings of the presidency) in all the areas of swing states where Mr. Trump is campaigning – the middle of Pennsylvania, the center of Wisconsin, etc. – to reassure his white male supporters about Ms. Harris, and attempt to blunt Mr. Trump’s electoral advantage.
(A continuing lament about former President George W. Bush: if, as widely understood, he detests Mr. Trump and all Mr. Trump stands for, if he would stop cowering in his abode, endorse Ms. Harris and join Mr. Biden in the campaign stops described above – as former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney has recently joined Ms. Harris in Ripon, WI — my gut again tells me that the duo would effectively limit Mr. Trump’s advantage among white males in those areas. Alas, Mr. Bush stays mum.)
Finally, I’ve seen reported that a recent NAACP poll has found that Ms. Harris isn’t faring relatively as well among black males as previous Democratic presidential nominees. She clearly needs to shore up this constituency, but it’s obviously one with which I have little familiarity. I expect that the campaign will look to former President Barack Obama to shore up Democratic support among older black males. I’m absolutely confident that the campaign is working hard in trying to determine how to attract younger men of color. Ms. Harris’ current apparent weakness with black males relative to her Democratic presidential nominee predecessors is perplexing to me, but made me reflect upon a point of interest that I think I remember from the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contest between Mr. Obama and former U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton (but haven’t been able to confirm via Internet research, so I welcome correction if I’m experiencing yet another senior moment). In that nomination contest, I recall that Mr. Obama consistently took about 90% of the black vote, which arguably indicated – since his and Ms. Clinton’s substantive policy positions weren’t very different – that at least in 2008, most black women identified more by race than by gender. Since Ms. Harris has reportedly lost some of Mr. Biden’s black male (but not black female) supporters to Mr. Trump, one might infer that given the unabashedly race-baiting nature of the Trump Campaign, at least in 2024, a relatively larger percentage of black men (as contrasted with black women in 2008) identify more by gender than by race.
One thing that Democrats can’t do: cede the airways on highly-rated events. Many who read these notes are aware that I tape Packer games rather than watch them live, and generally only watch replays of victories (TLOML’S decades-old suggestion; it’s easier on my viscera and less wearing on those around me 😉 ). I naturally fast-forward through commercials. I can’t vouch for the political ads in the first half of yesterday’s Green Bay – Los Angeles Rams game – it only occurred to me to slow down for political ads during the second half — but during the second half the only presidential election ads were Trump ads attacking Ms. Harris. Packer games are the only media event I can think of that is sure to simultaneously capture a large statewide share of the eyes of Wisconsin Republican Permission Seekers, White Male Biden Leaners, and Black Male Biden Leaners. Unless the Democrats ran their ads in the first half, an opportunity wasted.
The intelligence behind political target marketing has obviously become unnervingly good. TLOML and I are inundated with Democratic pleas for contributions and assurances that we will vote. We receive nothing from Republicans.
In a contest this close, there are still innings to play; either side can still prevail (just ask the New York Mets or Milwaukee Brewers about the possibility for late comebacks). Let us hope that Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz, with the help of both liberal and conservative surrogates and the Democratic party “ground game,” effectively address their electoral shortcomings during the next couple of weeks (as early voting begins in earnest). Our democracy depends on it.
McCoy's Noise 