Trumpworld Starts to Understand That It's a Different Race

Our most recent book is Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Less than 48 hours after Biden's withdrawal, Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee.

Marc Caputo at The Bulwark:

“The situation we find ourselves in today is totally uncharted territory and has no modern historical parallel,” Trump pollster and senior adviser Tony Fabrizio wrote in a Wednesday memo. He acknowledged the challenges of the “Harris Honeymoon” but predicted the “fundamentals of the race” will ultimately prevail, with Trump marginally leading.

Fabrizio’s memo was a public acknowledgement of what the Trump campaign has come to grips with since Sunday: Facing a diminished Biden was too easy, and they took Harris for granted.

“It’s going to be harder. But the team had grown complacent,” said a campaign insider. “There was all this licking of our chops and what we were going to do in the White House. In some ways, this was a great wakeup call. People are back to work.”

That work starts with finally getting aggressive on the airwaves. Since the primary ended, Trump’s campaign has barely spent anything on TV—just $63,715.13, according to AdAnalytics. The campaign had leaned, instead, on Trump driving the news cycle, and banked on Biden’s fecklessness.

Harris is different. The vice president has more swagger than Biden. And her performance on the stump along with a buzzy new digital ad has laid bare the difference between the two.

“What we could have gotten in earned media, we will have to now pay for,” the Trump campaign insider said. On Thursday, Politico’s Meridith McGraw reported that the pro-Trump MAGA Inc. super PAC was dropping another $32 million into ads going after Harris.

The Trump campaign had gamed out how to attack Harris for weeks. But it still did not expect her rapid ascent and consolidation of support. Prior to Biden’s withdrawal, one Trump confidant who had discussed the race with the ex-president said the campaign was counting on a “bloodbath” of an open Democratic primary if Biden stepped aside.

J.D. Vance is Bad News

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  And neither is the selection of J.D. Vance as its vice presidential candidate.  (Dem oppo folks are doing well.)

Aaron Blake at WP:

Let’s first dive into the numbers, from the CNN, NPR-PBS-Marist College, Reuters-Ipsos, Quinnipiac University and Economist-YouGov polls:

• Vance’s best numbers are in the Marist poll (31 percent favorable versus 33 percent unfavorable). But in every other poll, he’s between six and nine points underwater.
• Vance appears to struggle with independent voters. In four of the five polls, his unfavorable rating with them is double digits higher than his favorable rating. (The fifth poll shows him eight points underwater.)
• He doesn’t appear to have improved his image in recent days. The Reuters-Ipsos poll showed him going from six points negative last week to seven points negative today. CNN showed him going from seven points negative last month to six points negative now. In both cases, many more voters have rendered judgments on him than before, but those reviews haven’t been positive.

Becca Wood at Yahoo:

The “childless cat ladies” of the internet aren’t letting Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, forget a past interview.

Speaking to Tucker Carlson on Fox in July 2021, Vance said the U.S. was being run by “childless cat ladies” who “force their misery on the rest of the country” and have no direct stake in the government because they don’t have kids.

Vance, who has three children, referred to Vice President Kamala Harris, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg by name.

The interview resurfaced in the wake of Harris’ rise as the potential new democratic candidate for president after current president, Joe Biden, withdrew from the race.

Now, people who do not, or can not, have children are calling attention to the interview on social media.

Patrick Marley at WP:

A year before J.D. Vance was elected to the Senate, he advocated for a novel way to enhance the political strength of families — by giving parents the ability to cast tens of millions of additional votes on behalf of their children.

Vance, now the Republican nominee for vice president, in a 2021 speech called for encouraging Americans to have more babies and allowing them to more fully advocate for their children.

“When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power,” he told the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute. “You should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic than people who don’t have kids. Let’s face the consequences and the reality. If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.”

Laura Field at Politico:

Vance is staunchly opposed to abortion, and has suggested that it is wrong even in cases of rape and incest. He has compared the evil of abortion to that of slavery, and opposed the Ohio ballot measure ensuring the right to abortion in 2023. He also was one of only 28 members of Congress who opposed a new HIPAA rule that would limit law enforcement’s access to women’s medical records. He has promoted Viktor Orban’s pro-natalist policies in Hungary, which offer paybacks to married couples that scale up along with the number of children (a new Hungarian Constitution that banned gay marriage went into effect in 2012, so these benefits only serve “traditional” couples). Vance opposes same-sex marriage. During his 2022 Senate campaign, he suggested the sexual revolution had made divorce too easy (people nowadays “shift spouses like they change their underwear”), arguing that people in unhappy marriages, and maybe even those in violent ones, should stay together for their children. His campaign said such an insinuation was “preposterous,” but you can watch the video yourself and be the judge.

Kamala's Luck

Our most recent book is Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Less than 48 hours after Biden's withdrawal, Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee.

A shrewd take from JVL:

Kamala Harris has a number of decisions to make, quickly.

For starters, it appears as though Harris will inherit the entire Biden 2024 campaign—the personnel, the org chart, the infrastructure, and the money.1

Harris could keep everything as-is. But she is likely to bring in her own people and place them on top of the existing structure in order to create a clear strategic vision that she herself is in sync with—and can then be pushed down the chain to the pre-existing logistical operation.

If you remember Harris’s 2019 campaign, her biggest problem was management.

Creating a presidential campaign is like building a start-up. You have to hire smartly, manage people, and husband resources while trying to create product-market fit with a short runway.

Harris failed at this task, which is why she dropped out before Iowa. Her obvious strengths as a candidate weren’t enough to overcome her weaknesses as a startup founder.

One of Harris’s many advantages in this particular moment is that she doesn’t need to manage a startup this time. She has been given the keys to a mature business. Meaning that she is freed to leverage her strengths.

And Harris’s biggest strength is what political pros refer to as “candidate quality.” She’s smart. She gives a good speech. She’s deft with questions and can relate to people. She can drive a message.

Had Joe Biden stood down in 2022 following the midterm elections, I’m not certain Kamala Harris would have won the nomination.

But this crazy moment is almost a perfect storm for her. Fate has positioned her in such a way as to minimize her biggest weaknesses and maximize her greatest strengths. She is free to be herself, without having had to fend off primary challengers. She has the Democratic party unified behind her and this time, the short runway works to her advantage.

That Was Quick

Our most recent book is Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Less than 48 hours after Biden's withdrawal, Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee.

AP:

An Associated Press survey finds that Kamala Harris has secured the support of enough Democratic delegates to become her party’s nominee against Donald Trump.

The delegate survey is different from AP’s count of delegates won during the primary. The survey is an unofficial tally, as Democratic delegates are free to vote for the candidate of their choice when the party picks its new nominee.

Endorsed by Joe Biden after his decision to leave the race, Harris quickly locked up the support of her party’s donors, elected officials and other leaders. No other candidate was named by a delegate in the survey and Harris now appears to have the backing of more than the 1,976 delegates she’ll need to claim the nomination.

Lazaro Gamio et al. at NYT:

A majority of Democrats in Congress and all of the country’s Democratic governors have announced their support for Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the Democratic ticket after President Biden stepped out of the presidential race on Sunday.

 Steve Peoples at AP:

Kamala Harris is smashing fundraising records as the Democratic Party’s donors — big and small — open their wallets for the vice president in the immediate aftermath of President Joe Biden’s stunning decision to step aside.

In total, Harris’ team raised more than $81 million in the 24-hour period since Biden’s announcement, campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said Monday.

The massive haul, which includes money raised across the campaign, the Democratic National Committee and joint fundraising committees, represents the largest 24-hour sum reported by either side in the 2024 campaign. Harris’ campaign said it was the largest single-day total in U.S. history.

“The historic outpouring of support for Vice President Harris represents exactly the kind of grassroots energy and enthusiasm that wins elections,” Munoz said.

Hours earlier, Future Forward, the largest super PAC in Democratic politics, announced it had secured $150 million in commitments over the same period from donors who were “previously stalled, uncertain or uncommitted,” a senior adviser said.

 

Everything Just Changed

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. 

After Biden's bad debate performance there was off-the-record talk about replacing him on the Democratic ticket. In the past week, many more Democrats went on the record.

Yesterday, Biden yielded to the inevitable.

 Mike Allen at Axios:

One candidate was shot in the ear — an assassin's bullet putting him inches from death. The other quarantined with COVID — then quit his campaign, reluctantly, abruptly.That was just eight days of the wildest and weirdest presidential campaign of our lifetime, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei write in a Behind the Curtain column.

...

How it happened: We told you Thursday in a breaking "Behind the Curtain" column that top Democrats were privately telling us they expected President Biden to decide to drop out of the presidential race, as soon as this weekend.It happened right on schedule yesterday with a 1:46 p.m. ET tweet — one minute after a video call where he told senior staff of the White House and campaign. Harris, White House chief of staff Jeff Zients and campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon had gotten earlier heads-up calls.


The Biden campaign formally changed its name to Harris for President within hours. 

A Biden friend, pointing to the president's rage over last week's leaks, barbs and lectures from Democrats at all levels, told us: "It was fury for a while. Then he surrendered to reality. He's a professional."In the end, it was the data, including grim polling from swing states. "No one was able to produce data points that showed him winning," said a Democratic insider who has been at the center of the party's frantic conversations since Biden's debate debacle 25 days ago. "They tried everything. There was no path."

...

"The whole party is breathing a sigh of relief," the Democratic insider said.
...

President Biden quickly endorsed Vice President Harris for the nomination, as did the Clintons. But the Democratic Party is leaving open the possibility of a competitive nomination process, Mike and Jim write.Former President Obama held off on an endorsement, saying: "We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead."

Between the lines: As we told you in a column two weeks ago, Harris will be almost impossible to beat for the nomination, thanks to endorsements, money, optics and 2028 politics. Given the Democratic base, are you really going to take down the first Black American, the first South Asian American and the first woman to be elected vice president?

...

James Carville, who two weeks ago had advocated for regional town halls to help determine a nominee, now tells us it's too late for such a process. "You can just feel it: Let's go," he said. "I don't have any sense there's time or appetite."Harris immediately enjoyed "broad, swift consolidation" among major Democratic donors, who are feeling optimism for the first time in weeks, the N.Y. Times reports.

 

UPDATE: As of 9pm ET, grassroots supporters have raised $46.7 million through ActBlue following Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign launch. This has been the biggest fundraising day of the 2024 cycle. Small-dollar donors are fired up and ready to take on this election 🔥

— ActBlue (@actblue) July 22, 2024

Three Doors

I usually use this blog to post snippets of news stories, survey data, and academic studies. The audience is small, but that is irrelevant because I keep the blog primarily to take notes for future research projects. If other people want to look in, great.  If not, no problem.  The discipline of keeping a daily blog produces a great deal of source material even if nobody else is reading.

Today, however, I want to use the blog to analyze the problem facing Democrats.  They are looking at three doors, each opening up a world of danger.  There is no safe path forward.

Door 1 is simple:  go with Joe.  The risk is not just that the damage from the June 27 debate will linger. He is already falling behind Trump, and only a flawless, energetic performance on the campaign trail could turn things around.  Very unlikely.  He is slipping, and he will probably have more senior moments in public between now and Election Day.   

Door 2 is Kamala Harris, either by presidential endorsement or through some sort of contest.  On the one hand, she is energetic and can give a rousing speech. She has unfettered access to Biden-Harris campaign money.  She has undergone vetting, first through her short-lived 2020 presidential campaign and the background check preceding her nomination for vice president.  On the other hand, she says goofy stuff when she goes off-script.  She also has to grapple with her image as a California liberal and her nominal duty as point person on border issues, among other things.. And expect MAGA world to talk about her relationship with Willie Brown.

Door 3 is SOMEBODY ELSE.  Lots of fantasy names are floating around, including Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro.  One problem is that a last-minute candidate would have to build an organization and treasury from scratch and do it almost instantly.  Possible, but damn hard.  Another problem is that most fantasy names have undergone neither a formal background check nor an informal vetting through opposition research in a national campaign.  Yes, they have won statewide.  But presidential campaigns are different, with a much deeper level of scrutiny. (Remember that Tom Eagleton had won statewide in Missouri before it turned out that he had undergone electroconvulsive therapy.)  Moreover, someone who emerged out of a contested convention would have to pick a running mate right away, and that person would have undergone no vetting, either. Whitmer and Shapiro might be wonderful nominees who pick wonderful running mates.  But they could be disasters, too.

An Unchanged Man

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.

Meridith McGraw et al. at Politico:

When Donald Trump emerged on stage with a bandaged ear he somberly — and emotionally — recounted how he survived an assassination attempt.

And then, he veered straight back into MAGA mode.

Over the course of a 90-plus-minute speech in Milwaukee — the longest acceptance speech by a presidential nominee in history — Trump boasted about meeting with the head of the Taliban and how he “got along very well” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He went off on MS-13, immigration, crime declining in Venezuela by 42 percent and the media calling him a braggart. He called the streets of Washington a “killing field.” And he cracked a joke about Hannibal Lecter: “He would love to have you for dinner.”

Trump’s crowning moment — set up to be a triumphant return to center stage just five days after a bullet pierced his ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — turned into a meandering speech that resembled his usual rallies with macabre descriptions of a nation in decline.

If he stopped at the 25 minute mark, it would have gone down as a brilliant convention speech and proof that he was a changed man after the assassination attempt. But he’s now just proving he hasn’t changed.

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) July 19, 2024

Important caveat: 

The rambling doesn’t matter. The sound bites were made. Tomorrow the clips will be Hulk Hogan intro and fist pumping 🇺🇸 glory. Shared on social to many impressionable people who don’t spend hours watching a political speech. The warrior image is cast.

— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) July 19, 2024