Democrats are generally quick to worry and slow to appease.
President Joe Biden spent months attempting to calm the growing hysteria within his party, but it eventually overwhelmed him, and he withdrew his re-election quest. The concern subsided briefly when Vice President Kamala Harris replaced him on the ticket, and her poll numbers skyrocketed.
With Harris’ statistics remaining static for weeks, many Democrats are once again concerned that the race is slipping away and that Donald Trump may potentially reclaim power.
Harris seemed to be fine with the collective anxiety, realizing that if Democrats are afraid of losing, they are more likely to turn out and vote for her. She likes to inform her followers that she’s sprinting like she’s behind.
However, she is facing a new round of internal criticism as party activists claim that she isn’t holding enough rallies, despite previously complaining that she wasn’t conducting enough interviews.
Trump is eager to insinuate that he is ahead, arguing that he cannot lose unless Democrats cheat.
If Harris’ motives are strategic, Trump’s are personal.
For Trump, the idea of losing at anything is an insult to the image he has built over decades. Success, or the illusion of it, is etched into his self-image. He publicizes his golf tournament triumphs at his club in West Palm Beach, Florida, and celebrates his TV ratings, while in politics, he continues to declare without evidence that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 election.
Voters may love an underdog, but for Trump to present himself as such would imply that he is losing to an opponent he has labeled as intellectually ill. That’s not something he can simply accept.
In truth, nobody is winning or losing less than three weeks before the election. According to polling, neither Harris nor Trump has established a lead that exceeds the margin of error. Harris reversed Biden’s polling deficit after becoming a candidate in July, and the race has since remained deadlocked.
“She’s trying to motivate her voters because she’s not performing at the levels that Hillary Clinton performed in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020 among key Democrat groups,” John McLaughlin, a Trump pollster, said CNN.
Claims that Harris is an underdog are “a liberal plot to get us overconfident on the Trump side,” he said. Previous Democratic campaigns “tried four and eight years ago to convince us we couldn’t win, and we won one and just missed the other one.”
As useful as Harris’ attempt to reduce expectations of victory is, Democratic analysts caution that her campaign approach has weaknesses. Some suggest that she should increase the tempo of her rallies while maintaining the spontaneity that voters prefer.
Harris has given numerous interviews to the news and entertainment media during the last two weeks, despite concerns within the party that her campaign was too insular. On Wednesday, she stepped onto hostile territory, participating in a confrontational interview with Fox News.
She’s also participated in smaller, more personal gatherings. On Sunday, she spoke at a church in Greenville, North Carolina. On Tuesday, Hillary swung by two Detroit companies to speak with voters, while also giving an interview to famous radio talk show host Charlamagne Tha God.
Despite this, a Democratic member of Congress stated that her appearances had a formulaic character that she must transcend.
“They need to unwrap her,” the legislator stated. “She needs to express her emotions and passion.” Donald Trump is insane, but he’s genuine. She has to demonstrate people she is genuine, and they must think she is striving for this position.”
Harris has held two rallies since Sunday — one in Greenville, North Carolina, and the other in Erie, Pennsylvania — with many more planned. On Thursday, Clinton is set to visit three campaign events in Wisconsin, one of the three “blue wall” states that Democrats feel are the best bet for victory.
The next day, Hillary is set to hold three additional campaign rallies in Michigan, adding another plank to the blue wall. After one more engagement in Michigan on Saturday, she is scheduled to fly to Georgia for a rally in a battleground state that Biden narrowly won in 2020 and Democrats hope to retain.
In the age of the internet, candidates have numerous options for reaching out to indecisive voters. With $1 billion raised, Harris has plenty of resources to identify them; for example, her campaign invested on the gaming website IGN to reach an elusive group of voters who aren’t interested in political news.
“You’ve got a bunch of different voters who receive information in a bunch of different types of ways that you have to reach,” David Plouffe, a former senior Barack Obama campaign official who is now advising the Harris team, said on a podcast recently. “And you want to be part of their groups and social media feeds.
“Kamala Harris and [vice presidential nominee] Tim Walz are going to go everywhere there’s an audience basically of people we think are going to be decisive in this election,” according to the legislator.
Rallies are traditional, yet they attract media attention and serve as campaign vehicles. At the Harris rally in Greenville, Democratic strategists with clipboards walked up and down the line of people waiting to enter, soliciting volunteers to knock on doors and call specific voters.
A Democratic strategist was upset that Harris had not held more rallies over the weekend.
“It’s nothing less than an f—— head-scratcher,” the strategist declared. “You should do four or five events in Pennsylvania in one day. People are sitting there, saying, “All hands on deck.” I am willing to work as hard as she can. But perhaps she should begin working as hard as she can.
A glance at Obama’s calendar from a comparable period during his successful presidential campaign in 2008 reveals a flood of well-attended events.
On October 9, 2008, 27 days before the election, Obama held three Ohio rallies, which he won. The following day, he held two additional rallies in Ohio. And on October 11, 25 days before the election, he attended four rallies in Pennsylvania, which he also recorded.
In comparison, Hillary Clinton maintained a light public schedule at the same time in 2016, despite holding a substantial lead in the polls.
On October 13, 2016, 27 days before the election, Clinton arrived on the set of Ellen DeGeneres’ television show. The next day, she went to a fundraising event in Seattle. A few days later, she appeared at a Broadway theater for a fundraiser alongside “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and a slew of other A-list celebs.