Establishment Democrats remain concerned about preventing former President Donald Trump from completing the greatest political comeback in modern American history — even after President Joe Biden stepped aside for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The concern spotlights Harris’s lack of a post-convention bump and the September 10 presidential debate, which will force Harris to speak about her radical record and how she plans to address the nation’s decline.
National and swing state surveys show that Trump and Harris are statistically tied. In polling on specific issues, however, Trump holds a sizable lead, suggesting Harris’s so-called “honeymoon” stage was a sugar high.
“She’s got luck,” Democrat strategist Jim Manley told the Wall Street Journal. “The question is how long it’s going to last.”
“This election is far from over,” Democrat strategist Donna Brazile told Politico.
“There’s not a scenario here that’s easy,” Harris senior adviser David Plouffe told the Associated Press. “The pathway to beating Donald Trump, the pathway to 270 electoral votes for Kamala Harris is exceedingly hard but doable. And that’s just a reality.”
Chief among Democrats’ concerns is Harris’s track record on the economy, the number one issue in the 2024 cycle. Eighty-seven percent of Americans believe the Biden-Harris administration’s policies have either hurt or had no impact on inflation, a Monmouth University poll found in June.
“We’ve got to win the economic argument,” populist Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna (CA) said during the Democratic National Convention. “We’ve got to make the case that we are the party that’s going to reindustrialize America and reenergize the working and middle class.”
Harris faces a conundrum on the economy and, in particular, on soaring costs, which have increased about 20 percent across the board since she took power in 2021. Harris cannot campaign on the reduction of soaring costs without undermining the Biden-Harris administration’s policies, but she must tout the administration’s policies to validate her record and candidacy.
CNN’s Dana Bash exposed Harris’s conundrum during her first pre-taped interview. Harris owned the Biden-Harris administration’s economic record while she simultaneously blamed Trump for it. The contradiction was stark, producing an outcome that forced Harris to tout her administration’s policies to validate her candidacy all while she undermined her record and her candidacy.
Not all Democrats appear worried about Harris’s catch-22. Harris “put the Democrats back in the game to where it’s kind of a toss-up,” Democrat pollster John Anzalone told the Associated Press.
“Post-Labor Day, when the bell rings, there is a battle for a slim universe of — you can call them anything you want: persuasion voters, swing voters, independent voters — and it’s pretty small, and that’s where each side gets a billion dollars,” he said.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, Harris’s campaign manager, wrote in a campaign memo on Tuesday that Harris maintains several paths to victory. “We maintain multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes and are growing strength across the types of voters who decide elections in every battleground,” she said.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
