Kamala Harris’s rise in many polls since the vice president replaced President Joe Biden as the Democrats’ candidate for 2024 is attributable to her becoming the so-called “generic” Democratic candidate, the New York Times reports.
Though the term “generic” can sound like a put-down, it is actually a coveted status, because “generic” candidates who simply reflect partisan loyalty often poll better than real candidates with real-world records and personalities.
Biden had been polling far below a “generic Democrat” because of disapproval, even among Democrats, about his job performance, and because of concerns about his age. But Harris, still relatively unknown, has rallied the party:
One way to think about her position is that she has become something like a “generic” Democrat. This might sound like an insult, but it’s really not. In fact, nothing is more coveted. An unnamed generic candidate — whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican — almost always fares better in the polls than named candidates, who are inevitably burdened by all the imperfections voters learn about in the process of a campaign.
When we polled these three states last October, an unnamed Democrat led Mr. Trump by around 10 points, even as Mr. Trump led Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris by about one point each. The upside of a different, broadly acceptable Democrat was purely hypothetical, of course. There was no guarantee that any real-world Democrat could avoid alienating many of the voters who would prefer to vote for someone other than Mr. Trump. And there was certainly no reason to think Ms. Harris would be such a Democrat, as she was viewed unfavorably by a majority of voters and brought plenty of political baggage from her tenure as vice president and her failed 2020 presidential campaign.
But today, Ms. Harris polls a lot more like that generic, unnamed Democratic presidential nominee. On question after question, the poll finds that voters don’t seem to have any major reservations about her. A majority say that she’s honest and intelligent; that she brings the right kind of change and has the temperament to be president; and that she has a clear vision for the country. A majority doesn’t think she’s too far to the left, either: Only 44 percent of likely voters say she’s too liberal or progressive, compared with 44 percent who say she’s not too far either way and another 6 percent who say she isn’t progressive enough. We didn’t need to ask whether voters thought she was too old to be an effective president.
The Times’ analysis matches this author’s own assessment from July — though Harris has yet to fall in the polls, probably because Republicans have been slow to define her, amid a sluggish turnaround from the Trump campaign:
Harris has also enjoyed glowing coverage in the mainstream media, and has refused to hold a press conference in the three weeks since she joined the race, thus ensuring fewer opportunities for voters to see her off guard and off script.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
