WASHINGTON — Democrats are quick to worry and slow to calm down.
President Joe Biden spent months trying to quell the growing panic within his party that ultimately destroyed him and he dropped his re-election bid. Concern eased somewhat when Vice President Kamala Harris replaced him on the ticket and his poll numbers rose.
With Harris’ numbers stagnant for weeks, many Democrats are worried that the election is once again over and that Donald Trump could once again take power.
Harris seems comfortable with collective anxieties, realizing that Democrats are more inclined to turn out and help him win if they fear they will lose. He likes to tell his supporters that he’s running behind.
But he is facing fresh internal criticism as party activists complain he is not holding enough rallies after weeks of protests. he wasn’t giving enough interviews.
Trump is happy to say he’s ahead — declaring he can’t lose Democrats cheat.
If Harris’s motivations are strategic, Trump’s are personal.
For Trump, the notion that he has lost at everything is an affront to the image he has built up over decades. Success, or at least the appearance of it, permeated his personality. He publicizes his victories golf tournaments He celebrates at his club in West Palm Beach, Florida its television ratingsand in the political sphere, he still insists without proof that he is the rightful winner of the 2020 elections.
Voters may appreciate an underdog, but Trump’s portrayal of himself would suggest he lost to an opponent he describes as mentally retarded. This is not something he can easily tolerate.
In reality, less than three weeks before the election, nobody wins or loses. Polls show that neither Harris nor Trump have built a lead beyond mistakes. Harris erased Biden’s deficit in the polls after becoming the nominee in July, and the race has been on ever since. a dead heat.
“He’s trying to motivate his voters because he’s not performing at the level that Hillary Clinton did in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020 among the major Democratic groups,” said Trump pollster John McLaughlin.
He claims that Harris is a “liberal ploy to keep us over-trusting the Trump side.” Previous Democratic campaigns “tried to make us believe we couldn’t win four and eight years ago, and we won one and lost the other.”
While lowering expectations for a Harris victory is helpful, Democratic strategists warn that they see flaws in his campaign strategy. Some argue that he should increase the pace of his rallies, showing the spontaneity voters want to see.
Harris has sat down for more interviews with news and entertainment media over the past two weeks — amid suspicions within the party that his campaign is too isolated. On Wednesday, he ventured into unfriendly territory by attending the island A combative interview with Fox News.
He has also dabbled in smaller, more intimate events. On Sunday, he spoke at a church in Greenville, North Carolina. On Tuesday, he stopped by two Detroit businesses to meet with voters, the same day he was interviewed by popular radio talk show host Charlamagne Tha God.
Even so, the Democratic member of Congress said, there is a formulaic quality to her appearance that needs to be overcome.
“They should open it,” said the deputy. “He has to show his emotions and show his passion. Donald Trump is crazy, but he’s real. He has to show people that he is real, and people have to believe that he is fighting for this job.”
Harris has held two rallies since Sunday — one in Greenville, North Carolina, and one in Erie, Pennsylvania — with more to come. On Thursday, he plans to hold three campaign rallies in Wisconsin, part of a “blue wall” trinity of what Democrats believe is the surest path to victory.
The next day, he is expected to hold three more campaign events in Michigan, another plank on the blue wall. After another event in Michigan on Saturday, he is scheduled to fly to Georgia for a rally in a Democratic battleground state where Biden narrowly won in 2020.
In the Internet age, candidates have any number of ways to reach undecided voters. With $1 billion raised, Harris has plenty of resources to find them; his campaign, for example, even sunk in some money IGN gaming site to reach a group of voters who do not tune in to political news.
“You have a bunch of different voters who are getting information in different ways that you have to get it,” said David Plouffe, a former senior Obama campaign official who now advises the Harris campaign. he said on the podcast recently. “And you want to be in their communities, in their social media feeds.
“Kamala Harris and [vice presidential nominee] “Tim Walz will go wherever he has an audience of people who we think will be decisive in this election,” the deputy added.
Rallies are old school, but they tend to cover the news and provide vehicles for campaigns. At the Harris rally in Greenville, clipboard-wielding Democratic operatives paced up and down the line of people waiting to get in, asking for volunteers to knock on doors and make phone calls to target voters.
One Democratic strategist was concerned that Harris had not held more rallies over the past weekend.
“It’s nothing more than a head scratcher,” the strategist said. “You have to do four or five events a day in Pennsylvania. People sit there and say, “All hands on deck.” I am ready to work as much as he can.” But maybe he should start working as much as he can.”
A look at Obama’s calendar during a similar period during his winning presidential bid in 2008 shows that there were rallies with large crowds.
On October 9, 2008—27 days before the election—Obama held three rallies in Ohio, and he won. The next day, he held two more rallies in Ohio. On October 11, 25 days before the election, he participated in 4 rallies in Pennsylvania and captured it.
On the contrary, Hillary Clinton a light public schedule Sitting at the same point in the calendar in 2016 a comfortably leads the elections.
On October 13, 2016 — 27 days before the election — Clinton arrived on the set of Ellen DeGeneres’ television show. The next day, he attended a fundraiser in Seattle. A few days later, he appeared at a Broadway theater fundraiser with “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and a host of other A-list celebrities.
He continued to lose nervously.