No “Deplorables,” “You Ain’t Black,” “Cling to Guns”: Harris’s Gaffe-Free Campaign
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Today for the Washington Monthly, I wrote about the competing media strategies of the two presidential campaigns, with Kamala Harris favoring nonpolitical shows and targeting a wide array of demographics, and Donald Trump staying inside the conservative media echo chamber.
But I have an additional point to make about how Harris has executed her strategy to date.
No gaffes.
To be more specific, Harris has not experienced any gaffe-driven news cycles that put her on the defensive and require awkward clean up.
No “basket of deplorables” like Hillary Clinton.
No “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it” like John Kerry.
No “they get bitter and they cling to guns or religion” like Barack Obama.
No “you ain’t Black” like Joe Biden.
I have more to say about what Harris’s message discipline means for the campaign,
and I’ll give you Week 6 of the Washington Monthly Gender Gap Tracker.
But first, here’s what’s leading the Washington Monthly website:
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How Donald Trump is Channeling Machiavelli: Contributing Editor Robert J. Shapiro warns that Trump will abuse presidential power to punish his political opponents. Click here for the full story.
The Harris and Trump Media Strategies Tell Us How They Each View America: My analysis of how Harris is using media to reach out to different demographics while Trump stays inside the conservative cocoon. Click here for the full story.
October means playoff baseball, pumpkin-flavored coffees, and panic among Democrats.
Right on time, Axios reports today: “There’s growing worry among Democrats that [Kamala] Harris seems stuck, even sliding a bit, after a strong start to her young presidential campaign. Her media blitz, heavy spending and largely favorable coverage don’t seem to be moving the needle much, if at all, these Democrats say.”
And the report quotes Democratic campaign veteran James Carville saying Harris, “needs to be more aggressive,” and his peer David Axelrod counseling, “you have to lift your game and adjust your strategy.”
But the needle may not be moving because we are a politically polarized country with fewer swing voters. Or, as The New York Times’s Nate Cohn suggested, more polls this year are weighting their data on “recalled vote”–who voters say they voted for in 2020.
As Cohn explains, that decision “makes poll results look more like the 2020 election results” which had a big gap between national popular vote and swing states. Other recent data–the 2022 midterms, 2024 polls that do not weight by recalled vote–suggests that gap has narrowed to the Democrats’ benefit. In other words, pollsters may be artificially freezing the needle.
Regardless, campaigns should never get overconfident. They should run like the race is close. Campaigns are better positioned to win a close race if they have more money (Advantage Harris), a stronger ground game (Advantage Harris), and a disciplined candidate.
I would argue: Advantage Harris.
The closest comment to a gaffe on Harris’s recent media tour, as I noted in today’s column, was her initial response on The View to the question how she would be different than Biden: “There is not a thing that comes to mind.” That clip created some headlines and is being seized upon by the Trump campaign. But minutes later Harris partially recovered by saying that unlike Biden she would include a Republican in her cabinet, helping her prevent the comment from becoming a multi-day news story requiring a follow-up response.
Harris is playing close to error-free ball, perhaps better than any Democratic candidate in recent memory.
The needle may not be moving yet. But I bet by Election Day, most voters are going to know the basics of her policies, her principles, and her background, helping them make an informed decision. And that’s all a candidate can do to maximize her chances to win.
Yet second-guessing about her skills as a candidate persists.
A sexist double standard? You be the judge.
WASHINGTON MONTHLY GENDER GAP TRACKER
OCTOBER 10 EDITION
To refresh: the Gender Gap Tracker each week follows both the Gender Gap—the distance between the margin among women and the margin among men—and the Gender Gap Tilt—the difference between the female lead and the male lead. Only polls with gender breakdowns are included.
For example, in 2020, Biden won the women’s vote by 13 points (56-43) and Trump won the men’s vote by six (52-46). That adds up to a Gender Gap of 19 points, and a Gender Gap Tilt of Biden +7.
In 2016, Clinton also won the women’s vote by 13 (54-41) while Trump won the men’s vote by 11 (52-41). That amounts to a Gender Gap of 24 points with a Gender Gap Tilt of Clinton +2—which was enough for a national popular vote edge but not an Electoral College victory.
Below are the Week 6 Gender Gap Tracker numbers, with comparisons to Week 5. Last week’s numbers have been revised as one poll was released after publication of the October 3 newsletter that was sampled during the Week 5 period. Numbers do not always add up perfectly because of the effects of rounding.
GENDER GAP: 20.1 (change from last week: down 0.8)
GENDER GAP TILT: Harris +4.4 (2.2 shift toward Trump)
OVERALL AVERAGE
Harris: 48.7
Trump: 46.3
Margin: Harris +2.4 (0.2-point shift toward Harris)
FEMALE AVERAGE
Harris: 53.1
Trump: 40.9
Margin: Harris +12.3 (1.4-point shift toward Trump)
MALE AVERAGE
Trump: 51.3
Harris: 43.4
Margin: Trump +7.9 (0.8-point shift toward Trump)
Of note: With last week’s revision, Week 5 and Week 6 are the first weeks with the Gender Gap above 20. The range of the prior weeks is 16.0 to 19.4.
While you may often hear that this election will feature the widest gender gap in history, the Gender Gap Tracker averages so far are not as big as 2016’s record gap of 24 points.
And so far, the Gender Gap Tilt towards Harris remains bigger than Clinton’s meager +2 in 2016. This is because Harris is polling about 2 points better with men than Clinton (and about 1 point worse with women).
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Best,
Bill Scher, Washington Monthly politics editor
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