Voters are ‘showing up!’ Harris team touts ‘enthusiasm’ and 'momentum' in final days

Vice President Kamala Harris is expressing cautious optimism in the final days of the 2024 presidential race, saying voters are “showing up,” and she is “seeing an incredible amount of enthusiasm from people of every walk of life.”

“What I’m enjoying the most about this moment is that in spite of how my opponent spends full time trying to divide the American people, what I’m seeing is people coming together under one roof who seemingly have nothing in common, and know they have everything in common,” the Democratic presidential nominee told reporters Friday afternoon (video below). “And I think that is in the best interest of the strength of our nation.”

Vice President Harris and her campaign have been focused, deliberate, and on-message since she began running for president just 103 days ago. Earlier this week, campaign manager and co-chair Jen O’Malley Dillion sought to tamp-down fears and anxiety from Harris’ supporters in a three-minute video acknowledging that the “race is going to be extremely close,” and “we still have a lot of work to do,” while saying, “we’re on track to win a very close election,” and “we feel really good with what we’re seeing.”

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Early Friday afternoon the campaign became a bit less tight-lipped, appearing to “leak” to reporters a somewhat more optimistic view of the election.

“Senior Harris campaign staff say their internal data shows Harris winning battleground state voters who have made up their minds in the last week by double-digit margins. They say that Trump’s MSG [Madison Square Garden] rally was the ‘last straw’ for late-breaking undecided voters,” TIME’s Charlotte Alter reported.

“Top Harris brass says their organizing operation has knocked on 13 million doors across the battleground states. In October, they made 100m [100 million] calls into battleground states,” Alter wrote. “In PA alone, their team is on track to knock 5m doors and have 1m conversations with voters by election day.”

“Top campaign staff believe Harris’s momentum is [because] of the work they’re putting in, but also [because] Trump’s MSG fiasco has broken through to late-breaking undecided voters. The MSG rally has sharpened the contrast and reminded voters what Trump is like.”

Meanwhile, Harris campaign senior advisor David Plouffe, who ran Barack Obama’s successful 2008 presidential campaign and became his White House senior advisor, offered additional insight.

“It’s helpful, from experience, to be closing a Presidential campaign with late deciding voters breaking by double digits to you and the remaining undecideds looking more friendly to you than your opponent. Close race, turnout and 4 days of hard work will be key. But good mo,” he wrote, appearing to mean “momentum.”

Former journalist and retired pundit Craig Crawford responded with data from Gallup:

“Voter enthusiasm is high, with Democrats more enthusiastic than Republicans,” Gallup reported Thursday. “Democrats maintain elevated election enthusiasm, at 77%, compared with 67% among Republicans.”

“Momentum” appears to be the key word for the Harris campaign and supporters as Election Day fast approaches.

Harris campaign surrogate, Illinois Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker, talked about “momentum” on CNN Thursday night:

Neera Tanden, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council noted on Thursday, “Lots of interesting endorsements today. You can feel the momentum.”

On Wednesday Harris spokesperson Ian Sams also talked about “momentum.”

Watch the video of Harris below, additional videos above, or all at this link.