Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s flawed strategies explain why neither holds a clear lead

The polls for a presidential election have never been closer than they are this year. With less than a percentage point separating Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in key battleground states, this election stands on a razor’s edge. Why has neither candidate pulled away in the polls? It could be their flawed campaign strategies.
Donald Trump had a golden opportunity to rebrand himself after he survived an assassination attempt in July. He might have won back voters uneasy about another four chaotic years with him as president by presenting himself as a kinder, gentler leader. At the Republican convention just days after Trump was shot, a parade of speakers painted him as a likeable figure. Trump’s prepared speech was designed to evoke sympathy by relating his near-death experience. Yet, the strategy did not last as long as the speech. The least disciplined presidential candidate in history went off-script and sounded familiar themes of grievance and hatred.
Ever since, he has doubled down on conspiracy theories, racism, sexism and vicious attacks on migrants. His Madison Square Garden rally last weekend captured the tenor of his campaign when speakers repeated lies such as that the 2020 election was stolen. They made racist comments, the worst of which was one speaker calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage”.
Trump’s decision to appeal to his base opened up the centre ground for Kamala Harris. Indeed, the Harris campaign has gone all-in on attracting affluent college-educated voters, many of whom previously identified as Republican. Harris has campaigned more with Liz Cheney, former Republican congressperson and daughter of former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, than with almost any other individual. To be sure, Harris has to try harder with these voters than Biden did. As a black woman from California, she appears more radical than she actually is.
Harris appeals to the centre by portraying Trump as a dangerous threat to American democracy. On Tuesday at the site of Trump’s January 6th address, Harris gave what her campaign called its “closing argument” by portraying Trump as a “petty tyrant” seeking “unchecked power.” Undoubtedly, Trump is a terrifying threat to American democracy and Harris should say so every chance she gets. The problem, however, is that by portraying herself as the defender of American institutions, Harris has made herself the candidate of the status quo – the same mistake Hillary Clinton made in 2016.
From her replacement of Biden on the ticket to her successful debate with Trump, Harris’s campaign was on the upswing. Since then, the race has been slipping away from her, and it may be because she has been so laser-focused on attracting centrist voters.
At the most basic level, elections come down to whether voters want change or more of the same. A recent New York Times poll found that only 28 per cent of voters think their country is on the right track; 61 per cent say it’s headed in the wrong direction. Affluent centrist voters may be happy with the way things are; most Americans feel existing institutions don’t work for them. Instead of promising to defend American democracy, Harris should have pledged to extend it.
By focusing on centrist voters, Harris neglected her base. This is a major problem because she appears to be bleeding support among African Americans, Latinos and young people. The New York Times poll sees Harris winning the support of 81 per cent of African Americans, 52 per cent of Hispanics, and 53 per cent of 18-to-29 year olds. Biden won 92 per cent, 59 per cent, and 59 per cent of those groups respectively.
A particular case worth mentioning is Harris’s alienation of Arab-Americans. The key swing state of Michigan has 150,000 Arab-Americans. Many of them are so disgusted by the Biden administration’s unconditional support for Israel that they might not vote. Harris missed an opportunity to placate such voters when she refused to allow a Palestinian-American to make a brief address at the Democratic Convention.
In addition, it is no longer true that it is in the centre where most votes are up for grabs. Many low-propensity voters – those who rarely vote – have been mobilised to participate in the Trump era. Some regular voters have swung diagonally from left to right. In 2016, for example, 12 per cent of those who voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary ended up voting for Trump.
A message of economic populism would have allowed Harris to win over her base and appeal to low-propensity and diagonalist voters. A recent study by the Center for Working-Class Politics shows that the message that most resonates with working-class voters in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania is one that “aggressively targets economic elites for getting richer while working Americans suffer, sets up a strong contrast between the working class and the billionaire class, and blames not only economic elites and Trump but a wider cast of Washington politicians for leaving workers behind”.
Harris supports many policies that would benefit working-class Americans, but she has not made them central to her campaign. She should be trumpeting at every opportunity her support for raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, a measure that 62 per cent of Americans support.
Economic populism is winning races for Democrats down the ballot. Indeed, one of the curious features of this election is that Democratic Senate candidates are running well ahead of Harris. In Ohio, for example, Sherrod Brown, long an advocate for progressive economic policies, is slightly favoured to retain his seat in a state that Harris is sure to lose. The most surprising Senate race is in deep red Nebraska, where the Republican incumbent is running neck-and neck with independent candidate Dan Osborn, a trade union leader who campaigns against economic elites.
To be sure, running as an economic populist would be risky. It would have damaged Harris’s appeal to affluent centrists. It also would have hurt her with big Democratic donors. Harris is on track to exceed fundraising records, having solicited over $1 billion for her campaign. However, she could have afforded to adopt messages that threaten the economic interests of her big contributors because she has raised much of her money from many small donors. Moreover, there is limited utility in spending money on television ads in swing states already oversaturated with them.
Whichever candidate loses is likely to rue the mistakes they’ve made during this campaign. But in Harris’s case, even if she wins narrowly, Democrats badly need to reevaluate their long-term strategy. If Harris does win, she will owe her victory to superior get-out-the-vote operations that run on volunteer energy rather than big money. Pennsylvania United, for example, is a grassroots institution that has successfully organised working-class voters of all races to vote against Trump and Trumpism with a message of economic populism. Imagine that: the most democratic forces in American society saving the Democrats and preserving America’s fragile democracy.
Daniel Geary is the Mark Pigott Professor in US History at Trinity College Dublin