With just a little over two months to go until the Nov. 5 presidential election, things continue to remain fluid. Two political analysts on Monday weighed in on what lies ahead for the candidates of the two mainstream parties.
Harris In Control: The 2024 election is peculiar in that a candidate came onto the election scene less than a month before the convention, said political analyst Amy Walter in an interview with PBS Newshour. Vice President Kamala Harris received a lot of bumps even before the Chicago Democratic National Convention, with the base rallying around her, she said.
“In fact, if anything, the convention really just, I think, crystallized the kind of momentum that she’s been able to sustain for the last month,” Walter said, adding that Democrats left Chicago feeling more enthusiastic and energized than they have been at any point this year, or even the last two years.
Harris has been able to “basically control the narrative of this campaign on the terms that she wants to talk about, whether it’s on issues — the issues, like abortion, or putting the economy, the economic question in terms that work for her,” Walter said.
The vice president has been part of the status quo and she has somehow managed to be the person who is turning the page, the political analyst said. “If you’re Donald Trump, you have got to find a way to blunt that,” she added.
Campaign Strategy: While discussing the potential strategies of either camp, Tamara Keith, the White House correspondent for NPR, said the Trump campaign sent out a memo over the weekend saying that Harris is going to see a rise in numbers but it was not something to worry about and that it would go away.
“What I do know is that Trump is campaigning like he’s losing,” said Keith, adding that he is doing a bunch of different types of events and doing everything he can to wrest attention away from his rival.
On the other hand, Harris is going to have a bus tour this week through Georgia, employing the strategy they used in Pennsylvania, she said. “Say that Atlanta is not Georgia, that the state has many other areas, rural areas where there are Democratic voters. They may be outnumbered, but they could still hear from the candidate and they could sort of reduce their losses in some of those areas,” she added.
“Both campaigns are running like it’s a real race because it is a real race.”
Impact of Kennedy’s Exit: Walter also weighed in on the impact of independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr.’s decision to suspend his campaign and endorse Trump. Before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, overall, on average, 8% of voters nationwide said they were voting for Kennedy but now it has tapered to half as much, she said.
“Those voters who remain Kennedy supporters, if you push them on the question, reallocate them, say, all right, if you had to, who would you support, you can see that almost half of them say that they are Trump supporters,” Walter said. If the Kennedy backers show up for Trump and if those undecided voters show up for Trump, there will likely be a movement of a point or so or a little under a point, she added.
“It doesn’t look big, but when we have had the last two elections decided by 10,000 votes here and 15,000 votes there, if I’m the Trump campaign, I would be ready to try to bring those people back into my camp,” Walters said.
Well, part of that is just signaling that they take no vote for granted.
Keith said the Harris camp could go nuclear on all of Kennedy’s many liabilities and try to tie those to Trump, and they will do that too. Walter, meanwhile said, the Democratic coalition since Biden has really been one of bringing in voters who say, “I don’t know that I could really vote for Donald Trump” to say, “Come on in, we are now part of that anti-Trump party.”
Sept. 10 Debate: Walter conceded that the Sept. 10 debate is now critical. “This is now a place where Donald Trump needs to change the direction of this campaign and the momentum of this campaign,” she said.
Ever since Harris entered the fray, the Trump campaign has been saying that she hasn’t been tested or pushed yet and that she hasn’t sat down for an interview.
“Let’s see if….how she’s able to do once she gets under the hot lights of having to answer a question that’s not on a teleprompter, that’s not scripted,” she added.
Keith agreed with her and said Harris has been conducting a one-way conversation with the American people. “She hasn’t been pressed and so a debate is an opportunity,” she said, adding that the interview she has promised to do by the end of August will also be a two-way conversation.
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