The 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be one of the tightest races in U.S. history as polls show former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris neck and neck less than six weeks before ballots are cast.
Democrats are known for exuberating too much confidence. Take the 2016 election for example. The left was overly confident that twice-failed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump. They even bought loads of fireworks and rented out an extravagant venue for a celebration, only to shut it all down quietly.
Several sources close to the Harris campaign fear another 2016 is in the cards for 2024 as Democrats panic to retain voters despite remaining in a deadlock.
“People are nervous. They know the polls are tight," a source told CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez. "A lot of us are having these flashbacks to 2016, too. We know when it can go the wrong way, and it can still feel fresh.”
Following President Joe Biden’s departure from the race, Harris saw a boost in approval ratings. However, the excitement for the new Democrat candidate slowly wore off, and the reality is that the vice president may not have enough support to win. Alvarez also explained that the Harris campaign is trying to make up ground that Clinton couldn’t in 2016.
This comes as polls suggest Harris is losing voters in Pennsylvania— a significant battleground state that could decide the election outcome.
“The vice president has already visited twice. And so that is the type of strategy that they’re trying to deploy to try to make up that ground where they saw Hillary Clinton wasn’t able to in 2016. Then, too, there’s the mobilizing,” she added. “Talking to Democrats, they’re always pretty boastful about their ground game, and they continue to be so, but that needs to turn into votes. So certainly some anxiety and nerves setting in as Election Day gets closer and those polls just remain deadlocked.”
At the same time, a private Harris campaign poll found that the vice president faces significant risks in nearly all battleground states.
Political analyst Mark Halperin spoke with Sean Spicer and Dan Turrentine on The Morning Meeting, agreeing that Harris has “Got a problem.” They said that of the seven battleground states, Harris will likely lose Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia.
“I’m telling you today is, things are not moving right for [Harris],” they said.
They then pointed out that they don’t hear anyone from the Trump campaign saying they’re worried about losing any of the seven battleground states.
[The Trump campaign] don’t think they’re the favorite in Michigan and Wisconsin, but they’re not worried about losing them. You don’t hear from them, ‘Oh my goodness.’ What you hear is we’re moving up. What the three of us are hearing, we’re moving up in those two and we’re going to win. We’re going to win at the three sunbelt states. And we’re stronger in Pennsylvania than she is.
Wall Street Journal has a story about Democrats really worried about the three Rust Belt states. We all know from our contacts in both campaigns that Pennsylvania is tough for her right now. And with that Pennsylvania, there are paths, but there aren’t many. There’s no path with that Wisconsin. So you see here, Tammy Baldwin’s Senate campaign poll shows Harris down three in Wisconsin. We all said yesterday, Wisconsin and Michigan are looking worse for Harris than before.