The presidential campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris released a memo on Wednesday claiming she has a good path to victory. We covered part of that memo at the time of its release, breaking down why it's pretty laughable, including and especially regarding the polls the memo relies on. As we previewed, though, there's plenty more to unpack.
After citing a bunch of polls, the memo from campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon offers, with original emphasis, "the Vice President is also well-positioned to expand support from 2020[.]"
Democratic strategist James Carville, when President Joe Biden was the nominee, warned that the Biden-Harris ticket for 2024 was at risk of losing its 2020 coalition. Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday and endorsed Harris not long after a letter was posted to his X account.
Joining the chorus of calls for Biden to drop out, Carville wrote earlier this month about how the party should go for a more open process rather than automatically select Harris. Although he did endorse her, Carville issued warnings about the "realism" involved regarding former and potentially future President Donald Trump being so easy to beat.
The memo cites support from those who didn't vote for the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020, but who supported Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections, especially in battleground states, even though Biden was not on the ballot.
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Speaking about favorable ratings, the memo highlights how Harris' net favorable ratings are higher than Trump's net favorable ratings among demographics like white, college-educated voters and voters over 65.
The poll cited is the Quinnipiac poll, a rather laughable example, given that in addition to Trump leading Harris, including by wide margins with some demographics, the former president's favorable ratings are at a record high compared to her particular low.
The favorable versus unfavorable ratings for Trump are pretty split, 46 percent and 49 percent respectively, making for a -3 percent favorable rating, which is his record high for Quinnipiac. Harris has an overall net favorable rating of -14 percent, as just 37 percent of voters have a favorable view of her and 51 percent have an unfavorable view.
The memo also cites a POLITICO article, from over a month ago, about how Independents view Trump in light of his "guilty" conviction on 34 felony counts from May 30 in New York City over hush money payments. The sentencing has been delayed until September, and legal experts agree that the particularly weak case will be overturned on appeal.
That same Quinnipiac poll that the Harris campaign loves to keep bringing up also shows Trump winning over Independents by 55-41 percent in a head-to-head matchup, and by 46-32 percent when third-party candidates are on the ballot.
Predictably, given that this is Harris we're talking about, the memo mentions her abortion record at length, and in a rosy way:
Vice President Harris has been a champion for reproductive freedom even before the Dobbs [v. Jackson] decision. As a Senator, she grilled now-Justice Kavanaugh and fought for legislation to improve women’s health. As Vice President, she is leading the Biden-Harris Administration’s response tothe overturning of Roe v. Wade, including implementing three executive orders on reproductivehealth care access, and traveling the country to galvanize leaders in the fight for reproductivefreedom. She has spoken to more than 15,000 students about the fight for our fundamentalrights, including our reproductive freedom. And on her “Fight for Our Freedoms” tour, shebecame the first Vice President in history to visit a reproductive health care clinic...
The Biden-Harris administration is indeed a pro-abortion one thanks to the current vice president, but when it comes to how Harris "fought for legislation to improve women's health," one ought not to let her campaign forget how the White House has called for the passage of the so-called Women's Health Protection Act. Supporters like to claim that the bill will merely codify Roe v. Wade, but in reality, such a bill would expand the decision by making abortion available in all 50 states for any reason without legal limit.
Further, as we covered earlier this week when mentioning how Harris was endorsed by EMILYs List, a major pro-abortion group, Harris is pro-abortion up until birth, and even after birth, and has bullied pro-lifers during her political career. It's all part of her larger pattern of targeting conservatives.
One would be hard-pressed to find a politician more rabidly and dangerously pro-abortion than Harris. Voters may not care about the issue as much as she and her campaign do, though, including fellow Democrats, as a Cygnal poll from June revealed regarding what issues voters prioritize.
The memo also relies on repeated narratives, not merely on talk about Project 2025, abortion, and democracy, but this image of Harris versus Trump. "As a former prosecutor who has never shied away from taking on those who harm the American people, Vice President Harris is uniquely positioned to hold him accountable over the course of the campaign," the memo reads.
It sounds silly, but it's also dangerous. Ann Coulter in her Wednesday column savaged this narrative, especially given how soft on crime Harris was as the Attorney General of California. Trump, during a Tuesday call with reporters, told a story lamenting how Harris "destroyed" San Francisco during her time as a prosecutor there.
The memo goes after Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), and claims, without evidence, that "even Trump’s closest allies have started to indicate that he made a mistake by choosing JD Vance, his most extreme option, as running mate." What's not mentioned is that a New York Magazine story has come out acknowledging Democrats are actually fearful of Vance.
Democrats Might Want to Take J.D. Vance Seriouslyhttps://t.co/3YdrT7xJHW
— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) July 25, 2024
The memo also includes a section on how the campaign expects Harris to receive the necessary 270 electoral votes.
"With a popular message, a strong record on the issues that matter most to swing voters, multiple pathways to 270 electoral voters, and unprecedented enthusiasm on her side, the Vice President is in a strong position to take on Donald Trump and win in 104 days," the Wednesday memo mentions early on.
Further down it reads:
Finally, the map. Winning the presidential election still requires winning 270 electoral votes, and that means our pathways to victory runs through the states. Vice President Harris enters a tight race, but it is clear that she can bring together a coalition of voters to keep a wide set of states in play. We continue to focus on the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania — and the Sun Belt states of North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, where the Vice President’s advantages with young voters, Black voters, and Latino voters willbe important to our multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes.
We intend to play offense in each of these states, and have the resources and campaigninfrastructure to do so.
Being the most liberal senator of 2019 and coming from bright blue California, Harris arguably could do worse than Biden does in swing states, including in those "Blue Wall states" that the Democratic ticket could very well lose.
While Harris was picked specifically because she is a black woman, despite her feud with First Lady Jill Biden and how nasty she was to Biden during the primary debates for 2020, Vance was picked in part because he brings something to the ticket when it comes to appealing to Midwest America in a way that Harris does not. This includes those "Blue Wall states."
On Thursday, The Hill covered where the race between Trump-Harris stands in the battleground states. Here's what averages from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ have to say, though polls were conducted before Biden's exit:
- Trump leads Harris by 7.2 points in Arizona, an even greater margin than he led Biden.
- Trump leads Harris by 4.6 points in Georgia, also by an even greater margin.
- Trump leads Harris by 2.2 points in Michigan.
- Trump leads Harris by more than 8 points in Nevada, a state that the Harris campaign loves to talk about for some reason.
- Trump leads Harris by about 4 points in Pennsylvania.
- Trump leads Harris by just under 2 points in Wisconsin.
Also on Thursday, Matt covered how Amy Walter of Cook Political Report just delivered what's not exactly the best news for Harris:
In theory, Harris can energize a deflated Democratic base, especially among young voters of color. That would at least ensure that her “floor” of support would be higher than Biden’s currently sits.
However, coalescing the base only gets you so far. To win in states like Pennsylvania, Harris needs to be able to win over swing voters in white, working-class areas like Erie and Scranton in Pennsylvania.
The Trump campaign, knowing how important those “blue wall” states are to a Harris victory, is eager to deploy vice presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. JD Vance to the Midwest. This is also why the short-list of potential Harris vice presidential picks is centering on Democrats like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.
The memo also seems rather excited about "Grassroots enthusiasm," including and especially when it comes to donations.
As Katie has been covering, the transfer of funds from the Biden campaign to Harris' campaign is rather complex and raises legal questions.
The memo concludes by noting, "This campaign will be close, it will be hard fought, but Vice President Harris is in a position of strength – and she’s going to win."
Of course, Trump and the Republican Party can never afford to get cocky or complacent, but we'll see in a matter of months if the confidence that the Harris campaign has will amount to anything.
With Joe Biden saying he won't seek reelection, a significant legal question needs answering.@KatiePavlich: "There's a big question about whether Joe Biden can transfer all these campaign funds to Kamala Harris before he was actually nominated at the DNC convention in… pic.twitter.com/gNUKUu0R2h
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 21, 2024
