CNN —
In the two-and-a-half months since Joe Biden ended his re-election bid, Kamala Harris has quickly secured the Democratic presidential nomination, headlined the most heated convention since 2008, and won a new Raised hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions and skyrocketed past. Biden poll numbers from earlier this year.
Nevertheless, Democrats are increasingly worried about Harris’ fate. There is a growing sense that her campaign is mired in a quagmire, with familiar debates erupting over where and how to devote precious resources.
Harris’ advisers often publicly dismiss polls, acknowledging that the race is close and will remain so until Election Day. But in just a few weeks, and even after multiple blitzkrieg attacks on battleground states and a debate that erases memories of Biden’s unraveling, the needle has barely moved, if at all. Questions remain that Harris is the first major party presidential candidate in 60 years not to win a competitive primary.
“People are nervous. They know the polls are tough,” said a source close to the campaign. “Many of us are also experiencing flashbacks to 2016. We know it can go wrong at any time, but it can still feel fresh.”
Efforts to rally supporters have become more complicated, with Democrats struggling to identify supporters in some areas. Some hope to win over moderate Republicans dissatisfied with Donald Trump, a tactic with questionable return on investment. Others want to focus on mobilizing men and people of color, a demographic that remains a concern among Harris campaign officials. Suburban women are a key demographic that shifted toward Democrats during the Trump administration, but it’s questionable whether that’s enough to offset Trump’s advantage over men. Some pointed to Hispanic voters. And concerns have also been raised about Arab Americans and young voters angry about U.S. policies in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon, where war is escalating.
The tense energy also stems from the simple fact that the race is so close. Harris’ campaign believes the seven battleground states are tied or within the margin of error. And despite talk of multiple paths to reaching 270 electors, including the so-called “Blue Wall” and “Sunbelt,” I don’t think that path is guaranteed at this point. .
“All of them are narrow paths. They’re all tough paths,” said a senior Democratic Party official close to the campaign.
Behind the scenes, Harris campaign officials are formulating a strategy to make up for that ground and avoid repeating past mistakes, comparing the causes of Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016 and what to expect from Biden’s candidacy four years later. We are researching whether it was successful.
This will increase visits to red and rural counties that voted for Trump in 2020 in hopes of chipping away at the Republican advantage and easing pressure on liberal strongholds centered around big cities. It means giving emphasis.
Cambria County, Pennsylvania, was one of the areas targeted. Biden did slightly better than Clinton there, aiming to turn a 44,000-vote margin in the state in 2020 into a statewide victory margin of nearly 82,000 votes.
“We showed up, fought a little bit and got 31%. That difference was replicated in other county areas, adding up to an 80,000 difference. So, it worked out,” Pennsylvania said. Harris campaign senior adviser Brendan McPhillips previously told CNN.
Last month, Harris returned to Cambria, a state that Trump still won by a double-digit margin in 2020, in an effort to make inroads and separate votes from the former president.
“What’s happened over and over again is that we get a little too attached to analytics and data and the most efficient goals, and we keep doing that, and we keep doing that, and we keep doing that, and that’s what drives you to the next thing. “We’re talking to a much narrower segment of the electorate,” Dan Kaninen, the Harris campaign’s battleground state director, previously told CNN. “And that really started to bother us.”
“I think what we have understood as a broader party, and especially through this campaign, is that showing up is a fundamental thing to do in politics,” Kanninen added.
Harris herself has strongly pushed back against accusations that she is overconfident, repeatedly describing herself as a “loser.”
“This is a race with a margin of error. We’re the underdogs. And I’m the underdog in this race, so I’m running like an underdog,” Harris told donors at a late September fundraiser. Ta. “The baton is now in our hands.”
If there’s been a positive feeling in the Harris campaign in recent weeks, it’s the unmistakable burst of energy the vice president has brought to the race since claiming the nomination. Officials have pointed to healthy-sized crowds at her campaign events, strong fundraising efforts and a strong volunteer base.
And if they have anything to brag about, it’s the foundation that the campaign — going back to when the current Harris campaign was the Biden campaign — has been trying to build for years. and infrastructure.
One adviser said Harris’ strategy is “significantly better than Trump’s.” But they also acknowledged that on-the-ground activities, however important, are only part of a larger equation.
In the presidential campaign, there are October surprises (shocking news just before the election that could upend a static campaign) and the certainty of October. Bickering among Democrats, who run a fragile coalition and face tough vote counts, has become a regular part of the election season.
Democratic candidates have lost two close presidential elections in the past 25 years. In both races, he won the popular vote but fell short in the Electoral College. In 2016, a combination of subtle but pervasive polling errors and a sense of disbelief that Trump could always beat Clinton created lingering post-election paranoia within the party. .
“There’s a different kind of nervousness than there was four years ago,” Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Public Opinion Research Institute, told CNN. “Right now, the concerns about the polls are just taking root. It’s more of a feeling that there’s a candidate on the Democratic side that people are excited about, but of course the reality is that the battle is being tested (to the top of the list). Not really.”
Murray suggested that the heightened excitement among Democrats when Harris took over the ticket largely leveled the race. Despair and depression gave way to hope, another confusing emotion. But those same voters especially suffered when the reality of a close race set in and events that historically could upset a race didn’t move an inch.
Consider September’s presidential debates.
“By any objective measure, in a different era, this difference in debate performance would have at least temporarily boosted (Harris’) poll by five points,” Murray said. Deaf,” he said. “But you had to squint to spot the slightest one-point change.”
Before her election, Harris spent months trying to shore up support for Biden among black men. Still, some campaign advisers say there’s more work to be done.
“The concern is that Couch wins, because this is still a close game and no one wants to feel the way they felt in 2016,” one source close to the Harris team told CNN. body,” he said.
“We need to make sure that black men and Hispanic men are not sitting on the couch,” the source said. “Because if they don’t vote at all. That’s a vote for him.”
In response to the Harris campaign’s struggle to quickly recreate the multiracial Biden coalition of 2020, operatives and allies are working to reach voters in up-close and intimate spaces, both publicly and privately. That means increasing personal engagement with Black voters, whose support for Biden has fallen sharply and Ms. Harris is still trying to restore the Democratic Party’s lead to its previous levels. And among union households, another demographic where Biden outperformed Harris this year in 2020.
Last month in Milwaukee, Harris’ brother-in-law Anthony West quietly attended a local NAACP meeting. The NAACP is strictly a nonpartisan organization whose members include influential, mostly Democratic, state activists and organizers. In a recording of the meeting obtained by CNN, he made his case for Harris in strong terms.
“We have to decide what we want our country to look like and what we choose to do, and we have to fight for it,” West said.
One of the most persistently debated issues was that Harris’ focus on the “middle class” would make the campaign more accessible to poorer communities, where both rhetoric and content may not be relevant. It was a method.
“Remember that you were raised by strong Black women who cared for you, fed you, and gave you opportunities in life,” West told the NAACP audience. He encouraged attendees to speak and take the message home with them.
She also detailed her previous work on criminal justice reform through the “Ban the Box” initiative and other programs she led or created during her time as San Francisco District Attorney.
“That’s the philosophy she brings to the White House and that’s the philosophy she brings to the Department of Justice,” he said.
On Tuesday, Collective PAC, the nation’s largest political action committee dedicated to supporting Black candidates, rolled out a new campaign called “Vote to Live,” pledging to spend $4 million on “mobilizing the Black community.” supported.
The spending will fund 100,000 Uber vouchers for round-trip transportation during early voting, the group said. Work to register 50,000 black voters as deadline approaches. Onboard “voting ambassadors” in targeted communities. Launch a bus tour combining the Labor Party and the NAACP. and hosting homecoming parties at historically black colleges and universities.
Still, Democratic organizers in Georgia lamented that outside pro-Harris groups in the state are being overwhelmed by advertising on television and in the mail, but said the state of the party’s field operations is particularly worrying. Ta.
“At a time when Black voters are inundated with anti-Harris mailers and anti-Harris ads, face-to-face conversations become even more important,” the operative said.
Georgia operatives emphasized the need for more direct contact as right-wing disinformation about immigration is directed at what operatives call low-informed communities.
“These require very nuanced conversations, and no 30-second (or 60-second) ad can provide so much nuance,” the operative said.
Former Louisiana congressman Cedric Richmond, who was a top aide to Biden in the White House and now represents Harris, said the campaign is focused on hammering home core issues. .
“We’re going to let people who care about Social Security and Medicare know that President Trump wants to cut them. We’re going to let people who are concerned about mass shootings know that we’re going to ban assault rifles. We’re going to let them know,” Richmond said.
Representatives for the Harris campaign told CNN there is still much work to do to shore up support among Latinos in the final weeks before Election Day.
“There’s always a concern that we want to do more. We always want to do more,” New York Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaira previously told CNN.
For weeks, Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump have ramped up their digital strategy to reach Latino voters. But some political strategists warn that doesn’t necessarily mean voters will go to the polls.
“There’s a disconnect,” said Chuck Rocha, a veteran Democratic strategist who specializes in supporting Latinos. “What’s happening online and what’s happening on the ground feel like two completely different things.”
