I agree there have been no mistakes. A well run campaign from the beginning. Any negatives were manufactured nothingburgers like McDonaldsgate. I’m just afraid the campaign didn’t go hard enough. It’s easy to get your message out to your supporters at a rally. They could have made a hundred ads just highlighting the crazy shit Trump said. I didn’t see an ad clearly stating Trump caused problems at the border by getting the bipartisan bill killed. The message about getting prices down was weak. The ads about Trumps enemies list didn’t go far enough. There is an over abundance of material against Trump and I barely saw them use any of it.
Was that ever on tv? I never saw it and it doesn’t seem to be tv commercial length and no “I approved this message.” I would have loved to have seen it broadcast often.
Trump has endorsements from a number of immensely influential people. Elon Musk is worth more than any ten politicians; for all his weird and irritating nature, millions of people worship the guy for some reason. Joe Rogan speaks every week to eight times as many people as watch Saturday Night Live, and Trump got Rogan while Harris got SNL. He got the most popular third party candidate, a guy very influential online with health conspiracy and anti-vaccine cranks, to join his campaign.
What a Trump win might mean is that where you get your endorsements has changed.
His ten reasons in a nutshell – pull quotes are from Kuo’s article:
1. The Gender Gap: " … the Dobbs decision … remains the defining feature of this election, as it was in the midterms and most special elections since 2022."
2. Older women voters: “Older women have had it with Trump and are turning out in droves to punish him for the Dobbs decision.”
3. Enthusiasm favors Democrats: “Trump has had trouble filling his rallies in the battleground states and people are leaving them early … Meanwhile, Harris is breaking records and drawing capacity crowds. It’s anecdotal, but the vibe is there for voters to see.”
4. The favorability factor: “She went from a net double digit negative favorability rating to positive, all in just a few weeks … Meanwhile, Trump has remained in negative territory.”
5. The Latino vote: “The blowback from the Latino community has been strong, and it is shifting undecided voters.”
6. The youth vote: “Reports this morning already confirm long lines to vote across universities in the battleground states. It certainly does not look like young voters are sitting this one out.”
7. Closing weak v. closing strong: " … Trump’s final weeks have been anemic and disorganized … Harris has drawn huge crowds with her message of hope and unity with a focus upon the future. This has the effect of making her the “change” candidate … For late-deciding voters, this difference in vibe can mean everything, since they tend to be lower information and lower propensity.
8. The Ground Game: " … Harris campaign has been running a supercharged one based on traditional door-knocking, phone banking and getting out the vote … The Trump campaign outsourced its ground game to organizations with little to no experience … Those groups completely dropped the ball, and the GOP has been basically nowhere on the ground in the swing states."
9. Trump has bet on young male voters: “Despite all of Trump’s appearances with right-wing podcasters, streamers and fans of extreme sports, young men seem to have taken a collective yawn to the election. Instead, young women have outpaced young men in early voting and first time voting.”
10. About those polls: “It is wrong to assume 2024 will be like 2020 or 2016, or even 2022. This election in 2024 will be about what the voters think today.”
I’ve got CNN on, and they had, a little while ago, an interview with a young woman. She was 18, and this was her first time voting. She and her friends were all excited and eager to vote.
Anecdotal only, but having seen that interview, and read Kuo’s remark in that regard, I found it interesting.
And I’ll add my thanks for posting that list. Very interesting and informative!
This was exactly the reasoned optimism I needed (rightly or wrongly) for the next few hours until actual data starts coming in, thanks for that (and time for me to log off on that note, until then!)
Note that it was released a week before Harris was officially certified as the nominee, so her campaign was not messing around. This has literally been part of her message since the beginning.
And the reason I knew to look for this ad is because I remember it, because I saw it when it came out, and it was quite memorable for how direct and important its message was. It absolutely got out there and was seen.
Yeah, the embrace of modern messaging is heartening to see. Yes, older voters come out in bigger proportion but that doesn’t mean ignoring everybody else.
If the Harris campaign did everything that every Doper would have wanted to see (even the bits that contradict the other bits), that would truly be a confused, discombobulated mess.
Florida is one of the states that typically gets its totals out fastest (Eastern time zone plus rules that permit the count to happen fast). Florida has a lot of Spanish-speaking population; mostly people of Cuban and Puerto Rican background. Osceola County is heavily PR—so that’s a good one to look for when the talking heads break down the Florida vote by county. It might give us an idea of how the MSG debacle may have helped Harris/hurt Trump.
I suppose it lacks the detail we’d prefer to see, but the Dem Project 2025 is basically Harris’ “THE OPPORTUNITY ECONOMY.” That, plus add in some Fairness and Justice. (I do know what you mean, though.)
That’s still one of the most succinct–and devastating–commentaries on the right that’s ever been uttered. (Weird that the guy who said it is apparently completely unrelated to the political science guy with so similar a name.)
538’s final forecast for the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is officially out, and it’s a real nail-biter. Our model gives Harris a 50 out of 100 chance of winning the majority of Electoral College votes. Our model gives Trump a 49 out of 100 chance.
[segue]
IMHO, that one, and:
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
Pretty much this. It’s all that can really be expected.
It’s easy to come up with an organized plan when you are tailoring it to a monoculture. Project 2025 is great for a narrow slice of the population and bad to terrible for everybody else. A Dem version has to be great for everybody and terrible for few or preferably none.
Still something it would be good to hope for but it sets very different expectations for any prospective organizers. It’s the ‘problem’ with having an inclusive party in the first place - it’s hard to have a high level of organization and commonality under such a big tent.
Better? I’m not sure. It’s certainly still evolving. The key is to get the message out to not only those whose vote you already have. With the way internet algorithms work I’m not sure how effective internet only ads are. They certainly hit those who are already in your camp. I don’t think that’s enough.
If the message reaches people who are receptive but perhaps not registered or perhaps non-voters, and it can get them to come out to vote, that’s the goal.
Reaching people who aren’t in your camp and unlikely to ever be in your camp is a very expensive way to get very few votes. Might even convince some of them to come out to vote for the other guy. Not a great plan.
