Trump Made a Strategic Blunder. Now Harris Could Win This
At the beginning of the month I wrote that it was my opinion that Joe Biden had a very slim chance of beating Donald Trump. To say that a lot has happened after that is the understatement of 2024. Biden made more gaffes, his polls got worse, Donald Trump got shot and the GOP held their convention. And yesterday, Biden announced that he will not run for re-election. He bowed out and endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris. Most of the major Democratic politicians have already rallied behind Harris. She's going to be the nominee.
What Is Biden's Strategy For Beating Trump? There Isn't Any
There's a lot to say about all of this, but for now I want to focus on a singular aspect -- I think Kamala Harris has a very good chance of beating Donald Trump, and I also think the Trump campaign has made several missteps since the now-infamous presidential debate.
One of the things I focused on in my previous assessment was that Biden was not just behind in every swing state, but that he was behind nationally, and his job approval numbers had consistently been underwater. The math went like this: if the American people are familiar with both Biden and Trump, and the American people haven't approved of Biden's performance in a long time (unfairly, but that's irrelevant to this political question), and Trump has been able to pull ahead. So if there's nothing good that Biden can do that will impress the American people, and nothing bad Trump can do that will cost him the election, there was no way for Biden to close that gap, and that was all true before the debate. After the debate, there was a major scandal and (very legitimate) questions about whether Biden could continue to govern.
But all of that gets thrown out the window now that he's gone. The American people aren't that familiar with Kamala Harris. As VP she both has the experience to do the job (and to appeal to the American people) but without the baggage since there is at least some plausible margin of separation between the VP and the President. At the same time, being VP comes with a similar advantage as being the incumbent. In other words, the American people may expect that Harris will be similar enough to Biden's policies to not rock the boat, but different enough to be an improvement (this is all a political assessment, by the way. A post assessing Biden's performance will come later, but, spoiler, this author has been consistently surprised at how effective he has been as President). In short, Harris gets to ride on Biden's credibility and support while also introducing herself to a public that isn't actually all that familiar with her.
And then there's the age. Critics of the criticism of Joe Biden have rightfully pointed out that Donald is only three years and five months younger than Joe Biden. By the end of Trump's term he will be almost exactly the same age as Biden is now. Trump is now the oldest party nominee in American history, and he's also showing signs of cognitive decline. All of the GOP's attacks on Biden's age have now backfired and can be reflected right back at Trump. "You know what, you're right, Joe Biden is too old to run for President, and if that's true then it's also true that so is Donald Trump." The Republicans have put a lot of eggs in this basket, and those eggs are likely to wind up all over their own faces.
Furthermore, Harris has no power over whether Biden steps down and so shares no blame. She can say that Biden picked her because she was young, qualified, and ready in the wings. The GOP may continue to call for Biden to resign, but all that would accomplish is making Trump's political opponent an actual incumbent President.
It's also going to be easy to draw comparisons between these candidates, which is exactly what Harris has done in her first campaign video (below). She'll make the argument that Trump is an old, corrupt, racist, sexist, convicted criminal, and Harris is a young, accomplished, intelligent family woman and one of the most effective Attorneys General in recent history:
Trump's Strategic Mistakes
This is all theory. What do the polls say? I won't have a full analysis on that, I'll wait at least a week, and here is why.
Candidates who are not either the nominee or the presumptive nominee always, ALWAYS, poll worse in the head-to-head matchups with their hypothetical general election candidates. This is one reason why Biden had been beating Trump in the polls for most of the duration of the Republican primary season. It was only after it was crystal clear that Trump was the GOP nominee that the general election polls started to change. In other words, if Harris has been polling nationally at -3% to -5% behind Trump, she should expect a 3-10% bump. That puts her right where she needs to be.
Second, name recognition -- the American public is simply not that familiar with Harris. She has a chance to introduce herself in a way that few politicians ever do -- a nearly fresh start, despite the fact that she'll have the Democratic Party behind her. There's no parallel I can think of. Unlike Biden, she'll be able to make the argument that she does indeed have a new vision for the future, and that future is bright.
But the biggest reason I think Harris can beat Trump is that the Trump campaign really screwed up the convention and the polls are already showing it. To see this in action we need to look at Biden's strategy that took him to the White House in 2020.
Biden's won in 2020 because he mostly kept his mouth shut, stayed out of Trump's way, and let Trump talk. Trump's negative approval ratings had been striking throughout his entire Presidency, and Trump was embroiled in so many different controversies by 2020. Biden humbly and calmly presented an alternative while staying out of Trump's mud, and Trump sunk himself. This was wise in 2020, but I think Biden never really shifted gears and has never been an effective communicator to the American people. This is why experts are saying Biden may be the most effective President of the 21st century but the American people have disagreed with the direction this country has been heading in for much of his presidency.
But it's a strategy that Donald Trump could have used to bring himself to the White House. Following the debate, Trump enjoyed a position he's never found himself in. He was the mentally competent one. Biden needed to act Presidential and expose Trump as unstable. The opposite happened. In comparison to Biden, Trump looked sharp, physically and mentally strong, and "hinged." Then he survived an assassination attempt just days before the start of the Republican Convention. Commentators were noting that Trump smiled and glowed. He appeared gracious, more gentle, like a changed man. He had an opportunity at the convention to paint himself as presidential, to espouse his platform and values without the rhetoric or carnival antics that typically exemplify his campaign appearances. In short, he could have used Biden's 2020 strategy against him.
But Trump was unable or unwilling to do that. What we got out of the convention was more of the same -- crazy statements, over-the-top rhetoric, culture wars, a rebuke of "woke" culture, and Hulk Hogan acting like a crazy person. Trump's "new man" didn't appear when he gave his keynote address. Trump's speech at the GOP convention was combative and defiant. He attacked the current administration, blaming it for economic struggles, border security issues, and international setbacks. Trump also reinforced his "America First" agenda, promising to restore the economy, bolster the military, and combat crime. He rallied his base with familiar themes, emphasizing nationalism and portraying himself as a fighter against the political establishment. His rhetoric was aimed at energizing supporters and consolidating his influence within the Republican Party.
The convention didn't poll well, and Biden actually appears to have made up a little ground as a result. It certainly didn't help that Trump's would-be assassin was a member of multiple gun organizations and was a registered Republican. The convention could have been a chance for Trump to listen to his "better angels" and he could have been up ten points by the end of it. He slid right back into his old ways, instead, reminding the American people who didn't support him in 2020 of exactly who he was.
Furthermore, Trump's chance of JD Vance as a running mate was throwing a red steak to the Republican base. Vance is already proving to be out of touch with the majority of American voters, and the Trump team appears to know it:
The reality is that the American people are tired of "Hulk Hogan politics." They're tired of the hate and division. They're tired of Donald Trump, which is why he lost by a sizeable margin in 2020. They were also uncomfortable with Joe Biden's age, and he failed to convince the American people he was on the right path. Kamala Harris has a chance to convince the American people that she has a vision for the country. Harris also has a chance to make the argument that Biden eventually realized that no one in their 80s should be President.
So we'll see. I don't think this election is a slam dunk by any means. Harris has baggage of her own, and she will be somewhat tied to Biden's performance. But in a game where a few percentage points matter I think in a week or two, when the polls come in, we'll see Harris on top of Trump, and if it happens it'll be a trend that will be hard to reverse.
Then again, we if anyone watching the news in the last 20 years hasn't become an ardent supporter of Chaos Theory, they haven't been watching the news very closely at all.
