Kamala Harris’ politics of joy gives way to closing remarks focused on fear

In the days following her sudden ascent to the Democratic presidential nomination, Vice President Kamala Harris energized her supporters with an appeal from her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz. “brings back the joy.”

But joy has taken a backseat as the race against former President Trump enters its final week. As Democrats try to consolidate their votes and win over the last few undecided Americans, they are appealing to an increasingly primal emotion: fear.

Tony West, Harris’ brother-in-law and adviser, told a crowd of black elected officials and community leaders in Arizona’s capital on Wednesday that the election was “critical.”

“Some say this is the most important election since 1860,” he said, adding “since the Civil War,” in case anyone missed his reference.

Moments later, former President Clinton did the same.

“I’m here not because I’m running for anything, but because I want to protect the future of my grandchildren,” he said.

“I really worry about our democracy, but right now people are so preoccupied with their own challenges that they think, ‘I’ve seen Trump before.’ He was trying to do all these bad things, but he didn’t. “That’s why he couldn’t do it the next time,” Clinton continued, adding: “This crowd needs to know he’s dead serious.”

Can January 6 and abortion bans mobilize voters?

The threat they see in Trump has always been a big part of Democrats’ message. But the party has constantly debated where to strike the balance between this theme and supporting Harris’ plans for the future.

One side argues that Voters consistently rank economy top They announced their priority list and called for more details on this issue. What would Harris do? to improve it.

This side warns that President Biden has repeatedly referred to Trump as a threat to democracy and that many voters are ignoring him. They note that the share of voters with a positive impression of Trump increased throughout the spring and early summer despite Biden’s attacks.

The other part says that persuasive voters ignored Biden’s warnings because of the messenger, not the message. This group says concerns about the president’s age and apparent decline have caused many voters to put aside their fears about Trump.

Some argue that Harris has made as much progress as possible into the evening of her race with Trump on economic issues. They say the intense focus on Trump in these final days of the campaign could remind voters why they don’t like him.

In the closing stages of the race, Harris clearly placed a heavy bet on that side. This is a fateful choice that will undoubtedly be lauded if it wins, and forever second-guessed if it fails.

Last week, he campaigned in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, three of seven key battleground states. with Liz Cheney, The Republican former congressman is friendly with Trump because of the threat he poses to democracy.

Trump will be “a president,” Harris said Wednesday during a CNN town hall in Pennsylvania. He admires dictators and is a fascist.”

He held a meeting on Friday Campaign rally in Houston featuring Beyoncé. From where? Texas is unlikely to vote for Harris, but the venue has focused attention on the abortion ban, one of the most restrictive in the state.

Harris has repeatedly warned that Trump, if elected, would seek similar bans across the country. Some of the latest campaign ads Women who suffered were given space under Texas law.

There is a former president He denied he would endorse a nationwide abortion ban but he avoided answering specific questions about what restrictions he might support.

On Tuesday, Harris is scheduled to speak at the Ellipse in Washington, where Trump encouraged a crowd of supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. If the venue alone did not clarify the theme, aides told reporters the speech would lean heavily on Trump’s threat to democracy.

Targeted voters – soft Republicans…

Harris’ closing speech takes aim at two key groups of voters: so-called soft Republicans and Democrats, including many younger voters who aren’t yet committed to participating.

The vast majority of Republicans will vote along party lines, as partisans almost always do. But Trump lost some GOP voters to Biden in 2020, and Harris’ campaign has made a major effort to widen that slice enough to put her over the top in key states.

That’s the point of the events with Cheney, who joined Harris in calling the former president cruel, unstable and “unhinged.”

Those efforts have received recent support from Trump’s onetime aides, including former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. In interviews with the New York Times and the Atlantic, Harris referred to her former boss as a “fascist” who spoke of wanting petty officers like him. “Hitler’s generals.”

Harris on Thursday unveiled two new launches Ads featuring Kelly’s quotes.

Harris and Cheney held their events in precisely the suburban areas where Republicans’ fortunes have waned under Trump: Chester County outside Philadelphia; Oakland County, near Detroit; and Waukesha, outside Milwaukee.

Majority-white suburbs with concentrations of college-educated voters were key to Biden’s victory in 2020.

Harris aides are betting that their campaign can get more out of those districts this time around, especially from female voters. Suburban women step up turn against Republicans after Supreme Court 2022 decision Dobbs’ decision Which Roe vs. overturned Wade’s decision There has long been a right to abortion nationwide. their shift Powerful Democrats won that year’s midterm elections in these three northern oscillation states.

Cheney, who has a strong history of anti-abortion voting in Congress, was even willing to help Harris on the issue, telling voters in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that voters who consider themselves “pro-life” might justify voting for Harris because of the brutal nature of abortion. he said. Bans like in Texas.

“I think there are many of us across the country who are pro-life, but who have watched what’s been happening in our states since the Dobbs decision and watched as state legislatures passed laws that resulted in women not being able to enjoy these rights. In Pennsylvania, “the care they need is needed,” Cheney said. “This is not a sustainable situation for us as a country and it needs to change.”

…as well as undecided Democrats

Harris needs to improve her scores with suburban, mostly white, college-educated women, as polls show her trailing in support. voters of color, especially men.

This was the backdrop to Clinton’s event with Black leaders in Phoenix; He, West and former national security adviser Susan Rice exhorted the crowd to redouble efforts to mobilize supporters and win over the undecided.

“More than 50 percent of the public knows that President Trump should not return to the White House, and about 45 percent of the public think he will do nothing wrong,” Clinton said. “There’s a lane out there that has to decide.”

This strip contains a disproportionate number of young voters. According to one survey, 9 percent of registered voters under 30 said they didn’t know how to vote. The survey was published on Friday. By the Harvard Institute of Politics.

Overall, Harris leads Trump among registered voters under 30 by 53 percent to 33 percent and among younger voters by 60 percent to 32 percent, according to the poll.

Compared to where Biden was in the spring, the poll found Harris making strong advances among young white men and women and a dramatic gain among young women of color. But his margin has eroded slightly among young black men.

At the event here, Black community leaders offered different theories about why some young Black men are staying away from Harris.

“This is a matter of us doing more outreach to these young Black men to explain Harris’ economic plans,” Tempe Mayor Corey D. Woods said. “It’s just a matter of them hearing it more.”

Cloves Campbell Jr., a former Arizona legislator and publisher of the Arizona Informant, a Phoenix-based newspaper, offered a slightly less rosy view.

“We still have some men who don’t want to vote for a woman. There are also those who are undecided. “When you mix these together, you get a close race,” he said.

Jevin D. Hodge, who would miss the 30-year-old cutoff for the Harvard poll, described what he heard at a recent closed-door event he attended with other young Black men:

Some participants said, “My vote doesn’t matter.”

“Democrats have done nothing for me,” others said.

“He is a businessman; He will do some things differently,” some said, referring to Trump.

“A lot of Black men feel forgotten,” said Hodge, who narrowly lost a congressional race here in 2022. “But as someone who lost half a percent, I tell them your vote matters.”

The outcome of this extremely tight presidential race may depend on whether Harris can persuade enough undecided voters to embrace this message in these final days of the campaign.

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