Not Debatable

New York Times poll shows the job for Team Normal: help Kamala's break with Biden's unpopular pivot left

After a troubling poll from The New York Times last November, we repeated our election year mantra to calmly and productively freak out. Can it be challenging to stay calm at the sight of Kamala losing by two points nationally in an election she needs to win by three points to secure an Electoral College victory?

Sure.

But look beyond the “Kamala is Losing” headlines, to the questions the top-ranked NYT poll asked on ideology and policy. And there it is clear we need to be productive. Because things need to change.

Starting with the big picture: voters perceive Kamala is too liberal.

Half of voters in the NYT poll think Kamala Harris is “too liberal,” while only a third of voters think Trump is “too conservative”.

This is an addressable problem, one that confirms what Blueprint polling has been showing all year (about Biden) and the recent work of political scientists who demonstrated it is more effective to show Kamala as normal than to say Trump is weird.

Not Going Back

We once dubbed Joe Biden the “President of Independents”. Voters unaffiliated with either party moved ten points towards Scranton Joe in 2020, delivering the White House. In the heat of the 2020 election, in August 2020, polling from The Economist showed just 26% of voters perceived Joe Biden to be “Very Liberal”.

But as Biden tacked left throughout his presidency, The Economist poll tracking perceptions of ideology showed that number jumping by half - from 26% up to 39% on the eve of his first and last debate in 2024. The share viewing him as moderate dropped from 35% to 26%.

This was politically disastrous. Biden remains deeply unpopular, with only a slight bump in favorability from voters’ overwhelmingly support of his decision to step aside. The Times poll shows voters want a significant break with Biden (61%), but - as is to be expected of a Vice President - just 25% view Kamala as a major change. Meanwhile, a majority view Trump as a major change.

This is not just change from Biden personally, but change from the ideological direction voters have - regardless of their merits - consistently rejected since the Democratic presidential primary of 2019-2020.

Nate Silver recently wrote that “The mistakes of 2019 could cost Harris the election.”

Harris’s articulation of highly progressive positions on immigration and health care have become a talking point for the Trump campaign and one where the facts are mostly on their side. Harris has flip-flopped on some of these positions, like on Medicare for All and decriminalizing border crossings. Still, you’ll probably see clips like the one above in heavy rotation in Republican attack ads.

The flip-flopping may explain why Harris has been weirdly reluctant to do media hits or articulate policy specifics. This strategy may have worked well enough when she was riding high off the vibes of the Democrats’ candidate swap, but it’s causing her more problems now.

This morning’s NYT/Siena poll contained a pair of questions on whether voters think Harris is too liberal/progressive³ and whether Trump is too conservative. The numbers were lopsided in Trump’s favor. Only 32 percent of voters said Trump was too conservative, while 47 said Harris was too liberal. The demographics on this question are about what you might expect. Harris is faring poorly among white voters without college degrees, rural voters, and older voters: the types of voters who are plentiful in Blue Wall states like Pennsylvania.

The most recent kerfuffle is that “in 2019, Harris told the ACLU she supported taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained immigrants.”

But there are glimmers of hope. The latest Blueprint polling shows voters think Harris is more focused on prices than Biden was. She can make the case that by doubling down on domestic energy production she can strengthen her advantage on prices (more on this in a minute).

There is still clearly room to define Harris among swing voters.

Sarah Longwell

drove that point home with excerpts from undecided voters in her focus groups in the compelling “Case for Staying Optimistic About Harris”: Undecided voters haven't turned on her. They just need to hear more from her. The debate is an opportunity to start closing the deal.

And, as

Lauren Harper Pope

has written extensively, Kamala herself is moderate. And she has taken many steps to pivot back to her natural centrist point. But there is still far more work to be done.

Breaking with Bad

In New York magazine, Jonathan Chait argues for Harris to more forcefully break with Biden. And one of the best reasons is the (false) claim that Democratic midterm performance validated the lefty pivot of the White House:

The best data point Biden’s defenders can summon on behalf of his political viability is the party’s midterm performance, in which Democrats forfeited the House majority but lost fewer seats than a first-term incumbent typically would. But that modest success can be explained by a combination of a backlash against the Dobbs decision, the general unacceptability of the Republican opposition, and the fact that Democratic candidates for Congress had some natural distance and didn’t have to run as Biden superfans. Nothing about the 2022 midterm elections contradicts the overall fact that Biden is an unpopular president.

The surprising midterm winners broke with Biden, including those on the Welcome Win The Middle slate (support here!). And those winners didn’t just break with Biden for kicks - the Democrats actually trying hard to win tough House races broke substantively with Biden on hot-button issues such as immigration and energy.

The Times poll showed Kamala has potential ammunition already. For instance, “Increasing domestic production of fossil fuels such as oil and gas“ is favored by 66% with just 30% opposed - and with gas dropping below $3/gallon, few know just how much the Biden-Harris Administration has done to achieve record-setting domestic energy production. She should say the words that Biden would not.

Not Debatable

As we wrote in March, if Biden doesn’t tell people about his administration’s energy breakthroughs, then Trump will win votes on them. Now it’s on Harris to do. Here was our breakdown in March:

America has produced more crude oil during the Biden Administration than any country in history. More than Russia. More than Saudi Arabia.

But here’s the challenge, from the NYT:

The president isn’t bragging about record oil and gas production.

His reluctance highlights a political problem for him and other Democrats. Biden wants to phase out oil and gas eventually to fight global warming. But domestic oil and gas production is expanding on his watch. That brings political benefits: It helps reduce energy costs, and polls show Americans largely support it. But more drilling also means more pollution — and more fury from young progressive voters.

This is truly the worst of all worlds. The oil is already out of the ground! Activists and Democratic strategists have made a terrible detente - they have focused on words and messaging rather than policy reality. Carbon emissions in the atmosphere is not affected by whether Biden (or Harris) touts the administration’s actual policy record. The question is whether voters are aware of this reality, and willing to vote for the candidate who will strengthen domestic energy while reducing emissions.

It would seem to be bringing more political benefits if people actually, ya know, heard about it. Which they don’t - Blueprint polling shows that most voters don’t know that Biden supports increasing domestic energy production.

Which isn’t surprising, because Biden would not actually talk about his energy achievements (despite us asking so nicely before then State of the Union).

Refusing to acknowledge reality cannot sustain contact with reality.

Picture the presidential debate stage: Trump repeats what he says often: “Drill Baby Drill! We’re going to drill more oil than ever before in America history!”

What will Harris respond with if she is unable to tout the administration’s record oil production? Whisper “Hey look we’re already drilling more than ever before - thirty percent more than Saudi Arabia! - but I can’t let the climate activists hear about our newfound energy independence”?

You don’t need to be Don Draper to sell the Biden-Harris record on energy. America is producing more energy than ever before while also reducing emissions.

Produce and Reduce: America is producing more energy, while reducing emissions - and reducing dependence on foreign oil, and reducing Europe’s reliance on Russian energy, and producing technology to lead the world, and so on. Trump is promising a secure border, energy abundance, and insurrection. Joe Biden is already working on the first two. If voters don’t believe it, Trump will get to do all three.

It is Kamala’s time to do what Biden would not do. She has her biggest chance tonight, to reaffirm a Democratic pivot back to the center - and to win the middle.