Choosing Walz as running mate injected enthusiasm into progressive ranks // Republican wastes time on name-calling, analyst says

▲ For the first time this year, Republican Donald Trump’s campaign (pictured a few days ago at Mar-a-Lago) is behind in the polls, according to recent polls that give a slight advantage to Democrat Kamala Harris (on the right, at a campaign event over the weekend in Las Vegas).Photo Ap and Afp

David Brooks and Jim Cason

Correspondents

The newspaper La Jornada
Monday, August 12, 2024, p. 25

New York and Washington, D.C., Tens of thousands of people are turning out for rallies for presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, and recent polls indicate a shift in trends favoring Democrats — all of which is breathing new life into the final stretch of what has been one of the strangest national contests in decades.

In just 20 days since President Joe Biden announced he would drop his re-election bid, Democrats have shifted the electoral terrain from one of near-certain defeat to one where, at the very least, they are no longer losing and are even winning in some key states for the first time against Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump.

For the first time this year, Trump’s campaign is reeling and he appears to be baffled.acknowledged veteran Republican political strategist Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal. He is committing too many own goals and wasting valuable and irreplaceable time on insults, fringe issues and trivia. All of this undermines his cause..

Meanwhile, the renewed Democratic campaign led by Harris is enjoying a period of honeymoon which will likely continue during the Democratic National Convention scheduled in Chicago from the 19th to the 22nd of this month.

A flood of positive press and for the first time a palpable enthusiasm at Democratic campaign events shared by the entire spectrum of the party’s base and allies, from progressives to conservative centrists, is causing nervousness for the first time among Republican ranks.

Trump held a press conference in Florida last week, in which he attempted to divert the public narrative by repeating a series of personal attacks against Vice President Harris and insisting that he is winning. I still have a substantial lead in the polls in several key states.the former president reiterated this weekend, although that is no longer true.

Ahead by 6 points

A new national poll from Marquette University reveals that Harris is ahead of Trump by 6 points (53 percent to 47 percent). The renowned Cook Political Report, a key source for evaluating the electoral contest, moved to three key states that it previously called leaning towards the republican back in the category of at stake. Meanwhile, the most recent survey of the New York Times/Siena recorded that Harris is winning in the key states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by about 4 points. All are indicators that the Democrats, with Harris at the helm, are managing to change the dynamics of the race. Until earlier this month, Trump had held the lead in almost all national polls and in the key states that will determine the presidential election.

For Harris and Walz, the challenge is to consolidate these trends in the 90 days remaining in this race (campaigns in the United States are extremely long compared to other countries, sometimes lasting more than a year), and they all have advice on how to do that. Nate Cohen, the respected pollster, wrote this week that With Democrats unified and re-energized again, the central task of Harris’s campaign over the coming weeks is to build a lasting political image that will protect her from predictable attacks on the border, crime, and her previous more left-wing positions on the issues..

Conservative turn

According to that advice, which is widely shared by many so-called experts in Washington, Democrats need to shift toward more conservative positions in order to attract so-called voters. independent (not registered with one of the two national parties) who might otherwise decide not to vote or vote for Trump. The professional political class offers variations on how Harris needs to show she will be firm on issues like public safety and crime – perhaps highlighting her experience as a California state attorney general – and also scheduling an event at the border to respond to Trump’s central attack that she and her party favor a open border. In fact, she has already begun to repeat the same line that her boss Biden used that it requires both a secure border as comprehensive immigration reform.

The anger of the bases

But what Harris has effectively done so far is inject new enthusiasm into a Democratic Party base that was disenchanted and irritated with Biden’s increasingly anemic campaign, his shaky public appearances, his response to Republicans by taking conservative positions on border control and immigration, and his staunch support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

By naming Tim Walz as her vice-presidential candidate, Harris has fueled the new enthusiasm of the liberal and progressive currents of her party – Walz, as governor of Minnesota, has championed labor rights, civil and gay rights, public education, an environmental agenda, and is one of the few politicians with zero investments in Wall Street – but she continues to be under pressure not only from the conservative leadership of the party, but from its progressive base.

His recent speech in Michigan was interrupted several times by protesters chanting: Kamala, you can’t hide, we accuse you of genocideShe countered that such protesters could end up helping elect Trump, and a majority of her supporters chanted pro-Harris slogans to silence them. But if Harris is to win back and mobilize the youth vote, and win in states like Michigan, her positions on her hitherto unconditional support for Israel will hurt her campaign.

Abdulla Hammoud, mayor of the city of Dearborn, Michigan, wrote on X that protesters are expressing the pain of a people, of those who feel dehumanized and at that moment there was an opportunity to acknowledge the alienation that many voters feel, not just in Michigan, they are across the country, around that genocide. I am hopeful that there will be an opportunity for a constructive dialogue.In fact, the protesters spoke briefly with the vice president, who promised to meet with them.

Another challenge for Harris is how she will address the issue of immigration and the border with Mexico, which has been placed at the center of the national electoral debate by her opponent Trump, and something that the Republican reiterates almost every day.

But for now, this is a new race, and it’s no small feat to say that for the first time in months, Trump is no longer winning.