2024-08-12 19:45:15
She holds rallies with thousands of spectators, has collected hundreds of millions of dollars from donors and has overtaken her Republican rival Donald Trump in preference polls. US Vice President Kamala Harris has had a successful first three weeks of the election campaign after President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the election elevated her to the position of the Democratic Party’s candidate for the White House.
Less than a month ago, the 78-year-old Republican ex-president was considered the favorite for the November elections. But after Biden’s unprecedented decision to abandon the defense of the mandate, he now faces an opponent almost 20 years younger, who managed to unite the Democrats and generate enthusiasm in the party compared to the enthusiasm surrounding the campaign of Barack Obama in 2008.
With the new election less than three months away, Harris has a slight lead over Trump in public opinion polls. According to an average compiled by The New York Times in polls conducted across the United States, it is now about one percentage point, and according to the specialized election website FiveThirtyEight, it has exceeded two points in recent days.
However, in the US presidential elections, the decisive results are in individual states, not the support in the whole USA. There are still relatively few polls on the battle between Harris and Trump in key states, but a recent poll conducted for the New York Times found the vice president leading by four points in three of them: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Another positive sign for her is the result of a survey for the Financial Times newspaper, according to which Americans are evenly divided as to whether they trust Harris or Trump more in terms of managing the economy. Biden has long lagged behind Trump in this regard.
At the same time, his vice president was similarly unpopular as Biden in the second half of the mandate. The share of Americans who perceived her work positively did not even reach 40 percent. It’s up more than five percentage points in the past month, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Complex topics remain in the background
The surge in support comes despite criticism that Harris is avoiding complex agenda issues. In recent weeks, she has taken almost no questions from reporters and has not clarified her positions on a number of important topics, from the availability of health insurance to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the New Yorker magazine pointed out last week. “I suspect most voters don’t really care about the answers to these questions, at least not in any serious way. There’s a new energy and a good feeling on the Democratic side… and no one wants to spoil it with agenda debates,” the comment reads.
After assuming the presidential candidacy, Harris spoke at a series of rallies in key swing states from Michigan to Nevada. According to the AP agency, together with other Democrats in the campaign, he emphasizes the theme of “joy” and promotes the idea that voters can enthusiastically support candidates and not just vote against the other party. At the same time, her performances attract crowds of fans, at the weekend meeting in Arizona there were more than 15 thousand of them.
The worst weeks for a flustered Trump
On the other hand, Trump has experienced the “three worst weeks” of this year’s campaign since the turn at the head of the Democrats, the New York Times wrote at the weekend. “People around the former and possibly future president see a candidate off balance, disoriented by his new showdown with Kamala Harris and unsure how to face her,” the newspaper wrote.
Among other things, Trump does not yet have a fixed nickname for Harris, which he likes to give to his opponents. In recent days, he referred to her as “laughing Kamala”, “crazy Kamala” or “curvy Kamala”. During one of his recent appearances, he claimed that the vice president, whose parents were from Jamaica and India, at one point “turned into a black woman.” Then, when he held a more than hour-long news conference last week, he “offered nothing approaching a comprehensive or detailed set of arguments” against her candidacy, The Washington Post wrote.
According to the media, associates of the ex-president are convinced that the increase in support for Harris will only be temporary, and have prepared new attacks. Trump and his potential vice president, JD Vance, have begun calling her a “fake” person and want to draw attention to the changes in her views over the years on the political scene. Trump’s staff said the former president brings a “positive” vision for the US that contrasts with the “dangerously liberal moves” of Biden and Harris.
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