Tuesday Edition: Kamala's Image Problem

Vice President Kamala Harris, the top contender to replace President Biden as the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nominee, has had her fair share of struggles resonating with voters at the national level. (X)

Setting the stage: At first, media coverage centered around the historic significance of Harris becoming vice president, but, as Townhall contributor John Hasson documented in a recent X/Twitter thread, quickly shifted to questioning why she wasn't connecting with the American public.

January 2021:

“The inauguration of the first female, first Black and first South Asian vice president following the aforementioned assault did two things at once – marked a hopeful turning point in the long fight for racial representation and justice, and underscored in sobering fashion that confronting White supremacy will be one of the new administration’s main challenges.”

January 2022:

“Vice President Kamala Harris is planning an image ‘reboot’ after a troubled first year in office which has seen her poll ratings plummet…”

February 2022:

“Harris is hoping to turn things around by finding roles more suited to her skill set.”

February 2023:

“…the painful reality for Ms. Harris is that in private conversations over the last few months, dozens of Democrats in the White House, on Capitol Hill and around the nation — including some who helped put her on the party’s 2020 ticket — said she had not risen to the challenge of proving herself as a future leader of the party, much less the country. Even some Democrats whom her own advisers referred reporters to for supportive quotes confided privately that they had lost hope in her.”

August 2023:

“Now her political future, and quite possibly the success of the Democratic ticket in 2024, hinges on a simple question: Is it possible for Kamala Harris to make a second impression?”

October 2023:

“Ease and confidence have not been the prevailing themes of Harris’s vice presidency.”

November 2023:

“In interviews with more than 75 people in the vice president’s orbit, there is little agreement about Harris at all, except an acknowledgment that she has a public perception problem…”

The numbers: Polling data, as well as Harris’ failed 2020 presidential campaign, echo the media consensus around the vice president.

Harris’ approval ratings went underwater nine months after she took office, and haven’t been net positive since.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans don’t think Harris is qualified to be president.

In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Harris was running well behind several other Democrats, even in her home state primary.

Bubba’s Two Cents

Democrats know Harris isn’t a perfect candidate (that was part of the reason it took so long for Biden to drop out). But the narrative in the media about her political shortcomings (mainly, that voters don’t seem to like her all that much) has been crystal clear. It will be interesting to see how this shifts, and if the press starts acting like she’s this greatly beloved figure.

Project 2025 has become a central plank of Democrats’ messaging in the 2024 presidential campaign, even making it into Vice President Kamala Harris’ opening statement as the likely Democratic presidential nominee. (Business Insider)

Harris in her first statement posted to X/Twitter after receiving President Biden’s endorsement: “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.”

What is Project 2025? The Heritage Foundation created a 900-page plan to staff the next GOP administration, addressing concerns that Trump’s first-term agenda was hindered by dissenters in the federal government.

Why’s it (supposedly) so scary? Project 2025's most controversial policies include:

• Concentrating power in the presidency, including reclassifying civil servants to political appointees and reducing DOJ independence.

• Longtime conservative priorities like slashing regulations, reducing spending on social programs and deprioritizing climate change.

• A hardline religious-right agenda, including banning abortion pills, restricting contraceptive coverage and outlawing pornography with severe penalties for creators and distributors.

Does Trump support it? The former president’s gone to great lengths to distance himself from the project, and had no hand in its creation (although some former staffers worked on it).

• At a recent rally, Trump called Project 2025 “seriously extreme” and compared it to the “radical left.”

• “I don’t know anything about it, I don’t want to know anything about it,” he added.

• More broadly, Trump has moderated his stance on social issues of late, pushing the Republican National Committee to adopt a softer tone on abortion and same-sex marriage.

Does anyone besides journalists or Democratic operatives actually care? Not really.

• Nearly 8 in 10 Americans have heard “little” or “nothing” about the plan, according to a July survey of registered voters conducted by Navigator Research, a progressive firm.

• A YouGov survey released this month found just 7% of Republicans and 16% of independents know “a lot” about the project.

• Among Democrats, only about one-third are truly familiar with Project 2025.

Bubba’s Two Cents

The Biden campaign has taken to warning about the abstract dangers of Trump, whether it’s highlighting the alleged threat to democracy he poses or Project 2025. But those attacks doesn’t appear to be working for Democrats. Similarly, “Bidenomics” messaging, which focused on how the administration’s policies helped the middle class, also fell flat. For those keeping score, that’s three catchy campaigns (Bidenomics, Trump is a threat to democracy, and Project 2025) that have all fallen flat.

The assassination attempt on Donald Trump has prompted much soul searching about extreme political rhetoric — but what about the media’s role?

A new survey: 71% of Democrats who strongly agree with the blanket statement, “white Republicans are racist,” support the attempt on Trump’s life, according to a snap poll by University of Buckingham professor Eric Kaufmann.

• The more a respondent disagreed with the statement, the more likely they were to oppose the Trump shooting, suggesting a link between fringe beliefs and support for political violence.

Kaufmann:

Bubba’s Two Cents

There’s no denying we’ve seen a worrying increase in political extremism on left and right. But you won’t convince me the media’s completely blameless when it comes to amping up tensions. The problem with claiming the press is just reporting facts is that labeling extremism is extremely subjective.

The number of rapes in New York City have surged by 11%, and critics say crime policies are largely to blame. (New York Post)

The numbers: From Jan. 1 to July 14, there were 880 reported rapes, up from 796 last year.

• Factors contributing to the rise include bail reform, the city’s migrant influx and a a shrinking police force, experts say.

Rafael Mangual, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute:

Bubba’s Two Cents

One perspective on societal crime sees it as a complex web of hard-to-untangle factors. From another point of view, crime is basically a policy choice, not some nebulous social fact we have no control over.