Monday Edition: Kamala's "So Crazy It Just Might Work" Strategy

Plus: Americans aren't really feeling J.D. Vance.

Author

Bubba
12 Aug

USA Women’s Basketball star Brittany Griner wipes away the tears during the gold medal ceremony. Griner was imprisoned in Russia for 10-months for drug charges (possession of vape cartridges with hash oil), and previously took criticism for kneeling for the national anthem. (Getty Images)

1. What If Kamala Just “Rides It Out”?

Democrats were worried dumping President Biden with so little time left in the 2024 race might hurt them, but has a perceived weakness actually turned into a strength? (Silver Bulletin)

The latest: Vice President Kamala Harris has yet to give an interview and hardly engaged with the press since becoming the Democrats’ presidential nominee, and yet, her favorability numbers have continued to rise as she’s erased Donald Trump’s polling lead.

  • The time that Harris is officially running for president — from the date Biden officially dropped out of the race to Election Day — will total only 107 days.

  • Critics have harped on the Harris campaign’s thin policy messaging so far, claiming she’s riding a wave of friendly media coverage and vapid memes to overtake Trump in the polls.

  • This has led to accusations she’s ducking the press to avoid having to stake out policy positions that might prove unpopular.

Cenk Uygur, host of the progressive news show, “The Young Turks”:

Is she going to go the whole campaign without ever doing an interview? Of course not, right? Is she going to go the whole campaign without stating a single policy issue?

I would hope not. Otherwise, why are we excited about her if we don't even know her policy positions? Remember, she does change them fairly frequently.

So, no, that would be absurd. You have to do interviews. You have to answer what the hell are you going to do when you get to office? And by the way, you should tell people what you're going to do. And if that causes some degree of trouble because you misstated it or it's not a popular policy position, whatever it might be, that's called politics.

“Shark Tank” co-host Kevin O’Leary on what Harris’ “closest advisers” told him:

It’s intentional. She has no intention of putting any policy out there until [the Democratic National Convention] is over. …

[Harris’ advisers] said, ‘Listen, everything’s working right now. We’re going to strong-arm the press on policy. We don’t need to do anything.' …

The momentum’s crazy. The press she’s getting right now. She has her campaign. The campaign is working. And there’s no reason to sit down with any journalist and talk policy right now because we’re in the euphoric stage.

Jay Caspian Kang, a staff writer at the New Yorker:

Part of Harris’s success thus far derives from the extraordinary circumstances that led to her becoming the presumptive nominee. She is running in a general election without having gone through a primary, in which all her vague positions would have been interrogated both by the press and by the candidates running against her. … Now Harris is running as a quasi-incumbent who doesn’t have to answer all that much for what she did during the past four years.

Related: Polls suggest voters don’t hold Harris responsible for the state of the economy, which most Americans disapprove of.

Bubba’s Two Cents

The idea of Harris simply riding out the current frenzy of good vibes until November 5 is interesting, but likely unrealistic. It’s roughly two months until Election Day, which doesn’t sound that long. But we all saw how quickly the “vibes” changed after Biden suspended his campaign.

2. How Voters Are Responding to the VP Picks

Voters couldn’t have reacted more differently to the unveiling of the Democratic and GOP VP picks. (Vanity Fair)

Dems: Per a new YouGov survey, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s favorability rose 9 points — from 32% on August 6 to 41% on August 8 — in a matter of two days.

GOP: Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio has a -11 net favorability in Pennsylvania, per Times/Siena College.

  • Vance's overall net favorability fell from -3% in July to -9% in August, according to a new NPR/PBS/Marist poll.

  • The Ohio Republican’s net favorability among college graduates dropped 28 points in August, reaching -27% compared to +1% in July.

Bess Levin, a politics correspondent for Vanity Fair:

It’s not hard to see why people have positive views of Walz and are increasingly repelled by Vance. The former gives off serious Big Dad Energy, believes in stuff like abortion access, workers rights, paid family leave, and affordable housing; as governor, he ensured school children would not go hungry. Then there’s Vance, who has suggested people should stay in violent marriages for the sake of their kids, and that not having kids means a person has no “direct stake” in the country and is more likely to be a sociopath.

Bubba’s Two Cents

It’s kind of disappointing (if not surprising) how much media coverage of Vance is basically a thinly veiled extension of Democrats’ favorite new messaging strategy: Republicans are “weird.” That’s not to say Vance hasn’t sometimes made it easier on his opponents.

Even supporters, like Compact founder Sohrab Ahmari, have cautioned the Trump-Vance campaign against “doubling down on meanness” or leaning too heavily into “online right” provocation.

But as the image below shows, it’s not exactly an even playing field in the mainstream press:

3. “Weird” Might Not Be Working for Dems

New research suggests Democrats are better off persuading voters Kamala Harris is “normal” rather than attempting to cast Republicans as “weird.” (Slow Boring)

The latest: An analysis of survey testing data from 100,000 Americans conducted by University of California, Berkeley and Yale University researchers found messages that highlight Harris's achievements and vision for America are more successful in winning voter support than attacks on Donald Trump.

  • The survey tested 65 pro-Harris messages, and those presenting her as a typical Democrat were more effective than those targeting Trump or emphasizing ideological divides within the Democratic Party.

  • UC Berkeley professor David Broockman: “What's better than calling Trump weird? Convincing voters Harris is normal.”

Zoom in: Attacking Trump as “weird” was one of the least effective forms of messaging.

Chart: Slow Boring

What worked better? Messages focusing on Harris’s role in capping insulin prices, lowering prescription drug costs and casting the tie-breaking vote for the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

  • The most persuasive messages portray Harris as a "normal" Democrat, focusing on mainstream issues such as reducing living costs, protecting Medicare and raising the minimum wage.

Broockman and Yale University professor Josh Kalla:

The bad news for Democrats is that, to the extent voters do know Harris, they think she is very liberal and that her policies would not make them better off financially. The good news is that voters have heard much less about Harris than Trump: in fact, many don’t know basic facts about whether she supports protecting Social Security or taxing the rich. That means there should be much more room to change voters’ views about her. Our survey finds exactly this: Only messages praising Harris’s achievements and describing her vision for America win her votes. Messages attacking Trump don’t.

Bubba’s Two Cents

Broockman and Kalla’s findings run counter to a lot of the current thinking on the state of politics, where vibes supposedly dominate over policy. It’d be great if this research holds true, but take it with a grain of salt.

4. A Downright Terrible Answer

During a recent sit-down with the city’s largest black radio station, Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates was asked to respond to critics of Chicago Public Schools’ abysmal math and reading scores. (X)

Davis Gates:

When people talk about achievement as a classroom teacher, I know that it is not linear. And the way in which we think about learning and think about achievement is really and truly based on testing, which at best is junk science rooted in white supremacy. Now if you have another hour, I can get into why standardized tests are born out of the eugenics movement. And the eugenics movement has always sought to see black people as inferior to those that are non-black. So when people talk to me about testing alone, you know, I have to trouble the waters and challenge that. Because you can't test black children with an instrument that was born to prove their inferiority.

A response from a caller:

I’ve passed every standardized test and I want my children to be able to do it. Even though I’m black that does not mean I cannot achieve on standardized testing. And our children need to do that so that they can be competitive. Our focus needs to be on the literacy gap Black children have that’s not being addressed.

The stats: According to the Illinois Policy Institute, a free market think tank, since 2012, Chicago Public School spending has increased 97% “while reading proficiency has decreased by 63% and math proficiency by 78%.”

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