A Moment for History
2024 General Election Situational Briefing - Late July
The last two weeks have been some of the most momentous that I can remember in my time observing politics. This may possibly be a product of my relative youth, but outside of the days immediately surrounding election day, I cannot recall a fortnight on the political calendar where so much has transpired that, for many, it all feels to be a blur. With these events now firmly in the rear-view mirror, this article hopes to not only set out my initial predictions and analyses in a series of updates that will comprise my coverage of the 2024 US general election but also to take the reader at a more approachable pace through the happenings of these last 14 days to assess their impact going forward.
Current Topline Prediction
If the election were to be held today, I would predict that the Republicans would win both the Presidency and the Senate while the Democrats would flip the House of Representatives by literally the smallest margin possible. This would likely mean a de facto Republican trifecta, particularly on economic issues, since a one-seat House Democratic majority is impossible to commandeer effectively outside of key agreements on certain social issues. However, it would also mean that Republicans would likely have to moderate their legislative policy, with Democrats controlling the floor agenda of the House and Democratic moderates being essential for any legislation to pass.
Consensus predictors agree that, under a neutral environment, the Senate map is favorable to Republicans this year, the House is favorable to Democrats, and the Presidency is anybody’s to win. At the current moment, the national environment has a very slight Republican tilt, shifting all maps towards the party.
The Last Two Weeks
Before I get into my analysis of what these last two weeks can indicate for the parties going forward, I think it will be useful to take a step back and go through what exactly has happened during this time.
Former President Donald Trump was almost assassinated two Sundays ago at a rally in Butler, PA. A bullet hit his ear, injuring it and requiring a bandage, which has become a symbol among Republicans of the resilience of their candidate. The last time there was an attempt like this on a politician of this stature was the attempted Ronald Reagan assassination in 1981. Both parties have condemned this assassination attempt, and the head of the Secret Service ended up resigning after bipartisan anger mounted at her initial refusal to do so.
In the aftermath of the attempt on his life, Trump’s polling numbers shot up from their already strong position. Almost two days after the assassination attempt, there were serious predictions that Trump could very well clear 350 electoral votes and put Democratic-leaning swing states like Minnesota, New Mexico, and Virginia into play.
This increased stature and breathing room in the polls gave Trump the ability to pick a Vice Presidential nominee who could be less attuned to maximizing electoral results and more relevant in regards to defending the legacy of Trump and steering the party in his preferred manner after this term. As a result, more electability-enhancing picks like Senator Marco Rubio (Florida) and Governor Glenn Youngkin (Virginia) were set aside, and a candidate with incredibly strong conviction and base appeal, JD Vance, was nominated. Vance was mainly known for his best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, as well as for being a politician and Senator (from Ohio) who had a different outlook than many in the party. Specifically, he is assertively socially conservative, isolationist in foreign relations, protectionist, and distrustful of big business.
At the same time, President Biden’s collapse in polling post the debate re-invigorated calls from many congressional Democrats, allegedly led by Representative Nancy Pelosi (California), for him to drop out. There were varying ideas as to who exactly would replace him, with opinions ranging from just nominating VP Kamala Harris to an open convention with a competitive process. Biden’s supporters warned that there might be difficulties getting a new name on the ballot this late in the race (a claim most election lawyers dismissed as false) and for ensuring that whoever the nominee is, could get access to already-raised funds (a more valid concern, especially if the Democrats didn’t nominate Harris). Slowly but surely, many congressional Democrats started publicly calling for Biden to drop out.
The RNC Convention kicked off, defined by a heightened level of emotion and excitement. Trump’s response to the assassination electrified Republicans, and the pick of JD Vance signified a willingness to fight and not yield. CNN correspondents on the ground remarked that the energy in the convention mimicked the 2008 Democratic convention that went on to nominate Obama and win in a landslide later that year.
The reactions to Trump’s and Vance’s speeches at the convention were mixed. The overall consensus was that Republicans loved the speeches, Democrats hated them, and independents felt Vance’s speech was genuine but lacked charisma and Trump’s speech started off very well but went on too long and started falling off in quality after the first 20 minutes.
Heading into the weekend, the Republicans were at their strongest ever yet, with the party electrified and united behind their candidates. The Democrats were arguably at their weakest since 2018, with the party self-cannibalizing itself as emotions rose over whether Biden should stay as nominee. Signs got even worse for the Democrats after it came out that Biden had contracted COVID.
Finally, on Sunday, Biden dropped out of the presidential race. Almost immediately after dropping out, he crucially endorsed Kamala Harris as the next presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. It appears that the decision process from Biden’s end was quite rushed, with him only deciding at the very last minute to finally drop out. It’s likely that major Democratic donors withdrawing from fundraising pledges was a major factor. On the flip side, it’s been reported that many Democrats were caught off guard by Biden’s move to endorse Harris so early, with many hoping that Biden would have yielded that decision to the party at large.
Harris quickly consolidated the momentum that the Biden endorsement gave her and rapidly unified the party behind her. In almost 24 hours all public dissent and clamor in the party had almost completely evaporated. Over the week, Harris plugged notable holes in endorsements, such as Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, countering media speculation around continued internal dissent by going very public with her endorsements. Since her nomination, Harris’s campaign has raised a staggering $200 million, with 66% coming from first time contributors.
Harris has opened her campaign, taking the attack directly to the Republicans and targeting them on issues that they have felt typically been considered more defensive on, such as abortion. A particular focus has emerged on attacking JD Vance, as a combination of old questionable ideas and awkward statements have given Vance the lowest post-convention approval rating of any VP since 2000 and an opportunity for Democrats to go on the attack. With a re-invigorated base and an assertive campaign, Harris has significantly narrowed the gap against Trump and will probably hope to maintain that energy for the next 3-4 weeks until she can get her own convention bump from the Democratic National Convention on 19-22 August. It’s been reported that her pick for VP can be expected by 7-8 August.
Where Do We Go From Here?
From this vantage point, one thing is clear. Both parties are ready to fight, with fired-up bases and assertive candidates at the top of the ticket. The big question remains whether this election will walk into a repeat of what’s considered to be its closest analog yet: 1968. A country gripped by social unrest led by a Democratic president who must step down due to unpopularity and the unrest itself, giving rise to his vice president at the top of the ticket, who must compete against a seasoned politician on the Republican side promising to combat left-wing radicalism and restore conservatism and order to government. This might sound vaguely familiar to readers today, and it’s key to note that the Democrats put up a strong fight but ended up losing that election. The fundamental question that remains will be whether the parties re-enact this historical story or break from it, with good potential for both scenarios.
Republican Strategy
The Republican strategy is, naturally, to push towards a modern re-enactment of 1968. To do this, the Republicans will want to paint the Democrats as a party of lawlessness and disorder. There are many tools the Republicans have at their disposal at the current moment. A recent poll by one of the best pollsters out there, Atlas Intel (margin of error +/-2), shows that American voters give Trump far more trust than Harris on the issues of immigration (+6), managing American policy in regards to the war between Israel and Palestinian armed factions (+5), and narrower yet positive trust on managing the national debt (+3) and managing inflation (+1). This same poll also shows that today, Trump has a two-percentage-point lead over Harris in the national popular vote. This is a good window into where I’d expect Republicans (and they have already started on this) to hit Harris hard: the border.
Most Americans feel that the border has become too porous. While the specifics are disputed by both parties, it’s also true that Harris is perceived as partially responsible for this issue, as she was dubbed the “border czar” by several media outlets in the earlier portion of Biden’s presidency. While Democrats may try to push back on some of the inaccuracies of this reporting, the fact is that they are choosing to push back now when it hurts Harris and not back when this news was fresh, and there was little upside to doing so. The issue of the border is an incredibly easy place for Republicans to begin painting a picture of the Democrats as an incompetent party of lawlessness, as they seem unable to control the number of people entering this country, which is also seen not only as a failure of government but also as a safety and security threat to ordinary Americans.
This also ties into another issue that can be of benefit to Republicans: crime. Many voters’ last concrete memories of Harris come from 2020 when she was notably very friendly to the #BlackLivesMatter movement that swept the country. While the movement was quite popular then, its more antagonistic demands towards police are not where the country is today, and Republicans will likely try to capitalize on that to paint Harris as weak on crime. This plays a double role, as it can help undo the “prosecutor vs felon” angle that the Harris campaign is trying to establish in this race. The Trump War Room account on X, formerly known as Twitter, attempted to hammer on this relatively early on after Harris’s announcement of her candidacy, posting mugshots and bios of people arrested for rioting in Minneapolis in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. It should be noted that Harris helped bail out many people arrested on the earliest night by promoting fundraising for the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a bail fund that sought to bail people arrested on riot charges out of jail. The Trump War Room had to stop after accidentally claiming a black veteran, who was later found to have done nothing wrong except be out after curfew, was a seasoned criminal. While this highlights the dangers of going overboard with this strategy and coming across as trying to race-bait, it, regardless, remains a very potent line of attack to hit Harris with.
The conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants is a slightly more complicated issue for Republicans to manage, but also not too difficult given the right circumstances. Many in the base are strongly pro-Israel, but after many years of messaging about “America First” foreign policy, many Republicans and independents may be wary of stale-sounding pledges of massive support to Israel. However, what almost the entire group of voters from the right-wing to the center can agree on is frustration with radical elements of pro-Palestinian protesting in the US. Images of American flags burned and Hamas slogans on national monuments, similar to the radical wing of the anti-Vietnam War and Black Power movements in 1968, can present an additional image of ineptitude and lawlessness from the Democrats, especially as Harris must balance pushing back on these images with the fact a lot of her base has some level of sympathy towards Palestinians. If something similar to the 1968 anti-war riots at the DNC happens in 2024 (coincidentally, both conventions were in Chicago), it could give the Republicans a golden opportunity.
Republicans can also try to hit on economic messaging, but I have a feeling it’ll play a lesser role than what many would expect it to. Firstly, unlike in 2020, the margins of favorability that Republicans have on the issues of inflation and the national debt over Harris are much smaller, and secondly, some of the Republican economic proposals are highly tailored to certain segments of the country and may open up broader attacks if made into a national issue. Democrats have historically seen that elections that revolve around economic issues tend to favor Republicans, and so they may not make this a primary issue. Having said that, Trump’s dramatic tariff proposals are potentially inflationary, thereby weakening one of the main planks of the Republican planks against the Biden-Harris management of the US economy. A political equilibrium exists on this issue, with Republicans holding a small but easily frittered advantage and Democrats unwilling to make the first move. Therefore, I expect little direct talk on the economy outside of stump speeches on these issues unless Democrats decide to make this a primary issue.
In summary, the Republican strategy must be focused on keeping this election on its 1968 trajectory and ensuring that they communicate to America that the Democrats are the party of disorder and ineptitude. By contrast, the Republicans present a coalition between “Real America” (which the Vance pick for VP was intended to appeal to) and those outside it with “common sense” who believe that the Republicans can fix this disorder in the national government and in the country.
Democratic Strategy
If the Republican goal is to paint the Democrats as the party of lawlessness, disorder, and ineptitude, Harris’s goals are to turn the tables on them and paint them as the party of radical lawbreakers whose strange and extreme politicians, and ideas, fundamentally clash with the sense of normality and sensibility that Democrats bring to the table. That same Atlas Intel poll mentioned earlier also indicates that Americans give Democrats far more trust on issues like healthcare (+10) and education (+10) and positive marks on anti-corruption (+3). Atlas also shows that an equal amount of voters trust either party with the issue of “dealing with the US economy and jobs market,” which is an unprecedented first for Democrats in a long time. Democrats, now unburdened by the need to constantly answer for both Biden’s age and earliest actions, can now strive to paint themselves as the party of stability that can give the voters the education, healthcare, and jobs market that they want, although I’d be suspicious again of the merits of trying to turn this election into an economics-based one due to the traditional weakness of the Democrats on this front. That being said, unlike many other elections before, Democrats have good numbers and, crucially, good standing with voters on certain economics-related issues, allowing them to be subtle about it and have substance to respond to GOP attacks on the issue, if needed.
Another gift that currently seems to keep on giving to the Democrats is JD Vance. From his “childless cat lady” remark about Kamala Harris to prior support for a nationwide abortion ban to other unorthodox ideas surrounding parental political power (he has argued that parents should get extra votes for each child) to appearances on podcasts and Twitter forums with people perceived to be extreme, it almost feels like almost everyday voters are informed about some new reason why Vance is fundamentally an awkward person. Now, the example of Trump goes to show that a lot of this can be papered over if a politician has both a flippant attitude towards such attacks and the charisma to match. Vance appears to have the flippant attitude but none of the charisma, which, to me, explains why he holds the dishonor of having the lowest approval rating for a VP nominee from either side post-convention since 2000. Now, to be clear, the election is 100 days away, and there is plenty of time for Vance to be coached up and possibly refute these attacks in a definitive way. Furthermore, as the example of Dan Quayle in the 1988 presidential race shows, a bad VP pick can only hurt the ticket so much: George Bush won that election despite the blunder in picking Quayle. However, as someone who already had doubts about Vance’s electoral strength before the selection, and considering his lack of charisma in interviews and rallies, it does feel that Vance is currently a net asset for the Democrats, especially in helping set up the contrast they want to strike between the normalcy of Harris versus the radical and strange carousel mired with criminal convictions and weird ideas that is the Trump-world.
As mentioned before, it’s not the wisest idea for the Democrats to be very open about attacking Republicans on the economy in general. This has typically never worked out for them, and 2024 is probably not the election to start taking risks. However, if it can help build the image of a strong America led by Democrats that delivers for the people while Trump proposes up to 200% tariffs on certain goods from China and a 10% worldwide baseline tariff, then limited targeted messaging might be something that emerges. As mentioned earlier, voters are giving Harris an unusually strong rating on dealing with the US economy and jobs market; the Democrats, after three years of perceived economic mismanagement, finally have strong numbers to boast about (15 million jobs added, 4% unemployment rate, inflation around 3%). The Harris campaign has already made outreaches to more traditionally Republican-leaning business lobbies, some dismayed with Trump’s tariff proposals, trying to win them over this time around.
By contrast, it is typically a winning strategy for Democrats to center the election around social issues, and that’s what Harris has been doing, especially in regard to women’s issues. The Vance pick makes it much easier to paint the Republicans broadly as a party with strange ideas about women -- something the Democrats tried doing in 2022 to much success around the issue of abortion. As much as the Republicans plan to talk about the border, I’d expect Democrats to hit back on abortion.
The truth is that even if Republicans campaign on keeping it a choice for each state to set their own rules, there are multiple issues with this line of rhetoric. First, the Vance pick somewhat undermines that argument, considering his prior support for a national abortion ban. Second, but arguably more crucially, state Republican parties in almost every swing state remain relatively hard-line on the issue. This creates liabilities for the Republican Party and a no-win scenario for the national ticket on this issue, similar to the border issue for Democrats. In summary, Republican assumptions that “return it to the states” will broadly work seem dubious when considered against the fact that many pro-choice centrist voters in swing states, knowing the position of their local Republican party, may elect Democrats at the federal level. This choice creates space for centrist voters to then vote Republican at the state and local level.
The biggest threat Harris potentially faces is party disunity. It’s what sunk the Democrats in 1968, threatened to definitively sink them while Biden was running for re-election, and its looming shadow could still sink Harris this cycle. Luckily for her, any concern of such a splinter happening in the immediate future is extremely low. Unlike what many were expecting, Democrats rallied around Harris with energy, and the voter enthusiasm in both parties now is incredibly high. The natural concern, however, is that much of this popularity comes from the ability of every Democrat to project their own vision of who Harris is onto her. For progressives, Harris is someone who can actually take the fight to Trump, stand up for socially liberal policies unabashedly, and connect with progressive voting groups. For moderates, Harris represents someone who aligned herself with Biden against Bernie Sanders and could possibly bring a more modern and pragmatic approach to how the Democratic Party can deal with business and technology in this country. Minority voters think Harris has their interests at heart, and she also appeals to white liberal voters. This could all very well change if Harris rocks the boat too much either way, with this uneasier and broader coalition far more fragile than the Republican one. To combat this, I’d expect two things:
Firstly, as is conventional wisdom, Harris will select a white man to be her VP. The finalists appear to be Governors Josh Shapiro (Pennsylvania) and Tim Walz (Minnesota), as well as Senator Mark Kelly (Arizona). If I had to take a guess, I’d rule Mark Kelly out as Democrats would probably want a Governor to balance the fact that Harris has little executive experience, and I’d unconventionally lean against Shapiro for the simple reason that his positions on student protestors as well as a recent sexual harassment settlement against his top aide, threaten to rock the boat too much. His pro-school choice position will also probably alienate teacher’s unions, which are a core component of the Democratic base. That being said, that could all change if something comes up about Walz; Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky, was an early front-runner but lost that status after a series of excessively cringeworthy swipes at JD Vance. In addition, Mark Kelly’s biography as an astronaut and moderate senator may bring in more voters, with the attack on executive experience dulled a bit by Trump’s decision to pick a senator as his vice-presidential nominee.
Secondly, I expect Harris to lean into the “Prosecutor vs Felon” angle. Elections today are primarily a game about turnout, and while there is much dissent within the Democratic Party on many issues, the visceral dislike for Donald Trump is a uniting factor. This approach also allows Harris to play to her strengths: she has been a prosecutor for much of her career, first as the San Francisco District Attorney and then as California Attorney General, and it’d be useful for to her define the race on familiar grounds. More broadly, it helps build towards that image that the Democrats are trying to paint of Republicans: a radical, corrupt, and strange party mired with criminal convictions and out-of-touch ideas. A further advantage is, given the polling surrounding public perceptions of which candidate is stronger in fighting corruption, there is no sign that the median voter would be repelled by this message, which is a usual risk when launching aggressive campaigns.
Conclusion
In essence, this election cycle has marked the death of the “They go low, we go high” sentiment and the resurgence of the mud-fight. I don’t pretend to claim that either party truly went high, but the facade of both sides pretending to care about it is off, and I would expect far more honest campaigns from both parties going forward to achieve their aims. The demographic continuum that, at its core, this election will be fought on seems to have been established: Republicans fundamentally trying to represent the interests of white men of all ages without a post-graduate or elite undergraduate education, while the Democrats focus principally on the interests and vision of unmarried women of all races. Different voter blocs will probably side with whichever outlook incorporates more of their interests and priorities.