Donald Trump might win the popular vote.
Forget our “better angels,” Harris needs to show what a nightmare a second Trump term would be.
Over the last few weeks, Trump’s share of the vote has trended up while Harris has declined from her post-DNC highs. A nominee falling from their convention bump is not surprising, of course, but arguably the race has centered back to roughly where it would have been had Biden stayed in the race (a fact that Biden world seems happy to remind political reporters on background). That doesn’t mean that Trump will win - I’m not crazy to predict a winner right now, with three weeks still to go - but in terms of U.S. elections, which tends to trend in one direction or another most cycles, this is about as close as we get.
There are disadvantages that Trump has to deal with. One is that he’s a known quantity. He’s been in politics for over ten years now and running as a nominee for the third time, something we haven’t seen in over fifty years. There aren’t really a large group of voters left who, today, are deciding between Harris and Trump or Trump and staying home. His votes are locked in and his increase in polling share reflects that. Most people don’t tune into elections until the last few weeks. Harris has more room to grow, and has the money and resources to target those voters.
I’ve said for the last few weeks that the Harris campaign is losing, because they are. Their messaging has been boilerplate “doesn’t Trump say crazy stuff,” mixed in with pointing out that Trump is very unpopular with establishment Republicans that most Americans don’t know or don’t like. (Trump, to his credit, has the strongest comeback on that issue, arguing that unlike Biden/Harris, “I fire people.”) It feels like October 2016, when Clinton’s campaign would run TV ads of kids watching Trump speeches and imploring Americans to do the right thing, something which Americans can under no circumstances be trusted to do.
On that note, as a libertarian, I love that one of the major parties is running on “freedom” and “minding your own damn business,” unfortunately as generations of libertarian politicians will tell you, that is not a popular position in modern America. People want freedom for themselves, but that does not typically extend to their neighbors.
So if I had a billion dollars and three weeks to spend it, here is what I would do.
Positive messaging - Break with Biden
Biden is unpopular. You can argue to the cows come home about the importance of investments from the Inflation Reduction Act or about the economic virtue of breaking up Google, whatever. I’d disagree with you on both counts but that’s a fight for another day. People blame him for the costs of everything rising. I would point out that wages have outpaced inflation for a while now but the message of “I did that!” is baked in. In addition, it doesn’t really matter how good the economy is, voters always feel the economy is bad. No amount of charts are going to change that. Have you ever looked at your bank account and thought “yeah, I’ve got enough money?” Everyone feels they are about one rung lower on the economic ladder than they should be and it’s the president’s fault.
The Harris campaign has done a terrible job at explaining how she would be different than Biden on economic issues, despite having some material differences on issues like tariffs which we’ll get to below. Trump blankets social media ads with “NO TAXES ON TIPS” (which of all policies to steal from Ron Paul why steal one of his worst?) and bringing jobs back to America. They are economically illiterate but everyone knows them.
Harris has tentpole economic plans too. She wants to give $25k to first time home buyers for down payments, and go after “price gouging” (whatever that happens to mean), and more optimistically, increase new home construction. She talks about them on the stump, but TV and social media ads rarely focus on them. Most voters couldn’t tell you her economic plan, and that’s a huge missed opportunity. As long as the campaign doesn’t prioritize her policies, she will get tagged with Biden’s.
Negative messaging - what is Trump going to do?
Ironically, the Harris campaign found two extremely successful lines of attack early on - Project 2025 and tariffs. Harris’ characterization of tariffs as a national sales tax is brilliant and should be in every TV ad. Call him “10 Percent Trump.” Show grocery costs with a 10%+ import tariff. Explain how much less people will be able to buy. Don’t give an inch. This is one area she is naturally different than Biden, so take advantage of that opportunity. The one thing everyone should know about Trump is that he is going to purposefully raise the cost of everything.
The second attack should be on Trump’s immigration policy. This is a bolder stance that has a bigger risk associated. Immigration has been Harris’ Achilles heel. A majority of Americans have depressingly dark views of immigrants, which I believe comes from literally just not knowing very many Central/South American immigrants. Turn it around on Trump - what would it mean to deport every immigrant Trump’s administration deems illegal? How would that affect everyone’s every day lives? Raids on homes and businesses, military checkpoints across the country, citizens in detention facilities for years until they can get to trial to clear their name. That’s the reality of what a mass deportation program would look like. Harris has to make the case that this is unworkable and undesirable and that it would effectively freeze America for years (which it would) and affect them.
I’ve always felt that Biden & Harris’ best attack on Trump was that he was the candidate of chaos. Most people want to be left alone and not hear about politics every day. Biden won as the ”normal” candidate, but inflation meant that Americans had to think about him every grocery trip. They saw the chaos of the Afghanistan withdrawal and the losses in court when he tried to make unilateral changes to laws. Harris has to show how she will be different economically while going after Trump on his most vulnerable aspects - not just what he says, but what it means if he gets his way.