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like 20 million other Every night last week, I watched this year’s high energy Celebrities Gathered The Democratic National Convention has attracted widespread attention.
Although real policy proposals emerged over the four nights, a large number of Atmosphere The election of Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has clearly excited the party and voters, an excitement that was largely absent from the party and voters in the months (and even years) leading up to the election of President Joe Biden. Withdrawal from the election.
Michelle Obama The shift in the Democratic Party’s mood “There’s a wonderful magic in the air, isn’t there? … We’re feeling it on this stage, but it’s spreading across this country we love,” she said. “It’s a familiar feeling that’s been buried for too long.”
But what role does this magic play in the high-stakes US election? After all, atmosphere is not votes.
Can Harris turn the current excitement into a persuasive argument to entice undecided voters and voters in swing states to vote for her?
Today, I’m joined by Christian Paz, Vox’s senior political correspondent and Democrat reporter, to help me understand the climate around the candidates, how that might play out at the polls, and what we might be missing in the haze of excitement. Our interview has been condensed and lightly edited.
so, yes Is there really a shift in the mood within the Democratic Party right now? It certainly seems to be.
Yes, there are a few ways to quantify this. The first is the approval rating or Favorability Kamala Harris. One of the key things we’ve seen is a sharp drop in her approval rating.
As people got to know her, figured out who she was, what she did as vice president, and learned more about her because we really didn’t see a lot of her during her vice presidency, her attention really increased.
In Gallup Recent pollsDemocrats’ favorable rating of her has risen to 93% from 77% in June. This is clearly a shift in the atmosphere in her favor.
Another way to measure atmosphere is Voting motivationand that has changed. Now Democrats are ahead of Republicans in terms of voting activity. In the past, the Republican lead was quite significant.
Another factor is anecdotal evidence—the fact that there has been so much saturation of coverage of her, both in terms of the amount of positive coverage in the media, MemesJokes about “naughty summer”, coconut trees or coconut balls all arouse the interest of young people.
Why are people feeling so strongly now? Michelle Obama has suggested that the last time we saw this kind of energy was with Barack Obama.
Part of the reason people are so optimistic about Harris is because they see her as a change candidate, even though she’s technically the incumbent. She’s part of the administration. People are willing to forgive some of her affiliations with Biden and overlook some of the less popular parts of Biden’s presidency and not blame her for them but give her credit for the more popular aspects.
People do want to feel the difference in the air, and that’s why they think back to the closest thing: 2008. There are similarities there. It’s another black candidate; it’s a female presidential candidate, and it reminds us of 2016. So what we’re brewing together, I think it’s like a cup of tea, with the notes of the past that you remember, repackaged in a post-Trump style.
Even if you take the outside atmosphere out of account, Harris is leading in some polls in North Carolina, she wants to expand into Florida, and she’s taking Arizona seriously, which are some of the same things we heard during the Obama campaign, so it’s a fair comparison.
What we can’t compare him to Obama is that he had months to campaign. People quit their jobs to join the campaign, knocking on doors. Not just the atmosphere, but the ground work. I don’t know if Harris has the time to reach out to voters on that level.
How should people understand whether resonance is enough to convert into votes?
Yes, just like we are cautious about polls, we should also be cautious about emotions. Emotions are just feelings, they are not fixed and they are only temporary. I think that’s why we need to remember that we are in a bubble.
The timeline is tight and condensed, which is great. We haven’t seen any negative news about Harris yet. The last month has been nothing but positive news about Harris, and we should be prepared to see that change.
There is also a lot of noise coming from PollsBut I’ve heard from a lot of pollsters that the opposite is happening right now with Trump voters. They call it response bias, which is that there’s a certain type of voter who wants to be heard and who is more likely to be represented in the polls and paint a misleading picture. That used to provide support for Trump.
As for how this translates into votes and reality, after we raise these caveats, it’s important to remember that Harris is inheriting a lot of the Biden campaign’s infrastructure. They have a pile money. Honestly, some political science studies have shown that the most effective way to reach traditional voters is through TV ads and online ads, which is why it’s so important that they have so much money to spend.
The next best thing is to get out there and talk to people, and luckily for us, the Biden campaign already has a pretty good infrastructure in place. They have a lot more campaign offices than the Trump campaign did, they have offices in every state, and they’re hiring all the time.
We’ll see how many door-to-door visits we see.
In the past, some have questioned whether Biden would have enough volunteers willing to campaign for him. In this sense, atmosphere does matter: We have seen hurry of volunteer Recently registered to help Democrats.
Here’s another way to measure the shift in atmosphere: In a qualitative sense, Harris makes it easier for your volunteers to advocate for candidates.
I’m really curious. What is all this talk about positivity and vibes masking about this election?
There was a lot of tension and division behind the scenes over uncommitted delegates and frustration with the Gaza protests. We didn’t see much discussion of that at the convention. (Harris eventually addressed the conflict and her Her closing remarks.
The other thing is, there’s still a lot of discontent about the economy and inflation. We didn’t hear a lot about that at the DNC. Harris tried to take the initiative on these issues but didn’t necessarily know the best way to talk about them. How much do you want to talk about inflation and remind people that you’re part of this administration?
There is still a chance that the economy will decline in the coming months, which would not be a good thing for Harris.
The third fact that gets obscured by emotion is that, yes, this is still a close race. People point out that Trump is one average polling error away from winning, and the odds are pretty good.
There are still many factors that can influence the thoughts and positions of liberals within the party, and there are also many factors that can influence the true thoughts of voters in more moderate and swing states.
It’s still very, very close, and that’s something people have to remember.
This story originally appeared in Explain todayVox’s flagship daily newsletter. Sign up here to get future editions.
If you’re interested in more election news — and not just vibes — check out Vox’s guide to the actual policy positions the candidates hold Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
and register Election ExplanationThis is a pop-up newsletter tracking this unpredictable election season over the next three months. You can check out the first edition here And sign up to have it delivered to your inbox here.
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