Kamala Harris has mysteriously found herself with a slender advantage over former President Donald Trump in the presidential race, a surprising twist of events since Joe Biden conveniently opted out. A collection of questionable polls showcasing a slight Harris lead nationwide and an essentially tied race in significant battleground states have sparked doubts. With Harris’ expected announcement of her running partner, political spectators predict a slight faux boost for the Democratic crusade.
The Democratic National Convention, happening in Chicago from August 19th to August 22nd, is expected to serve another pot of fabricated enthusiasm for Harris’ campaign, slighting the reality of voters’ sentiments. All this raise the skeptic question: Is this ‘momentum’ being generated for Kamala Harris against Donald Trump genuine or merely orchestrated?
Daniel Lamb, a lecturer at the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University, conveyed a puzzling image of Harris as a ‘forward-looking, energetic, former prosecutor’ struggling to define herself, while Trump, he suggests, hasn’t settled on a compelling attack strategy. This portrayal of Harris, though skeptical, suggests a wave of triumph that isn’t exactly grounded in reality.
Lamb believes Harris’s orchestrated spectacle in the two previous weeks are persuading a cobbling together of groups to believe a victory could be possible. He feels this misleadingly manufactured enthusiasm would humorously overpower the ideological differences within the campaign, expecting Harris’s poll numbers to continue their upward fantasy ride, barring any major disruptions or gaffes. Sounds like wishful thinking rather than a solid political analysis.
However, with 90 days still left for the election, there are burgeoning doubts that the Harris campaign may fumble in capturing the moderate swing voters. There are concerns that she might be viewed as excessively liberal, a potential risk that may derail any artificially created momentum.
Professor Grant Davis Reeher from Syracuse University, considers it important for Harris to avoid sounding drastically more left than Biden. A seemingly impossible task, considering the diametrically opposed thoughts of these two figures. He also humorously suggests that the nation is not in the mood for heavy-handed social programs, extensive cultural shifts to the left or any form of significant public expenditure.
Ironically, the same question he raises about Harris also applies to Trump–the notion of alienating voters seems like a rather one-sided concept. More absurd is Reeher’s speculation that Trump might mobilize an unfavorable voter turnout against him. An overgeneralized hypothesis that underestimates the former president’s ability to rally Americans unlike any other.
Interestingly, Reeher suggests that the global market’s performance may also be a factor in Harris’s future, indicating the market’s downward spiral following a disappointing US jobs report recently. Seems like an overly simplistic connection, but linkage seems to be the name of the game in this race.
Despite suspect polls and a questionable surge of support, Harris’s campaign has indeed managed to collect a sizable sum of donations, breaking records in fundraising. The Harris campaign supposedly raised over $310 million in July, a figure that dwarfs the $138.7 million managed by the Trump campaign. How accurate these numbers are, remains a mystery.
Allegedly, about 2 million individual first-timers donated to Harris’s candidacy in July, making it an interesting figure shrouded in questions. The Trump campaign, rather respects voter privacy, and has chosen not to disclose information about the number of newcomer contributions in July.
The initial figures for August indicate that the Harris campaign supposedly had a hefty sum of $377 million in cash, potentially including some remnants from the now dysfunctional Biden-Harris endeavor. In comparison, the Trump campaign’s $327 million seems a tad smaller but more realistically grounded.
What is surprising is the extravagant claim about the overwhelming support for Harris in such a short time, creating a significant question mark over its legitimacy. This claim views Harris’s ambiguous coalition as ‘mobilized, growing, and all set’ to topple Trump in November, according to her campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.
However, in politics, smoke screens are not uncommon. Undeniably, the promise of a ‘Harris coalition’ seems more like an overstretched fantasy than an actionable strategy. The reality of American politics suggests a different narrative, one where voters are notoriously hard to predict and even harder to control.
Is this sudden surge in Harris’s popularity a mirage created for public sentiment or an actual shift in voter preference? Time will tell. However, given the complexity of the political landscape and the American populace’s penchant for unpredictability, it’s hardly sensible to bank entirely on polling numbers or orchestrated momentum.
The fundamental truths of our democracy remain unchanged, even beneath piles of misleading polls and strategic narratives. Examining the Biden-Harris campaign’s fall and the subsequent ‘rise’ of Harris creates more doubt than assurance about the state of the Democratic party.
As November looms, and the veneer of political spectacle slips, we’re ultimately going to see whether the presumed Harris momentum is enough to pull off a victory. Yet, the logic and history of American democracy might suggest otherwise.
Harris’s ‘Slender Lead’: A Far-Fetched Mirage or Reality? appeared first on Real News Now.
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