The Harris campaign has made its fair share of mistakes. You could certainly argue the first mistake was that the party rallied behind Kamala Harris instead of a stronger candidate, and the selection of Tim Walz as her running instead of Josh Shapiro was another huge blunder. If Trump wins, many will wonder if Shapiro could have delivered Pennsylvania for her. But even that is moot. The campaign appeared to be doing well with the Harris-Walz ticket, and now it feels like it's fallen apart. But why? There may be an answer.
According to a report from the Associated Press, Kamala is alienating her party's base in the final weeks of the campaign because she's focusing on winning over moderate Republicans instead of appealing to core liberal voters.
And the biggest part of that misstep is campaigning with Liz Cheney.
"Some far-left leaders are also irked that Harris has shared the stage in recent days with former House Republican leader Liz Cheney and billionaire businessman Mark Cuban while progressive icons like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been relegated to low-profile roles," the outlet reported.
“The truth of the matter is that there are a hell of a lot more working-class people who could vote for Kamala Harris than there are conservative Republicans,” Sanders told the Associated Press on Thursday. “She has to start talking more to the needs of working-class people. I wish this had taken place two months ago. It is what it is.”
With just over a week until the November election, Kamala Harris appears to have shifted her focus away from rallying traditional Democratic supporters, including Black voters, Latinos, and young people.
According to the AP, "Harris’ team is aware that some liberals are frustrated by her approach, especially on her support for Israel’s war against Hamas. But the campaign sees a major opportunity to expand her coalition by winning over disaffected Republicans, especially college-educated voters in the nation’s suburbs, who are uneasy about Trump."
Related: Does Anyone Think Kamala Is Going to Win Anymore?
"From the Harris campaign’s perspective, the focus on moderate Republicans at this moment is simply a matter of math."
The campaign believes that about 10% of swing-state voters remain undecided or persuadable. An aide revealed that around 7% of this group comprises “Cheney Republicans,” who are open to messages critical of Trump.
That seems unlikely. I find it hard to believe that there are that many undecided voters, and if there are, if they haven't made up their mind yet, they're probably not going to vote at all.
Harris campaigning with Liz Cheney is likely not going to have the impact that the Harris campaign hopes for. In fact, some believe it will backfire.
As Newsweek reported last week, "Harris campaigning with Cheney could further erode her support among Arab-American voters, especially in the swing state of Michigan, which has a significant Arab-American population, amid deep frustration over the Biden administration's ongoing support for Israel's offensives in Gaza and Lebanon."
That's a state they cannot afford to lose.
"In this moment, Arab American and Muslim voters are deeply skeptical about Kamala Harris, given her refusal to depart from the Biden administration's material miilitary and financial support for Israel's deadly attacks in Gaza and now Lebanon," Nazita Lajevardi, an associate professor of political science at Michigan State University, told the outlet.
In ten days, we’ll know if the Harris-Walz campaign’s bold gamble paid off—or if they made the campaign’s biggest misstep.
