Kamala Harris Won’t Rest Until She’s Won Wisconsin
VP’s Wisconsin campaign is in full pedal-to-the-metal mode.
Iowa is not a competitive swing state, but nonetheless, all eyes were on the latest Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll, which shows convicted felon Donald Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris 47 to 43 percent. Harris significantly improved upon President Joe Biden’s numbers from June, when he trailed Trump 32 to 50 percent.
According to the poll, conducted by Selzer & Co., Iowa voters believe the adjudicated rapist is more likely to keep America safe, but they consider Harris more trustworthy so they should listen to her when she tells them that Trump would sell the nation to Putin for a ham sandwich.
CNN’s Harry Enten considers this one of Harris’s best polling results of the year, not because he’s bullish on her chances of flipping the Hawkeye state, but because of what the poll says about her position in its eastern neighbor, Wisconsin.
Wisconsin for the win
The Des Moines Register Iowa poll is known for its accuracy. It’s often the herald of Galactus poll, foretelling impending disaster. The Selzer poll correctly predicted Hillary Clinton’s midwest losses in 2016. Its final poll of the election had Trump up seven points. He’d eventually win Iowa by almost 10 points and narrowly flip Wisconsin by less than a percentage point.
Selzer’s final poll had Trump up over Joe Biden by seven points, a sobering indicator that the election would prove closer than anticipated. (A New York Times poll fielded around the same time had Biden up by three.) Trump outperformed his polling in Wisconsin, where he’d consistently trailed Biden by almost double digits, and came perilously close to another victory.
Selzer’s final poll might tighten, but right now, these are positive indicators for the Harris campaign. Many Democrats were skittish about the former California senator’s performance in the midwest, but the Harris campaign is actively doing the work in Wisconsin, where Harris gave her first major speech as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. (Watch above.)
When I spoke with a Harris campaign staffer in Wisconsin, I was told that they’re operating as if Harris is the underdog, which echoes how she’s framed the race in her stump speech. Although Harris is currently polling better in Wisconsin than Pennsylvania, they expect razor-thin margins in Wisconsin, possibly as close if not more so than in 2020. This would also reflect the 2020 outcome where Biden’s margin of victory was larger in Pennsylvania than Wisconsin, the complete opposite of what polls had shown.
Make no mistake, though: The campaign is confident that Harris will win, but the goal is to turn the campaign’s historic enthusiasm into historic action, without letting complacency trip them up before crossing the finish line.
What happened in 2016?
Barack Obama handily won Wisconsin by 14 points in 2008 and seven points in 2012, when native son Paul Ryan was on the Republican ticket. This might’ve given Democrats a false sense of security about the state leading into the 2016 election. After all, John Kerry’s margin of victory in 2004 was just 0.38 percent or 11,384 votes, roughly equal to the 11,780 votes that Donald Trump (illegally) pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” for him. Al Gore just squeaked past George W. Bush in 2000 by 5708 votes.
In 2016, Wisconsin wasn’t a top targeted state by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which sources tell me was clear to everybody on the ground. A major event was planned in the Green Bay area with Obama, but it was canceled at the last minute because of the Pulse nightclub shooting. Clinton wrote in her book What Happened, “If there’s one place where we were caught by surprise, it was Wisconsin. Polls showed us comfortably ahead, right up until the end. They also looked good for the Democrat running for Senate, Russ Feingold.” (Feingold lost to Republican Ron Johnson.)
I think the Clinton campaign has been unjustly blamed for an overall Democratic Party collapse among white, non-college educated voters, particularly in the Rust Belt. Similarly, Trump has received outsized credit for swinging ancestrally Democratic voters in rural areas to his side. At best, he accelerated a trend, but he didn’t manifest it.
Unfortunately, Clinton was stuck in a tough cycle for Democrats. She could’ve camped out in Wisconsin, and it might not have made a difference. The loss of manufacturing jobs and growing rural resentment of larger cities that were spared the economic hit had nothing to do with Clinton specifically. Those voters were more receptive to a perceived “disrupter” like Trump.
However, Clinton made significant inroads in the suburbs that Biden maximized in 2020. She performed better in Waukesha County than previous Democratic candidates. This is key because Republicans previously relied on running up the score in Waukesha County to make up for Democratic strength in Madison and Milwaukee.
What happened in 2020?
If 2016 was a wakeup call that Democrats can’t take Wisconsin for granted, 2020 had its own share of problems. COVID-19 hit Wisconsin hard, but by the fall, voters were less worried about the pandemic than they were the related restrictions and school closures. Kenosha, Wisconsin, saw a great deal of civil unrest after the police shooting of Jacob Blake in August.
Also, the pandemic greatly reduced voter outreach. A senior official within the campaign in Wisconsin mentioned that they didn’t knock on a single door in 2020. Fortunately, Biden still prevailed. However, since Trump’s 2016 upset, the party has been supercharged in building out a robust infrastructure that has fully engaged in every election down the ballot. This accounts for key statewide wins, starting in 2018 when Tony Evers defeated Gov. Scott Walker. During the 2022 Red Wave that wasn’t, Gov. Evers won re-election by almost five points.
Yes, Mandela Barnes lost to Ron Johnson that same year, which caused some Democrats to fret about Harris’s chances for pretty superficial reasons. It’s true they’re both Black, but Harris has clearly tacked to the center on major issues, specifically public safety. Barnes also outperformed the polling that had Johnson with a solid lead for months. Johnson’s margin of victory was a single point. Barnes wasn’t clobbered in the suburbs and might have pulled off an upset if not for low turnout in Democratic strongholds Milwaukee City and County.
The Harris campaign aims to reverse that negative trend and keep the vote share up in the north shore of Wisconsin. Harris will actively court the white suburban vote but she’s not resting on her laurels over the Black vote. During an interview Tuesday with the National Association of Black Journalists, Harris said, “It’s very important to not operate from the assumption that Black men are in anybody’s pocket. Black men are like any other voting group. You’ve gotta earn their vote. So, I’m working to earn the vote, not assuming I’m going to have it because I am Black.” (Watch below.)
What’s happening in 2024?
“You’ve gotta earn their vote” is a good motto for this campaign, and it’s a telling contrast with Trump’s seeming entitlement to votes. The Harris campaign has 200 staff members in 43 counties across the state. Since Kamala Harris entered the race two months ago, her Wisconsin supporters have knocked on more than 500,000 doors — an exponential increase from 2020’s zero — and even without COVID, organizers had struggled to convince people to canvass door-to-door for Biden. She’s making all the difference. The campaign reportedly signed up more than 3,000 new volunteers (60,000 total) after she drop-kicked Trump into the trash at last week’s debate. That’s what wins elections, not polls.
The Republican operation in Wisconsin, I’m told, is incredibly weak. They believe the battle is won in paid media, so they have nothing like the on-the-ground apparatus Democrats have built. Early voting begins on October 22, and that’s a critical time when the Harris campaign will simultaneously persuade and mobilize voters. Normally, in late summer, campaigns move on from persuasion and focus on getting confirmed voters to the polls. However, the organization is robust enough that it doesn’t have to pick and choose.
The Trump campaign is predictably focused less on persuasion and mobilization than so-called “election integrity.” Trump filed eight baseless lawsuits attempting to overturn the results in Wisconsin. It’s a safe bet he’ll try again. I’ve spoken with the recount director for the Biden 2020 campaign and I’m told that they take this prospect very seriously and are prepared for a fight if necessary.
Trump will have limited avenues to block certification of a Harris win. Wisconsin recounts have fewer mechanisms to challenge votes, and recounts are only possible if the margin is less than one percent.
I’d advise not worrying too much about potential polling errors or assuming that the presidential race will play out like the recent Supreme Court election where Justice Janet Protasiewicz won by more 10 points. The Wisconsin campaign isn’t taking the foot off the gas or looking through the rearview mirror. They are simply putting every piece in place to ensure Harris wins. Besides, you don’t need 10 points to save democracy. One point will do. As Toby Ziegler said, “the rest is for ego.”
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Politicos take on Harris’s interview with NABJ
“Harris refuses to veer off script in her second high-profile interview”
“The vice president’s appearance at the NABJ event follows Donald Trump’s combative sit-down interview with the association.”
Are they trying to imply that
1. Harris is not consistent but “evasive”?
2. Trumps approach was better??
And the media wonders why she doesn’t prioritize them.
Thanks for this thorough look at Wisconsin. A minor addition: the campaign for a Hmong state representative more than tripled our turnout for canvassers. All we could say was, “Thanks and tell them to vote the whole ticket.” This part of northern Wisconsin could surprise in November from that one change.