Our most recent book is Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Less than 48 hours after Biden's withdrawal, Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee.
63 DAYS TO GO — Election Day is nine weeks from today. Absentee ballots will start getting mailed out in North Carolina on Friday. Early voting starts in Pennsylvania on Sept. 16. The first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is one week from today.
The main polling aggregators all show Harris with a lead:Eli Stokols and Alex Isenstadt break down the state of the race and give the momentum advantage to Harris, who is leading in the polls, in fundraising, and perhaps most crucially, in measures of enthusiasm.
- RCP: Harris +1.8 points
- 538: Harris +3.2 points
- Nate Silver: Harris +3.5 points
- The Economist: Harris +3.5 points
Gallup last week recorded a 14-point advantage for Democrats when they measured which party’s voters are more enthusiastic about voting. Republicans led by 4 points on that question in March, when Biden was still the nominee.
DAVID PLOUFFE, who ran BARACK OBAMA’s two campaigns for president put his finger on perhaps the single biggest difference between the candidacies of Biden and Harris: “Of course people get motivated about voting against somebody. But when they’re as motivated or more motivated about voting for somebody, there’s magic there.”
Trump remains stuck where he has been for weeks: with no killer attack on Harris that has crystalized, no signs of a rebound in the polls, and public events where he still talks a lot about Biden, who has not been his opponent for more than six weeks.
Harris-Walz memo
To: Interested Parties
From: Quentin Fulks and Rob Flaherty, Deputy Campaign Managers for Harris-Walz 2024
Subject: Harris-Walz Cements Advertising Presence Through Election Day With Initial $370M Investment
Today, the Harris-Walz campaign is announcing that it will spend at least $370 million on digital and television advertising between Labor Day and Election Day. This weekend, our campaign is placing $170 million in TV reservations. This investment sits on top of what the campaign believes to be the largest digital reservation in the history of American politics at more than $200 million. All the while, the Trump team has reserved virtually no critical ad placements in the battlegrounds, and has no meaningful long-term plan to communicate to the voters who will decide this election.
In addition to these historic investments on the air, the Harris-Walz campaign is also reaching voters on the ground. Our coordinated campaign now includes more than 1,600 paid staff and more than 280 offices across the battlegrounds. This weekend, heading into the Democratic National Convention, we are mobilizing 2,800 events across our key states in order to reach the voters that will decide this election. More than 10,000 supporters signed up for volunteer shifts this weekend alone. Collectively, these investments into paid media and organizing make clear that the Harris-Walz campaign is taking no voters for granted and planning to communicate relentlessly to battleground voters every single day between now and Election Day.
