All posts tagged: Harriss

Harris’s Best Closing Argument Isn’t Coming From Her

Harris’s Best Closing Argument Isn’t Coming From Her

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Samuel L. Jackson strutted out onstage at James R. Hallford Stadium outside Atlanta last night and attempted to lend Kamala Harris some of his lifelong cool: “We’ve heard her favorite curse word is a favorite of mine too!” (Sadly, he restrained himself from saying it—of course you know what it is.) Harris’s team had curated a star-heavy bill, including Spike Lee, Tyler Perry, Bruce Springsteen, and Barack Obama. Thousands of potential voters had come out in support of Harris, but in the end, the evening felt more like an anti-Trump rally. And although Harris was the headliner, she seemed more like a role-player in an ensemble. A New York Times/Siena College poll released this morning has Donald Trump and Harris dead-even for the popular vote, at 48 to 48. Up close, when you experience them in a live setting, …

Kamala Harris’s Closing Argument – The Atlantic

Kamala Harris’s Closing Argument – The Atlantic

Published by José

Kamala Harris’s fate in the remaining weeks of the presidential campaign may turn on whether she can shift the attention of enough voters back to what they might fear from a potential second White House term for Donald Trump. Since replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee this summer, Harris has focused her campaign message above all on reassuring voters that she has the experience and values to serve in the Oval Office. But a consensus is growing among Democratic political professionals that Harris is failing to deliver a sufficiently urgent warning about the risk Trump could pose to American society and democracy in another presidential term. “Reassurance ain’t gonna be what wins the race,” the Democratic pollster Paul Maslin told me—an assessment almost universally shared among the wide array of Democratic strategists and operatives I’ve spoken with in recent days. “What wins the race is the line from the convention: We ain’t going back. We aren’t going to live with this insanity again. It has to be more personal, on him: The man …

This Race Is Kamala Harris’s to Lose. Here’s Why.

This Race Is Kamala Harris’s to Lose. Here’s Why.

Published by Sam

In these waning stages of the late Trump era, everything and nothing is a surprise. We’ve become immune. I mean, when you have the nominee of a major political party mentally unplugging during a town hall, stopping answering questions, and swaying along to his own Spotify playlist for 39 interminable minutes—and no one seems to blink—we’re out of surprises. There’s no big last debate. No tentpole events likely to shake up the race in these dwindling days. Yes, a full-on war could break out in the Middle East. Or another hurricane could blow ashore, wreaking havoc—and Category 5 conspiracy theories. But the reality is that if nothing or everything happens between now and November 5, it’s unlikely to change the outcome. This sucker is baked. I’m going to make a bold prediction. Kamala Harris is going to win. Maybe easily. And what does that mean? Well, first of all, there aren’t really any undecided voters. If you haven’t figured this one out by now, chances are you’re sitting it out. In effect, the oldest cliché …

Harris’s Chance on Trade | Zephyr Teachout

Harris’s Chance on Trade | Zephyr Teachout

Published by skeptic

In 2016, during the surreal presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I was the Democratic nominee for Congress in a swing district in the Hudson Valley. The incumbent was a retiring Republican, but Barack Obama had won in the area by several points in 2012. A Democratic pickup seemed within reach.  In the mainstream media, voters in rural and postindustrial regions like the Hudson Valley tend to be portrayed as insular, caring largely about domestic issues like inflation and welfare. And yet the people I met at county fairs and chicken dinners and parades also cared deeply about trade. If you asked them their top priorities, they wouldn’t say “trade policy,” necessarily. But if you heard them tell a story of their lives, their work, and the towns they lived in, they’d invariably say jobs were being lost to Mexico and China, or mention NAFTA. Our internal polling backed up what I was hearing at the Ellenville Blueberry Festival. Of seven “profile” messages we tested, the strongest was: “[Candidate] believes we need to …

Kamala Harris’s Momentum at the Convention

Kamala Harris’s Momentum at the Convention

Published by José

“Will this propel her forward?” Courtesy of Washington Week With The Atlantic August 24, 2024, 3:11 PM ET Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here. With the Democratic National Convention now behind Kamala Harris, the vice president is officially the Democratic presidential nominee—but now some are asking how her campaign can translate the momentum from recent weeks into winning over voters in key swing states. The optimism felt among many Democrats at the convention was, in part, the result of forces beyond Harris herself, Mark Leibovich said last night on Washington Week With The Atlantic: Harris has benefited from the release of pent-up unhappiness about Joe Biden leading the presidential ticket and, so far, from the choice of Tim Walz as her running mate. “This week has been a culmination of that,” Leibovich said. But “it can’t be a culmination. It has to continue. And the question is, will …

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s Balancing Act

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s Balancing Act

Published by José

“How do you distance yourself from an unpopular president while also running on his policies?” Courtesy of Washington Week With The Atlantic August 17, 2024, 3:25 PM ET Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here. This week, Joe Biden gave his first speech alongside Kamala Harris since announcing that he would not continue seeking reelection. This appearance comes just days ahead of the Democratic National Convention, where Biden will speak to delegates in what, by the end of the week, will amount to Harris’s official nomination. As Democrats balance running on Biden’s record while also trying to present Harris as a fresh candidate, the president’s role on the campaign trail after the convention remains in question. “How do you distance yourself from an unpopular president while also running on his policies?” Tarini Parti asked last night on Washington Week With The Atlantic. “Even though they’re trying to portray this …

Trump Can’t Deal With Harris’s Success

Trump Can’t Deal With Harris’s Success

Published by skeptic

Kamala Harris has had as good a three-week stretch as any presidential candidate in modern American history. When Joe Biden dropped out on July 21, less than a month after his catastrophic debate performance against Donald Trump, the Democratic Party was on course to be defeated in a landslide. Today, Vice President Harris is slightly ahead of Trump in national polls, and in three important swing states—Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan—new surveys by The New York Times and Siena College show her leading by four points, 50–46, among likely voters. Since May, when Biden was the nominee, Harris has gained seven points in Pennsylvania, five points in Wisconsin, and four points in Michigan. The Democratic National Convention, which should give her an additional boost, begins next week. By the time it ends, fewer than 75 days will be left until the November 5 election. Read: Kamala Harris’s lucky break The data are pretty clear. Harris has electrified the Democratic Party; a Wall Street Journal survey found that 93 percent of Democrats now support her. Among Democrats, …

Why Kamala Harris’s Politics Are So Hard to Pin Down

Why Kamala Harris’s Politics Are So Hard to Pin Down

Published by skeptic

The Trump campaign says that Kamala Harris is a radical leftist. The far left fears that she’s a neoliberal cop. They can’t both be right. But pinning down exactly where the vice president and Democratic nominee for president sits on the political spectrum is not so easy. She has gone from her first state-level election to the top of the presidential ticket in 14 years, far faster than Joe Biden, and she spent much of that time in positions that don’t provide an extensive record on a wide range of policy issues. During her 2020 presidential bid, she took some positions to the left of her prior record—several of which she’s now walked back in her current bid for president. Robert L. Borosage, a progressive strategist and writer, told me that Harris’s career offers a good sense of her views on some discrete issues, but less of her overall vision. “What she hasn’t had to do, and what she failed to do in 2020, was define a coherent, compelling message about where she wanted to …

‘So uniquely her’: where did Kamala Harris’s self-help speaking style come from? | Kamala Harris

‘So uniquely her’: where did Kamala Harris’s self-help speaking style come from? | Kamala Harris

Published by skeptic

“What can be, unburdened by what has been” is a phrase Kamala Harris uses so often there are minutes-long supercuts available to watch on YouTube. It even has its own Wikipedia page. In other speeches, Harris has also expressed a belief in “the significance of the passage of time” and a desire to “honor the women who made history throughout history”. Since becoming the presumptive nominee, Harris has invigorated the Democratic party. It’s not only that she’s a much younger candidate than Biden; she also has a stump speech style that embraces metaphor and a new age vernacular not often heard in national politics. The meme accounts love to quote it. It’s even led some to draw comparisons with Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s portrayal of Selina Meyer, the frothy politician in Veep. (In one episode, Meyer stumbles through a speech saying: “We are the United States of America because we are united … and we are states.”) Although she has proven herself to be one of the most detail-oriented and precise speakers in the Democratic party, Harris …

Will Kamala Harris’s Gaza Cease-Fire Call Quell Democratic Protests?

Will Kamala Harris’s Gaza Cease-Fire Call Quell Democratic Protests?

Published by skeptic

With Joe Biden and his reelection campaign facing mounting pressure from key Democratic constituencies, Kamala Harris on Sunday issued the administration’s most vigorous call for an immediate, temporary cease-fire in Gaza. Speaking in Selma, Alabama, the vice president said the Israeli government must “do more to significantly increase the flow of aid” into Gaza, where—according to the United Nations—hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are “one step” away from famine, following massive levels of displacement amid a months-long Israeli blockade, invasion, and bombing campaign. “What we are seeing every day in Gaza is devastating,” said Harris, describing the situation as a “humanitarian catastrophe.”  “[Israel] must not impose any unnecessary restrictions on the delivery of aid,” she continued. “They must ensure humanitarian personnel, sites, and convoys are not targeted. And they must work to restore basic services and promote order in Gaza so more food, water, and fuel can reach those in need.” While some of the comments were at odds with Israel’s policy of resource strangulation, the call for a cease-fire is in line with a …