November 8, 2016 could have been a memorable day of triumph for Kamala Harris. At 52, the Attorney General of California won her first seat as a United States senator that day: she was handily elected with 62% of the vote against her Republican rival. The rising star of the Democratic Party then began his career at the national level. Unfortunately, the celebration was short-lived at her HQ: a few hours after the announcement of her victory in California, Hillary Clinton recognized her defeat against Donald Trump. The new senator throws her optimistic speech in the trash and replaces it with an eight-minute speech in which she repeats the expression “to fight” twenty-six times.
Eight years later, Kamala Harris is fighting this time for the White House against the same Donald Trump. Two weeks before the vote, the Hillary Clinton trauma is once again on people’s minds as the polls tighten. “Undecided voters are not yet convinced by what Kamala Harris is proposing; however, there is urgency,” points out William Galston, researcher at the Brookings Institution. In fact, a wind of panic seems to be blowing through the Democratic ranks. In the columns of The HillDemocratic strategist Jamal Simmons, close to Kamala Harris, warns: “If you’re not on your toes, it’s because you’re not paying attention.”
A campaign almost invisible for weeks
Barely a month ago, however, in mid-September, a bright sun lit up the Democratic campaign. The National Convention had crowned Harris without a false note, the enthusiasm of the crowds was there and the candidate had beaten Trump in their first – and only – presidential debate. A trompe-l’oeil clearing, in an ultimately elusive countryside. “It was a bit hasty to forget that, until his debate against Joe Biden in June, Donald Trump had lost all of his presidential debates, against both Biden and Hillary Clinton,” recalls American political scientist James Adams. “did not prevent us from winning in 2016 and coming very close to victory in 2020.” Since then, clouds have been gathering in the Democratic sky.
In mid-October, the average of the polls in the seven key states, those which will swing the election on November 5, does not give even a point of difference between the two candidates. At the same time in 2020, Joe Biden was seven points ahead of Trump in Michigan, six in Wisconsin and four in Nevada. “The Democrats are still struggling to rally independents, who would like a concrete and structured program, and only a handful of Republicans will vote for Harris, despite the media coverage of certain rallies and the doubts surrounding Nikki Haley’s support [NDLR : la rivale de Trump aux primaires républicaines]”, argues William Galston.
The main error identified by the Harris camp? His campaign remained almost invisible for several weeks while Trump saturated the media space. Like Hillary Clinton in 2016, who thought it was enough to let the Republican billionaire accumulate slip-ups to sink him. Fatal error… “For Trump, any publicity is good to take, recalls James Adams. When he says that Haitian migrants eat dogs and cats, it doesn’t matter to him whether it is false or horrible: we talk about him for days; So, it’s mission accomplished! Donald Trump has been defying social and political conventions since he entered politics nine years ago, and he probably understands the roots of his own popularity better than we ever will…”
Kamala Harris in her bunker
At the end of September, the media Axios recorded that, in sixty days of campaigning, the Harris-Walz duo had granted only four interviews, while the Republican Trump-Vance duo had carried out… seventy! Afraid of slipping? The Democratic candidate has sometimes reproduced the “bunker” strategy adopted by Joe Biden in 2020: the dean of American politics then stayed away from meetings and interviews, holed up in his house in Delaware. But this presidential election took place in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic and American voters had known Biden for fifty years. They knew what to expect from this centrist and reassuring Democrat. Harris still has to show Americans who she is and what she stands for.
In early October, the Harris campaign understood the urgency of getting out of the bunker. The vice-president has launched a “media Blitz”, a lightning war on TV sets and podcasts. Interviews every day, on all channels: the cult show 60 Minutes on CBS, the Stephen Colbert Late Showthe women’s show The View or the hyperpopular podcast aimed at young feminists Call Her Daddy… The vice-president called CNN outright (like Trump, some would say) to criticize the conspiracy theories peddled by her opponent on Hurricane Milton, which was preparing to hit California.
The results of this late media offensive are mixed. In The View, America’s favorite show on ABC, Harris was unable to find a single decision from the Biden presidency that she would have taken differently. Which, given Joe Biden’s unpopularity, offers easy ammunition to the Trump camp. In 60 Minutes (CBS News), his answer on Iran as “the greatest enemy of the United States” was not convincing, as were his convolutions around anti-immigration measures. Meanwhile, Trump rushed to the states ravaged by Hurricane Helen at the end of September to criticize the inaction of the Harris-Biden duo at the White House. Easy, but paying.
The specter of Hillary Clinton hangs more than ever over Kamala Harris’ campaign. The ghosts of the “Blue Wall” are becoming particularly threatening: in these key industrial states of the Northeast, traditionally Democratic and essential for entering the White House, the Harris campaign is accumulating setbacks. Despite a billion donations collected nationally, the vice-president could lose Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which Biden won in 2020 by 0.7%, 2.8% and 1.2% respectively . In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost all three by less than 1% each time… Last month, Democratic Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin privately acknowledged that Kamala Harris was “below the waterline” in her Michigan State. One of the reasons: the vice-president failed to obtain broad support from the unions, which are essential in the region. She could also lose the vote of the Arab community, very critical of the Biden administration’s policy in Israel.
This “Hillary Clinton syndrome” is reinforced by an obvious characteristic of Kamala Harris: she is a woman. And a black woman, whose father is Jamaican and mother Indian. “This remains a handicap in the United States of 2024, points out Jennifer Nicoll Victor, professor of political science at George Mason University. Kamala Harris finds herself at the intersection of two demographic characteristics, gender and race, which constitute still political disadvantages in our country, Donald Trump’s campaign does not hesitate to rely on racist and sexist tactics to attack him. A strategy that partly works: 52% of men would vote for Trump, 40% for Harris, according to an NBC poll.
The Democratic camp has not forgotten its historic bankruptcy of 2016. Its national convention opened with a sharp reminder, administered by Hillary Clinton in person, on August 19: “Don’t get distracted and don’t Don’t rest on your laurels. For the next 78 days, we have to work harder than ever.” At the podium, the former candidate could not help but return to her personal obsession: “In November, you can break the highest, the most difficult of glass ceilings by voting for Harris.”
Calling to vote for a presidential candidate primarily because she is a woman resonates as a reminder of one’s own failure. “During her 2016 campaign, Clinton insisted a lot on the revolutionary side of having a woman in the Oval Office, remembers Jennifer Nicoll Victor. But Kamala Harris learned her lesson: she never said that she would be the first woman president of the United States or the first black woman president of the United States In this, her message resembles that of Barack Obama much more than Hillary Clinton’s campaign: Obama was elected for his skills and not because. he was a black man, rather in spite of the fact that he was a black man.”
That’s not the only lesson Kamala Harris learned. This time, there is no question of neglecting states like Wisconsin, where Clinton had not set foot during the 2016 campaign, or of only addressing voters already convinced of CNN or MSNBC. In this final stretch, Harris dares to go on popular and populist podcasts, such as Howardq Stern’s Showand even on Fox News, the cathodic temple of Trumpism. Essential risk-taking in view of the polls. Hoping it’s not already too late.
.