President Joe Biden (finally) stepped down from running for a second term, and the Democratic Party is once again united in its attempt to thwart Donald Trump’s run for the White House.
However, it has yet to be determined if the replacement nominee-to-be is actually more attractive to voters than Biden’s floundering campaign was in the last few weeks of his candidacy.
Unsurprisingly, Nevada’s Democratic members of Congress have unanimously thrown their support behind Vice President Kamala Harris — as have the remainder of Nevada’s 49-member delegation heading to the party’s national convention in August. Given the staunch partisanship of electoral politics, such unanimity among party members is not surprising, regardless of circumstance.
Indeed, both parties share similar intraparty homogeneity at the current moment. The GOP has demonstrated an unexpected unity around its candidate, despite a brief and fleeting anti-Donald Trump insurgency several months ago — one snuffed out along with the presidential aspirations of Nikki Haley.
For Democrats, the mere fact that discussion about Biden’s cognitive and physical decline is no longer hounding public discourse probably seems like a godsend. And with Harris enjoying a bit of a honeymoon with Democratic donors and progressive supporters, it’s tempting for those who live in the echo chambers of deep-blue political circles to think another four years of executive control is all but “in the bag” now that the nation is moving beyond Biden’s abysmal debate performance.
The confidence one finds among partisan insiders of either political party, however, is more often hubris than objective optimism. Judging by the limited insight we have from polling thus far in the race, there’s little reason to think either side will be running away with popular support before November. Indeed, there’s every indication that the next couple of months will continue to be a long slog of partisan tripe with little chance of an overwhelming “landslide” victory emerging for either party in our bifurcated political times.
And while Harris is undoubtedly an improvement in the eyes of countless worried donors and voters, there was already concern she wouldn’t be an inherently popular or appealing candidate in a general election long before she was named as the presumed successor for Biden’s doomed candidacy.
The obvious challenge she faces in the months ahead is the simple fact that she is still part of the incumbency — which isn’t the best place to be when public opinion is decidedly pessimistic about the trajectory of the nation. More worrisome for Democrats, however, is the fact that there’s an obvious reason she didn’t finish well in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary: She lacked the political savvy needed to win massive throngs of diehard supporters.
In that election, her performance on camera was less than stellar, she was widely seen as lacking authenticity, and her record in California and then in the Senate provided ample opportunity for critics to attack her from the left and the right. Most concerning for victory-focused Democrats is the simple fact that she’s not terribly liked by most Americans as a result.
Like Trump and Biden, her approval rating has been consistently underwater.
To be sure, a lot can happen to sway the minds of voters between now and November — and you better believe Democrats are already placing million-dollar ad buys to do precisely that in critical swing states such as Nevada. Nonetheless, messily handing the game off to a relief pitcher with unimpressive stats during a championship game isn’t the ideal scenario for team Blue.
As weak as Harris might be as a candidate, it’s worth remembering that much of what this upcoming presidential election will hinge on is which candidate ordinary, nonideological, voters consider to be less offensive. And with Trump in the race, the GOP isn’t exactly positioned to dominate in such a contest — even if Harris fails miserably to improve as a candidate in the next few months.
Much like Harris, Trump suffers from stubbornly high unfavorable ratings and little interest in strategically reaching out to voters beyond his base. And while elected Republicans are diligently lining up behind their nominee following the convention — including the aforementioned Nikki Haley — there’s no reason to think the enthusiasm felt by those who portray Trump as a messianic figure is an enthusiasm shared by many who aren’t already GOP loyalists.
Even following Biden’s abysmal and candidacy-ending debate performance in June, Trump’s polling numbers barely managed to inch upward. Such a static lead, while certainly consistent, could be indicative that Trump’s appeal has hit its natural limit regardless of how badly Democrats might fumble things. It’s quite possible there is nowhere to go for Trump than downward in the polls — which isn’t a great prospect for a candidate facing another couple months of grueling attacks from an opponent who has managed to reinvigorate her own party.
Certainly, the Harris announcement changes the enthusiasm levels of the race — here in Nevada and nationally. However, despite the optimism of partisan loyalists, the truth is that neither party has become significantly more attractive to those marginalized voters who feel unrepresented by the recent polarization of politics.
And those voters are the ones who will largely be deciding things in November.
Even with a newly unified Democratic Party behind Harris — and a remarkably homogeneous party behind Trump — the next few months of politicking will ultimately come down to which candidate manages to win the reluctant support of Americans who aren’t ardent sycophants for either major political tribe. As it was a few months ago when the world thought we were headed for a redux of 2020’s presidential election, it will still be a tight race to see which party happens to be slightly less disliked by the electorate.
While vying to be “the lesser of two evils” may be a uniting goal among loyalists in ideological echo chambers, it’s probably not going to do much to heal what’s ailing our fractious and divided nation.
Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founder of Schaus Creative LLC — an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary, having worked as a news director, columnist, political humorist, and most recently as the director of communications for a public policy think tank. Follow him at SchausCreative.com or on Twitter at @schausmichael.
