When Harris was a hypothetical nominee, Trump was up by 1.7%… slightly better than against Biden. if this is to be our election: what are the top 3-5 strategies for each candidate as we go forward?
Trump’s lead over Biden, compared to 2020 was gains among white men, African-American men and younger voters sitting it out. If I were advising either candidate I would focus there
Harris:
Pick a VP candidate who shores up a swing state (most likely PA or AZ)
Keep reminding voters that she represents a passing of the torch (youth vote)
Hammer Trump’s unpopularity outside of the MAGA faithful to encourage over the top Trump reactions.
Trump:
Keep the focus on Biden, more of the same.
Don’t keep Vance in shadows like he did a their first rally (youth vote)
Let Harris’ lack of skill as an electoral candidate undo her.
I would love to have a discussion of political strategy that does not devolve into insutting the two candidates. We have plenty of threads for that.
Trump has a huge advantage in border security and will hammer Harris as a failed “border czar”. That’s where I think they can make a solid connection between the failures of Biden and Harris. And then they’ll just continue to push their perceived failures of the Biden presidency and how Harris will be a continuation of the same.
The Dems will just try to ride the wave of “newness” and try to capitalize on whatever “enthusiasm” they can create around their new candidates. The campaign had ZERO energy and this is a chance to inject some life into their base. It’s gonna be a long road for them I think.
You are certainly right that R’s will continue to hammer the border/immigration issue. That challenge for Harris is that Biden’s efforts to reduce the flow across the border have actually been very effective this year but “the border is out of control” narrative seems so deeply locked in, I cannot think of a way to get that message across.
What Democrats will do is hammer Trump for torpedoing bi-partisan efforts on border security.
There’s plenty of policy issues to use against Harris. It would be a grave mistake to go after her personal life, but I’m not convinced that Trump will make it through the campaign without bringing up Willie Brown multiple times.
Yeah it’s a tough one. Harris is going to have to do more than “We tried but Cons stopped us.” and “We’re trying.” There needs to be some new border policy proposals. Show moderates there is a plan to address the border.
Regarding the polling, I saw somewhere that the pollsters are going to need a solid 6 - 7 days to get viable polling data on Trump v. Harris. So I don’t think we’ll see any worthy polls until next weekend.
Trump focusing on Biden would be mistake. Now painting Harris as more of the same could work.
Republicans need to focus on the states in play, they need a coordinated grass roots campaign. Until last month they did not have the finances to do this so hopefully they are working overtime to establish this.
Right now (and this is anecdotal) seeing s lot of smug we have it in the bag from Republicans which is a dangerous attitufe to have. Campaign like your the underdog and take nothing for granted.
After the dem convention Harris needs to be on the road continuously criss crossing states, getting out and working with the framework the dems already havr in place.
You are probably right. Up until now polls have been looking at Harris at a hypothetical. Will be interesting to see if Trump gets any convention bounce.
You see, the whole problem with that is even Dems blame you for the border.
Your chance to fix that was the impeachment proceedings, where you could have used that to tell your side of the story to a sympathetic, cheerleading press corps.
When you basically spiked the ball and went home, it told everyone you simply do not care about that.
Your best bet now is to ignore that issue, and hope the electorate does the same.
