Heading into the first presidential debate in June, Democrats were facing a near-hopeless situation. President Joe Biden had been utterly toxic for more than two years. His administration was so deeply unpopular that Donald Trump, who himself had once been toxic, saw his own favorability climbing toward near-parity. Trump’s argument that the country had been better off under his stewardship, as insane it may have sounded to liberals or anybody who actually remembered 2020, was carrying the day.
The party’s switch to Kamala Harris as nominee was an improvement, but only in relation to the utter desperation of sticking with Biden. For most of Biden’s term, Harris had been even more unpopular than Biden. She was less well positioned to distance herself from the unpopular Biden administration than almost any other Democrat, given her position within it and the need her job created for her to publicly cheerlead her boss.
And so, when Harris began her campaign, Trump was still a decisive favorite:
Today’s update. Back to a typical Saturday without a lot of interesting polling. It's a really close race and the forecast remains extremely stable.https://t.co/vsGVG18HHI pic.twitter.com/scsMjwmQTG
In the months that have followed, Harris has climbed all the way to parity or is perhaps a very slight favorite. That is to say, the campaign has taken a once-unelectable figure from a deeply hated administration, raised her favorable ratings dramatically, and made her at worst an even bet to win the presidency.
On the right, this success is so dramatic that it has triggered suspicion and paranoia. “The media is fixing the election for Harris” or “The polls are rigged.”
But on the left, the giddiness at escaping certain defeat has given way to existential dread that victory remains far from assured. A wave of recriminations has already begun, largely from the left. The reason Harris is not running away with the election, these complaints insist, is that she is pandering to the center.
“The Harris-Walz ticket is running a campaign rooted in the fantasy that there is a centrist wing of the GOP appalled by Donald Trump,” moans Dave Zirin in The Nation. Many of the complaints zero in specifically on Harris’s moderate........