2024 Elections

Dems are betting they can improve on Joe Biden’s numbers in the suburbs.

William Mitchell, Precinct Chair of NC Precinct 212, hypes up the volunteer canvassers with the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party at one of the 24 launch spots happening that day on Oct. 19 in Charlotte, North Carolina. | Angelina Katsanis/POLITICO

By Elena Schneider

10/29/2024 08:58 PM EDT

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KNIGHTDALE, North Carolina — Kamala Harris is counting on suburban voters to do what they’ve done since Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016: reject him.

It may be the single most important piece of her electoral math. While Donald Trump has made inroads with Black and Latino men, polls in the late stage of the election show the suburbs could still power her to victory. The latest Wall Street Journal poll found Harris leading among suburban voters by 7 percentage points, while a Reuters/Ipsos analysis showed the vice president winning suburban households by 6 points.

If either of those numbers hold, they would likely be enough to offset Harris’ erosion with Black, Latino and young men.

“The suburbs — that’s the whole deal,” said North Carolina state Sen. Lisa Grafstein, who was out knocking those suburban doors herself last week in eastern Wake County. “That’s where the votes are for her.”

Inside the Harris campaign, aides said they believe they will improve on President Joe Biden’s performance with suburban voters in 2020, driven by college-educated voters and women who are turned off by the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. That strategy is clear in the campaign’s schedule in the closing weeks of the campaign, as Harris hosts town halls with disaffected Republicans, like former Rep. Liz Cheney, and rallies focused on abortion rights.

The latest Wall Street Journal poll found Harris leading among suburban voters by 7 percentage points, while a Reuters/Ipsos analysis showed the vice president winning suburban households by 6 points. | Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images

And the suburbs are where Harris is making her stand. The suburbs, especially those surrounding Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta, are growing and diversifying, representing the crosscurrents of an apparent political realignment in the Trump era — college-educated voters of both genders moving hard toward Democrats while Republicans gain ground with blue-collar voters in small towns. Democrats’ newfound appeal in suburban communities undergirded their victories in 2018 and 2020. And this year, they have the advantage of outrage over the overturning of Roe.

“College-educated voters were reliably Republican for decades, but now they’re turning away from Trump, from his toxicity,” said Jim Messina, who led Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, calling it a “seismic shift” in American........

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