Elections are like word association games or the conditioning used by scientists to get dogs salivating at the sound of a bell.
Voters have an instant emotional reaction to candidates based on how they feel about the events they have been involved with.
This plays to Harris’ advantage: like most vice presidents, she has been a non-entity, hardly more visible as VP than she was before President Joe Biden put her on his ticket four years ago.
Her earlier record as the most left-wing senator in the nation and a downright authoritarian attorney general of California might trouble voters if they knew anything about it.
Then again, knowing isn’t enough — images and emotional resonances are far stronger.
Trump supporters know this:
They feel a surge of pride whenever they recall the image of Trump standing and raising his fist in defiance after an assassin’s bullet came within an inch of ending his life.
Yet, Trump has been a fixture of presidential politics, either in office or seeking it, for nine years now, and voters had formed long-term associations with his name well before the attempt to murder him.
For grassroots Republicans, those Pavlovian associations are overwhelmingly favorable, which is why few were prepared to listen to intellectual arguments about policy or electability from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or any other rival in the........