Can Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump?

A WEEK is a long time in politics, and this has been a good one for Kamala Harris and the Democrats. The sense of impending doom that had surrounded the party for months has evaporated, there is renewed energy in the base, and Donald Trump and his outriders appear rattled.

And it is not just vibes: the turnaround shows up in hard data. Three new polls published on Wednesday (Jul 24) give the vice-president a higher approval rating than Trump, something that had not happened for President Joe Biden in months.

Notably, Harris’ boost is not coming from previously decided voters switching their allegiance, but from winning over previously undecided and third-party voters, particularly the young, Black and Latino electorates that Biden had been struggling to persuade.

But these figures paint an overly rosy picture. Biden’s polling has been dire. If the question is whether Harris can win on Nov 5, we should be comparing her not with the Biden of July 2024 but the Biden of the early days of November 2020. By that yardstick, Harris comes up well short.

The vice-president’s approval rating advantage over Trump is currently about four points; on the eve of the 2020 election Biden’s was more than 15. On headline voting intention, Harris is roughly level with Trump, where Biden at this stage of 2020 was several points ahead. An early boost is nice, but to win she must make significant further gains.

The good news for Democrats is that there are several winds blowing in her favour.

A survey from pollster Blueprint showed that voters did not blame Harris for inflation and a bad economy as they did Biden. Her candidacy is, to use her own oft-repeated mantra, “what can be, unburdened by what has been”.

The same poll showed Harris had a big lead over Trump on abortion. Her strength on reproductive rights could be particularly important, as the pivot from Trump versus Biden to Trump and JD Vance versus Harris makes abortion more salient. Polling by Split Ticket showed that if the two sides are clearly divided on abortion going into November, it will provide a big boost for the Democrats.

Another tailwind comes from the pool of “double haters” who dislike both Biden and Trump. Data from YouGov showed that a large plurality of this group plan to vote Democratic in the congressional elections. These are not so much archetypal swing voters as natural Democrats who were disillusioned with Biden, but could now be persuaded back.

Running-mate choices also favour Harris. Vance was picked more for his ideology and loyalty than for electoral strategy. Rather than the classic profile of a moderate who can act as a bridge to swing voters, he is seen by Ohioans as more conservative than Trump. That is in contrast to potential Harris picks Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly who boost the Democrats in their home states, according to analysis by Brian Schaffner, professor of political science at Tufts University.

But it is not all upside, and immigration is probably Harris’s biggest vulnerability. The vice-president is simultaneously being pressured by some on the left to be softer than Biden on the border, and by others to take a firmer stance on one of the key issues for this election, and one where Trump has a clear lead.

Republicans were taken by surprise at Biden’s decision to step down and have been slow to react, but their early attack ads against Harris go hard on her strongly left-wing voting record, and past progressive statements on immigration and policing.

One of the key questions in the months ahead is whether Harris can use her career in law enforcement to position herself as a tough-on-crime moderate Democrat, or whether the more progressive rhetoric on policing from her 2020 campaign to be the Democratic nominee will be weaponised against her.

Gaza-Israel is another potential vulnerability, but polls suggest there is less downside here than one might expect: a Democrat who is soft on Israel (as Biden is seen as having been) loses support on the left, but a candidate who takes a more critical line wins those voters back without losing votes among moderates.

Harris is a much stronger candidate than Biden was, but in an election held today, she would still lose. To win in November, she must walk the tightrope to win over the remaining undecideds without alienating others along the way. FINANCIAL TIMES