CHICAGO—Democrats have rapidly built momentum in their presidential campaign, and party members, strategists, and political analysts say they know what must be done to maintain it.
Harris drew some 19,000 rallygoers to an Aug. 20 event in Milwaukee, which was held at the same time as speeches by former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, at the Democratic National Convention, less than 100 miles away. Harris–Walz campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon told reporters on Aug. 21 that this illustrates the increased level of interest in the campaign since Harris’s nomination.
“Those are voters, and they wanted to be part of this,” Dillon said. “When you capture a moment in energy—and people will want to join a part of that—we’re going to continue to see that grow.”
Commenting on that momentum, award-winning film producer and director Spike Lee told The Epoch Times: “We’re living in it. It’s not over. We got to keep going.”
Tell Harris’s Story
According to Dillon, the heightened public attention on Harris since her nomination allows Democrats to introduce her to a wider audience.
“This is really a great opportunity for us to really define the race on our terms, to be able to lay out who [Harris] is, who she’s always been fighting for, what she’s gotten done,” Dillon told reporters on Aug. 21.
Bryan Graham, a member-elect of the Democratic National Committee, echoed the need to tell an effective story that voters can latch on to.
“Tell them the story, and tell them why it’s important to vote for Democrats, why it will have an effect on their lives, and reinforce the things that we’ve already done,” Graham told The Epoch Times.
Michael Brown, a shadow senator serving the District of Columbia, said it partly amounts to allowing Trump to speak for himself.
Talk About Kitchen Table Issues
Core messaging for reaching undecided voters should focus on basic economic issues without getting lost in arcane policy details, analysts and Democrats have said.“[Messaging] needs to be targeted at the middle class and working families,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said. “Those people need to feel seen and know that we care about them, that we are going to represent them.”
That emotional connection is important, according to Aaron Dusso, a professor of political science at Indiana University–Indianapolis.
“The psychology of voting is always about emotion, and my feelings about my party, and my feelings about where I want the country to go,” Dusso told The Epoch Times.
He said research indicates that voters know little about policy details and are more motivated by how they feel about candidates.
Ken Kollman, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan, said Harris’s messaging must walk a fine line between mobilizing her base and not being seen as too liberal by swing voters.
“It’s a tough needle to thread, but there is a path,” Kollman told The Epoch Times.
Don’t Become Overconfident
Harris has a slight lead in national polling, although David Urban, a former adviser to the Trump campaign, said he believes those numbers are deceiving.“If you look back to 2016 and 2020, Clinton was way up at this point in the race, Biden was way up,” Urban said, noting that the races turned out closer than the polls indicated.
“If Democrats aren’t super far ahead—because Republicans underreport in the polls—they’re done.”
The Epoch Times spoke with Democrats who emphasized the need to learn from the 2016 election and avoid becoming overconfident.
“This is not 2016,” former South Carolina state Rep. Bakari Sellers told The Epoch Times.
“We just thought we were going to trounce Donald Trump.
Mobilize Voters
Dillon emphasized that message in her Aug. 21 interview at the Democratic National Convention.“If I can deliver one message here today, it is that this is going to be an extremely close race,“ she said. ”It is a margin-of-error race, and we have to do everything possible to make sure we mobilize everyone.”
“We have learned a lesson from 2016,” Duckworth said, adding that Hillary Clinton lost Wisconsin, a critical battleground state, by a narrow margin partly because the black vote in Milwaukee was down by some 35,000 votes.
Duckworth noted that voter mobilization efforts there were already underway.
Mobilization is the key to maintaining momentum, according to political consultant Elizabeth Mitchell.
“You bring it to the front door, you bring it to everybody’s front door. You start to talk to people about issues that are happening in their communities,” she told The Epoch Times.
Dusso said that from now until November, the campaign should focus on its ground game.
“The next step is about translating that enthusiasm into volunteers at the state level,” he said. That includes operating phone banks, knocking on doors, and getting voters ready to vote.
“In Arizona or Pennsylvania, [the election] could be decided by 10,000 votes or even less,” Dusso said. “Your ground game can win it for you.”
