The NPR Politics Podcast - Dead Heat: Kamala Harris Boosts Dems' Odds In Our New Poll

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

In a speech at her campaign headquarters, Vice President Harris highlighted her background as a prosecutor and will work to unite the party and earn the nomination.This episode: voting correspondent Ashley Lopez, White House correspondent Ashley Lopez, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our intern is Bria Suggs. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hi, this is Mark, Karen, and Allison. We're at sunny Santa Cruz Beach in California. This podcast was recorded at 1220 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, July 23rd, 2024. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but we'll still be listening to the sound of the waves and the obnoxious music coming from the people next to us.

Okay, here's the show. I mean, I always hate it when, like, I don't like the music that people are playing next to me. I will sometimes move, but that's like a losing game because you'll just keep moving around. That's what headphones are for. So I tell my daughter. At the beach? I don't know. No, no music on the beach.

Headphones. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover voting. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

Today on the podcast, Vice President Kamala Harris has quickly united Democrats behind her and her candidacy. And Asma, you were in the room for what basically amounts to like her first big campaign speech for her presidential campaign. Can you tell me about what that was like, what the vibes in the room were like and what her speech was like? Yeah, this was a trip she made to her campaign headquarters in Delaware yesterday. And I should point out that this had been the Biden-Harris campaign headquarters until this past weekend when, of course, Joe Biden dropped out of the race. You know, I think one thing that was really interesting to see was that the vibe in the room at the campaign headquarters was not a funeral, despite the fact that the man that they had been working

for has no longer running here. It was like a party. There was Beyonce playing on a sound system. Some of the staffers put out their cell phones and were taking pictures and videos of now their Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris. And she, you know, herself, I will say, her eyes kind of appeared to glisten at moments when she spoke. But she talked about the fact that she really wants to earn the party's nomination and unite the party behind her. So in the days and weeks ahead, I, together with you, will do everything in my power to unite our Democratic Party, to unite our nation, and to win this election. And, you know, the other really key moment yesterday at this, what I would describe as

being kind of her first major stump speech of her own presidential candidacy, was when Joe Biden called into the event. You know, he has been recovering from COVID, and he called in to say that he really wants his team to wholeheartedly embrace Kamala Harris as the party's nominee. And there was some back and forth between Harris and Biden over the phone. You know, she paid tribute to Biden and said that he has accomplished more in his one term than a lot of folks do with two terms. It is so good to hear our president's voice. Joe, I know you're still on the call, and we've been talking every day. You probably, you guys heard it from Doug's voice. We love Joe and Jill.

We really do. They truly are like family to us. 30 weeks. And we do everybody here, though. It's mutual. I knew you were still there. You're not going anywhere, Joe. I'm watching you, kid. I'm watching you, kid. I love you. I love you were still there. You're not going anywhere, Joe. I'm watching you, kid.

I'm watching you, kid. I love you. I love you, Joe. You know, it's probably the best speech I've heard Kamala Harris give in the public eye, to be honest. I mean, you know, she had this lackluster 2019, you know, campaign for the 2020 presidential election for the nomination. And she never seemed to have, you know, the ability to project what a message should be. Now, she has something of a record to run on with the Biden-Harris administration. She has a vision for the future that she laid out in that speech. And, you know, she's been the best spokesperson for the administration when it comes to abortion rights post Dobbs.

So I think that she has a lot to run on here. And it depends on the kind of version of herself that goes forward, whether or not she can win, because if she plays a serious, though, Asma, because the 2020 Democratic primary was not really like the topics and the sort of the things that those voters cared about back then. Like, you know, a prosecutor was not a very popular thing to be running as. I mean, how much of this is because it's been four years since then, like things have changed a lot or is it her? Has she just gotten sort of better at this? You know, I've been thinking about this question a lot. I really do think that the moment and this race is quite different than 2020. I know a lot of folks will say, well, look, her campaign fizzled out before the Iowa caucuses even took place during that election cycle. That is true. I will

say, though, that when you hear her talk in this election cycle, she's going on the attack against Donald Trump. And she has been, as Domenico suggested, they're far more effective when she is on the attack and her sort of prosecutorial mode. I think she struggled at times during that 2020 cycle to really make the affirmative case for her own candidacy in a really crowded field with Democrats. This is a different fight, which is why I will say I think the past is useful to a point. But I think this strategy and this message will play very differently now. You know, this is something we heard her mention explicitly yesterday. She pointed to her prosecutorial history, her career as an attorney general. In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women.

Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's type. That's a message that I would say is effective at rallying parts of the Democratic base, though, you know, Domenico, I'm curious to hear what you're seeing about how much she is potentially actually energizing the base. I think she's energizing the base quite a bit. You know, you're seeing record amounts of money that are being poured in,

you know, and you're hearing from a lot of Democrats who are saying that they felt yesterday was a bit of a breath of fresh air, that they kind of forgot almost what it was like to have a candidate who could make a cogent argument, sound clear, be enthusiastic. And I think there's a lot of people now, for the first time, certainly since before the Democratic debate, where Joe Biden had his disastrous debate, have been smiling and feeling like they're going on the offense. Doesn't mean she's going to win, but they're feeling much better about their chances now. I mean, let's talk about the fact that she has what looks like enough delegates to show that she has this nomination locked up, right, Asma? And that happened very quickly, right? We're talking about from Joe Biden dropping out of the race on Sunday afternoon.

By late Monday night, we got word that she has secured enough support from delegates to be the likely Democratic nominee. Of course, this is all going to be official after there's that planned virtual roll call. But it was a very quick timeline, and we did not see any serious challenger step up to contest her. Yeah. All right, let's take a quick break. And we've got a new NPR PBS News Marist poll, and we'll go deep on what it says about the race. And we're back. And just before we get back into things, I have a quick plea. Please hit the follow button on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to us if you haven't yet.

There is a lot of news coming in, and this is the easiest way to follow along and make sure you don't miss anything. All right. And so, Domenico, we've seen Harris lock up as we talked about money as well as support from power brokers in the party. But I want to know about the public, right? There's this new NPR PBS News Marist polling. What did it find? Well, it really shows that we've hit a reset in this campaign. We have Trump and Harris essentially tied statistically. Trump has 46 percent of the vote compared to 45 percent for Harris. That's a three plus point margin of error, plus or minus. So that really is no difference. When it goes to a five-way race, including third parties, RFK Jr., people like that,

it's 42-42. And I think what's really notable in that is that Joe Biden was losing, you know, saw a big drop off when it went from a two-way to a five-way race with non-white voters and younger voters by double digits. Harris mostly retains those voters. She has some struggles in some other areas, like winning over independents, white voters, and suburban voters. But this ability to potentially bring up the vote with Black voters and younger voters, that's something that Democrats are feeling pretty good about. Yeah. So it seems like her base of support just like doesn't look the same as Biden's

at this point. Well, it's mostly the same. But I think that what she's doing with black voters in particular shows a lot more enthusiasm. You know, black voters were the largest group in saying that they were more likely to vote now that Biden had stepped aside. She gets her highest favorability rating with black voters at 61%. On the flip side of that, Trump does best with white men who don't have college degrees and white evangelical Christians. So this is what we've seen. But to have black voters fired up in a campaign for Democrats is really, really crucial. And I think something that really can't be understated. Yeah, you know, one thing I've been wondering is whether the potential path

to victory for Harris might look slightly different than it did for Biden. And right, there were only seven states that are considered to be competitive. We had heard from the Biden orbit that they were really focused on the blue wall. These are the real industrial states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. I imagine that some of the Sunbelt states, Georgia in particular, becomes more in play. In fact, I was on the phone yesterday with a state lawmaker in Georgia who did think that the state looks potentially different in terms of just grassroots energy and enthusiasm than it did before Harris was at the top of the ticket. Yeah, I agree with that. And I think that if you also throw in North Carolina, potentially,

you know, Joe Biden was within two points in 2020 of Donald Trump. Of course, it's a little bit more of a reach. But of course, she is also considering putting Governor Roy Cooper from North Carolina on the ticket too. So we'll see what kind of calculation they do wind up making. But Democratic strategists who I talked to in 2008, 2012, said that nobody else could have won North Carolina except for Barack Obama because of how he brought up the level with black voters, but not just black voters, with young voters too, which were really, really the key. I think the other big thing in our poll to show why this is such a reset is that we have a lot of people now moving into the undecided category, especially independents. One in five independents say that they're undecided way up from where they were

just a few weeks ago. And especially independent women, 28% of independent women now saying that they're undecided. So there's a lot of groups giving a second look to Kamala Harris. She has an opportunity here to reintroduce herself to the country. And these next two to three weeks are going to be vital to whether or not she can win them over. You know, Domenico, we have spoken about Kamala Harris's identity kind of abstractly here as being an asset when we talk about black voters. I've heard some, you know, perceptions also around Asian voter enthusiasm. But there is also the assumption that this campaign could become rather ugly along racial and identity-based lines that we haven't seen in something like that in a while. Voting this racist birther conspiracy that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, which he was. And we continue to say that because there are some people who still continue to believe this. And the way he talks about black women repeatedly calling several black women dumb or not smart.

And he's doing so again with Kamala Harris. And, you know, frankly, it's a real potential tripwire for Trump and Republicans so that they're not looking like they have such extreme rhetoric. But we know Trump has done that in the past and is likely to do it again. I do want to pivot a little bit to the other side. Do we know if Trump saw a boost at all coming out of the Republican National Convention and, of course, the assassination attempt and after him announcing the J.D. Vance pick, like, has there been any sort of boost at all from that? favorability rating. And that might have as much to do with sympathy for him after the assassination attempt, but it's not really much of a jump. In fact, it's not a jump in his favorability rating at all. He's 43% earlier this month. He's 43% again, but he's under 50% for the first time in a while in his unfavorability rating. Only 49% now have an unfavorable view of Trump. I assume that that's probably going to revert to the mean

and that's going to jump again to above 50% with especially Democrats and some, you know, Democratic leaning independents who might have been giving Trump a little bit of the benefit of the doubt and a little bit of sympathy. But as they coalesce around Harris, that you're going to see Trump's unfavorable rating probably go back up to where it has been, frankly, for several years. Well, I want to quickly talk about the VP tickets here, because obviously there's all indications that Harris is looking to sort of broaden the ticket, right, with a moderate pick, maybe a white man from a more conservative or purpley state. Whereas, I mean, we know who Trump picked, J.D. Vance, and that ticket seems

to like look more like a doubling down, like it doesn't really expand his base of support in any meaningful way. Asma, how are you thinking about what this sort of means for the race going forward? I know people don't vote for VPs, but it does sort of like set the stage for like what the options are for what kind of voters they could pull from. Yeah. I mean, one thing I've heard in previous reporting about vice presidential picks is that people don't necessarily vote for a VP, but they do sometimes see VPs as being disqualifying. And the example that stands out to me is when John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. People did tell me that they felt like that affected their calculation

of the Republican ticket that year back in 2008. You know, normally people obviously don't vote for the vice president, right? They're voting for the person at the top of the ticket. But we have seen it make a difference. You mentioned Sarah Palin, you know, LBJ back in, you know, when John F. Kennedy was running in 1960, certainly made a big geographic difference and helped Kennedy on the ticket. We might see a geographic and or ideological balance on this ticket when Harris is making her consideration. And we're talking about people who are white male moderates from places like Pennsylvania, where, by the way, the most money is being spent on ads from both campaigns.

You know, the governor there is Josh Shapiro, Democrat, and he's very popular. People like Senator Mark Kelly in Arizona, also a swing state, white male, moderate. Roy Cooper, we mentioned, from North Carolina, same situation. You know, look, I think being at the Republican convention last week and now reporting on Democrats this week, it feels like it has been a whirlwind reporting cycle. And the reason I mention this is Republicans were extremely just ecstatic and confident and united behind Donald Trump being their party's nominee. And it felt like they had every reason to think they should double down and choose a vice presidential pick who is very similar to Trump ideologically. You know, would they have chosen the same VP person this week, knowing that Kamala Harris is at the top of the ticket? I'm not sure Trump would have made the same decision necessarily. He might have made the same decision, but I think there

would have been a different consideration at the very least. And it's why you see Trump so irritated, you know, going on social media, talking about how he thinks that it's fraud what the Democrats have done, that the Republican Party should be reimbursed for all the money that it has spent on attacking Joe Biden over the past several months to a year or more, because this really's reset the race. And I think that making this announcement on the Sunday right after the Republican National Convention was probably very smart politically because it probably blunted the kind of momentum that Trump would have maybe gotten out of that when we were still talking about Democrats in all this chaos and in what one strategist had called a doom loop. So, you know, I think that that's one critical reason why making that call on that Sunday has really changed this race. All right, let's leave it there for now. Tomorrow, President Biden will be speaking at 8 p.m. Eastern time. This will be the first time he addresses the nation

since he decided to lead the presidential race. That means we'll be late in your feeds tomorrow, so be sure to check it out. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover voting. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.