Vice-President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has turned the focus from President Joe Biden’s shortcomings to her opponent, Donald Trump, with that succinct critique and an all-around more focused platform.
This week, she made appearances at rallies alongside Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, her new choice for vice president, demonstrating her shift in tone. The two used Beyoncé’s song “Freedom” as the background music as they argued that they were fighting for American liberties against threats from their “weird” Republican opponents, Trump and his running mate JD Vance.
Leading a chorus of supporters in Philadelphia, Ms. Harris declared, “We’re not going back,” coining the de facto campaign slogan.
The rephrased version of Mr. Biden’s 2020 speech, which claimed that Mr. Trump posed a “threat to democracy,” portrays the outgoing president as disconnected from everyday life in the United States.
The vice president’s press releases, which came from a campaign that previously supported Mr. Biden, also showed the change in tone from extremely serious to casual.
A Harris representative joked that a Trump speech made him sound “like someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant,” just five days after Mr. Biden resigned.
According to campaign strategists, this new messaging seems to be connecting with Democratic-leaning voters because it portrays voting for Ms. Harris as less of a civic duty and more of a sensible decision. However, it’s too soon to tell if this newfound sympathy for a vice president who had trouble capturing the interest of Americans until recently will endure until the election in November.
Eleni Kounalakis, the Democratic lieutenant governor of California and a close friend of the vice president, stated that Ms. Harris’s “great sense of humor” and her proficiency as a “basic communicator” are evident in the campaign’s new language.
The truth is that these seem to be her assets, and her happiness is showing through despite Donald Trump and his running mate’s ominous undertones.
In the meantime, Trump, who entered politics during the 2016 presidential campaign and has since established a reputation as an effective mudslinger and passionate campaigner, has found it difficult to respond, particularly in light of the “weird” narrative.
“Those are the peculiar ones. I’ve never been referred to as weird. In an interview with conservative radio host Clay Travis last week, Trump stated, “I’m a lot of things, but weird I’m not.”
At a rally on Friday in Montana, he reiterated the theme, telling the assembled crowd, “We’re very solid people. We desire low interest rates, strong borders, free and fair elections, and the ability to purchase a home.”
“I think we’re the opposite of weird, they’re weird.”
A honeymoon of free press
Polls indicate that Ms. Harris, who formerly trailed Trump, is now leading.
David Polyansky, the deputy campaign manager for Republican governor of Florida Ron DeSantis’s 2024 presidential campaign, speculated that this change might be the result of Ms. Harris outperforming Trump in his own arena.
Trump has profited from being the nation’s top political story since his first presidential campaign, thanks to what political insiders like to refer to as “earned media,” or free press.
However, the story that has dominated headlines and the media in recent weeks is Ms. Harris’s unexpected rise to the top of the Democratic ticket just weeks before the DNC, and she accomplished this without agreeing to participate in a significant media interview.
It’s no small feat to upstage the former president, who was just the target of an assassination attempt, according to Mr. Polyansky.
He remarked, “It’s really pretty remarkable.”
Her choice of Mr. Walz as her running mate seems to have boosted her campaign even more.
According to a poll released August 5–9 by the New York Times and Siena College, Ms. Harris leads Trump in three crucial battleground states: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, by a margin of 50% to 46%.
It follows a recent YouGov survey that was conducted from August 4–6, which predicted she would win the popular vote. Of those surveyed, 45% said they would vote for her in November, while 43% said they would vote for Trump.
That is a turn of events. She was found to be losing by three points in a comparable YouGov survey that was completed nearly three weeks prior.
In actuality, Mr. Walz was the first to refer to Ms. Harris as “weird” during his public appearances last month in support of her candidacy. Speaking of their Republican opponents, he didn’t hesitate to use it again at that Philadelphia rally with Ms. Harris, saying, “These guys are creepy and yes, just weird as hell.”
According to multiple voters who spoke with the BBC, Mr. Walz’s rustic ways seemed to hit home. They claimed that the governor of Minnesota was likeable because of his candor.
Tyler Engel, an independent Ohio voter on vacation in St. Augustine, Florida, described Mr. Walz as someone who “seems like a normal guy, a family man” in between puffs on his cigarette.
Mr. Engel continued, “And if there is one thing we are starved for in this country, it’s normal people.”
John Patterson, a voter from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, stated that he thought Mr. Walz was “a very genuine person.”
“With him, you get what you see,” he continued.
Is ‘weird’ working with voters?
A few political consultants expressed amazement at the “weird” label’s potency. Many claimed that it succeeded because it was genuine, didn’t feel forced, and developed “quick and naturally” rather than being a cliche or catchphrase intended for a specific audience.
In a “very understandable – almost light-hearted – way that was maybe less severe and more colloquial”, Brian Brokaw, who worked on several of Ms. Harris’s campaigns and ran a Super PAC that supported her 2020 presidential campaign, described calling Trump and JD Vance as “weird” as a clever way to repackage President Biden’s “threat to democracy” theme.
According to him, the term instantly contributed to changing the focus of the contest from a criticism of Joe Biden’s four years in office to one of “do we really want to go back to what we were doing during the Trump era?”
Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, was less optimistic.
He announced Ms. Harris as the new front-runner on BBC Newsnight on Tuesday, pointing out that she had gained new “momentum”.
He disregarded the term “weird” though, calling it “weird in itself” and claiming that voters didn’t connect with it.
The BBC interviewed a number of indecisive voters, and they seemed to respond well to the catchphrase. In an era of political name-calling, Jacob Fisher, an independent voter from Atlanta, said he felt labeling Trump and Mr. Vance as “weird” was appropriate and only slightly offensive.
“I believe it’s just,” Mr. Fisher stated. You can’t claim that it’s extremely severe because the other guy keeps comparing his opponents to rodents. Thus, “weird”? I’m not sure, but if you’re Donald Trump, you really can’t complain.
However, those who declared their support for Trump remained dissatisfied with the campaign’s latest messaging.
Theresa Walker of Illinois and Frank agreed that the US was “going to hell” under the Biden-Harris administration. Gem Lowery, a Florida Trump supporter, expressed her disapproval of Harris’s choice for vice president and the term “weird” that they have applied to discussions of Mr. Vance, Trump, and the Republican platform.
Lowery told the BBC, “I think the weird ones are the Democrats.” Therefore, I don’t think it’s appropriate to refer to Republicans as “weird.”
A looming election
The “brat summer” of Ms. Harris won’t last indefinitely.
Although the selection of Mr. Walz and the approaching Democratic National Convention are sure to sustain Ms. Harris’s media hegemony, analysts concur that the campaign must soon shift course.
Longtime advisor to Ms. Harris, Mr. Brokaw, stated that her campaign will have to put in more effort to maintain the fervor it has seen since the vice president emerged as the Democratic nominee.
According to Mr. Brokaw, “the convention is the pinnacle of the honeymoon period, and after that it’s going to be a grind for two months probably with some debates.” “This is an exciting time, but eventually things will return to reality, and then it’s time to go.”
He continued, “I think I’d be surprised if we’re still talking about Trump and Vance being weird in October.”
The Republican strategist David Polyansky said the label “works well from a 60,000 foot view,” but he thought a message about immigration and the economy would ultimately win over voters in November.
