Vice President Kamala Harris has a path to victory, veteran Democratic campaign strategist James Carville wrote for a New York Times analysis published Tuesday — but there are three key things she needs to do to get there.
Carville, who advised former President Bill Clinton's campaigns and has had much to say on the 2024 contest so far, thinks Harris already has a significant upside in that public opinion is basically fixed at this point.
That means former President Donald Trump can't easily lose supporters, but he can't easily win them either. "No matter his divisive policies, Covid, the indictments, who his number two was or whatever bile he spewed on social media, the jury of public opinion on Donald Trump is settled," Carville wrote.
Nonetheless, Trump wasn't particularly popular when he won in 2016 either, so that's no guarantee Harris will win, he wrote. And that's where Carville's three suggestions come in.
The first thing she must do, Carville said, is humiliate him at the upcoming debate this month.
"Ms. Harris must enable exactly what his campaign is scared to death of: letting Trump be Trump. She should let him talk over her. Not just let him but goad him into spouting insane conspiracy theories about the previous election. She should use her sense of humor at key moments to get under his skin and show he’s not getting to her. And she should welcome the personal attacks as a badge of honor."
And above all, she should continue her strategy of branding Trump as "weird" and the butt of the joke — it's been damaging him more than any fact check or criticism of his record.
Second, said Carville, Harris should find a key issue to highlight her difference from President Joe Biden, so that voters take seriously the idea she's a "change" candidate and not just a pseudo-incumbent running on the status quo.
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"Put out a broad list of 'new way forward' policies that detail why she is breaking from the sitting president on the given issues and what change would deliver to the American people," he wrote. "And after that rally, do a news conference on it, so media organizations stop cranking their clamshells about a lack of access."
Finally, Carville wrote, Harris should own the ways she's grown and evolved since serving as vice president, as a counterargument to Trump's attacks on her 2020 campaign primary positions she no longer holds. "By doing just this, Ms. Harris would be demonstrating a capacity that Mr. Trump lacks: a growth mind-set," he wrote, which contrasts clearly with Trump's waffling on abortion policy and other struggles.
"This November, will we drag ourselves back again, succumbing to politics of fear and anger, or instead do the most audacious thing we can and once more turn the page to a new chapter in American life?" Carville concluded. "I know that Kamala Harris represents that next chapter. If she stays fresh, soon the American people will, too."
