Dem
51
GOP
49
Kamala Harris' strategy is not a secret. In fact, her campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, wrote a memo describing it and gave it to Politico for publication.
First the campaign will target five specific demographics where Harris is already much more popular than Donald Trump. The goal here is to drive up turnout. The groups are Black voters, Latino voters, Asian American/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander voters, women voters, and young voters. For example, Harris is running 54 points ahead of Trump among Black voters, so getting every possible Black voter to the polls is a top priority, Similarly, among women, Harris' favorability runs 21 points ahead of Trump's
Another group consists of voters who didn't vote for Biden in 2020, but have moved toward the Democrats since then, in part due to the extreme candidates the Republicans ran in 2022. These people include the remaining white college-educated voters who aren't already Democrats, as well as seniors. These two groups were formerly solidly Republican, but that has changed rapidly in recent years and Dillon wants to encourage the holdouts to switch parties as well.
Still another group in Harris' sights is the undecideds. It is about 7% of the electorate. Most are Black or Latino and under 30 and don't pay a lot of attention to politics. They need to be aggressively targeted.
The states Dillon will target are the three blue-wall states (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) as well as the sunbelt states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina. No real surprises here.
Dillion also discusses the enthusiasm of Democrats. As of Tuesday evening, Harris had raised $126 million from small donors. Since Sunday, 1.4 million grassroots donors contributed to her campaign, 64% of whom had not contributed before. In addition, 74,000 donors signed up for recurring contributions, providing a steady stream of money.
Since Sunday, over 100,000 people have volunteered to work for the campaign and another 2,000 applied for jobs with the campaign. These people will work out of 250 offices with 1,300 existing staff, soon to be expanded to 1,500 paid staff.
Dillon expects the race to be close but says it is winnable. She could hardly say otherwise. (V)