Dem
49
GOP
51
In the final days of the campaign, Kamala Harris' main focus will be on suburban voters. Multiple polls show her leading in the suburbs by 6-7 points. She wants to increase that and also run up turnout there. If she can pull that off, that would probably compensate for any loss of young Black and Latino men. She is especially aiming at the suburbs around Philadelphia, Detroit, and Atlanta.
In 2020, Joe Biden won the suburbs by only 2 points. Hillary Clinton actually lost them in 2016. Part of this is explained by the movement of college-educated voters to the Democrats nationally and part due to the Dobbs decision. Many of these voters, including Republicans, simply despise Donald Trump, even if they like his policies. Affluent college-educated suburban voters are not typically the kind of folks who like macho would-be authoritarians. For these reasons, Harris is holding many of her final events in suburbs, often with Liz Cheney in tow to reassure dyed-in-the-wool Republicans that she (Harris) is not a Bolshevik. In contrast, Trump is not explicitly appealing to suburban voters anymore. All his dark rhetoric, sexism, and racism do not play well there at all.
Some Democratic strategists don't want to bet the farm on the suburbs. They want to focus on turning out low-propensity voters, most of whom do not have college degrees. The strategists, especially progressive ones, are not keen on Harris dragging Cheney along wherever she goes. But Harris is crossing her fingers and betting that the biggest group of undecided or hesitant voters are moderate college-educated suburban Republicans, basically the 20-25% of the people who voted for Nikki Haley in the primaries even after Haley dropped out. They were expressing their displeasure with Trump and wanted to embarrass him. Harris feels that if they can be made to feel safe with her, she can get them to vote (grudgingly) for a Democrat for the first time.
Hillary Clinton famously didn't bother campaigning in Wisconsin in 2016, which probably cost her that crucial state. Harris is certainly not making that mistake. She has been there many times and has a robust operation there, especially in the suburban WOW (Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington) counties surrounding Milwaukee. All of them used to be Republican, but are trending Democratic. Harris is trying to speed up the process. She is keenly aware that it is the women who are moving the fastest towards the Democrats and she wants to egg them on. The data say that Harris needs about 6% of the Republican vote to carry the state, and the WOW counties are where she is hunting for it.
One interesting note is that while Liz Cheney is an experienced politician, her experience is about getting rural conservatives in Wyoming to vote for her. That experience is less valuable in suburban Wisconsin. She is being trained by Obama strategist David Plouffe and all-around long-time Democratic consultant Stephanie Cutter. All these folks are aware of polling showing that there are more Republicans potentially willing to vote for Harris than Democrats potentially willing to vote for Trump. Their marching orders are to make it actually happen. (V)