Democrats claim that Kamala Harris has all the momentum in the race.
She’s counting on the media hype to carry her to victory.
But Donald Trump has one ace up his sleeve that left Kamala Harris reeling.
Kamala Harris has several big weaknesses moving forward
Vice President Kamala Harris re-energized Democrats after she became the party’s Presidential nominee.
The media, celebrities, and party members are ecstatic that a new face is at the top of the ticket.
Now, Harris has channeled the momentum from her honeymoon period into a virtual draw with former President Donald Trump in the polls.
Democrats hope her campaign can continue to ride this wave to November.
But CNN political commentator David Axelrod, former President Barack Obama’s top advisor, told Democrats to hold their horses about the Harris lovefest.
“There is a lot of irrational exuberance on the Democratic side of the aisle right now because there was despair for some period of time about what November was going to look like,” Axelrod said. “It’s a wide-open race, but Trump has the advantage right now and everybody should be sober about that on the Democratic side.”
Axelrod was one of the first Democrats to sound the alarm on President Joe Biden’s electoral problems.
Harris might be a new candidate, but she still is facing some of the same challenges that Biden did in the race.
The economy isn’t great
The recent global selloff of stocks that began in Japan and spread to Wall Street raised fears about a recession.
And the economy is still on shaky footing, with unemployment rising and inflation lingering.
Harris is trying to distance herself from the Biden economy.
But polling shows that voters give former President Donald Trump the edge on handling the issue.
YouGov and Morning Consult released two polls where Trump’s advantage on the economy was roughly 10 ten points over Harris.
Puck reported that no Democrat President in history has ever won with that big of a deficit on handling the economy.
Biden was nearly even with Trump in the 2020 Election after the pandemic destroyed the economy.
Time is running out for Harris to change voters’ perception of the Biden economy.
Harris needs enthusiasm beyond the Democrat base
The media portrays Harris as a rock star, but much of the energy campaign has come from reawakening a Democrat base that fell asleep under Biden.
She needs to be able to carry crucial independent voters if she wants to reside in the White House.
Trump has an advantage with them right now.
In 2020, Biden only won by about 44,000 votes spread across three states when he won independent voters by 9 points.
Black voters are still in play
Black voters were shifting away from Biden while he was in the race.
It’s still early, but there’s some evidence that might not return home to Harris.
Democrat pollster Adam Carlson found in the average of five highly-rated polls that Harris was “making next to zero progress among black voters.”
Kamala Harris had the media hype train behind her, but that can’t hide the very real challenges that she’s facing.
