The Next 100 Days

The election is in its last 100 days. A look at where we are and what’s ahead.

Photo: Erin Schaff via Getty Images

Imagine it’s the morning of November 6, 2024. You check your phone or turn on the TV, and there are final counts coming in from the battleground states. By that morning, barring something unusual, we should know whether we have saved our Republic or re-elected a would-be despot. We all want to feel like we did in 2008, and not like we did in 2016.

That morning arrives 100 days from today, so it’s helpful to take measure of where we are, and what we can expect, during this critical time. If 100 days seems like not much time at all, remember that in the past month alone the news cycle featured Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance and growing calls for him to drop out, an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and the meteoric rise of Vice President Kamala Harris as the new presumptive Democratic nominee.

Indeed, it’s hard to believe Kamala Harris’s campaign is only a week old.

Today, I want to talk about the momentum of the candidates, looking at some recent numbers around favorability including how and why the numbers have rapidly shifted. I will also discuss the candidates’ recent framing of the contest, and why successful framing and momentum often move in tandem. 

I’ll also discuss the question of the VP picks. The short version is, Trump’s choice continues to weigh negatively on the GOP ticket, while the Democrats have an opportunity to inject excitement into the race and will likely own the positive August news cycle, if we don’t turn on each other in the meantime over it.

Finally, looking ahead to September, there are some legal clouds ahead for Donald Trump that are worth noting.

100 days and counting. Here we go!

Kamalamentum

There is no question that Kamala Harris has seized the momentum and is on the rise in many quantifiable ways.

In one week, she’s already raised a record $200 million, perhaps even more impressively with two-thirds of that money coming from first time donors. Her campaign has signed up an astonishing 170,000 new volunteers, which will add significantly to the strong ground game established by the Biden campaign in the swing states.

The grassroots nature of the Harris campaign has produced some historic firsts, including record-breaking zoom calls with over 150,000 women in attendance, and tonight the first-ever “White Dudes for Harris” zoom featuring prominent figures such as Secretary Pete Buttigieg and actor Mark Hamill of Star Wars. At last check, the sign-ups for that call have grown to over 60,000 participants. This groundswell of support from white men for a multi-racial woman is both unprecedented and key to establishing a permission structure for those on the fence to break Harris’s way.

Harris’s favorability scores in key swing and midwestern states, based on the recent Fox poll, have now bumped past Trump’s, creating a true Heinz 57 hurling moment for the ex-president.

These numbers stand in stark contrast to where her favorables were before the announcement. “The vice president's favorability rating has jumped to 43%, with an unfavorability rating of 42%,” according to the ABC News/Ipsos poll. In that same poll released a week ago, her favorability rating was just 35 percent, while 46 percent viewed her unfavorably. 

Matthew Dowd broke this poll down a bit more, focusing on net favorable numbers. He noted that Harris’s net favorability used to be -11, but now it is +1. Among Independents, Harris’s net favorability was -19, but now it is +4. In the same period of time, Trump’s net favorability has gone from -11 to -16. Those are big shifts. The trend may not last, but in theory her numbers also could move even higher as she prepares to officially accept the nomination.

What accounts for this shift? The biggest factor is both simple and clear. Before last Sunday, Harris was only the bottom half of a national ticket, the top half of which many voters didn’t want. Now she’s “unburdened by what has been,” to use her catchphrase, and her numbers have leapt upward. As pollster John Della Volpe observed, quoting Steve Jobs, “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

The double doubters are shifting

It’s often hard to believe that there are millions of people who remain on the fence in this election. It’s even harder to grasp that someone who was once leaning Trump could suddenly lean Harris after her announcement. Were they simply not paying attention to what Trump has been saying? Were they asleep through the pandemic?

We should escape the mentality that those in the murky political center are somehow not persuadable. Instead, we should remember that many are simply not very “political” in their everyday thinking. And as Anand Giridharadas urged,

“I will say for the millionth time: People are persuadable. People change their minds all the time. Too many of us write others off, when in fact there is so much evidence that public opinion is malleable, with this much change possible even within a mere week. Never stop pushing.”

I have long argued that the “double doubters” in this election—voters who disliked both former choices of either Biden and Trump—were likely to determine the election, just as they had in 2016 (bad late shift) and 2020 (good late shift). The idea here is simple: Give that group of double doubters a different choice, and many will rethink their position. The inescapable fact is, Democrats were able to do that, but Republicans were not.

This is showing up now in the numbers. In a Fox poll conducted recently in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania—a must win for both campaigns—those who felt negatively about both Biden and Trump (the double haters) now back Harris by a whopping 41 points. Back in April, the spread was 27 points among the same group. That’s a 14 point shift in less than seven days. It helps account for why, in the same poll, Harris now leads Trump by two points in a multi-candidate race in the state, whereas Biden once trailed him.

Again, the polls may be off in absolute terms, but their shifts are noteworthy and tell us something about what direction things are going right now. If the double doubters continue to break Harris’s way, Trump will face an uphill climb.

Who framed JD Vance?

Perhaps the better question is, who vetted JD Vance? The same folks who vetted George Santos? 

The first few weeks of a campaign are important in many ways, but perhaps the most critical is how a candidate is framed before the public. The Harris campaign predicted, accurately, that Trump would go after her for being quirky and unusual, even making fun of her laugh. In response, Harris turned the tables. “You want to talk about weird? These guys are weird.” 

Indeed, in a recent press statement following Trump’s appearance on Fox News, the Harris campaign noted what we were all thinking: Trump is old and weird.

The credit for the framing of Trump and Vance, best as I can tell, belongs to both comedian John Oliver and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. They reduced Trump and Vance to a couple of very weird guys who hold some very weird views, on everything from windmills to batteries to childless cat ladies running the country.

But it’s not enough to just name-call them as weird. Credit also is due to campaign spokespersons like Pete Buttigieg, who took the “weird” views of the GOP ticket and laid out how they could produce dangerous results.

“It’s not just a weird style that he brings. It’s that this leads to weird policies, like his proposal that the number of votes you get in an election would be different depending on how many kids you have. I would think ‘one person one vote’ is a pretty basic, universally accepted principle in this country. But there are so many strange policy commitments he has.”

On abortion, which is the GOP’s most vulnerable issue, the Harris campaign is not “going high” in the face of Vance’s dangerous views. For example, a recent Harris press statement correctly labeled Vance a “creep” whose views on women’s health care choices voters won’t stand for.

Nor is her campaign letting Trump slide for his wild statements. Trump spoke recently before a mostly Christian crowd and promised that, if he were elected, they wouldn’t have to vote again in four years—an implied promise of autocracy and white Christian rule.

“Get out and vote just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years it will be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore...In four years you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not gonna have to vote.”

The Harris campaign took him head on and minced no words:

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has yet to launch a consistent attack on Harris. Trump has posted about how she is a “liberal” and a “Marxist” who is soft on crime, but this doesn’t quite square with her record as a tough prosecutor who is backed by many wealthy corporate donors. Trump has floated trial balloons for his attacks—“Lyin’ Kamala,” “Cacklin’ Kamala”—but these have failed to break through and he hasn’t been consistent with any one of them.

Meanwhile, Harris continues to be buoyed by a surge in online enthusiasm, user generated memes and TikTok mashups that present her as the cool auntie, a defender of freedom, and someone who will hold criminals like Trump accountable. 

Time is running out for the Trump campaign to create a substantial negative wave to counteract the positive vibes around Harris, especially among formerly disinterested youth who drive much of the cultural conversation and online buzz. It’s still possible that a GOP counterattack could prove effective, but the election clock is ticking.

Veep veep!

On the VP search for Harris, there is currently a deep bench of widely respected, swing state and midwestern white dudes who will round out the ticket. There are plusses and minuses to all the top contenders, which by most accounts now include three names: Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. (This being politics, that list could change or be incorrect, fair warning.)

I’ve written previously about the first two possibilities and how each brings a possible key swing state into further play. I would not sleep on Walz, however. In the past days, he has shown how plainspokenly and adeptly he can make the case for Harris, all the while painting Trump/Vance into an absurd Minnesota corner. His folksy and common sense style could appeal to votes across the “blue wall” must-win states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

There is a tendency among progressives to bad mouth candidates they don’t prefer. With Shapiro, it’s his stance on Israel, which many on the far-left say is “disqualifying.” For Kelly, it is his union views, which don’t pass muster with many labor activists. While I understand the impulse to issue threats and ultimatums, this can be counterproductive when only the question that truly matters right now is how well the candidate can help win the election against Trump. That’s why it’s best for our civil discourse to uplift rather than tear down the potential VP picks. And it’s best for our election hopes to fall in line quickly behind the final choice.

If we stand together behind Harris’s pick, no matter who it is, we can help carry her momentum forward to the Democratic National Convention in mid-August. Unity, hope and resolve, matched against the GOP’s cynicism, fear and hate, will draw the starkest possible contrast between the two parties’ visions for the country.

The trials of Donald Trump

We’ve taken a bit of a break from Trump’s legal woes with the stunning immunity ruling from the Supreme Court and the bad faith dismissal of the classified documents case by Judge Aileen Cannon. Those were painful setbacks, but they didn’t end the quest for accountability.

In September, Trump is scheduled to face sentencing on the Manhattan jury verdict. While the judge isn’t likely to send him to jail, he could, at least in theory, impose a jail sentence, even while holding it in abeyance pending appeal. That will form a cloud over Trump’s future and render it easier for those in the middle to break toward Harris.

In federal court in D.C., Judge Chutkan is expected to regain jurisdiction over the January 6 case in early August. From there, many are expecting her to order briefing and then set an evidentiary hearing over Trump’s claim of presidential immunity. This hearing could act like a mini-trial, with extensive witness testimony and physical evidence introduced. It could serve to remind voters of Trump’s role in that horrific attack, day after day leading up to October.

Okay, time for a deep breath, and then zoom out with me a bit. This race is fundamentally different than it was eight days ago. There is an energy and enthusiasm around Harris not seen since the Obama campaign. The GOP is flailing about still, unable so far to effectively respond and committing multiple unforced errors, all while Harris is defining herself as the candidate and champion of freedom with an assist from Beyoncé. 

Ten days ago, the Trump Campaign was measuring and picking out drapes for the White House. Today, they’re trying to figure out what damaging quote or scandal will further sink their candidates’ approval ratings. 

It’s crucial now that Democrats retain the cohesiveness we have exhibited over this past week and continue to row together toward the common goal. We are enjoying a gloriously rare moment of consensus, the wind is at our backs, and it feels nice to finally exhale.

This race is likely still going to be close. But given the energy we have seen, we might also win big and rout them utterly. We can’t and shouldn’t rule that out.

In the spirit of the Olympics, it’s a heads down, eyes up race now, all the way to the finish line.