On Politics: The Kamala Harris vibe shift
The Kamala Harris vibe shift
Dianne Schwartz, an 80-year-old Chicagoan who listens to political podcasts while she exercises, felt something today. Something she hadn't felt in a while. "I realized today, while I was listening to my podcasts, that I spent the last few days without worrying and being depressed," Schwartz told me. "That's amazing." It wasn't so long ago that Schwartz had resigned herself to the idea that former President Donald Trump would win in November — and that he could be the last president of her lifetime. But since President Biden bowed out of his tepid re-election campaign on Sunday, and his party instantaneously coalesced behind Vice President Kamala Harris, Schwartz has found herself feeling strangely, impossibly good about politics. "I haven't been this excited about an election," Schwartz said, "since Kennedy." Call it the Kamala Harris vibe shift. A presidential race that felt to many Democrats like a dispiriting slog toward an all-but-certain defeat by Trump suddenly feels light. Hopeful. People are even feeling … is that joy? "It was just going to be this horrible, slow slog between two old men that nobody liked," said Lisa Burns, an art teacher from New Haven, Conn. Now, she said, "everyone I know is happy." "It's gone from the dread election to the hope election, overnight," said Amanda Litman, who runs a group that recruits progressives to run for office. Campaigns are not won and lost on vibes alone. But they can encourage voters to open their wallets and volunteer their time — and right now, the buoyant mood among Democrats is translating into early signs of strength for the campaign. The Harris for President campaign has raised $130 million from mostly small donors in just a matter of days, while the high-dollar fund-raising world whirls to life. Democratic organizers are reporting a surge of interest from volunteers. And, yes, there are the memes, a sign of organic interest that the Biden campaign never mustered. The enthusiasm is showing up in early polls, including in The New York Times/Siena College poll released this afternoon. The poll found Trump leading Harris by one percentage point among likely voters in a head-to-head matchup. That is a marked improvement from our last national poll, earlier this month, when Trump led Biden by six percentage points, although it shows a tough race ahead for Harris. But the idea of a tight race doesn't upset voters like Schwartz as much as it used to. "Even if Trump can't be beat," she said, "I just feel optimistic." From dread to optimismThe enthusiasm is showing in small ways, too. Take Nancy Todd's phone. Todd is the secretary of the Democratic Party in Gwinnett County, Ga., a swiftly diversifying swath of the Atlanta suburbs, and her number is posted on the party's website. She usually doesn't get even a call a day. Not anymore. Now, she and other local Democratic officials are scrambling to turn the surge of enthusiasm into volunteers, yard signs or money — anything they think will help Harris win. "We had people asking for, where to contribute to her, how to contribute to her, how to join the campaign," said Brenda López Romero, the county party chair. "It is a stark, noticeable difference in being able to recruit now." The excitement, she says, is a balm for the gloomy fatigue that had set in, particularly in Georgia, after a series of high-stakes Senate races in recent years. "Volunteers and voters were like, 'Enough,'" López Romero said. In the suburbs of Philadelphia, Neil Makhija, the vice chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, said he "basically" had not slept since Sunday. Makhija, a longtime Harris supporter and the president of Indian American Impact, a group that aims to mobilize South Asian voters, is doing everything he can to channel the excitement. That includes creating a website to promote her candidacy, he said, and planning an organizing call for tonight. "When she was running for Senate, when she was running for president the first time, she would come to Philly. I would make the calls, there was a hesitation," Makhija said. "It was just a harder sell." Now, he said, the enthusiasm is there — but he knows the campaign is only just starting. "The campaign is going to be hard," he said. "It's still going to be close." From meh to less mehThe poll found that the mood among Democrats was not good vibes only. Nearly half said they were scared or apprehensive when asked to describe their feelings about the 2024 election. The most common sentiment among Republicans was one of happiness or hope. The most determinative shift in feelings may not be the one among despondent-turned-delighted Democrats. Rather, it may be the one that could be underway among the double-haters. Our poll found that the number of voters who disliked both candidates had dropped to 8 percent — down from 20 percent in Times/Siena polling earlier this year. I called one of those voters, Reece Ellis, this afternoon. Ellis, who is 25, had written to me this summer to say he wasn't excited about the election, and I wanted to know how he felt now. Ellis, an independent voter who lives in Columbia, Mo., said he found the Biden-Trump contest to be "cringeworthy" and "demoralizing." Unhappy with Biden's handling of Israel's war in Gaza, he said he had pretty much decided not to vote for either him or Trump. "We were all kind of on the same page — we were kind of disgusted," Ellis said, describing the feelings he and his friends had. "I'm Black. A lot of my friends are Black. It was like pulling teeth talking about 2024." Now, even though he is not a huge fan of Harris, he thinks he will vote for her. It feels, he said, like a fresh start.
Biden finally gets his approval bumpSomething else that caught my eye in our poll was a couple of pieces of good news for Biden. I asked The Times's chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, to help us understand them. Just days after dropping his bid for re-election, President Biden is already enjoying a modest bump of public affection, as some Americans who had soured on him are feeling more positively toward him. The president's approval rating, which has been mired in the historical basement for many months, edged up to 41 percent from 34 percent before he announced he would bow out of the race, according to the latest survey by The New York Times and Siena College. The proportion of Americans who view him favorably (a slightly different formulation than approval of his job performance) moved up basically the same amount, to 43 percent from 36 percent. Those are still anemic numbers by any measure, but they suggest a softening of attitudes toward Mr. Biden now that the public knows he is on the way out. Traditionally, Americans tend to view their presidents more warmly after they leave office. Harry S. Truman, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, to name a few, are all rated more highly today than they were in their time. But such revisionism usually takes place after the last election of their tenure or even once they leave office and disappear from the public stage. Mr. Biden is getting an early start on the nostalgia circuit with six months left in the White House — an indication that many who had been down on him did not necessarily dislike him strongly but instead believed that at 81, he was no longer the right person to lead the country for the next four years. — Peter Baker Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
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