Five Key Groups Harris Needs to Rebound With
The vice president has made this election a real race again, but she still has work to do.
As the dust begins to settle from the last two weeks of presidential politics, Democrats seem to have found a renewed sense of optimism about this year’s election. Their new nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, has thus far exceeded many people’s expectations. The transition from President Biden’s campaign to her own has been seamless, and she was quick to get ads on the air introducing her to the public and defining herself on her own terms.
Harris is also enjoying a bounce in the polls: her favorability has rebounded after three years of malaise, and election forecasts went from showing a persistently dreary outlook for Biden to a competitive contest with her as the Democratic standard-bearer.
But while Harris’s team is surely enjoying the sugar high, there is still a lot of the campaign left to go, and she has plenty of work to do between now and November to turn these rosy headlines into more than just wishcasting. Even with her strong start and the stumbles from former President Trump, the race continues to be a statistical tie nationally. And, as we have pointed out before, simply tying Trump in the popular vote likely isn’t enough for her to win the Electoral College.
A major reason why Harris begins her campaign trailing President Biden’s 2020 performance is that several key groups have drifted away from the Democrats over the past four years—groups that will be decisive in swing states this fall. In particular, there are at least five core constituencies with whom Harris will need to claw back a substantial amount of lost ground over the next three months: men, black voters, Hispanic voters, young voters, and independents.
Let’s examine how Harris fares with each of these groups relative to their performance in the last presidential election.1
Men
Historically, men are a more conservative voting bloc than women. They have voted more Republican than their female compatriots in every election since at least 1972 (as far back as exit polling goes), though they have narrowly backed three Democratic presidents during that time: Jimmy Carter (1972), Bill Clinton (1992), and Barack Obama (2008).
While this voting gap has fluctuated from one cycle to the next, it has remained relatively stable for decades. However, that may now be changing. There are growing signs that younger men and women, specifically, are becoming more polarized by ideology. Much of this is due to young women moving unmistakably leftward over the past decade, but there are signs that young men may be trending more conservative as well.
At present, Harris is running 10 points behind where Biden finished with men in 2020. The picture is even less pleasant among younger voters: a Harvard Youth Poll from this past spring found that while young women backed Biden over Trump by an overwhelming margin of 63 to 30, men only favored him by six points (50 to 44).
Part of the reason for this growing gap may be that the party has a clear agenda for women but not for men. AEI’s Dan Cox recently noted that the Democratic National Committee includes on its website a list of 16 demographic groups it represents. Notably missing from it? Men. As Cox observes, “It’s difficult to believe that the exclusion of men from this list is simply an oversight. Rather, the omission of men reflects a broader divide in how partisans view the state of women and men in America today.”
No Democratic presidential nominee in the last half century has won while losing men by more than six points; Harris currently trails Trump with them by 12. This is one of the most obvious areas where she must improve. Something that could help with this is simple outreach. Harris might be wise to tap surrogates like Senator Chris Murphy, who has spoken eloquently about the urgent need for an agenda that services this half of the population.
Black Voters
Compared to 2020, Democrats have lost more ground with black Americans than any other major group. After Biden won them by 84 points (with 92 percent of the vote), Harris’s lead with them is now just 53 points (with only 72 percent support), constituting a massive 31-point swing. This notably means that Trump’s support has jumped from eight percent to 19 percent, which would be the highest share of the black vote for any Republican presidential nominee in at least 50 years.2
Democrats’ decline with non-white voters has been evident for some time now. Catalist data shows that the Democratic share of the black vote has modestly but consistently decreased in every general election from 2012 to 2022. The decline has been especially pronounced among younger black voters—who went from backing Obama by 91 points in 2012 to supporting Democrats nationally in the last midterm election by just 67 points—as well as non-college blacks.
Moreover, Gallup data gauging partisan self-identification by demographic group shows that Democrats are currently at a three-decade low with black Americans, enjoying just a 47-point advantage (compared to a 66-point advantage as recently as 2020 and a 76-point edge in 2012). Taken together, this paints a picture of a population that may be starting to vote more in line with its more moderate-to-conservative beliefs.
Suffice it to say, Harris will have a difficult time winning if she doesn’t at least hit 90 percent with black voters nationally. Falling short of that could be costly in pivotal swing states like Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, whose black populations have played pivotal roles in recent elections. Harris also shouldn’t overthink this. Black voters care about the same issues as everyone else, including inflation, healthcare, and crime—even more than they care about issues of race. Addressing these things may be an avenue for reclaiming lost ground with a vital Democratic constituency.
Hispanic Voters
We at TLP have written extensively about Democrats’ long slide with Hispanic voters. Even as Biden defeated Trump, Hispanics—who had overwhelmingly voted for Democrats in the prior three presidential contests—swung rightward all over the country, going from backing Clinton by 39 points to supporting Biden by 25. This movement was especially evident among Hispanic men, who shifted an astounding 20 points more Republican between 2012 and 2020, voting for Biden by just 12 after backing Obama by 32.
It hasn’t gotten much better since then. Harris’s advantage over Trump with these voters is now just 10 points, 51–41 percent. In addition, just like with black voters, Democrats’ edge with Hispanics in partisan self-identification is at an all-time low of just 12 points, more than half its 2020 level (28 points). And a late 2023 survey found that nearly 12 percent of Hispanic Democrats are considering changing their party affiliation.
If it holds, this attrition will make it very difficult for Harris (and other Democrats) to win battleground states like Nevada and Arizona. She needs a message that can speak to Hispanics Americans’ concerns. Polling has routinely shown that they prioritize inflation and the economy above other issues—even immigration. She’ll need a strong economic message that tells these voters how she plans to help make their lives better.
Young Voters
One of the more bizarre and unexpected developments of this election cycle has been the polling showing young voters becoming something of a swing group. Young Americans have backed Democratic presidential nominees by more than 20 points in each of the past four elections, and we have evidence that they are increasingly staying liberal as they grow older. And yet, Harris isn’t even polling at 50 percent with them, and she only leads Trump (whom the averages show is winning 42 percent of young people—more than in either of his past two elections) by seven points.
It’s worth noting that there has been some debate about whether the polls are accurately capturing young people, especially depending on the medium with which pollsters contact them. Recent Pew data also indicates that young voters still identify with the Democrats by wide margins. And the aforementioned Harvard Youth Poll showed that likely young voters preferred Biden (at the time) over Trump by a margin of 56–37 percent, which only represents a slight dip from 2020.
Still, it’s better to take these less cheery polls seriously and offer young people a message that addresses the issues they care about most—which, just like black and Hispanic voters, include the economy, cost of living, and healthcare.3 And, as previously discussed in relation to men, it might also include a direct appeal to young men who may feel ignored but who still agree with the Democratic Party on core issues.
Independents
Finally, the one group that is crucial to almost any winning president’s coalition: independents. Over the past 50 years, only one candidate—George W. Bush in 2004—has won while losing them (and even then, he fell short by just one point). In 2020, Biden won independents by a healthy 10 points, 52–42 percent. However, Harris is currently losing them by 11.
The good news for Harris is that polling shows independents care about the same issues as the broader electorate—namely, inflation and the economy—giving her a chance to make inroads with yet another vital constituency using a broadly appealing message. Independents are also probably likelier than Democrats and Republicans to care more about voting for a candidate who is ideologically moderate. Here, Harris may have some work to do: a recent survey found that one of the top traits independents associated with her was that she is liberal. One step that might help her shed that image slightly is tapping a more centrist running mate like Josh Shapiro or Mark Kelly.
Harris seems to be on the right overall trajectory for now, steadily climbing in the national polls and recovering some ground that Biden had lost in the final days of his candidacy. In the meantime, voters of all stripes are still trying to figure her out, and many want to know the same thing: does she have a plan to help address the cost-of-living issues that many of them are worried about?
As I wrote last week, the formula for this election isn’t complicated: Harris needs to craft a strong economic message that appeals to the median voter in swing states. And it so happens that that message is likely to resonate with the other key groups she’ll need to win the election.
For Harris’s current polling with these groups, I’ll be using data from Cook Political Report. And for Biden’s 2020 performance, I’ll use the Pew Research Center’s validated voter survey.
To be fair to Harris, this basically matches where Biden was before he dropped out of the race.
What it notably doesn’t include is student loan forgiveness and the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Speaking here as an independent and former democrat, I would only consider voting for Harris if she distanced herself from some Biden policies which I find abhorrent.
1. I strongly objected to Bidens management of the covid "pandemic" ( epidemic? endemic?). He mandated untested new mrna shots ( not vaccines) for millions of Americans, including pregnant women and young people. He said "You become a dead end for the virus when you get vaccinated." Incorrect, but never offically corrected.
If Kamala would acknowledge that mistakes were made in managing covid. If she would say something about doing things differently next time, no school closures, no vaccine mandates, I would vote for her. Could she be smart and honest enough to say that science is never settled, science benefits from debate, experts don't always agree and that's healthy?
2. I am disturbed by government sponsored censorship, and massive over reach regarding censoring "misinformation." See above. If only Kamala would support free speech and talk about how its foundational to a democracy - and particularly during times of crisis, war and emergency.
3. The Ukraine War makes no sense and is potentially apocalyptic. Will Kamala talk about ending this war. ? Maybe we need to also acknowledge here that mistakes were made. The war is not going well. We need to negotiate.
Funny thing how nobody in authority ever admits being wrong about anything. If Kamala would do that about some of those big issues above, I would change my view of her. She would no longer be just another lying politician, but an American with integrity and who wants to do better.
"The good news for Harris is that polling shows independents care about the same issues as the broader electorate—namely, inflation and the economy—giving her a chance to make inroads with yet another vital constituency using a broadly appealing message."
What broadly appealing message is that?