The Big Mo
Everybody knows what I’m talking about and the word is on everyone’s lips these days…momentum. Obviously I am mostly talking about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as their campaigning goes from swing state to swing state, rattling the voters’ cages and beating the drum. Strangely enough, there seems to be little of an artificial nature to it. There is genuine enthusiasm for the Harris/Walz ticket and it is leading to record-setting fundraising, packed rallies and a degree of pure joy at these gatherings as people seem almost relieved that we are somehow out of the dark woods we had been traveling through. And for all the momentum that has been found for the Democrats, there seems to be an equal or even greater amount of momentum that has been lost by the Republicans. After the attempted assignation of Trump and into the raucous and somewhat over-the-top boisterous convention in Milwaukee, a convention that every political pundit from all sides of the spectrum marveled at the embedded enthusiasm and confidence, the Republican balloon just lost all its air. It’s not as though Trump or even J.D. Vance did anything to prick the balloon, at least not anything they haven’t done or said a thousand times over, but everyone just woke up on the morning after Joe Biden’s precisely-times withdrawal from the race and endorsement of Kamala Harris, his Vice President, to a deflated balloon. Maybe the best analogy is a sailing analogy where one competing boat suddenly steals all the wind from the lead boat’s sails and glides into the lead as though the wind only favors its sails and not the others’. There is almost nothing the opposing boat can do and if the race is only 90 or less days from the finish line, there may simply not be enough time to tactically reposition itself to catch the breeze.
The initial momentum was easy enough to claim since there was widespread relief that Biden had stepped down. That was to be expected. It was not at all to be expected that the Republicans and Trump would be caught so flat-footed by the event since it seemed more and more inevitable by the day and they themselves and their tactics were part of the cause for the decision. The initial fundraising boost was also not so unexpected, but then it kept going and more and more and more people started to endorses Harris and take notice of the dramatic shift in the political winds. She had little time to choose her running mate and yet seemed to do so quite diligently. Where Trump seemed to flamboyantly keep only his own counsel and come to a rather rash and surprising decision in Vance (accompanied with all the negative stories of the influencers who drove Trump in that direction), Kamala seemed to narrow the field very carefully and thoughtfully, ending with a three-way beauty contest and a final decision for Tim Walz that surprised many, but quickly seemed like a solid choice. We barely had enough time to learn how to pronounce his name before he was getting on stage in Philadelphia to give his introductory remarks. He blew us all away and you just see Kamala standing in the background surprised and pleased with her first big decision.
Walz has now gone on over and over again to be a perfect opening act for Kamala. He can say things in his down-to-earth manner with all the regular folksiness that she could not convincingly bring and probably should not attempt given her role. I have said to people that if she brings 2 points and Walz brings one, together they generate 4 points. Meanwhile, Trump and Vance aren’t campaigning together and they seem to bring their respective 2 and one points (I’m being generous to both in my opinion) and generate a combined 2 points or less. There is a chemistry with the Harris/Walz team that everyone seems to feel and the enthusiasm is growing and not yet fading in the least. The fundraising juggernaut has continued, but most importantly, the joy that is exuding from the ticket is explosive. Where down-ticket candidates are avoiding Trump and especially Vance, the Democratic down-ticket candidates are clamoring for Harris/Walz to come and help out their campaigns. Whatever it is that makes enthusiasm infectious, Harris/Walz have found it. I’m sure their campaign staffs are pleased as punch and equally surprised, but luckily, democrats are far more prepared for the ground game than Republicans have ever been, so none of the enthusiasm is going to waste. Every ounce of energy is getting captured and used for political gain.
And now that its been about three weeks, the polls are starting to show the impact. That momentum has started to translate into numbers. While Trump/Vance have flattened (note they have not done anything dramatic yet like implode), Harris/Walz have soared. Now Harris is mostly 4 points or so ahead of Trump where she and/or Biden were something like 4-6 points down a month ago. The improvement is now even outside the range of statistical error and that means that the pollsters are saying that Harris is actually in the lead against Trump and seems to be gaining momentum and not losing it. This is all BEFORE we even get to the Democratic National Convention scheduled for August 19-22 in Chicago. That is nine days from now and most often can be expected to give a further boost to the Harris/Walz ticket. It promised to be a blow-out convention at this point.
While Harris and Walz will be getting up every morning between now and Election Day and working the campaign trail while Trump broods darkly in Mar-a-Lago and Vance chases Harris’s plane around the country, trying to horn in on her media coverage, it seems that September is slotted to be debate month. As of this moment there seems to be at least one agreed upon debate on ABC on September 10th. Trump has now promoted a Fox debate on September 4th and an NBC debate on September 25th, but Harris and her team have yet to agree to those added events. The Veep candidates, Vance and Walz, both seem eager to debate one another. When it was Harris v. Vance, Harris had already agreed to three debate dates, but the Republicans were choosing to wait for the DNC to agree to anything. It seems likely that there will be a Veep debate, but only time and politics will tell.
We all know that anything can happen in politics, and we also have learned our lesson that polls only tell us so much at any point in time, but almost everyone also says that polls take on added importance the closer they get to the election and that momentum is like any surge dynamic in a race, its best when it comes near the finish line. The good news is that the Harris/Walz momentum had no choice but to come in the last months before the finish line and the even better news is that it is far greater than anyone anticipated. We are all believers in fundamentals right up until we are staring at something up close and personal, and then we get down to every technical edge we can suggest. We are at the point in the cycle where everyone more or less knows what the two teams stand for and we know (perhaps not understand, but at least know) which set of policies feels right to us. Those who love Trump still love him. Those who hate Trump, still hate him. But all those who hated Biden have nowhere to go with that sentiment. Everyone is just getting to know Harris, not to mention Walz and Vance as well. Harris is coming through this getting-to-know-you stage with flying colors. Walz is become better liked than anyone could have expected. Vance…not so much. So, it is sage to say that at the moment, the Big Mo is squarely in the Harris/Walz camp and the number one job of the team is to keep it right there for another 87 days.