Atlantic interview w/ Harris campaign staff: Trump was up 8-10% at time of switch

[GAinDC]

I know my response above seems very bitter, but I honestly don't know what else there is to say.

I was in DC and working in Congress during his first term. Yeah, the economy was good but cost of living was still high and it was still hard for people to get ahead.

At the same time, there was a lot of unrest over ACA repeal, gun violence, and the family separation policies -- and all that was before COVID, which he owned because he was president for that entire, crappy year.

Not sure what others are remembering, but his first term was not some golden age.

[Joe Biden 2028]

Of course polling would be really bad at time of switch, right after the debate.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Jen O’Malley Dillon should be blacklisted from ever working on a campaign again. The woman is propped up as a good campaign chair/manager when she the argument can be made that she is in the same tier as Robby Mook or Brad Parscale. Two 2020 election books I highly reccomend people read this winter is Lucky (Biden campaign) and Frankly, We Did Win This Election (Trump campaign) and you'll see how both sides were trying to outplay each other in trying to lose the race.

[VALibertarian]

Nate silver coming in with the steel chair:

https://www.natesilver.net/p/part-i-democrats-risk-aversion-helped

"Locking Harris in as the nominee, could she have won with a better campaign? Meaning, one that employed different strategies and tactics, emphasized different themes, or deployed resources differently? My initial instinct was to say “no”, but that’s before I read the Pod Save America interview.

Because I think this was a pretty bad campaign. Not terrible: the Village, despite its other flaws, usually has a high floor for basic technocratic competence. The Harris campaign’s data and analytics work seems to have been good; they got off to a quick start under tough circumstances, and Harris was well-prepared and effective in her debate. But if Harris was a C-plus candidate, the campaign probably deserves a C-minus grade — and lower than that if you account for the fact that many of the people running Harris’s campaign were also running Biden’s."

[wbrocks67]

Nate silver coming in with the steel chair:

https://www.natesilver.net/p/part-i-democrats-risk-aversion-helped

"Locking Harris in as the nominee, could she have won with a better campaign? Meaning, one that employed different strategies and tactics, emphasized different themes, or deployed resources differently? My initial instinct was to say “no”, but that’s before I read the Pod Save America interview.

Because I think this was a pretty bad campaign. Not terrible: the Village, despite its other flaws, usually has a high floor for basic technocratic competence. The Harris campaign’s data and analytics work seems to have been good; they got off to a quick start under tough circumstances, and Harris was well-prepared and effective in her debate. But if Harris was a C-plus candidate, the campaign probably deserves a C-minus grade — and lower than that if you account for the fact that many of the people running Harris’s campaign were also running Biden’s."

Hm, I'm not sure how he'd come to that conclusion after reading either interview. I don't really see where employing different tactics, emphasizing different themes, resources, etc. would've made enough of a difference in the end. Like I could think of different things they could've done - but in totality over 3 months would it have really made the difference and won those 220,000 votes? I'm not quite sure.

The one thing I think she did a good job of was the "fighting for you" stuff - it clearly worked because she was even winning on that issue. not enough to win, but I think that could've been drilled down even more on. I was kind of struck by them not using older clips more to reinforce stuff in ads. They used a ton of clips in her DNC video from her time as AG, DA, senator, etc. where she says stuff like "i say we fight" or about her railing against people trying to get one over on the middle class, etc. only for those clips to never see the light of day ever again after that video.

Stuff like that - would it have made a difference? In 3 months, probably not. But in a longer campaign, I think there was way more stuff they could've used - from Harris's own mouth! - to push the "fighting for you" angle, which could've been helpful.

[Pericles]

Also Biden's stubbornness is even worse if he really was down by that much. At least if he was only down by 3-4 points like in the public polls, he could believe that a not all that large swing back could still save him. Even his pre debate polling must have been terrible rather than bad, which makes him look even worse.

[Progressive Pessimist]

So, again, more evidence that switching to Harris was the right thing to do, but could only have done so much.

[GAinDC]

I’m proud of our party for taking this chance, even if we didn’t get the result we wanted. It probably would have been so much worse with Biden.

The Democrats remain more adept at navigating tough environments.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I’m proud of our party for taking this chance, even if we didn’t get the result we wanted. It probably would have been so much worse with Biden.

The Democrats remain more adept at navigating tough environments.

Barely...but in the range of outcomes we at least didn't get the absolute worst-case scenario. Maybe third worst...

[New World Man]

Kamala rehab tour.

[RBH]

I think that rehab tour starts when Harris launches a podcast in February

[BlueSwan]

I generally agree with the Harris staffers. They were dealt a really sh**tty hand by Biden and they mostly made the most of it. Harris ran an overall good campaign. Sure, there was an interview or two she could have handled better and sure she should probably have prioritized stuff like going on Rogan or other new media that didn't just have a liberal audience. Ultimately it is not clear that it would have mattered, but otherwise they did fine with the hand they were dealt.

[Pericles]

I generally agree with the Harris staffers. They were dealt a really sh**tty hand by Biden and they mostly made the most of it. Harris ran an overall good campaign. Sure, there was an interview or two she could have handled better and sure she should probably have prioritized stuff like going on Rogan or other new media that didn't just have a liberal audience. Ultimately it is not clear that it would have mattered, but otherwise they did fine with the hand they were dealt.

I get the point though that the Harris campaign was better suited to a situation where she was in the lead and just had to hold onto it.

[CentristRepublican]

What I generally find so amazing (in a negative sense), is Trump being on track of winning a rematch so easily. And all of this despite his baggage. Keep in mind that never before a major party nominee was convicted of a felony and under indictment for several more crimes, including conspiracy against the US govt. That's insane. Especially when you consider that Biden didn't have a scandal, a recession or a foreign war with thousands of bodybags coming home.

Tbh, it looks like Johnson in '68 had better chances to win reelection than Biden. Despite 'Nam.

The only way to square it I think is that the pandemic, a once in a generation event, just changed the game in so many ways that it affected everything, and the confluence of events was so specific to the pandemic and the time afterwards.

But I also think it really should be studied after this election what voters red lines are. There's clearly a ton of voters who knew Trump was a felon, at least knew about 1/6, etc., and still voted for him because of the "economy" or what have you. So what is the line? like if a violent criminal runs for office and then says "I promise I'll bring down costs"... where is that line of what voters are willing to put up with in terms of character/morality/etc vs. what they believe will help them personally? I know that's an extreme example but I feel like it's worth looking into where the line is. Because voters rejected Kari Lake and Mark Robinson for much less! But for Trump it was no biggie. Feels like there's just way more at play here that should be studied.

Trump has normalized it for himself, and to a lesser extent for other Republicans.

It is as he himself said years ago - he could shoot someone in the middle of 45th Street and he wouldn't lose a single voter. He wasn't nearly as far off the mark as ppl might've thought...

[New World Man]

The summer of Brat was an illusion.

[Skill and Chance]

I don't believe this.  This sounds a lot like post election loss CYA by campaign consultants.  Post-debate period Biden polling while he was still the nominee distinctly resembled the Clinton +8 stuff post-Access Hollywood and was likely driven by non-response bias.

[wbrocks67]

I don't believe this.  This sounds a lot like post election loss CYA by campaign consultants.  Post-debate period Biden polling while he was still the nominee distinctly resembled the Clinton +8 stuff post-Access Hollywood and was likely driven by non-response bias.

I mean, sure, I doubt Biden would've lost the PV by 8-10 at the end. But the thing with non response bias is that it's indicative of broader situations. If Biden stayed the nominee, Democratic enthusiasm would've been at near zero. Many voters *would've* come home, but many wouldn't have.

[wbrocks67]

The summer of Brat was an illusion.

I'm not sure why people can't square the idea that two things can be true at once: there was a burst of enthusiasm for Harris that was real + however it still wasn't enough to ultimately win

She raised $1B, had packed rallies, volunteers by the droves... that wasn't imaginary.

[VALibertarian]

The summer of Brat was an illusion.

I'm not sure why people can't square the idea that two things can be true at once: there was a burst of enthusiasm for Harris that was real + however it still wasn't enough to ultimately win

She raised $1B, had packed rallies, volunteers by the droves... that wasn't imaginary.

I think the tricky bit especially with these post election retrospectives by Harris campaign staff is that these people are incentivized to paint themselves in as favorable a light as possible - Sure the enthusiasm in August-September was tangibly real as you point out - but was that enthusiasm due to the actions of the Harris campaign, or just relief at clawing back what was seen as a certain loss with Biden into a (at the time seen as) winnable fight?

And then in the final months of the campaign, I definitely sense the team is conveniently leaning into the "the fundamentals doomed us!/the campaign was too short!" narratives as an easy out for any and all mistakes made.

I wanna be clear I think Nate Silver is pretty much a dolt but I tend to agree with his analysis which I'll quote here:

"By this point, the campaign ought to have had a few more tools in their arsenal. It’s not like a 107-day campaign is that short: it's longer than the “snap elections” that sometimes take place in the UK and other countries. Or necessarily even shorter than other general election campaigns in the US. Obama didn’t wrap up the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton until June 3, 2008, had a lot of intraparty healing to do (his leads against John McCain were initially relatively narrow) and a convention that wasn’t until late August.

Of course, I usually advocate for people in decision-making positions to have a realistic conception of the landscape. Harris had her work cut out for her, no doubt. At the time she took over for Biden, prediction markets and most observers (including me) had her as the underdog.

But if the campaign thought that Harris had only, say, a 40 percent chance, it wasn’t adapting its behavior accordingly."

[ProgressiveModerate]

I know my response above seems very bitter, but I honestly don't know what else there is to say.

I was in DC and working in Congress during his first term. Yeah, the economy was good but cost of living was still high and it was still hard for people to get ahead.

At the same time, there was a lot of unrest over ACA repeal, gun violence, and the family separation policies -- and all that was before COVID, which he owned because he was president for that entire, crappy year.

Not sure what others are remembering, but his first term was not some golden age.

I think a lot of it is that Conservatives were just better at using untraditional forms of media to create and control narratives. It's one of those things where if you say it enough, it feels true to many people even if it isn't, and there just weren't enough on the left pushing back on it. For instance, many on the right would post things about "my grocery bill this week was $1000" and then you look closer at what they bought and it's like a bunch of pre-made food, an 80lbs hunk of meat, and some expensive caviar. Call people out for that, and try painting them as weird and out of touch but in a funny way - it's what Fetterman did to Oz and it successfully went viral and I think really helped him. The left really needs to learn how to use humour and irony again.

I think that's one of the places where the Biden admin dropped the ball the most - they just didn't message well on what they actually accomplished, and I think made the administration feel almost useless to many Americans. This is especially true on social media platforms - I have never seen stuff like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, Chips Act, or Respect for Marriage Act brought up by liberal accounts even though all 3 are things that are relatively easy to message in a way that's broadly popular.

[wbrocks67]

The summer of Brat was an illusion.

I'm not sure why people can't square the idea that two things can be true at once: there was a burst of enthusiasm for Harris that was real + however it still wasn't enough to ultimately win

She raised $1B, had packed rallies, volunteers by the droves... that wasn't imaginary.

I think the tricky bit especially with these post election retrospectives by Harris campaign staff is that these people are incentivized to paint themselves in as favorable a light as possible - Sure the enthusiasm in August-September was tangibly real as you point out - but was that enthusiasm due to the actions of the Harris campaign, or just relief at clawing back what was seen as a certain loss with Biden into a (at the time seen as) winnable fight?

And then in the final months of the campaign, I definitely sense the team is conveniently leaning into the "the fundamentals doomed us!/the campaign was too short!" narratives as an easy out for any and all mistakes made.

I wanna be clear I think Nate Silver is pretty much a dolt but I tend to agree with his analysis which I'll quote here:

"By this point, the campaign ought to have had a few more tools in their arsenal. It’s not like a 107-day campaign is that short: it's longer than the “snap elections” that sometimes take place in the UK and other countries. Or necessarily even shorter than other general election campaigns in the US. Obama didn’t wrap up the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton until June 3, 2008, had a lot of intraparty healing to do (his leads against John McCain were initially relatively narrow) and a convention that wasn’t until late August.

Of course, I usually advocate for people in decision-making positions to have a realistic conception of the landscape. Harris had her work cut out for her, no doubt. At the time she took over for Biden, prediction markets and most observers (including me) had her as the underdog.

But if the campaign thought that Harris had only, say, a 40 percent chance, it wasn’t adapting its behavior accordingly."

I agree, I think it's both and I want to make it clear - I think the actions of *Harris herself* are more attributable than the campaign. She had a blunder with the View answer but she herself handled the immediate transition flawlessly, and had terrific moments at the debate and convention. I think the campaign definitely could've done things differently, but I think she herself did nearly everything she could.

I suspect maybe we'll hear more about the campaign staff and shoulda, coulda, woulda in the books ahead or maybe other semi-high level people who had insight. But I agree that while most of what they're saying makes sense in the general sense, they are incentivized to of course paint themselves in the best light possible.

I also agree that they could've taken more risks. But I understand why she herself may not have been as interested. It's a tough balance. The campaign itself outside of her should've taken more.

[wbrocks67]

I know my response above seems very bitter, but I honestly don't know what else there is to say.

I was in DC and working in Congress during his first term. Yeah, the economy was good but cost of living was still high and it was still hard for people to get ahead.

At the same time, there was a lot of unrest over ACA repeal, gun violence, and the family separation policies -- and all that was before COVID, which he owned because he was president for that entire, crappy year.

Not sure what others are remembering, but his first term was not some golden age.

I think a lot of it is that Conservatives were just better at using untraditional forms of media to create and control narratives. It's one of those things where if you say it enough, it feels true to many people even if it isn't, and there just weren't enough on the left pushing back on it. For instance, many on the right would post things about "my grocery bill this week was $1000" and then you look closer at what they bought and it's like a bunch of pre-made food, an 80lbs hunk of meat, and some expensive caviar. Call people out for that, and try painting them as weird and out of touch but in a funny way - it's what Fetterman did to Oz and it successfully went viral and I think really helped him. The left really needs to learn how to use humour and irony again.

I think that's one of the places where the Biden admin dropped the ball the most - they just didn't message well on what they actually accomplished, and I think made the administration feel almost useless to many Americans. This is especially true on social media platforms - I have never seen stuff like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, Chips Act, or Respect for Marriage Act brought up by liberal accounts even though all 3 are things that are relatively easy to message in a way that's broadly popular.

But I think that's a bigger issue tbh. I think the Biden admin *itself* promoted those things a ton, but you have to get people to care outside of that, and unless they're forcing liberal influencers to post about it, the bigger issue imo is that there's so many online leftists/influencers whose brand is just to sh*t on Democrats. Like how many leftists would get thousands of RTs just absolutely crapping all over Dems/Biden whoever. The thing with Republican influencers/adjacent is that they're kind of shameless in their promotion of Republicans and don't really care. Yet there's so many Dem-adjacent or straight up leftists people/influencers whose game is just to pull the whole "dems and reps are both bad" - just look at Hasan Piker. He's arguably one of the biggest left leaning ~influencers~ and his entire schtick is to crap all over Democrats. That type of stuff makes the media environment really unbalanced.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I know my response above seems very bitter, but I honestly don't know what else there is to say.

I was in DC and working in Congress during his first term. Yeah, the economy was good but cost of living was still high and it was still hard for people to get ahead.

At the same time, there was a lot of unrest over ACA repeal, gun violence, and the family separation policies -- and all that was before COVID, which he owned because he was president for that entire, crappy year.

Not sure what others are remembering, but his first term was not some golden age.

I think a lot of it is that Conservatives were just better at using untraditional forms of media to create and control narratives. It's one of those things where if you say it enough, it feels true to many people even if it isn't, and there just weren't enough on the left pushing back on it. For instance, many on the right would post things about "my grocery bill this week was $1000" and then you look closer at what they bought and it's like a bunch of pre-made food, an 80lbs hunk of meat, and some expensive caviar. Call people out for that, and try painting them as weird and out of touch but in a funny way - it's what Fetterman did to Oz and it successfully went viral and I think really helped him. The left really needs to learn how to use humour and irony again.

I think that's one of the places where the Biden admin dropped the ball the most - they just didn't message well on what they actually accomplished, and I think made the administration feel almost useless to many Americans. This is especially true on social media platforms - I have never seen stuff like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, Chips Act, or Respect for Marriage Act brought up by liberal accounts even though all 3 are things that are relatively easy to message in a way that's broadly popular.

But I think that's a bigger issue tbh. I think the Biden admin *itself* promoted those things a ton, but you have to get people to care outside of that, and unless they're forcing liberal influencers to post about it, the bigger issue imo is that there's so many online leftists/influencers whose brand is just to sh*t on Democrats. Like how many leftists would get thousands of RTs just absolutely crapping all over Dems/Biden whoever. The thing with Republican influencers/adjacent is that they're kind of shameless in their promotion of Republicans and don't really care. Yet there's so many Dem-adjacent or straight up leftists people/influencers whose game is just to pull the whole "dems and reps are both bad" - just look at Hasan Piker. He's arguably one of the biggest left leaning ~influencers~ and his entire schtick is to crap all over Democrats. That type of stuff makes the media environment really unbalanced.

Sure, the blame can't solely be put on Biden or his administration, but they definitely could've done more. Have Biden, or perhaps some of his younger surrogates (i.e. Buttigieg, Khan, D Congressman members) go onto these social media podcasts and discuss the administration's accomplishments. They did a bit of this in the final weeks but it was too little, too late, and I think came off as less authentic.

[RBH]

I don't believe this.  This sounds a lot like post election loss CYA by campaign consultants.  Post-debate period Biden polling while he was still the nominee distinctly resembled the Clinton +8 stuff post-Access Hollywood and was likely driven by non-response bias.

I mean you don't even have to go to the NRB theory.. that period of time barely had Trump numbers moving as Biden numbers went down, so people went Biden-Undecided-Harris over the span of a few weeks there

[Comrade Funk]

We should never listen to the Biden dead-enders again.