CHANDLER, Arizona — Democrats are worried the initial euphoria of Vice President Kamala Harris ascending to the top of the ticket this summer has fizzled out at the worst possible time.
As Harris took the stage in battleground state Arizona on Thursday for the second time in two weeks, she immediately called herself the “underdog.” It’s a word she has used often to motivate voters. This time, however, Democrats fear the sentiment reflects an uncomfortable reality that she is behind.
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“Arizona, look, we have just 26 days until Election Day, 26 days. And we are nearing the home stretch, and this will be a tight race until the very end, and we are the underdog,” Harris said, with the crowd responding by barking like dogs.
“So, we have some hard work ahead of us, but we like hard work. Hard work is good work,” Harris said.
When Harris became the Democratic nominee two months ago after President Joe Biden stepped aside, Democratic operatives and voters thought her candidacy would be the key to defeating former President Donald Trump.
But with less than a month until the election, anxiety is spiking inside Democratic circles about the state of the race, as polls show Harris and Trump nearly tied across all seven battleground states.
“The momentum around Vice President Harris was so loud very early on, I felt the energy could die down closer to when early ballots dropped,” said Cesar Chavez, a former Democratic state lawmaker. “At least here, in Arizona, our early ballots dropped yesterday, and I think the campaign needs to find a way to bring this thing home.”
Earlier this week, there was some hand-wringing after Harris’s media blitz in which she appeared unprepared to answer how she would govern differently from President Joe Biden. The Trump campaign immediately seized on her answer, turning it into an effective attack ad that it played for supporters at rallies.
At .@JDVance’s rally in Tucson, he plays a new ad that he says was his idea, featuring Kamala Harris’s interview with the View. pic.twitter.com/A6EDoQ0vM5
— Samantha-Jo Roth (@SamanthaJoRoth) October 9, 2024
“Before this week, Harris had been able to distance herself from all the things that have gone wrong in the Biden administration: chaos in the Middle East, the border, and even all this recent misinformation going around about FEMA and the hurricane recovery funding,” one Democratic operative granted anonymity to speak candidly about the campaign said.
“Unfortunately, that changed when she was unable to give concrete examples of how a Harris administration would be different in these interviews, and it completely undermines her ‘A New Way Forward’ strategy,” the person said.
There’s also concern that the campaign’s record-breaking $1 billion fundraising haul has yet to move the needle in battleground-state polling. While there’s evidence the campaign has a robust organizing and outreach effort in many of the competitive battlegrounds, it’s unclear if it will pay off as Harris works to introduce herself on an extremely abbreviated timeline.
“I think that many of us had hoped that [Harris] would get in this race and blow Trump out of the water while campaigning like the underdog to motivate our voters to get to the polls,” a former White House aide who has since left to work in the private sector said.
“Now, it’s anyone’s game. The number of states that are in play this cycle, especially as we reach the final stretch, is a major obstacle, and the vice president is actually an underdog against a convicted felon,” the person said. “It’s alarming, and anyone that says they aren’t concerned is lying.”
Former President Barack Obama acknowledged Thursday that Harris is not appealing to the same coalition that propelled him to the White House twice.
“My understanding, based on reports I’m getting from campaigns and communities, is that we have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running,” Obama said in Pennslyvania as he urged black men to back Harris.
Harris’s rally in Arizona on Thursday was at capacity, with over 7,000 people in attendance, according to the campaign. Some attendees reported being turned away after waiting for over an hour in the scorching 100-plus-degree heat. While the enthusiasm among supporters is palpable, many indicated they are painfully aware the race is coming down to the wire.
“I noticed her support in the polls has declined a little bit. Everybody I talk to — it’s kind of 50/50 — so I think it’s kind of up in the air,” said Dianne Hull, a 67-year-old accountant who traveled to the rally from Prescott Valley, located in the Republican stronghold of Yavapai County.
“I’m feeling extremely anxious. I’m volunteering every day, anything that they need,” she said, adding that she had been a registered Republican all her life until Trump’s first presidential run in 2015.
Tracy Trewhella, 57, owns and runs the Bisbee Saturday Farmers Market in the southern Arizona town 11 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Trewhella, who drove over three hours to attend the rally on Thursday, said the close race could be a good motivator to turn out the Democratic vote.
“I think it’s life and death, to be really honest,” Trewhella said, explaining abortion access and women’s rights are her top voting issues. “I think this election is about what is our life going to look like after they figure out who is going to be president of the United States.”
Many Harris supporters said they are still haunted by election night in 2016, when Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an upset. One of Clinton’s most critical mistakes that cycle was assuming Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania would lean Democratic, which resulted in a lack of resources and focus.
Stacey Pies temporarily moved to Arizona from Rockville, Maryland, to work on the campaign in an effort to ensure history does not repeat itself.
“I will tell you I did canvassing and phone banking for the Clinton campaign. I was certain she was going to win,” Pies said ahead of the rally on Thursday night. “I could tell you how everything went down at the office the day after the election. I shed a lot of tears, and I walked away feeling like I didn’t do enough to move things forward for the Clinton campaign.”
“I think one difference, despite how close the polls are today, is that there is tremendous energy and excitement around Harris that I don’t think we felt with the Clinton campaign,” Pies said.
Tahara Coleman, a 50-year-old Ph.D. student who formerly worked as a human resources specialist, said she is cautiously optimistic about Harris’s chances in Arizona, where Biden became only the second Democrat in over 70 years to win the state’s 11 electoral votes in 2020.
“I’m not giving up. I believe she can win it. I live in Scottsdale, Arizona, and I see Kamala Harris signs in places I never thought I would see them,” Coleman said. “I still think we have hope, and we just have to get out and keep on tapping and bringing the undecided and the people that don’t normally vote to the table.”
However, some Arizona Democrats aren’t convinced polling in the state truly reflects the number of Harris voters, specifically among centrist Republicans who are weighing casting a ballot for a Democrat for the first time.
“There are these lifelong Republicans, third-generation Republicans, whose grandparents owned a ranch in Prescott. They’re not going to put a bumper sticker on, they’re not answering polls, but in the privacy of their own home, they are voting for Harris,” said Stacy Pearson, an Arizona-based Democratic strategist.
Pearson and several other Arizona Democrats said they were concerned that voter registration among Democrats in the state has declined since 2020, reflecting a similar makeup to when the state elected Trump in 2016. While the Republican Party has hovered around 35% of all registered voters, the Democrats went from 33% in 2020 to 29% today.
“There are some factors working against Arizona that aren’t the same in other swing states. Arizona has lost 100,000 Democrats over the last four years, whereas Republicans and independents have picked up new voters,” Pearson said. “I can tell you, I think this race will be too close to call on Election Day.”
In response to Democratic concerns about the close race in battlegrounds, the Harris campaign has sent seasoned political operatives to help shore up support in swing states in recent weeks, according to reporting from NBC News.
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Beyond campaign rallies, some Democrats like Chavez believe Harris may be able to increase the momentum once again by integrating events into her schedule that allow her to be face-to-face with voters in a more authentic, intimate way.
“The thing about these rallies is it’s the same people over and over again. I think they need to do a better job at reaching out to those that probably would never think to go to a rally,” Chavez explained. “I just think they should get both the vice president and Gov. Walz in front of smaller groups of people and adversaries. It’s OK to be asked those hard questions, especially from those individuals that are on the fence.”
