Over the last month, the Democrats have gone from anger, to resignation, to a sudden burst of exuberance over their chances in November.
Except one.
David Axelrod, former President Barack Obama’s chief strategist who remains among the most plugged-in tacticians in the party, has been far more circumspect about Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 odds than many of his colleagues. It’s raising questions about what Axelrod is seeing in internal polls that other politicos and pollsters are not.
There is no question that Harris’ ascension to the top of the ticket has injected much-needed hope and enthusiasm into the rank-and-file of the party. The sustained momentum of her campaign, coupled with a spate of strong polling, has many Democrats believing that their chances of beating former President Donald Trump have gone from unlikely to possible, or even probable.
But Axelrod has not bee in this camp. Instead, the strategist thinks that should the election be held today, former Trump would still prevail.
“I’m not sure who would win, and I think it may well be President Trump because its an electoral college fight,” Axelrod said on CNN Monday. “For a Democrat to win to those battleground states, they need to have a significant lead in the electoral college.”
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Axelrod acknowledged that Harris has made “extraordinary progress” over the last month and noted that “things have changed dramatically” since President Joe Biden exited the race, but cautioned that it is still a “very competitive race.”
He said while Harris is right to be telling people to be enthused, she has to turn the enthusiasm “into energetic action in order to win the election.”
Veteran Democratic strategist Matt Bennett told Newsweek that Axelrod’s circumspection serves to combat the “fairly significant dose of irrational exuberance” that many Democrats are feeling — but that the former Obama adviser was not wrong.
“A united party is vitally important, and excitement is helpful. But campaigns are not won on these things alone, and the fact remains that the race is tied, with Trump enjoying some real structural advantages,” he said.
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“[Axelrod] is reminding us that winning is far from certain, and we cannot return to our 2016 posture of overconfidence.”
Harris has recently received a string of good news from a number of national polls, including an survey conducted earlier this month by the vaunted New York Times/Siena College operation that showed Harris leading nationally, as well as in three battleground states—Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. As those results rocketed through the news media and were celebrated by Harris’ team, Axelrod quickly jumped in to opine that if those figures were adjusted to account for the margin of error, “you’re probably looking at basically tied races.”
“He speaks truth,” political strategist Jay Townsend told Newsweek of Axelrod. “He’s a realist, and some don’t like his candor.”
David Axelrod argues that the Electoral College remains a problem for Democrats and means this will be “an extraordinarily tight race.” He says, “If the election were today, Trump would win.” pic.twitter.com/wXip6BAjKo
— Victoria Brownworth (@VABVOX) August 20, 2024
After the June 27 debate that changed everything, Axelrod was among the first and most important voices to warn that the Democrats did not have much of a chance of winning with Biden on the ticket.
It wasn’t the first time his caution was made public. Nearly eight months before the rest of his party began calling on the president to step aside as the nominee, Axelrod had criticized Biden’s decision to run for re-election.
“It’s very late to change horses; a lot will happen in the next year that no one can predict & Biden’s team says his resolve to run is firm,” the strategist said in a November 5 post on X, formerly Twitter.
“Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?” he asked.
On July 21, a month before the Democratic National Convention, Biden woefully announced he would exit the race and endorse Harris.
“One should trust Axelrod’s political instincts,” political expert Steve Schier told Newsweek.
At least, the head of a major Harris PAC does. Chauncey McLean, president of political action committee Future Forward, said Monday that the group’s own internal polling is showing Harris in a much closer race for the White House.
“Our numbers are much less rosy than what you’re seeing in the public,” McLean said at an event hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.
Experts have emphasized that it’s not just wrong to think that Harris has conclusively pulled ahead, but that all national polls suggesting such should be ignored entirely.
“The race comes down to a handful of persuadable voters in a handful of states,” Michael Gordon, a Democratic strategist and principal at Group Gordon, told Newsweek. “There will be a brutal mud fight to the end to capture the mind and heart of these voters, and both campaigns will have multiple ups and downs between now and the finish line.”
“Harris has gained back the Democrats who had wandered out of the tent. She’s picked up the support that was easy to pick up,” Townsend agreed. “[But] the battle for the hearts and minds of non-enrolled voters has not yet been won.”
He continued: “The hardest part of her journey lies ahead.”
Gordon said Harris’ momentum is undeniable and that advantage has made her well-positioned to be the change candidate, which can be decisive for these swing voters that both Harris and Trump are appealing to. But, he warned that there are other issues at play, including the oft-forgotten fact that Trump almost always outperforms his polling — including both in 2016, when he won despite being behind for the entire race, and 2020, when he nearly won despite being even further behind.
“That means that we can assume Trump will do better than the polls indicate – so even if Harris is ahead in important swing states in the polling, it does not mean she’ll win those states in the end,” Gordon said.