“It’s really amazing”: Harris is not able to overtake Trump – even though she is putting a lot more money into the election campaign
Kamala Harris is ahead in the polls and her campaign coffers are overflowing. But is that enough to defeat Donald Trump in a month?
Things are currently going well for her: Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris at a campaign appearance in Michigan.
There are now less than four weeks until the US election – and Kamala Harris has the wind at her back. The Democrat is ahead in the national polls. Most recently, on Tuesday, a survey by the New York Times, carried out in collaboration with survey specialists at the Siena College Research Institute, saw the Democratic presidential candidate four percentage points ahead of the Republican Donald Trump. In the last survey in September, the NYT and Siena College had determined a stalemate between Harris and Trump.
One of the reasons for this development: 46 percent of the 3,385 Americans surveyed see the incumbent Vice President as the candidate for change. 44 percent say Trump, president from 2017 to 2021, would represent a break with the status quo. In the September survey, the 78-year-old Republican had a clear lead over the Democrat in this category, which may be decisive in the November election.
The fact that Harris, almost 60 years old, was able to easily distance himself from Trump also has to do with her advertising appearance. In her TV commercials, she almost never mentions President Joe Biden, at whose side she spent the past three and a half years as number two. Instead, she talks about her former career as a prosecutor (“Kamala Harris spent decades fighting crime”) or reminds forgetful American voters of the alleged misdeeds that President Trump committed in office.
Pennsylvania is flooded with election commercials
The Democrat benefits from the fact that her campaign coffers are overflowing with money. According to the latest figures from late summer, Harris had a balance of more than $235 million — or $100 million more than Trump. This monetary advantage allows Harris to invest far more money in the actual campaign.
Just one example: Since the end of the Democratic Party Convention on August 22nd, Harris has spent more than $263 million on election advertisements in politically contested states. Trump’s corresponding budget, however, was only $109 million.
The residents of Pennsylvania, the ultimate “swing state” in this election campaign, are particularly suffering from this flood of advertising money – which is not just limited to the presidential election campaign. Your television viewing is constantly interrupted by political commercials, whether during the local news or the broadcast of a thrilling baseball game.
As Democratic campaign strategist Dan Pfeiffer recently taped of the popular podcast “Pod Save America” In Philadelphia, when he drew attention to this unfortunate circumstance, an approving laugh could be heard in the audience. Pfeiffer interrupted himself and said, “Is there anyone here who works at a local television station?” The stations in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are actually the only beneficiaries in the hot phase of the election campaign – they can hardly provide enough advertising blocks to place all of the Democrats’ and Republicans’ spots.
Democrats have more poll workers on site
Harris also appears to have more activists who can take the campaign door-to-door. The Trump campaign staff claims that tens of thousands of volunteers are ready to spread the Republican’s message in the politically contested states. But some of these aides — a key ingredient in a modern American election campaign — are not under the direct control of the right-wing presidential candidate.
Rather, they are paid by outside groups, which in turn are financed by wealthy patrons such as the entrepreneur Elon Musk. This makes coordination difficult. And it makes it impossible for the Trump team to keep track of things.
And despite these obstacles, Trump continues to do well. He may be consistently trailing his Democratic opponent in national polls, but ultimately that gap is so small that reality could correct it on Election Day. In any case, the Republican seems to be doing well in the Trump strongholds. In Florida, he has a lead of 13 points over Harris, as the New York Times and Siena College have determined.
“It’s really astonishing,” the Washington Post recently quoted a right-wing campaign strategist as saying. “They,” the Democrats, “spend more than we do, and it doesn’t affect the polls.”
That’s correct. No event in this election campaign has so far shaken up the demographic surveys, neither the two party conferences nor the TV debates or the numerous small or large media controversies.
Four weeks before the election, Harris has the wind at his back. But the election campaign for the White House is far from over.
