A New Dynamic in the 2024 Presidential Race
Trump's Strategy Falters as Harris Avoids Clinton's Pitfalls
At this point in the 2024 race, 538 polls have Vice President Kamala Harris up by around 3% nationally. After the September 10th presidential debate, Harris led President Donald Trump by 5%, according to Reuters. This lead, while significantly up from 0.8% when Harris entered the race (according to 538), represents a tight, bitterly divided race.
However, the recent polling after the debate should give Democrats hope. If Harris does indeed manifest a 5% lead over Trump nationally, it would be a very strong showing.
This story is not about Harris’ lead. It is about how Democrats (and Republicans) have responded to polling numbers and stories on Harris’ supposed advantage over Trump in the national race. Whenever a polling report is uploaded to X, it seems that, without fail, someone has to respond with the image above. Democrats say that they don’t believe the polls and that voters should ignore the polls and mobilize as if Harris was behind. Some suggest that since many believed Hillary Clinton had already won, it led to decreased turnout and a Trump victory.
Republicans claim that the polls are rigged and that Democrats are oversampled, leading to biased results.
Yet, this race is not 2016. Kamala Harris is not Hillary Clinton. The polling situation is much different than it was in 2016. Most importantly, Donald Trump, politically speaking, is a shell of his former self from that original campaign. His strategy and performance might actually mirror those of Clinton.
A Tale of Two MAGAs
Yes, I did say that Trump’s campaign strategy is similar to Hillary Clinton's. Before I explain that, I want to paint a picture of the Trump 2016 campaign because many of us have forgotten how different he is today.
Trump’s 2016 campaign was successful for two reasons. First, he had his finger on the cultural pulse of the time. Second, he embraced economic populism, an approach he has backed away from in recent campaigns.
In 2016, Trump was culturally mainstream. While he was still a controversial figure, Trump was sharper in his debates and made frequent appearances on mainstream programs like The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live.
These two media appearances highlight just how much Trump has changed. In 2016, he could laugh at himself, be charismatic, and be self-deprecating. Would Trump today allow Larry David to heckle “Trump is a racist” in the middle of his monologue? Most likely not. These examples highlight that back then, most people actually liked Trump. He came off as a true outsider and a man of the people, compared to Clinton, who had low favorability ratings with the public.
Trump’s debate performances, especially during the Republican primary, highlight how different he is today. In those debates, Trump was funny. He was able to set himself apart from the charismatically challenged Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush. Again, he projected that he would bring change and common sense to Washington. Now, Trump is dramatically different.
The best way to understand this change may be to watch clips of the 2016 debates and the 2024 debate back-to-back. Yes, Trump has always been Trump. In 2016 he made inappropriate remarks and came off as creepy when he followed Hillary Clinton around the stage. However, in 2016, he was able to articulate policy. That’s something he simply cannot do today. He wasn’t able to land zingers against Harris like he used to do with Clinton. Harris was the one who came off as funny, aggressive, and joyful during the debate. Trump, unlike his 2016 self, appeared scowling and angry on stage. Simply put, Trump has lost the fun factor that he used to have.
Gender Dynamics
The attitude towards gender identity greatly also differs between the Harris and Clinton campaigns. For one, Clinton’s campaign made gender a central aspect of her campaign. Clinton’s slogan, “I’m With Her,” summarizes this point well. Clinton’s other slogan, “Love Trumps Hate” also illustrates another issue with her campaign: making the race about personality vs policy.
2016’s election was a referendum on the policies of the 2010s that were unpopular with working-class white voters, particularly NAFTA and trade. Trump effectively made the argument that Clinton would continue certain unpopular Obama-era policies and that he was going to bring change and populism to Washington, D.C. Many of Clinton’s attacks on Trump deemphasized policy and instead relied on his character.
That’s not to say that Trump’s character was not important in 2016. Scandals such as the Access Hollywood tape certainly affected his candidacy. However, Trump’s victory was clearly a sign that voters cared especially about policy issues in that election and were not particularly persuaded by Clinton’s arguments of character.
Character has also played a massive role in the 2024 elections, however, there are some differences that make, in my view, the Harris campaign much stronger. In contrast with the Clinton campaign, Harris hasn’t really discussed her race or gender very much. Just look at her CNN interview when she was pressed on Trump’s claim that she ‘turned black,’ and she simply replied “Same old tired playbook. Next question”. This illustrates that Harris isn’t willing to get on his level and make her identity a core issue of her campaign.
In an election year where reproductive rights are arguably the most important issue, Harris clearly believed that her identity spoke for itself. In the debates as well as speeches, she takes the attack on Trump and his beliefs on abortion rather than making the argument that her gender makes her a better candidate on the issue. She wanted voters to understand that without her having to say her position explicitly.
Messaging Change
Another important core difference in this election is the evolution of Trump’s rhetoric from 2016 to now. As previously stated, Trump had a populist approach to economic and trade issues back in 2016. He relied on anti-elitist sentiment and language that working people were more receptive to. Think of “Drain the Swamp” or “Build the Wall”. These simple slogans encapsulated the idea that Trump’s campaign represented political change and the tearing down of the Obama-era establishment.
Trump took positions that were quite unusual for the Republican party at the time. He promised to repeal Obamacare and provide healthcare to everyone. His protectionist policies, favoritism towards tariffs, and hatred of NAFTA also cemented him as a unique, more populist candidate to which blue-collar workers in the Rust Belt could relate.
The problem today is that he has completely abandoned many of these stances. While the Rust Belt is still competitive, his union-busting comments with Elon Musk have gotten him in hot water. Project 2025 provides a litany of policies likely to be unpopular with swing voters.
But most importantly, Trump’s rhetoric has shifted dramatically from those ‘common sense’ calls for action such as “Drain the Swamp” to a reliance on far-right conspiracy theories that the median voter simply doesn’t understand. His biting zingers from the 2016 debates with Clinton have been reduced to “They’re eating dogs in Springfield.” To put it simply, those unacquainted with Truth Social have no idea what he’s talking about.
“So What?”
While the echoes of 2016 still reverberate in the 2024 election, this is not a simple rematch. Again, Kamala Harris is not Hillary Clinton, and Trump is not the outsider changemaker that he once was. Americans took a chance on him as a radically different candidate in 2016 and are unlikely to be fooled into believing that he would adopt the populist policies he abandoned during his term.
Harris maintains an effective, targeted campaign, and has avoided the pitfalls that harmed Clinton’s campaign in 2016. At the same time, Trump’s rhetoric has grown stale, with Harris promising to “turn the page” on the Trump years.
That’s not to say it is over for Trump. The race continues to be extremely tight, even in the wake of some promising polls for Harris. However, since the debate, we’ve seen more and more polls and news updates that seem to indicate that Harris has the edge going into election day.