Can Kamala slay the vampire? I asked Obama’s vote-whisperer

Will America elect its first woman president? More specifically, will it elect someone even more different from all precedent and elect a mixed-race woman president?

Jim Messina says Kamala Harris “has had the best month in modern American political history”. And Messina has experienced a few very good ones. He worked on getting Barack Obama elected in 2008 and masterminded his successful 2012 re-election.

Jim Messina (fourth from left) with Barack Obama at The White House in 2011.Credit: Getty Images

The guru – Messina’s website modestly proclaims that he’s “perhaps the world’s most successful political and corporate adviser” – posits that a presidential candidate has “two free moments to talk to the American people when your opponent isn’t in your face”. Donald Trump has had both of his; Harris is in between hers.

First is when the candidate chooses a running mate. Ten days ago, Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the former school teacher recruited to help recruit Midwestern voters with his “Minnesota nice” persona.

Second is when the candidate is nominated at the formal party convention. For Harris, that’s next week. She’s due to deliver her acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention on Friday (Australian time).

Illustration by John Shakespeare

“She still has one silver bullet,” Messina tells me. “And I think we’ll know more where the race really is after that.”

Hold on. Isn’t one silver bullet all you need to slay a vampire? And don’t we already know where the race is? According to the impression created by the gusher of most US media reporting in recent weeks, Kamala is well ahead of Trump. And verging on inevitable.

We have a precedent in Australian politics. A female deputy prime minister in a centre-left government abruptly takes over from her male leader in the approach to an election. And enjoys a remarkable surge in the polls.

It’s often forgotten that Australia’s initial response to the advent of its first female prime minister was a very warm welcome in the opinion polls. Julia Gillard boosted Labor’s primary vote by an immediate 7 percentage points in the first Newspoll taken after she assumed the prime ministership, and by a stunning 14 percentage points in the first Nielsen poll (at that time the regular poll published by Fairfax).

Julia Gillard as Australia’s prime minister in September 2012.Credit: Andrew Meares

The warmth soon cooled when hostile Labor leaks targeted her, but there’s no doubt that she put Labor into a commanding lead in those earliest days.

But there was no such initial surge for Harris. The immediate reaction in the US national opinion polls was positive, but, at less than 2 percentage points on average, within the margin of error.

“Because,” explains Messina, “our country is absolutely so divided.” And although the polls have continued to improve for Harris somewhat, Messina isn’t buying into the exuberance. Despite enjoying the best month in modern US political history, “she just kind of clawed to a tie, maybe a small lead”, he says. “And so what she really has done is just consolidated the Democrats.

“She’s shored up her African-American support, which [Joe] Biden was having a problem with; she looks like she’s all but shored up her youth support, which Biden was having a problem with.”

Indeed, we’re told that she’s celebrated as “brat”, according to the TikTok crowd. The UK singer Charli XCX embraced Harris with the endorsement “kamala IS brat”. Brat is the name of her album.

I confess to Messina that I’ve only just learned this as a term of affection – apparently “brat” means messy but bold. “I don’t think we’re the target demographic,” he says, “but she’s exploding with voters on TikTok.”

Does this translate into votes? Messina is cautious; young voters may be engaged on the internet but less so in the real world. They have what’s politely called “low propensity” to vote. “So I think it’s going to happen but I don’t want to say so yet, because it hasn’t.”

“But the swing voters” – the decisive voters who are as yet uncommitted – “are still sitting out there saying, ‘Hey, someone tell me what they’re going to do to make my kids’ lives better.”

So what does Harris need to do to win them over? He cites the “Messina three”, the critical factors in success – enthusiasm, the economy and “change”.

On the first, “both parties love their nominees” but Harris “has more work to do just because she’s a bit newer and Democrats tend to have a little less propensity to vote”.

On economic standing, Trump maintains the advantage, says Messina. It might not be entirely fair. Under Biden as president, with Harris as vice president, the US is in the process of executing a textbook “soft landing” – an exit from an inflation surge without a recession.

But it’s real: “There’s some Americans, especially in these battleground, swing states in the Midwest, who think that even in the best economic times, they’re not feeling it, and they haven’t felt it for a very long time.”

What must Harris do to compete with Trump on economic trust? “Two things – she’s got to be empathetic, to say, ‘I see inflation, I see you.’ Americans want you to see their pain. And why was Bill Clinton the most popular politician of a generation? Because he was empathetic, right?

“And then number two, they have to know that you have a plan, and I don’t think it means a 90-point plan – we don’t do manifestos in the US. She needs to say, ‘Here’s some things that I think you know will make your lives better’, and give them something to hold onto.”

This is exactly the challenge Harris will try to meet on Saturday (Australian time) when she gives a speech touted as her economic plan. Swing voters, Messina says, “don’t like Trump. They’ve decided that he’s an asshole, but they want to know what the alternative is, and it’s her job to define herself.”

She has scant time. Early voting starts in North Carolina in under three weeks. That’s exactly where Harris will be giving her speech on the economy.

The third of the Messina three is the “change” factor. He cites the “Obama theory” of presidential politics – every president always is a reaction to the previous president.

“That’s just been totally true for the last 30 years. They thought the first George Bush was out of touch so they got the young, in-touch Bill Clinton. They thought he was a philanderer so they got the moral, compassionate conservative George Bush. They ended up thinking he was an idiot so they got the smart Barack Obama. They thought he was a bit aloof so they got the very in-touch Donald Trump. They thought he was crazy so they got the steady hand of Joe Biden.

“The opposite of Joe Biden is probably Kamala Harris. So maybe an African-American woman is the perfect candidate.”

On this analysis, she’d win not despite being a mixed-race woman but because she is a mixed-race woman.

Is America ready for its first female president? Messina cites precedent. He’s advised 13 presidents and prime ministers on five continents and says that all experience shows women candidates “under-poll”, and that women voters are tougher on women candidates than they are on men.

But then he cites the present: “The abortion issue has just galvanised American politics.” And galvanisation is vital because it drives turnout in a country with voluntary voting: “We don’t have your great rules.”

In various special elections held since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling overturned the Roe v Wade decision, Democrat candidates have performed better than the polls predicted by a whopping average of 9 per cent, says Messina. Why?

“Because a whole bunch of Republican independent women don’t want to say they’re voting for the Democrat, but they are – because they’re so pissed about abortion.”

Women, he says, are “the most important swing voters”. So if Harris can carry enough women with her, she can carry the country. That, surely, is the final, fatal silver bullet for Trump? Real bullets proved powerless against him; can the silver bullet marked “change” stop him?

“If Harris can continue to be the change candidate, Trump’s f---ed. But he can wrestle it back.” Messina cautions that it’s too early to dismiss Trump. “He’s the greatest counter-puncher in modern American political history.”

On the guru’s logic, if America elects a mixed-race woman, it will be precisely because she’s different, because she represents more change than Trump does. It’s a contest to see who can more persuasively mobilise voters on a promise of change in a bitter, divided, bitterly divided country.

Peter Hartcher is political and international editor.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.