While Vice President Kamala Harris’ new presidential campaign initially garnered excitement from the left, a Democrat strategist has warned that the left needs to “be sober” about her candidacy, as he argued that the excitement is “irrational exuberance.”
As many Republicans have pointed out, the initial momentum enjoyed by the Harris campaign is likely to slow down as soon as voters actually learn more about her as a candidate. While Harris has been serving as vice president and has served as a senator, she is still relatively unknown to a significant majority of voters. Many were simply excited for a “fresh face” on the Democrat ticket, especially one who checks a lot of diversity boxes, and expressed support for her as a blank slate. However, when her policy positions — and her recent desperate attempt to flip-flop on those positions to appease voters — become more well-known, it is highly likely that she drops significantly in the polls.
Democrat strategist David Axelrod, who previously worked on President Barack Obama’s campaign and in the Obama White House, warned about the Democrat Party’s “irrational” excitement over Harris during an interview with CNN’s “Newsroom Live” over the weekend.
In his comments, Axelrod desperately tried to frame this as a negative for Harris’ opponent, former President Donald Trump, but it was clear that he was concerned about the Harris campaign.
While discussing the shift in the presidential race after President Joe Biden’s decision to end his reelection bid, Axelrod claimed that there is “a justifiable sense of concern” within the Trump campaign that the race “could get away from him” with the Democrats’ sudden change of candidate.
“It may be their race to lose, but it’s a race, so it could be lost, which is something they didn’t feel when they left that convention in Milwaukee,” he added, referring to the Trump campaign’s momentum following the success of the Republican National Convention (RNC).
CNN anchor Jessica Dean then claimed that Harris had “a lot of momentum” at the moment according to current polling trends — to which Axelrod responded that the “irrational exuberance” about Harris is a reaction to the previous “despair” about Biden’s almost-certain defeat in November.
“100 percent,” Axelrod replied. “There’s a lot of irrational exuberance on the Democratic side of the aisle right now because there was despair for some period of time about what November was going to look like.”
“Now people feel like there’s a chance. But it is absolutely Trump’s race to lose right now,” he added. “He is ahead and he is ahead in most of the battleground states. They are close, they can be won by either candidate. But there’s a lot to be determined in the next 90-whatever days — 96 or what it is left.”
Axelrod concluded by warning that “Trump has the advantage right now” and “everybody should be sober about that on the Democratic side.”
WATCH: David Axelrod on the state of the presidential race:
"Trump has the advantage right now and everybody should be sober about that on the Democratic side." pic.twitter.com/dvt9HfRQKM
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 5, 2024
