The writing may be on the wall for Kamala’s faltering campaign

Jarron – a 37-year-old black man from a suburb of Atlanta – was quiet
for most of my focus group. With him hunched over his clipboard most of
the time, writing reams of notes but barely saying a word, I had
surrendered to the fact I might not get much insight.

Then he said it. When I asked what hesitations this room of black voters
had about Kamala Harris, Jarron glanced up.

“Woman problems”, he said.

I pressed him for more. “Like, you know, dealing with men. This
country’s built on being a ****. But if you get a woman, you get more
ideas, they’re more, you know. Groan-ish.”

Others in the group then piped in. A 54-year-old business owner and
Biden voter worried she would be too “emotional”. The women in the group
said that Harris paled in comparison to Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama.

Their comments speak to something real happening in the state of Georgia
– and elsewhere in the “sunbelt”. Traditionally Democrat ethnic groups
are seeing their levels of enthusiasm and support for their party fray.

Polling by the New York Times and Siena College published this week
found that Trump has a 4-point lead over Harris in Georgia, a 5-point
lead in Arizona, and a 2-point lead in North Carolina. Nevada, also a
swing state but not polled by Siena, is leaning Trump by 52 per cent in
our JL Partners model.

To a commentator twenty years ago, these margins would not be seen as
good news for the Republican candidate. The sunbelt states have been
traditional Republican strongholds, shored up by Richard Nixon’s
“southern strategy” and entrenched further by Ronald Reagan’s focus on
low taxes, small government, and strong national defense.

But the 2000s and 2010s saw significant demographic shifts, with an
influx of younger and more diverse populations. That included more
Hispanic communities moving into Arizona and Nevada, and more
college-educated white people moving to the suburbs of boom towns like
Charlotte, North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia. With their population
increasing, these states carry significant electoral college votes and
are now a crucial battleground.

Donald Trump is muscling his way back in. Part of the reason is the same
as anywhere else: an unpopular incumbent administration, the pain of
inflation lingering, and concern about crime on the streets.

But there is something else taking place too. Those non-white
communities, always counted on by the Democrats, are becoming more
likely to switch their vote.

In 2012, the Republican candidate Mitt Romney only won around 27 per
cent of the Hispanic vote. In 2020, Trump won as much as 38 per cent,
and Republicans continued to win big with this group in the 2022
midterms. That shift – particularly amongst Cuban Hispanics – helped
lock Florida into a safe red state for the Republicans. It is now having
a similar effect out west.

I interviewed Hispanic voters in Arizona and there was one clear answer
as to why the people I spoke to were leaning Trump: the border. With an
influx in illegal crossings from Mexico throughout the Biden
administration, these first and second generation migrants are fed up.
They and their parents did it the right way – working hard, balancing
two or three jobs – and now they see people skipping the queue. Trump
must be cautious that his rhetoric does not seem anti-immigrant rather
than anti-immigration, but his policy of “sealing the border” is
appealing to this group.

Black voters’ enthusiasm for the Democrats is waning too. Though
unlikely to back the Republicans in large numbers – the electoral
cleavage prompted by Republican Barry Goldwater’s opposition to the
Civil Rights Act still runs deep – they increasingly question whether
the Democrats align to their values.

Mikael, a young black schoolteacher in Atlanta, told me that
“transgender issues” pushed by the Democrats made her doubt them. In her
words, because “black families are really big about protecting the
children, we’re maybe changing our vote because we don’t want those
types of issues to be given over to our kids at such a young age”.

Biden got African Americans to turn out in huge numbers in 2020, trading
off his time in the Obama administration and a longstanding popularity
in black communities. Kamala Harris might be the first black woman to
vote for president, but the views of voters like Jarron suggest some
here still think the woman part of her identity is a bigger issue. Just
two years ago, Stacey Abrams – another black woman – ran for Governor of
Georgia and failed to mobilise the black vote.

There are risks for Trump in these states. North Carolina is his weakest
link, and the national party has practically disowned the Republican
nominee for Governor there after damaging allegations concerning his
pornography habits and more. Trump’s efforts in Arizona are hobbled by
an abortion referendum being on the ballot in the state, likely to
improve Democrat turnout.

And for all his fortune in the sunbelt, it is – by a whisker – not
enough to win. Gaining these four states would mean Harris in the White
House, with an Electoral College margin of 270 to 268. Trump must carry
a Midwestern state too, likely one of Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin.

It’s so far so good in the sunbelt for Trump. But a win there only
lightens the load; he will need more to march the road to victory.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/24/the-writing-is-on-the-wall-for-kamalas-doomed-campaign/