Reviving The Obama Coalition

 

Morley Winograd and Michael Hais of the Brookings Institution see a revival of the Obama coalition of 2008 in the candidacy of the next President of the United States, Kamala Harris:

The first measurement of the wave that washed over the American public was a six-point increase in the percentage saying the country is “on the right track” in last week’s New York Times poll of likely 2024 general election voters. Using the same methodology that had drawn criticism from Democrats in the past, the Times found that 29% now said the country was headed in the right direction compared to only 23% who gave that answer in the previous New York Times poll which was taken immediately after the Biden-Trump debate. This increase was driven mostly by the demographic segments that have come to be associated with the emerging Democratic majority coalition—women, voters under 45, people of color, and those who identify as Democrats.

Thanks to this growing feeling of optimism about the future, Harris has pulled essentially even with Trump (Trump 48%, Harris 47%) according to this most recent survey. Three weeks earlier, the Times found President Biden trailing Trump by a statistically significant 6-point margin (49% to 43%). Harris’s gains flowed from how complete a job her candidacy has done in reuniting the new winning Democratic coalition in this newest poll—women, voters under 45, and people of color. Support for the new Democratic presidential nominee in comparison with Joe Biden rose from 51% to 55% among women, 48% to 59% among 18 to 29-year-olds, 43% to 49% among 30 to 44-year-olds, 47% to 60% among Hispanics, and 39% to 58% among nonwhite voters who are not Black or Hispanic.

Not only has Kamala Harris’s candidacy united the Democratic coalition but it has also made its major voting segments much more likely to turn out and vote this fall. For example, the percentages among people of color who say they are “almost certain” to vote in November has risen sharply (Black people from 53% to 62% and Hispanic people from 46% to 59%). “Almost certain” to vote numbers have also risen among city dwellers (from 59% to 63%) and suburbanites (from 62% to 65%). Most decisively, the change in Democratic presidential nominees has activated Democratic identifiers (from 61% “almost certain” to vote to 72%) and those who said they were voting for the Democratic presidential candidate (from 65%, when Biden was the likely nominee, to 70% when Harris became the likely nominee). In fact, potential Harris voters are now more likely to say they are “almost certain” to vote than are potential Trump voters (70% to 65%)... (our emphasis)

We clearly remember the 2008 campaign and the Democratic coalition that was re-energized under President Obama. To us today, it's a very similar feeling of optimism.  It's not only a sense of another generational shift underway, but of an historic, long- overdue breaking of a gender and racial barrier in American politics.  It's a sense of an America that's forward- looking and "on the right track" again.

We have a (soon- to- be- official) Presidential candidate we can be immensely proud of, and will soon have a Vice Presidential candidate from a strong bench of Democrats ready to take the fight to the insurrectionist MAGA Republican cult and win.  For democracy, for freedom, for justice, for all of us.

(Photo: Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)