Harris campaign reportedly bracing for tight election, fears ‘blue wall’ could crumbleKamala Harris’s campaign expects Donald Trump to put up a strong performance in the 5 November presidential election that could break apart the “blue wall” swing states for the first time in decades, according to two reports published this morning.
While neither story suggests that the vice-president’s campaign does not think it has a path to victory, the reports underscore the potency of Trump’s bid for office and the fact that the race remains essentially tied despite weeks of vigorous campaigning and fundraising by Harris and her surrogates.
Citing people with knowledge of Harris’s campaign strategy, NBC News reports that they are concerned that the blue wall of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania could, for the first time since 1988, not vote as a bloc in November, imperiling the vice-president’s path to the Oval Office.
The campaign is also concerned that Hurricane Helene’s ravages in North Carolina and the struggles of the controversial Republican candidates for governor are undermining Harris’s chances of winning that state. Here’s more:
Recent discussions have centered on the possibility of an anomaly happening this year with just part of the blue wall breaking its way. The conversations have focused on whether Michigan or Wisconsin “fall” to former president Donald Trump while the two other states go blue, according to three sources with knowledge of the campaign’s strategy.
Losing Wisconsin or Michigan would mean that even if Harris secures Pennsylvania – where both Harris and Trump have spent the most time and resources – she would not reach the necessary 270 electoral votes to win the White House without winning another battleground state or possibly two.
“There has been a thought that maybe Michigan or Wisconsin will fall off,” said a senior Harris campaign official, who stressed that the bigger concern is over Michigan. Two other people with knowledge of campaign strategy – who, like others in this article, were granted anonymity to speak candidly – also underscored deep concern about Michigan. Those people still believe that all the states are close and that there are alternative routes to victory.
A Harris campaign spokesperson pushed back against the notion about deep concerns over Michigan, pointing to recent public polling. A Detroit News poll conducted 1-4 October found Harris, who was campaigning in Michigan on Monday, holding a slight lead in the state, as did a Washington Post poll on Monday.
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While North Carolina is still in the campaign’s sights and Democrats maintain strong organization and leadership there, the Harris team is far less bullish about victory, four people with knowledge of the dynamics said.
“Of all of the seven [states], that one seems to be a little bit slipping away,” the Harris campaign official said of North Carolina.
CNN, meanwhile, heard from top Harris adviser David Plouffe, who acknowledged that the race may very well remain tight right down to election day:
Historically, it would be unusual to have seven states come down to a point or less,” David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager who now serves as a senior adviser to Harris, said of the battleground landscape. “But I think at this point, you have to assume that’s a distinct possibility.”
Plouffe and other Harris advisers do not believe Trump’s largely outsourced door-knocking and other on-the-ground outreach operations can match what the national Democrats and the Harris campaign – which inherited some of the same team from President Joe Biden – spent a year putting together. But they believe this advantage can only take them so far.
“Democrats wish Donald Trump wouldn’t get more than 46% of the vote,” Plouffe said, referring to the national popular vote percentage the former president secured in his previous campaigns. But in the battleground states, “that’s not reality. He’s going to get up to 48% in all of these states. And so we just have to make sure we’re hitting our win number, which depending on the state, could be 50, could be 49.5.”