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Kamala Harris ‘blew one big opportunity’ with her running mate choice, expert claims
An election data savant has said that Kamala Harris passed up a “big opportunity” by selecting Tim Walz as her running mate.
Election data savant Nate Silver has said that Kamala Harris passed up a “big opportunity” with her running mate selection. In his Silver Bulletin newsletter on Sunday, September 8, the FiveThirtyEight founder wrote that the vice president “blew one big opportunity to tack to the center with her selection of [Minnesota Gov.] Tim Walz rather than [Pennsylvania Gov.] Josh Shapiro.”
Silver was responding to a New York Times/Siena College poll which showed that 47% of likely voters think Harris is too liberal. “[Harris] is a more talented politician than she showed in 2019, and it’s shame that her campaign that year was run by people who seemingly thought Elizabeth Warren was a right-winger,” Silver wrote. “I think Walz was a decent enough pick on his own merits, but given an opportunity to offer a tangible signal of the direction her presidency was headed, [Harris] reverted to 2019 mode.”
‘Debates are often judged relative to expectations’
Many far-left Democrats were unhappy at the thought of Shapiro being a potential running mate choice, before Harris revealed her decision. This is because of Shapiro’s support for Israel. According to some critics, the criticism of Shapiro, who is Jewish, was rooted in antisemitism. Silver has now written “that a tiny minority of progressives objected to Shapiro was an argument in Shapiro’s favor, if anything.”
Silver also noted that Harris “is faring poorly among white voters without college degrees, rural voters, and older voters: the types of voters who are plentiful in Blue Wall states like Pennsylvania.”
Silver’s model gave Donald Trump a 65% chance of winning Pennsylvania, as well as a 64.4% chance of winning the election. The Times/Siena poll was released two days before Harris and Trump are set to appear for their first debate. Silver believes the survey results might act as a wakeup call for the veep and those who back her.
“Debates are often judged relative to expectations as much as by the candidates’ actual execution, and if the race is perceived as a toss-up for Harris or even leaning Trump, her performance might be viewed in a more favorable light,” Silver wrote.
He added, “And Harris will perhaps be more likely to avoid the counterproductive tendency toward risk aversion that she showed with the Walz pick. She should campaign like she’s two points behind — because if the Times poll is right, she is.”
