Elections DA Harris Supplement - Michigan 2024 BDKLS

Harris Specific Elections
I had my lab just do a blitz hour of Harris specific internals etc for the elections DA and then filled in a few holes. This is meant as a supplement to pre existing elections stuff. There is a new Gaza scenario + then some internals you can swap out for other impacts. Shout out to Dartmouth’s dip cap DA from last year for providing us the impact work on Gaza. The uniqueness stuff is also relevant. I did not have time to modularize and polish everything – obviously this was a late breaking election development – but you should have the tools you need if you take the time to write a few blocks.
Alyssa Lucas-Bolin
Neg (Harris Good)
Uniqueness (Harris Wins)
Laundry list/General
Kamala has the momentum to win now, but she must walk a tight-rope to maintain progress
Burn-Murdoch 7-27 [John Burn-Murdoch, a columnist and chief data reporter for the Financial Times, Financial Times, “Can Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump?”, https://www.ft.com/content/0c09ba82-2ff9-4d67-8fae-469ef57e3fe5, 7-27-2024]
A week is a long time in politics, and this has been a good one for Kamala Harris and the Democrats. The sense of impending doom that had surrounded the party for months has evaporated, there is renewed energy in the base and Donald Trump and his outriders appear rattled. And it’s not just vibes: the turnaround shows up in hard data. Three new polls published on Wednesday give the vice-president a higher approval rating than Trump, something that had not happened for President Joe Biden in months. Notably, Harris’s boost is not coming from previously decided voters switching their allegiance, but from winning over previously undecided and third-party voters, particularly the young, Black and Latino electorates that Biden had been struggling to persuade. But these figures paint an overly rosy picture. Biden’s polling has been dire. If the question is whether Harris can win on November 5, we should be comparing her not with the Biden of July 2024 but the Biden of the early days of November 2020. By that yardstick, Harris comes up well short. The vice-president’s approval rating advantage over Trump is currently about four points; on the eve of the 2020 election Biden’s was more than 15. On headline voting intention, Harris is roughly level with Trump, where Biden at this stage of 2020 was several points ahead. An early boost is nice, but to win she must make significant further gains. The good news for Democrats is that there are several winds blowing in her favour. A survey from pollster Blueprint shows that voters don’t blame Harris for inflation and a bad economy as they did Biden. Her candidacy is, to use her own oft-repeated mantra, “what can be, unburdened by what has been”. The same poll shows Harris has a big lead over Trump on abortion. Her strength on reproductive rights could be particularly important as the pivot from Trump vs Biden to Trump and JD Vance vs Harris makes abortion more salient. Polling by Split Ticket shows that if the two sides are clearly divided on abortion going into November, it will provide a big boost for the Democrats. Another tailwind comes from the pool of “double-haters” who dislike both Biden and Trump. Data from YouGov shows that a large plurality of this group plan to vote Democratic in the congressional elections. These are not so much archetypal swing voters as natural Democrats who were disillusioned with Biden but could now be persuaded back. Running-mate choices also favour Harris. Vance was picked more for his ideology and loyalty than for electoral strategy. Rather than the classic profile of a moderate who can act as a bridge to swing voters, he is seen by Ohioans as more conservative than Trump. That is in contrast to potential Harris picks Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly who boost the Democrats in their home states, according to analysis by Brian Schaffner, professor of political science at Tufts University. But it’s not all upside, and immigration is probably Harris’s biggest vulnerability. The vice-president is simultaneously being pressured by some on the left to be softer than Biden on the border, and by others to take a firmer stance on one of the key issues for this election, and one where Trump has a clear lead. Republicans were taken by surprise at Biden’s decision to step down and have been slow to react, but their early attack ads against Harris go hard on her strongly leftwing voting record and past progressive statements on immigration and policing. One of the key questions in the months ahead is whether Harris can use her career in law enforcement to position herself as a tough-on-crime moderate Democrat, or whether the more progressive rhetoric on policing from her 2020 campaign to be the Democratic nominee will be weaponised against her. Gaza-Israel is another potential vulnerability, but polls suggest there is less downside here than one might expect: a Democrat who is soft on Israel (as Biden is seen as having been) loses support on the left, but a candidate who takes a more critical line wins those voters back without losing votes among moderates. Harris is a much stronger candidate than Biden was, but in an election held today, she would still lose. To win in November she must walk the tightrope to win over the remaining undecideds without alienating others along the way.
Harris is set to win the election – THE KEYS prove
Beyer ‘7-26 [Elizabeth; July 26; MS in Journalism from Northwestern University and a BA in Journalism from Columbia College Chicago; USA Today; “Can Harris beat Trump? Presidential prognosticator’s preliminary data says yes.”; https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/26/allen-lichtman-preliminary-presidential-prediction-harris-trump/74557674007/]
Allan Lichtman, the presidential election prognosticator who has successfully predicted the last nine out of 10 White House races, has made his preliminary projection for the November contest: Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to win, he said Friday.
Lichtman said his final prediction for the White House contest will come in August after the Democratic National Convention, but as of Friday, Harris appears to be the winner based on the formula he uses to forecast the election outcome.
That formula, his 13 Keys to the White House, was developed by Lichtman and renowned mathematician Vladimir Keilis-Borok in 1981. Since then, it has been used to predict the outcome of the United States presidential contests with a high success rate. Lichtman uses his 13 keys, or criteria, to judge the party that controls the White House's ability to maintain control in an election year. If the White House party is considered to be a success in eight or more of the "keys," then the incumbent party is expected to win. If the incumbent party is viewed as a failure in six or more of the criteria, or "keys," the challenger is expected to win.
Lichtman broke down his rating in a recent video podcast. Here's a summary of his preliminary determination:
What "keys" are Harris winning?
Harris, so far, has won eight of the 13 keys. Those include:
Key 2 - No primary contest: Was there a significant challenger or contest to determine the nominee for the incumbent party? No. After President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, he endorsed Harris and effectively cleared the field for her to become the presumptive nominee. No significant challengers have arisen from within the party.
Key 4 - No third party: Third parties historically count against the White House party. "They're a sign of discontent with the way the nation is being governed," Lichtman said. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would need to achieve 5% of the vote to turn this key, and Lichtman says his polling ahead of November would need to stabilize at 10%. Lichtman said it's possible but unlikely that RFK Jr. could achieve those percentages.
Key 5 - Strong short-term economy: No recession has been declared by the National Bureau of Economic Research so far in the election year.
Key 6 - Strong long-term economy: Real economic growth in the term exceeds that of the previous two terms. "Real" economic growth means growth that has been adjusted for inflation, Lichtman said. "The long-term growth under Joe Biden has been vastly greater than the average of the previous two terms," he said.
Key 7 - Major policy change: A significant change from the previous administration or a truly historic policy change like the New Deal. "Clearly, policy under Joe Biden in virtually every realm has been fundamentally different from that of the previous administration of Donald Trump," Lichtman said.
Key 8 - No social unrest: "It can't be sporadic protests like we saw this spring on some college campuses," Lichtman said. "It has to be massive protests or unrest like we saw in the 1960s or during the Black Lives Matter movement when millions of people were out in the streets," Lichtman said this key could turn if large forms of social unrest bubble up ahead of or during the Democratic National Convention.
Key 9 - No scandal: Must be some corruption directly involving the president with bipartisan recognition of the scandal as corruption, akin to Watergate.
Key 13 - Uncharismatic challenger: The challenging candidate, former President Donald Trump, is not appealing to voters across party lines.
Polls
Kamala will win the presidential election---latest polls shows she’s leading and that she’s viewed more favorably compared to Biden
Lange 7/26 [Jason; 2024; Correspondent at Thomson Reuters, Bachelor of Science (BS), Bachelor of Arts (BA), Anthropology, Linguistics Cum Laude from the University of California, Riverside; Reuters; “Exclusive: Harris leads Trump 44% to 42% in US presidential race, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds” https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harris-leads-trump-44-42-us-presidential-race-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2024-07-23/]
Vice President Kamala Harris opened up a marginal two-percentage-point lead over Republican Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and passed the torch to her, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
That compares with a marginal two-point deficit Biden faced against Trump in last week's poll before his Sunday exit from the race.
The new poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, followed both the Republican National Convention where Trump on Thursday formally accepted the nomination and Biden's announcement on Sunday he was leaving the race and endorsing Harris.
Harris, whose campaign says she has secured the Democratic nomination, led Trump 44% to 42% in the national poll, a difference within the 3-percentage-point margin of error.
Harris and Trump were tied at 44% in a July 15-16 poll, and Trump led by one percentage point in a July 1-2 poll, both within the same margin of error.
While nationwide surveys give important signals of American support for political candidates, a handful of competitive states typically tilt the balance in the U.S. Electoral College, which ultimately decides who wins a presidential election.
A pollster with Trump's campaign played down any polling showing an increase in Harris' support, arguing that she was likely to see a temporary rise in popularity because of widespread media coverage of her new candidacy.
"That bump is likely to start showing itself over the next few days and will last for a while," pollster Tony Fabrizio said in a memo circulated to reporters by Trump's campaign.
Candidates often expect a bump after formally accepting their party's nomination at stage-managed, televised conventions such as the one that Trump had last week. But the poll showed no sign of that.
Bump or not, the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll underscored the rationale for Biden dropping out of the race and for Harris replacing him on the ticket.
HARRIS SEEN AS SHARPER THAN BIDEN, TRUMP
Some 56% of registered voters agreed with a statement that Harris, 59, was "mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges," compared to 49% who said the same of Trump, 78.
Only 22% of voters assessed Biden that way.
Biden, 81, ended his reelection effort after a debate with Trump in which he often stammered and failed to aggressively challenge attacks by Trump that included falsehoods.
Some 80% of Democratic voters said they viewed Biden favorably, compared to 91% who said the same of Harris. Three quarters of Democratic voters said they agreed with a statement that the party and voters should get behind Harris now, with only a quarter saying multiple candidates should compete for the party's nomination.
When voters in the survey were shown a hypothetical ballot that included independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Harris led Trump 42% to 38%. Kennedy, favored by 8% of voters in the poll, has yet to qualify for the ballot in many states ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
Harris campaigned in the critical battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday. She won support from major party figures and attention has since turned to who she will pick as her running mate.
Many respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they knew nothing about the Democrats seen as potential picks to join Harris' ticket.
About one in four registered voters said they had never heard of U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a former Democratic presidential candidate who had the highest favorability rating - 37% - of the potential Harris running mates in the poll.
One in three had not heard of California Governor Gavin Newsom, with about the same share saying they looked on him favorably. Half of registered voters in the poll had never heard of Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and two thirds knew nothing of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.
The poll, which was conducted online, surveyed 1,241 U.S. adults nationwide, including 1,018 registered voters.
Harris wins now- polls prove
Slisco 7/27—Newsweek reporter (Aila Slisco. “Kamala Harris Lands Fifth Polling Win in 24 Hours." Newsweek, 7/27/24, https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-lands-fifth-polling-win-24-hours-1931015, 7/27/24)//SRS
A poll released on Friday by The Wall Street Journal found that Harris had all but eliminated Trump's lead, with the vice president trailing the former president by a 49 percent to 47 percent margin in a head-to-head matchup. The poll has a 3.1 percent margin of error.
When independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy is included, the poll found that Harris overtakes Trump and has a slight lead, 45 percent to 44 percent. Kennedy was the choice of only 4 percent of respondents, while 5 percent were undecided.
President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris on July 21, was losing to Trump by 6-point margins in both head-to-head and multi-candidate versions of the Wall Street Journal poll taken earlier this month.
While early polling suggests that a Trump-Harris contest will likely be close, the momentum seems to have quickly shifted to Harris. The vice president has amassed mostly small but significant gains in at least four other polls of battleground states and young voters on Thursday and Friday.
Dan Lamb, a senior lecturer at the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University, told Newsweek,"Harris won the week with strong speeches, viral social media" and important endorsements, predicting that her polling position may improve further in the near future.
"It's hard to see the buzz letting up, with attention turning to her VP pick and the DNC's delegate voting starting in early August," Lamb added. "After that comes the DNC convention. The next several weeks could be very favorable for her polling."
Grant Davis Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University, told Newsweek that he was "not surprised to see the race tighten a bit" because "Harris is not Biden, and Biden was on a pretty bad glide path."
"Harris also has some of the traits that a lot of Democrats were looking for," Reeher said. "Her early performance has been good, and she's picking up some good endorsements. The money is coming in. All this has been widely reported in the press, which furthers the impression of new viability."
Young Voters
Harris is winning the youth and independent vote.
McHardy 7/26 [Martha McHardy; graduate of Durham in Politics and US News Reporter at NewsweeK; 7-26-2024; Kamala Harris Suddenly Wins String of Polls vs Donald Trump; Newsweek; https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-donald-trump-polling-1930731; 7-27-2024; AO]
Kamala Harris is now leading Donald Trump in a number of polls.
In a survey conducted by Morning Consult between July 22 and 24, Harris is leading Trump by one point, 46 percent supporting her, above the former president's 45 percent. The poll surveyed 11,297 registered U.S. voters and has a 1 percent margin of error.
According to Morning Consult, Harris' level of support at the start of her campaign exceeds the highest level of support for Biden since tracking began in late 2022, with fewer voters now indicating they will vote third party.
Meanwhile, in a poll by Change Research, which surveyed 2,137 registered voters between July 22 and 24, Harris was leading by 1 point on 44 percent to Trump's 43. The poll had a 2.8 percent margin of error.
In an earlier poll conducted by Change Research, Trump was leading Biden by 4 points, on 42 percent to Biden's 38.
<<IMAGE OMITTED>>
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during an NCAA championship teams celebration on the South Lawn of the White House on July 22, 2024 in Washington, DC. U.S. She now leads Trump in two polls. ANDREW HARNIK/GETTY IMAGES
Separately, Change Research also polled 2,228 registered voters in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin between the ages of 18-30, which saw Harris leading her opponent by 24 points, with Trump on 29 percent to her 53 percent.
A poll by the same company in June showed Biden leading Trump by just six points among 18-30 year olds, with the president on 33 percent, and Trump on 27.
Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy's share of the vote has also gone down, decreasing from 15 percent in June, to 8 percent in July.
Harris is swinging critical votes in young voters and POC
Enten 7/24 (Harry, Senior Political Data Reporter and the host of CNN's "Margins of Error" podcast, where he specializes in data-driven journalism. " How Kamala Harris can beat Donald Trump", CNN, July 24 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/24/politics/polling-harris-voters-color-women/index.html//ACM!
CNN —
Kamala Harris seems to have more appeal among voters of color and younger voters than Joe Biden did before he got out of the presidential race. Still, the 2020 results show that Harris can make up even more ground with these groups in her expected matchup against Donald Trump.
Take a look at our newly published CNN/SSRS poll. Harris leads Trump among Black voters 78% to 15%. Among these same voters (the poll recontacted the same respondents), Biden was ahead by a smaller 70% to 23% in CNN polling data from April and June.
The same holds to a somewhat lesser degree among Hispanic voters. Harris comes in at 47% to Trump’s 45%, while it was 50% for Trump to 41% for Biden among these same respondents in the April and June data.
Voters under the age of 35 demonstrate a similar shift. It’s Harris 47% to Trump’s 43% now. In April and June, these same voters put Trump up 49% to 42% over Biden.
Gaza
Harris’ action on Gaza sways undecided voters now
Leingang & Hellman 7/26 [Melissa Hellman is a senior reporter on the Guardian’s race and equity team, Rachel Leingang is a democracy reporter focused on misinformation, The Guardian, “Uncommitted voters who protested Biden over Gaza ‘need to see action’ from Harris”, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/26/uncommitted-voters-harris-israel-gaza, July 26, 2024]
The protest movement that sought to use the Democratic primaries to pressure Joe Biden to shift his policy on Israel and Gaza breathed a sigh of relief when he ended his bid for re-election. But they’re not ready to promise they’ll 

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