Kamala Harris: Poll results, program… A possible victory in the presidential election

Kamala Harris continues her campaign without the hype around her dying down. The Democrat is holding her own against Donald Trump in the polls and in the debates and seems to have a chance of winning the American presidential election.

Will Kamala Harris turn the test on the evening of the American presidential election on November 5th? ? The Democratic candidate has been running an almost flawless campaign since her official inauguration by her camp, after Joe Biden withdrew. The vice president, who now has the Oval Office of the White House in her sights, has given the Democratic Party some color in the polls by passing her rival Donald Trump at the national level, but not only that.

The Democrat's momentum did not suffer from the debate that pitted Kamala Harris against Donald Trump on September 10, on the contrary. While the Democrat's qualities as a debater remained to be proven, and left some skeptical, the former prosecutor did not give in to the Republican and his old-timer looks or his aggressive attacks. She is also, in the general opinion of the American press, the victorious one in the duel that could be the only one of the campaign. Unless Donald Trump responds favorably to Kamala Harris's proposal to hold a new debate, and she follows through with her ideas.

If Kamala Harris is definitely well engaged in the presidential campaign and seems able to win the election, but anything is still possible two months before the election. The trends still have time to reverse, the Democrat must therefore consolidate her electorate and expand it. Two audiences are targeted in addition to the left: the undecided and the moderate Republicans.

Kamala Harris is basing part of her campaign on selected points from her program. The Democratic candidate has made defending purchasing power for the middle classes her hobby horse along with abortion rights, always taking care to distinguish herself from Donald Trump's policy. But several political commentators criticize her for remaining on the surface by citing flagship measures without tackling the substance of certain issues. The vice president, proposing a Democratic program, is also campaigning on points already present in Joe Biden's campaign, but must seek to: to stand out, sometimes by being more centrist than the American president.

• Defense of purchasing power: While the economy is a central concern for Americans, at a time when inflation continues to be felt and weighs on the employment and housing sectors, Kamala Harris poses as a defender of purchasing power. She assures us that she wants to “give money back to middle and working class families” while Donald Trump is fighting “for billionaires and big business”. And to convince, she cites three strong measures: a tax credit for birth, assistance for first-time buyers to housing or even a helping hand in creating a business. It also promises to reduce inflation to 3% and control prices for basic necessities and medicines. For the richest, the situation is different since Kamala Harris plans to tax at 28% the capital gains of households earning more than a million dollars per year. That's higher than the current rate, but lower than the 39% Joe Biden wants.
• Green Measures: the ecological component is not the most substantiated part of Kamala Harris' program, but the candidate is investing in the subject to distance herself from Donald Trump, who broke with the Paris agreements during his presidential term. If she defends “the right to breathe clean air, drink clean water and live without the pollution that fuels the climate crisis”, she does not specify how. At the same time, she is doing about-faces on several measures that she defended in the past: no more question of opposing hydraulic fracturing, a technique that cracks rocks to extract hydrocarbons, and no more banning plastic straws and other replaceable waste. Following in Joe Biden's footsteps, Kamala Harris says she supports the inflation reduction act (IRA), a set of ecological, economic and social measures.
• Migration policy: Immigration is another big issue in the presidential campaign on which Kamala Harris is playing a balancing act. She wants to appear firm to attract the moderate right, but not too firm so as not to scare away the left. However, the candidate has announced a hardening of immigration policy involving “consequences” for illegal migrants and investments in physical barriers to the border with Mexico.
• Social measures: Kamala Harris has mainly placed social issues at the heart of her campaign, starting with the right to abortion in the face of a Republican camp at the origin of the tightening of access to abortion in several states. The defense of minorities is also a central point of the campaign.
• International : in terms of foreign policy, Kamala Harris positions herself mainly on Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the latter, she recalled her commitment to the defense of the Hebrew state and specified that she would not suspend American arms deliveries to Israel if she wins, but she also wants to appear less pro-Israel than Joe Biden and has condemned the violence against Palestinian civilians. She has said that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed” and called for “a ceasefire.” As for Ukraine, she reaffirms the United States' support for the country after the Russian invasion. Moreover, she pinned Donald Trump on his good relations with leaders Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and assured that she will not make “friends” with dictators.

Kamala Harris' candidacy to replace Joe Biden has placed the vice president at the top of voting intentions, while the White House tenant struggled to assert himself against Donald Trump. According to the latest studies compiled by the site FiveThirtyEight, the Democrat is still leading nationally on September 11 with 47.1% of voting intentions against 44.4% for Donald Trump. The polling aggregation site Race to the White House estimates Kamala Harris' chances of victory at 55.3% and those of the Republican billionaire at 44.2%.

But the state polls are very close, and that's what counts. Under the American voting system, each state won guarantees a certain number of votes in the 538 electoral colleges that vote for the American president. Most of the 50 states are won by a political party, but the “swing states” swing to the right or to the left according to the polls. The latter, which number seven (Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), must be won to ensure access to the White House.

Kamala Harris is building a small lead in Michigan and Wisconsin with 2 to 3 points more than her opponent in the polls collected by the site 270 to win. But Donald Trump is better placed with 1 to 4 points difference in Arizona and Georgia. In the other three, it is the Democrat who seems to be in a good position, but the gap, which is less than a point, is still too tight. to ensure a victory.

Kamala Harris' personal journey is impressive and the vice president knows how to remind people of it. “I am empirical proof of the promise of America,” she regularly explains. African-American, with Jamaican origins on her father's side and Indian origins on her mother's, and from an academic background, she became the first woman to be elected district attorney of San Francisco, before becoming California's attorney general from 2011 to 2016. 2017. As a woman, Kamala Harris is likely to get a better score than Joe Biden, but especially than Donald Trump, with American female voters. Democrats historically record good scores with this electorate and hope to capitalize more on these votes with their candidate.

If Kamala Harris is a pure Democrat from California who convinces in historically Democratic states, she may have more difficulty convincing in the Midwestern states that lean towards the Democratic side. Republican or swing from one camp to the other depending on the polls. To win over this electorate, his running mate Tim Walz could be a good asset. Governor of Minnesota, the politician is so popular in the Midwest that he was appointed to replace Josh Shapiro, another Democrat popular in this region of the United States. The candidate The vice presidency also provides a balance and reassurance to the male electorate as a white man alongside a black female candidate.