Running low on freelancing projects so I figured I'd waste my time with a little speculation. The current political zeitgeist seems to be that it's Kamala's race to lose by virtue of the abortion issue and not being Biden or Trump. Polling is only just now starting to trickle in, but assuming she's got the edge right now, how does it go wrong? Here are some scenarios:
She picks Josh Shapiro as her VP and loses Michigan. Shapiro might help her lock in Pennsylvania, but he also "stands out among the current field of potential running mates as being egregiously bad on Palestine," as David Klion writes for The New Republic. That might be enough to lose the support of Michigan's significant Arab-American population and hand it to Trump, which is a big deal as many of the Democratic roads to electoral victory run through Michigan.
Republican lawsuits gum up the ballot. While legal experts have generally dismissed the possibility that efforts to challenge Brandon's dropout and swap to Kamala, this wouldn't be the first time that such experts have been caught with their pants down on significant legal rulings. Even if these lawsuits don't go anywhere, they could depress turnout by causing confusion and enabling the spread of misinformation in swing states.
Trump forces J.D. Vance off the ticket and gets a VP with more rizz. Ironically, this would open the GOP up to the type of litigation from point 2, but with actual legal credence since the nomination process is complete. Might still be worth it since the dude seems to be a charisma vacuum.
Kamala calls someone a honkey or cracker on a hot mic and white moderates freak out. This is my just for fun, pretty much. But like, what if?
I think the way she loses is complacency and over-reliance on polling. Same things that sunk Hillary, basically - don't fund a ground game, don't contest winnable states, don't shore up loseable states. I'm fully in the "whoever excites their base the most wins" camp but I'm also in the "the American electorate have very short memories" camp - Kamala can't expect the explosion of energy that followed Joe dropping out to be self-sustaining all the way to November, her campaign has to keep the energy up and if possible increase it.
Alternate possibility: Kamala leans too hard into the coconut shit and starts talking like a terminal Twitter user and alienates all of the people who just got excited for her.
It is revealed Trump orchestrated the assassination attempt and had the secret service shoot a person in the audience to make it more realistic, although he was never in danger himself, but people think it's really cool and Machiavellian and he plays it off well.
JD Vance gets Matt Gaetz level plastic surgery and removes himself from the public spotlight for a week then starts pretending to be a different kind of guy with a nickname.
I can easily see her losing for very boring reasons: just not being very charismatic and likeable, and/or just not having disciplined and effective messaging that excites people into actually voting for her. I'm expecting a crash back to reality in the next few weeks here when people realize that she's not really that good at campaigning.
i could see it, but she'd really have to fall flat on her face. if she's gotten better at all since the 2020 primary it might be enough to drag her across the finish line
By pandering to the 2016 micro aggressions discourse people saying "coconut could be a slur" or having whoever is today's equivalent of Lena Dunham speak at the convention, or leaning too much into "yasss queen" stuff that is more about worshipping the candidate than centering the policies they support. The Republicans currently wield the mantle of being really annoying and weird, Kamala would do well to not help libs reclaim it. Also, just no more smugness as a response to Trump's wacky shit. Hillary was too into that annoying Colbert Report era "I think therefore I am liberal" winky snark. She kept doing it in the debates and it lent itself to no good sound bites, just a feeling of condescension while general voters thought Trump's panicked tone at the least matched their anxieties.
A few things that stick out to me as possibilities:
Her awkward personality is a slow burn grate on the populace. Probably no single moment here, just a built up of events and speeches that communicate no charisma.
It’s been reported that both her primary campaign in 2020 and her VP outfit have been marred by mismanagement, in-fighting, unclear chains of command. Likely her presidential campaign is more of the same. Besides that generally being a hindrance, if disgruntled staff start talking to the press that’s going to create the image of a sinking ship which will put off voters.
The genocide in Gaza starts getting much, much uglier. I don’t think the Palestinian issue is front and center for most voters, but if the atrocities get more blatant and Harris keeps defending Israel, it could sour enough voters to swing some states.
More “Pell-grant recipients” policy platforms. This would likely tie in with the first issue; voters don’t like these overly wrought, means-tested programs and if everything out of her is like that, it’s going to feed the sense of her being unlikable. Voters read triangulation as shifty.
COVID makes a roaring comeback. Cases/hospitalizations/deaths spiking close to the election would undermine the spin that Democrats “beat” COVID, would drive a lot of liberal voters to stay home (but not conservatives) and the associated economic hit would be placed on Harris’ neck.
Speaking of which: it’s the economy, stupid. People are already feeling like the economy is going the wrong direction with inflation of essentials, home and tuition prices through the roof, and interest rates up. Things get any worse, that will disillusion voters and as dumb as it is, there’s a not-insignificant chunk of the electorate in play that see Republicans as better on the economy.
I would expect her to inherit the Biden campaign more or less entirely, which might avoid her previous issues w/ management. otherwise these are good possiblities
people really do care about abortion, though. I think without Roe getting overturned this would be a slam dunk for donnie, but now there's a clear thing for dems to rally around, even if they don't actually plan on actually doing anything about it
"Elect us and we'll protect abortion, we're deffinitly not lying like the last three times we made this exact promise and then literally abandoned it day 1."
The Hill/Emerson and NYT/Siena polls do have her trailing by at least a couple points in every swing state but Wisconsin, but she has also only been the presumptive candidate for less than a week, and hasn't even chosen a running mate. I think she's got some upward momentum to come based on that
Trump probably also has a post convention / assassination attempt bump, which is likely to fade with time as the fact that he hasn't changed a bit peels off the handful of swing voters who bought the "this attack has taught me the virtues of humility and civility" schtick.
Her recent nomination brat meme and coconut thing has given her. A Lot of momentum
3 months from now the dust will have settled and we will be able to tell clearly
Jd vance sucks, so did Mike pence and so did kamala in 2020
No one cares about the vp pick
It's trump vs no Trump basically
The argument for kamala is that she is more of the same
That's really all there is to it
Her poll numbers in the 2020 primaries were bad. Now that she got wild-carded into the big game we'll see whether that was just a momentum/name recognition thing or voters really find something off-putting about her.
I think the more attention she gets the worse she will poll, not at all unlike Hill Dawg.
She laughs for absolutely no reason almost every single time she speaks, her go-to statements are just absolutely meaningless platitudes, a lot of the shit she says just makes no sense whatsoever.
I think if she wins it'll be entirely because she's not Trump, and not a crypt keeper.
I think there's a lot she can do to fuck this up. But given all the chaos what I can't figure out is if this is her game to lose. Because that changes the calculus. If she's playing defense she'll probably eek out a win. If she has ground to make up, that's when shit will get wild and probably very funny.