I do wonder, though, if "weird" has a further purpose besides persuasion. When Walz said it on Morning Joe, he was critiquing Trump and Vance for *not* talking about kitchen table issues like healthcare and prices. This is a subtle way of signaling that Harris *is* focused on those issues.
Rather than a talking point in itself, "weird" may be more like a Schelling Point for normie Democrats -- as well as an implicit warning to their coalition members.
Yes - calling Trump "weird" is a way to help *Democrats* minimize the temptation to go on and on and on about everything disastrous and catastrophic about Trump. It's the first step in a two-step series - call him "weird", then be done with him and talk about the nice normal thing you want to do to help people.
The TV was kind of a metonymy. I'm saying, you asked how you do it and the answer is, you just do it. Particularly when there aren't any policy implications. I mean, Republicans are trying to soften their platform on abortion, which is tough when their record on it is so well-established; people are going to suspect they're still going to pass certain laws and appoint certain judges. But Democrats have never advocated for the "Trump is Literally Hitler" act; if people wanted them to just not be such doomers, then changing how they talk about it *is* the policy change!
By the same token, one of the problems with appointing JD Vance is that it keeps alive the attacks on Republicans as being intense right-wing ideologues. If they had gone with someone more practical, a Chris Christie type, then attempts to say "yeah but they're still super-intense" would be blunted (see also Youngkin).
“But Democrats have never advocated for the "Trump is Literally Hitler" act;”
They impeached him, then ran RussiaGate though the media, then impeached him again, then ran on prosecuting him, then prosecuted him, and are still prosecuting him!
My GOP ad would be “I guess we aren't such a big deal, we're actually pretty normal, here’s a picture of a blue haired kindergarten teacher, antifa throwing firebombs, and a homeless encampment. Who's weird?”
I would also have gotten rid of Vance because he's too online and gives weak vibes.
Why should they backpedal? He is an authoritarian strongman who is backed by people with a plan to undermine liberal democracy. Tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may.
Yeah I think the trick is to show examples of how they're weird and contrast them. "They have weird ideas like banning IVF like they did in Alabama. We just want to do things like paid family leave that make it easier for everyone to afford the cost of raising children."
"Republican J.D. Vance wants to punish families who are struggling with fertility. [clip of Vance quote about taxing the childless] He's called women without children 'childless cat ladies' [grainy footage of Vance looking bad while talking] and joined Republicans in their effort to cut off the availability of IVF. What was Donald Trump thinking when he chose Vance to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? [picture of Trump emphasizing age and weight]
[inspiring music and a wash of color] Kamala Harris and Tim Walz think that working families deserve a round of applause [footage of Harris clapping at something], not a put-down from Ivy League-educated venture capitalists like J.D. Vance. Kamala Harris worked to expand the Child Tax Credit to provide more resources to families in [swing state], and Tim Walz made sure all children in his state had access to healthy food. [picture of smiling children]
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz - proud to stand with working families."
This is all super interesting. But in this example, I think "weird" falls short. Banning IVF isn't "weird" -- it's "bad". I think a better framing is to actually take a moral stance / make a judgement.
Agree in principle, but part of what I'm reading in these results is that taking explicitly moral stances is read as "moralistic" and tuned out. I hear "weird" as: why would you focus on that issue rather this other, more normal issue that I care about?
Then I think the analysis is missing a third dimension baseline of where the median voter is on each of these issue. A Pew poll has 70% supporting access to IVF. I get the general principle to avoid moral stances but when you have this much support - I don't know why you'd pull punches.
But I think this goes to the point about "weird". It is genuinely weird to oppose IVF, and calling it "weird" evokes a different response than calling it "immoral" or "outrageous". It invites the listener to bond with the speaker in mildly mocking the behavior, rather than demanding that the listener adopt a complicated and precise moral stance on an issue that most people probably don't think they have enough knowledge about to feel comfortable debating in depth.
Democrats could do well by simply pointing out that Republicans are weird for choosing to focus on weird things rather than important things. It’s subtle, but brings nonpartisan, non ideological people into the fold.
"They're weird for focusing on it, and also their substantive position makes no sense."
You could make an argument that the fact that their stance is bad is implicit in the framing: for certain issues the social consensus is so clearly settled in their favor (e.g., access to contraception) that there's no non-suspect reason to even raise the issue. Why would you even bring the issue up unless you were going to take some kind of idiosyncratic and presumably unpopular stance? Who but cranks that want to ban it even want to litigate the availability of IVF?
One thing I've also noticed is that the "weird" attack has flipped the dynamic in terms of the online crazies. Republicans have spent the last few years making great hay out of random left wing activists saying crazy shit online. "Weird" flips the script to the super online right wingers (which happens to include most of the Congressional Republican staffer class).
The biggest takeaway here is that people genuinely have to be reminded that Democrats support the social safety net and Republicans cut taxes on the rich whenever that option is available to them.
I actually understand how people could forget. Partisans spend a lot more time talking about topics that divide their own coalitions because arguments take longer than agreement. If you stop talking about those points of agreement though, the people who vote but also barely pay attention will not think of those points of agreement when they think of the party. They think mainly about what we've been talking about lately, which is mostly faction fights.
There's also a strong undercurrent of "Whatever, they're all the same" in a lot of places, especially among less-engaged voters. It doesn't surprise me that reminding people that there are differences in their policy positions that actually will affect their lives could have a big impact.
I'm always disappointed by how anti-Trump messages focused on democracy and January 6th preform so low. For me it's the only issue that actually matters - did the candidate refuse to acknowledge an election loss, peddle conspiracy theories, and do nothing until after he determined a violent mob wouldn't achieve his aims? If yes, then they should be getting zero votes from citizens who believe in upholding our Constitution. I understand that people care about material wellbeing, but we're not talking about the means to eat 1500 calories a day, the policies up for debate are about small changes to tax rates or gas prices. These are second order concerns compared to having a liberal form of government; that this election is a contest at all is a civic failure.
I'm glad people do this work, because I find it too bizarre to have policy discussions with ordinary voters who agree that January 6th was bad but need to be told about Harris' minimum wage stance to earn their vote.
I think the democracy argument is sort of like the Roe vs Wade arguments prior Dobbs - Mark Udall was basically made fun of by the national press when he ran in Colorado on the idea the GOP wanted to ban abortion and birth control and well, look at Project 2025.
In a world where half the coutnry still watched the Nightly News, maybe 1/6 might've made a dent, but we're not in that world.
People won't believe it until it's happening. Unfortunately, when you see the actual restrictions on democracy being put in place, that's harder to overturn than abortion bans.
I couldn't agree more. Especially your point, "I'm glad people do this work, because I find it too bizarre to have policy discussions with ordinary voters who agree that January 6th was bad but need to be told about Harris' minimum wage stance to earn their vote." I think the issue is that those people are locked in their own media bubble that doesn't present them with facts, so they get to imagine Jan 6 was a blip, or not consequential. Now they have to hold two ideas in their head: Jan 6 was a non-event AND Harris is reasonable on minimum wage.
I don't think it's the calculus at all, Harris has my vote, it's what she wants to do policy-wise, and the way that the left look that makes it challenging for me to keep it her way. "National rent control??" A really bad idea, the broader democratic economic project also not interested. If it really was about saving democracy, I think you might see a massive centrist stance and a promise for the primary agenda to be shoring up our democracy so we can get back to our regular policy fights, instead it's democracies at stake and I can't wait to do all this stuff that none of you guys from the right care about and actually despise. Painting the picture between an insurrectionist president and the broader democratic project that makes many of us throw up in our mouth. Well that's a different calculus isn't it? There is also the challenge of... Kamala may tack to the center but everyone knows she wants to do further left stuff .... Lie to get the vote and then do what you want. It's gross all the way around.
If new information about a candidate is what persuades voters, that seems to be an even stronger argument in favor of ``flip-flopping'' on some of the unpopular positions from the 2020 primaries that she no longer holds.
Edit: Realized that ``flop-flipping'' makes a lot more sense as an english word in this political context... probably too late to change it now, though.
Fun linguistic fact: People really really want the I sound to come first! Clocks go tick tock, horses go clip clop, politicians go flip flop, Olympians play ping pong, rappers do hip hop, excellent work is tip top, doorbells go ding dong, children tease in sing song, etc.
The theory of the case for today's Democratic Party seems to be that a certain degree of partisan cheerleading and coddling of progressive sensibilities brings in the fundraising money to allow for the carpet-bombing of paid TV advertising with the most effective and appealing messaging to swing voters.
I'm not sure that's strategically optimal, but it doesn't seem crazy.
Seems like good advice, keep it normal. I do think that Harris's "Joy" approach totally changes the dynamic of this election and all the research mentioned should probably be redone to include it. To me it is something that has been missing from Democrat messages for a long time. It has seemed to me that Democrats, I was a Republican for 39 years prior to 2003 when Howard Dean snatched me, have been way to morose, like, " please send me money I am so much an underdog that the terrible Republicans are beating up".
Like just yesterday the message i got from Jon Tester was so sad, please send me money again, the Republicans are killing me. I live in Illinois and send money to Montana, I love Jon Tester, to me he could be a bit like Tim Walz, but he needs to climb on the Joy and enthusiasm band wagon.
The impressive rebound that happened for Harris after Biden stepped down has not helped me put too much credence into a lot of these analyses. To be fair, analysts could take a win that Biden should step down in the campaign. But, virtually nobody called Harris being a good choice. Ironically, that was identified as a big risk!
Indeed, if Democrats need to focus on any particular message, unity is the one. Having everyone celebrate the VP pick is an easy example of a great thing they are doing now.
I agree that "weird" is functioning more as a unifier for the Dems than as a way to expand. It's a necessary move at this stage of the campaign, but not a sufficient one for the fall.
Since Ezra has had a pretty big roll in all this -- he did have a podcast on 7/5 that was very pro-Harris. It was titled "Is Harris Underrated" but the conversation is very pro-Harris. I've also never picked up Ezra's open convention push as directly against Harris. I think he felt that whoever emerged from that process would just become a far stronger candidate vs. Trump and he always acknowledged she would have the inside track.
Both Ezra and MY had ``let's take a second look at Harris'' takes pretty early on. The podcast wasn't that positive: he was talking to a person who had spent a lot of time observing Harris as a reporter and basically described what her limitations as a retail politician are, but also that there were some hidden strengths in a more personal setting, as well. The upshot was that she was underrated but the million dollar question was (and still is) by how much.
I think it’s important to distinguish the polls that found Harris to be unpopular as a candidate or as Vice President from the pundits who argued that she ran a bad campaign in 2020 and was likely to run a bad one again if given the opportunity.
The polls weren’t wrong, but they should be analyzed with the (in hindsight, big) caveat that most voters didn’t know her and most impressions were formed under weird circumstances (the politically unique 2020 primary, the Vice Presidency).
The pundits weren’t wrong either, except in hindsight. The odds that Harris would miraculously become a better campaigner were low at best. She seemed to be following Hillary Clinton’s trajectory: a smart, warm person struggling to appear authentic on camera and having a dumpster fire of a campaign team. Hillary didn’t have a glow up between 2008 and 2016 and I don’t think pundits were wrong to doubt Harris for the same reasons.
Ironically for me, the first person I heard challenge this narrative and make the case that Harris would, in fact , be a compelling speaker and campaigner was none other than Anthony Scaramucci on the "The Rest is Politics" podcast.
I thought both Haley and Vivek R. seemed alarmed about the prospect of the scenario we are in right now very early on (during the republican primary), so they must have had a higher than median opinion of Harris as a politician.
On a separate note, one thing we are about to learn in the next 90 days is that politicians who weren't lawyers in their former life communicate in word-salady half-sentences in unscripted remarks, much more than democrats are used to. You can hear it in Erza's podcast with Walz... I can follow directionally where he is going, and it kind of makes sense, but it is not precise sentences or even completed thoughts.
By the way, for this same reason I think the CW is wrong on the JV vs Walz debate: JV is going to crush poor Tim. It will be worse than Hillary vs Trump (of course that didn't matter in the end...)
So you just change the game to one you want to play. If JV gives some long-winded eloquent answer, just say something folksy like "I don't know what the egghead over here is talking about; I just want to make sure social security is still there for you when you retire!"
I mean, your description of the Walz style of speaking/answering has worked very well for Donald Trump up to this point, and Walz at least is going somewhere with his comments and (as far as I know) is not peppering his responses with stuff about Hannibal Lecter.
I think it was the July 4th podcast. Just listened. Their predictions turned out to be quite good. Scaramucci also predicts that Biden will resign and I do think there is a good chance that still happens, either at the convention or a few weeks after.
What sucks, is I don't really disagree with any point here. And I am not trying the stronger claim that the pundits are wrong. I suspect and hope that with hindsight, we will be able to better understand some parts of what happens.
However, just as I don't immediately start trusting every prediction of someone that called a low probability event, I have a hard time taking any analysis of the current situation. Largely for the same reason.
The obvious retort is "just think how much better it would be if instead of Harris it was insert-whatever-candidate". It's quite coherent for Harris to have given a rebound and still have not been as good a choice as whomever.
But this is precisely what makes a lot of these analyses hard to swallow?
For one, that retort is unfalsifiable. At face value, it already fails smell tests on motivated reasoning. If you get to craft how the world will respond to choices, it is fairly easy to say things.
This is why I am more interested in the talking heads that are following with arguments that build on a momentum, at the moment. Not trying to follow with a "but this would be better", but with a "I'd love to see this move into ..." kind of thing.
And to be clear, my point about these being hard to swallow is not that I think the reasoning is bad! Quite the contrary. A lot of it is very solid reasoning. But a lot of losing paths have been paved on solid reasoning. And it is common to say we don't understand our failures; but that does not at all give understanding into our victories.
Yes, I know! My point being that if there is an easily-available retort, you should bring that up from the get-go because it makes your point stronger.
Ah, totally fair! I think it shows that my post is poor as is. I did not mean to say that they are not reasonable analyses. I strongly think they are likely solid pieces from people that almost certainly know this better than I do.
The volume is so heavy in the moment, though, that I have a hard time knowing which were low confidence calls, which were wrong, and which were just overcome by events.
I am, however, very excited by the momentum. I don't know if democrats are following a good coach or what, at the moment; but they are having a heck of a moment right now.
Matt posted a similar article in 2022: winning is BORING. I beg Harris: please be boring. I think that's why they voted for Biden in 2020, it's a shame he's too old to carry that message into 2024
As a moderate Republican, I completely agree. I voted for Biden because he looked like a beige-box adult who wouldn’t do anything stupid. He’s turned out to be my favorite Democratic president.
Before he finally dropped out, the one silver lining I found in his re-election bid was that the Democratic party was willing to tolerate the enormous weakness of his age in order to field the most centrist, boring candidate they could. Still, Boring Harris would be better, if she goes that way.
I think "weird" is not really about policy. For example, Vance and the Harris campaign both agree a child tax credit is good policy.
But Vance decided to frame this policy not as a tax credit for families with children, but as raising taxes on childless people to punish them. Who thinks like that? Why would you frame it in such a negative way? There's no other word for that choice but "weird" and people are rightly alarmed by it because they think it reflects something about Vance and the Republicans' attitudes and character.
I think there's something to this, in a way that's hard to measure in a political science survey of this type. It of course can't be the whole campaign, but it does hit on something real.
Isn't "moderate" content-free? A blank screen that people can fill with whatever they want?
Telling people she's "a normal Democrat" may be surprising to many, and sounds close enough to saying she's "moderate" for me to give Matt the benefit of the doubt here (at least close enough for Twitter),
I mean, the article explicitly contrasts "normie Democrat" to "moderate."
And, notably, suggests that progressive messaging outperforms moderate messaging for both Democrats and non-Democrats (!!), though both are outperformed by "normie Democrat."
That last bit about progressive messaging out performing moderate messaging I'm not sure I buy - it really only works because a lot of low-performing moderate messages were included.
From the chart:
#1 Moderate > #1 Progressive
#2 AND #3 Moderate > #2 AND #3 Progressive
#4 and #5 Moderate > #4, #5, and #6 Progressive
But.
#6 Progressive > #6 Moderate
And then there are #7,#8,#9 Moderate but no equivalent progressive
====
Immigration is the weird one - Immigration LIBERAL does > Immigration CONSERVATIVE but
1) What was the emphasis?
2) Voters may just not believe immigration conservative?
3) Or of course _Persuadable_ voters may in fact prefer immigration Liberal.
Fair. I think AD squares the circle pretty well, but I'm being unduly cranky because of how imprecise those words are, especially since the authors seem to be using them as a more specific insider shorthand.
Well, the article also described emphasizing her credentials as a prosecutor as an issue that unifies the Democratic Party. There's some heavy spin going on in this piece.
The best I can square the circle is, if you emphasize "normie dem" stuff, then you definitely seem more moderate than a progressive does. Of course in that case "seeming moderate" is the side-effect, not the message.
How you’re a moderate matters. You might be a moderate by being completely anti-abortion but also wanting really high gas taxes, or you might be a moderate by saying you’re going to cut taxes, raise welfare spending, and reduce inflation. (What, are the voters going to know you’re lying?) The second set of messages is more popular, and each position is also more moderate individually.
I'd be interested in looking at the effect of contrasting the candidates. Pro-Harris or anti-Trump aren't the only options. You can do both at the same time.
Also, I find that a lot of people genuinely don't know and/or have forgotten things about Trump. There's a reason his numbers rise when he's out of the public eye and dip whenever people see him.
I think these types of studies are important and worthwhile, but as the writers basically admit ("not the be-all end-all"), they should be interpreted with caution. I imagine the precise messaging matters, whether pro-Harris out anti-Trump.
I think that's a contrast between free media and paid media. Voters watching Trump say something stupid is probably more persuasive than Democrats saying something negative about him yet again.
I have seen two Harris ads to date, one from a PAC and one from the campaign. Both were positive Harris ads in a normie vein, if a little on the gauzy side.
For me it's a shame that this article didn't engage with the opposition to this approach. Dems should campaign on social security and Medicare is an extremely old idea that as the article softly acknowledges has lost some support in recent years. I think engaging with that dynamic would be more informative than simply restating an old idea. Is the evidence cited in this article really groundbreaking, or was ad testing also available in 2020 and for some reason did not lead the Biden campaign to adopt this approach?
Also, maybe engage with Project 2025? The attack on Trump that's proven so effective that Republicans are trying to write it out of history?
EDIT: aight I'll put my brief version of the Beutler/Stancil "vibes theory of politics": it makes a huge difference what the discourse is about. Open Reddit right now and you'll see people laughing at conservatives who are tweeting that JD Vance couch sex jokes are like Nazism and calling Trump weird is evil. Democrats look chill and fun, Republicans look deranged and also are too busy dealing with couch jokes to focus on their goal of defining Harris as a phony Hamas supporting communist who will turn your children trans.
I think part of the point of this post is that "groundbreaking" isn't necessarily valuable. Having proof that the same-old-same-old is actually valuable, and the recent years of engaging with Trump on his extremeness haven't been helping.
For those of us here, the idea of not being able to predict a candidate's position on Medicare, Social Security, or the minimum wage by only knowing their party seems odd. But swing voters aren't the type of people who subscribe here.
I think you should ride the vibes thing as far as it goes, but be ready for it to peter out. And then you have to settle into the more normal politics, having hopefully gleaned some information from the few weeks that the vibes bought you.
There was a time in the not too distant past where Democrats felt very out of touch by always trying to bring things back to kitchen table issues in a way that felt awkward and overly message tested. I suspect the key will be finding a way to use well tested messages in a way that feels authentic and not like you're reading the results of a poll test to voters.
I also think if Trump suddenly starts staying on message about how great social security is, then my sense is this strategy won't work as well. But as long as Trump saying crazy shit, then Dems can feel safe by talking about kitchen table issues. Which means Dems need to find ways to keep getting under Trumps skin so he says crazy shit, while also sticking to their own "normal" talking points.
"There was a time in the not too distant past where Democrats felt very out of touch by always trying to bring things back to kitchen table issues in a way that felt awkward and overly message tested."
I just want to point out that using what people are talking about on social media as proof that the discourse is important is tautological. Do we have any evidence other than vibes that social media is worth paying attention to at all as a guide to elections?
Republicans win about half of elections, despite policies that on average are less popular and candidates that are often crazy. In 2020 they didn't have a platform at all. They spend vast effort on political theatre - Benghazi, Ebola, EMAILS!, Hunter, on and on and on it goes.
So: they seem better at campaigning (more votes relative to policy popularity) and they use different tactics. It seems logical to try to replicate some of their success (but not the specific toxic/untrue messages).
What successes? They handed Democrats a trifecta in 2020, and despite winning half of all elections the last major piece of legislation they signed that wasn’t a tax cut was in 2007. It’s easy to outperform your platform when you simply never enact your platform (or wait for the courts to do it).
Take a step back. Democrats are around 50:50 to beat a truly awful opponent. Defeat could be catastrophic. That seems very bad to me and merits being open to new thinking. Doesn't mean you have to abandon kitchen table issues entirely. But open to trying qto do better
Taking the outside view, it seems unlikely that Democrats could outperform Republicans by employing the same strategies Republicans use. I think instead the takeaway is that, because Republicans have unpopular policies, they are forced to run on vibes and never enact those policies, and voters are generally happy enough with the status quo or Republican vibes to vote for them, unless Democrats offer something they actively want.
The response is to the idea that they are "better at campaigning". There is no evidence of that. They have a structural advantage compared to Dems in the EC, the Senate, and in more-gerrymandered House seats in red states. Accounting for natural thermostatic reactions and polarization at the national level, you can make the argument that their recent campaigning (McCain, Romney, Trump, Trump, Trump) has sucked.
American policy is just *way* more right wing than peer countries. Part of that is history and the structure of the system. But I think acting as if that has *nothing* to do with skill by the right wing party is misguided.
The most powerful messaging is through words linked to action. One major example we saw earlier and will see again soon - bipartisan border bill for Senate consideration and inevitable Republican defeat - Harris campaign ads underscore GOP hypocrisy and Democratic willingness to find reasonable bipartisan solutions. Chef’s kiss is Trump record of having done ZILCH when President and control of both chambers of Congress.
So glad you are exposing your audience to actionable political science! Thank you for this excellent public service.
Great post. Couldn't agree more.
I do wonder, though, if "weird" has a further purpose besides persuasion. When Walz said it on Morning Joe, he was critiquing Trump and Vance for *not* talking about kitchen table issues like healthcare and prices. This is a subtle way of signaling that Harris *is* focused on those issues.
Rather than a talking point in itself, "weird" may be more like a Schelling Point for normie Democrats -- as well as an implicit warning to their coalition members.
Yes - calling Trump "weird" is a way to help *Democrats* minimize the temptation to go on and on and on about everything disastrous and catastrophic about Trump. It's the first step in a two-step series - call him "weird", then be done with him and talk about the nice normal thing you want to do to help people.
Probably 8 years too late for that. How can you backpedal from "Literal Hitler who will end democracy" to "uh, he's weird!" ?
Turn on the TV and you'll see how. Flip-flopping works because American voters are goldfish.
Why the hell would I watch TV?
Whether this flip works has yet to be determined. Let's check back in 90 days.
Because it is the proposed answer to the question you just asked Tom?
The TV was kind of a metonymy. I'm saying, you asked how you do it and the answer is, you just do it. Particularly when there aren't any policy implications. I mean, Republicans are trying to soften their platform on abortion, which is tough when their record on it is so well-established; people are going to suspect they're still going to pass certain laws and appoint certain judges. But Democrats have never advocated for the "Trump is Literally Hitler" act; if people wanted them to just not be such doomers, then changing how they talk about it *is* the policy change!
By the same token, one of the problems with appointing JD Vance is that it keeps alive the attacks on Republicans as being intense right-wing ideologues. If they had gone with someone more practical, a Chris Christie type, then attempts to say "yeah but they're still super-intense" would be blunted (see also Youngkin).
“But Democrats have never advocated for the "Trump is Literally Hitler" act;”
They impeached him, then ran RussiaGate though the media, then impeached him again, then ran on prosecuting him, then prosecuted him, and are still prosecuting him!
My GOP ad would be “I guess we aren't such a big deal, we're actually pretty normal, here’s a picture of a blue haired kindergarten teacher, antifa throwing firebombs, and a homeless encampment. Who's weird?”
I would also have gotten rid of Vance because he's too online and gives weak vibes.
Why should they backpedal? He is an authoritarian strongman who is backed by people with a plan to undermine liberal democracy. Tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may.
You misunderstood my comment. They are going backwards now by using ‘weird’, which is much milder than ‘actual fascist’.
Yeah it's kind of the Allen Iverson "practice" rant.
"We talkin' about cat ladies? Really? That's what we're talking about?"
Yeah I think the trick is to show examples of how they're weird and contrast them. "They have weird ideas like banning IVF like they did in Alabama. We just want to do things like paid family leave that make it easier for everyone to afford the cost of raising children."
"Republican J.D. Vance wants to punish families who are struggling with fertility. [clip of Vance quote about taxing the childless] He's called women without children 'childless cat ladies' [grainy footage of Vance looking bad while talking] and joined Republicans in their effort to cut off the availability of IVF. What was Donald Trump thinking when he chose Vance to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? [picture of Trump emphasizing age and weight]
[inspiring music and a wash of color] Kamala Harris and Tim Walz think that working families deserve a round of applause [footage of Harris clapping at something], not a put-down from Ivy League-educated venture capitalists like J.D. Vance. Kamala Harris worked to expand the Child Tax Credit to provide more resources to families in [swing state], and Tim Walz made sure all children in his state had access to healthy food. [picture of smiling children]
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz - proud to stand with working families."
To say nothing of the cost of affording IVF...
This is all super interesting. But in this example, I think "weird" falls short. Banning IVF isn't "weird" -- it's "bad". I think a better framing is to actually take a moral stance / make a judgement.
Agree in principle, but part of what I'm reading in these results is that taking explicitly moral stances is read as "moralistic" and tuned out. I hear "weird" as: why would you focus on that issue rather this other, more normal issue that I care about?
Then I think the analysis is missing a third dimension baseline of where the median voter is on each of these issue. A Pew poll has 70% supporting access to IVF. I get the general principle to avoid moral stances but when you have this much support - I don't know why you'd pull punches.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/05/13/americans-overwhelmingly-say-access-to-ivf-is-a-good-thing/
But I think this goes to the point about "weird". It is genuinely weird to oppose IVF, and calling it "weird" evokes a different response than calling it "immoral" or "outrageous". It invites the listener to bond with the speaker in mildly mocking the behavior, rather than demanding that the listener adopt a complicated and precise moral stance on an issue that most people probably don't think they have enough knowledge about to feel comfortable debating in depth.
Focusing on IVF is weird. Banning it is bad.
Democrats could do well by simply pointing out that Republicans are weird for choosing to focus on weird things rather than important things. It’s subtle, but brings nonpartisan, non ideological people into the fold.
"They're weird for focusing on it, and also their substantive position makes no sense."
You could make an argument that the fact that their stance is bad is implicit in the framing: for certain issues the social consensus is so clearly settled in their favor (e.g., access to contraception) that there's no non-suspect reason to even raise the issue. Why would you even bring the issue up unless you were going to take some kind of idiosyncratic and presumably unpopular stance? Who but cranks that want to ban it even want to litigate the availability of IVF?
(Cf. Dr. Frink of the Simpsons' observation that his death ray really only has evil applications -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2MuKi_QOk4)
I think this post by Jeremiah Johnson makes a similar point to yours: https://substack.com/inbox/post/147471496
It does a good job getting at the difference between a policy difference and a "weird" attack.
One thing I've also noticed is that the "weird" attack has flipped the dynamic in terms of the online crazies. Republicans have spent the last few years making great hay out of random left wing activists saying crazy shit online. "Weird" flips the script to the super online right wingers (which happens to include most of the Congressional Republican staffer class).
The biggest takeaway here is that people genuinely have to be reminded that Democrats support the social safety net and Republicans cut taxes on the rich whenever that option is available to them.
I actually understand how people could forget. Partisans spend a lot more time talking about topics that divide their own coalitions because arguments take longer than agreement. If you stop talking about those points of agreement though, the people who vote but also barely pay attention will not think of those points of agreement when they think of the party. They think mainly about what we've been talking about lately, which is mostly faction fights.
There's also a strong undercurrent of "Whatever, they're all the same" in a lot of places, especially among less-engaged voters. It doesn't surprise me that reminding people that there are differences in their policy positions that actually will affect their lives could have a big impact.
I'm always disappointed by how anti-Trump messages focused on democracy and January 6th preform so low. For me it's the only issue that actually matters - did the candidate refuse to acknowledge an election loss, peddle conspiracy theories, and do nothing until after he determined a violent mob wouldn't achieve his aims? If yes, then they should be getting zero votes from citizens who believe in upholding our Constitution. I understand that people care about material wellbeing, but we're not talking about the means to eat 1500 calories a day, the policies up for debate are about small changes to tax rates or gas prices. These are second order concerns compared to having a liberal form of government; that this election is a contest at all is a civic failure.
I'm glad people do this work, because I find it too bizarre to have policy discussions with ordinary voters who agree that January 6th was bad but need to be told about Harris' minimum wage stance to earn their vote.
I think the democracy argument is sort of like the Roe vs Wade arguments prior Dobbs - Mark Udall was basically made fun of by the national press when he ran in Colorado on the idea the GOP wanted to ban abortion and birth control and well, look at Project 2025.
In a world where half the coutnry still watched the Nightly News, maybe 1/6 might've made a dent, but we're not in that world.
People won't believe it until it's happening. Unfortunately, when you see the actual restrictions on democracy being put in place, that's harder to overturn than abortion bans.
I couldn't agree more. Especially your point, "I'm glad people do this work, because I find it too bizarre to have policy discussions with ordinary voters who agree that January 6th was bad but need to be told about Harris' minimum wage stance to earn their vote." I think the issue is that those people are locked in their own media bubble that doesn't present them with facts, so they get to imagine Jan 6 was a blip, or not consequential. Now they have to hold two ideas in their head: Jan 6 was a non-event AND Harris is reasonable on minimum wage.
I don't think it's the calculus at all, Harris has my vote, it's what she wants to do policy-wise, and the way that the left look that makes it challenging for me to keep it her way. "National rent control??" A really bad idea, the broader democratic economic project also not interested. If it really was about saving democracy, I think you might see a massive centrist stance and a promise for the primary agenda to be shoring up our democracy so we can get back to our regular policy fights, instead it's democracies at stake and I can't wait to do all this stuff that none of you guys from the right care about and actually despise. Painting the picture between an insurrectionist president and the broader democratic project that makes many of us throw up in our mouth. Well that's a different calculus isn't it? There is also the challenge of... Kamala may tack to the center but everyone knows she wants to do further left stuff .... Lie to get the vote and then do what you want. It's gross all the way around.
+1,000,000,000
If new information about a candidate is what persuades voters, that seems to be an even stronger argument in favor of ``flip-flopping'' on some of the unpopular positions from the 2020 primaries that she no longer holds.
Edit: Realized that ``flop-flipping'' makes a lot more sense as an english word in this political context... probably too late to change it now, though.
Fun linguistic fact: People really really want the I sound to come first! Clocks go tick tock, horses go clip clop, politicians go flip flop, Olympians play ping pong, rappers do hip hop, excellent work is tip top, doorbells go ding dong, children tease in sing song, etc.
> Other messages that don’t map onto ideological divides in the Democratic party, such as touting her achievements as a prosecutor...
🤨
Emoji reaction is fair enough! The particular messages we used there aren't that controversial though -- going after big banks and sex offenders.
The theory of the case for today's Democratic Party seems to be that a certain degree of partisan cheerleading and coddling of progressive sensibilities brings in the fundraising money to allow for the carpet-bombing of paid TV advertising with the most effective and appealing messaging to swing voters.
I'm not sure that's strategically optimal, but it doesn't seem crazy.
Seems like good advice, keep it normal. I do think that Harris's "Joy" approach totally changes the dynamic of this election and all the research mentioned should probably be redone to include it. To me it is something that has been missing from Democrat messages for a long time. It has seemed to me that Democrats, I was a Republican for 39 years prior to 2003 when Howard Dean snatched me, have been way to morose, like, " please send me money I am so much an underdog that the terrible Republicans are beating up".
Like just yesterday the message i got from Jon Tester was so sad, please send me money again, the Republicans are killing me. I live in Illinois and send money to Montana, I love Jon Tester, to me he could be a bit like Tim Walz, but he needs to climb on the Joy and enthusiasm band wagon.
“It's a question of whether we're going to go forward into the future, or past to the back!”
Positivity was Regan’s greatest strength as a campaigner. It’s been missing from both parties for a long time.
The impressive rebound that happened for Harris after Biden stepped down has not helped me put too much credence into a lot of these analyses. To be fair, analysts could take a win that Biden should step down in the campaign. But, virtually nobody called Harris being a good choice. Ironically, that was identified as a big risk!
Indeed, if Democrats need to focus on any particular message, unity is the one. Having everyone celebrate the VP pick is an easy example of a great thing they are doing now.
I agree that "weird" is functioning more as a unifier for the Dems than as a way to expand. It's a necessary move at this stage of the campaign, but not a sufficient one for the fall.
Since Ezra has had a pretty big roll in all this -- he did have a podcast on 7/5 that was very pro-Harris. It was titled "Is Harris Underrated" but the conversation is very pro-Harris. I've also never picked up Ezra's open convention push as directly against Harris. I think he felt that whoever emerged from that process would just become a far stronger candidate vs. Trump and he always acknowledged she would have the inside track.
Both Ezra and MY had ``let's take a second look at Harris'' takes pretty early on. The podcast wasn't that positive: he was talking to a person who had spent a lot of time observing Harris as a reporter and basically described what her limitations as a retail politician are, but also that there were some hidden strengths in a more personal setting, as well. The upshot was that she was underrated but the million dollar question was (and still is) by how much.
I think it’s important to distinguish the polls that found Harris to be unpopular as a candidate or as Vice President from the pundits who argued that she ran a bad campaign in 2020 and was likely to run a bad one again if given the opportunity.
The polls weren’t wrong, but they should be analyzed with the (in hindsight, big) caveat that most voters didn’t know her and most impressions were formed under weird circumstances (the politically unique 2020 primary, the Vice Presidency).
The pundits weren’t wrong either, except in hindsight. The odds that Harris would miraculously become a better campaigner were low at best. She seemed to be following Hillary Clinton’s trajectory: a smart, warm person struggling to appear authentic on camera and having a dumpster fire of a campaign team. Hillary didn’t have a glow up between 2008 and 2016 and I don’t think pundits were wrong to doubt Harris for the same reasons.
Ironically for me, the first person I heard challenge this narrative and make the case that Harris would, in fact , be a compelling speaker and campaigner was none other than Anthony Scaramucci on the "The Rest is Politics" podcast.
I thought both Haley and Vivek R. seemed alarmed about the prospect of the scenario we are in right now very early on (during the republican primary), so they must have had a higher than median opinion of Harris as a politician.
On a separate note, one thing we are about to learn in the next 90 days is that politicians who weren't lawyers in their former life communicate in word-salady half-sentences in unscripted remarks, much more than democrats are used to. You can hear it in Erza's podcast with Walz... I can follow directionally where he is going, and it kind of makes sense, but it is not precise sentences or even completed thoughts.
By the way, for this same reason I think the CW is wrong on the JV vs Walz debate: JV is going to crush poor Tim. It will be worse than Hillary vs Trump (of course that didn't matter in the end...)
So you just change the game to one you want to play. If JV gives some long-winded eloquent answer, just say something folksy like "I don't know what the egghead over here is talking about; I just want to make sure social security is still there for you when you retire!"
I mean, your description of the Walz style of speaking/answering has worked very well for Donald Trump up to this point, and Walz at least is going somewhere with his comments and (as far as I know) is not peppering his responses with stuff about Hannibal Lecter.
Which date?
I want to say the July 11th pod, but it may have been earlier
I think it was the July 4th podcast. Just listened. Their predictions turned out to be quite good. Scaramucci also predicts that Biden will resign and I do think there is a good chance that still happens, either at the convention or a few weeks after.
That makes sense. July 11 they go through all permutations of an "open convention"...which seems so quaint now...
What sucks, is I don't really disagree with any point here. And I am not trying the stronger claim that the pundits are wrong. I suspect and hope that with hindsight, we will be able to better understand some parts of what happens.
However, just as I don't immediately start trusting every prediction of someone that called a low probability event, I have a hard time taking any analysis of the current situation. Largely for the same reason.
I'm sympathetic to this argument, but...
The obvious retort is "just think how much better it would be if instead of Harris it was insert-whatever-candidate". It's quite coherent for Harris to have given a rebound and still have not been as good a choice as whomever.
But this is precisely what makes a lot of these analyses hard to swallow?
For one, that retort is unfalsifiable. At face value, it already fails smell tests on motivated reasoning. If you get to craft how the world will respond to choices, it is fairly easy to say things.
This is why I am more interested in the talking heads that are following with arguments that build on a momentum, at the moment. Not trying to follow with a "but this would be better", but with a "I'd love to see this move into ..." kind of thing.
And to be clear, my point about these being hard to swallow is not that I think the reasoning is bad! Quite the contrary. A lot of it is very solid reasoning. But a lot of losing paths have been paved on solid reasoning. And it is common to say we don't understand our failures; but that does not at all give understanding into our victories.
Yes, I know! My point being that if there is an easily-available retort, you should bring that up from the get-go because it makes your point stronger.
Ah, totally fair! I think it shows that my post is poor as is. I did not mean to say that they are not reasonable analyses. I strongly think they are likely solid pieces from people that almost certainly know this better than I do.
The volume is so heavy in the moment, though, that I have a hard time knowing which were low confidence calls, which were wrong, and which were just overcome by events.
I am, however, very excited by the momentum. I don't know if democrats are following a good coach or what, at the moment; but they are having a heck of a moment right now.
Matt posted a similar article in 2022: winning is BORING. I beg Harris: please be boring. I think that's why they voted for Biden in 2020, it's a shame he's too old to carry that message into 2024
https://www.slowboring.com/p/a-lot-of-the-best-political-messages
As a moderate Republican, I completely agree. I voted for Biden because he looked like a beige-box adult who wouldn’t do anything stupid. He’s turned out to be my favorite Democratic president.
Before he finally dropped out, the one silver lining I found in his re-election bid was that the Democratic party was willing to tolerate the enormous weakness of his age in order to field the most centrist, boring candidate they could. Still, Boring Harris would be better, if she goes that way.
I think "weird" is not really about policy. For example, Vance and the Harris campaign both agree a child tax credit is good policy.
But Vance decided to frame this policy not as a tax credit for families with children, but as raising taxes on childless people to punish them. Who thinks like that? Why would you frame it in such a negative way? There's no other word for that choice but "weird" and people are rightly alarmed by it because they think it reflects something about Vance and the Republicans' attitudes and character.
I think there's something to this, in a way that's hard to measure in a political science survey of this type. It of course can't be the whole campaign, but it does hit on something real.
Matt's gloss on this on Twitter/X is that "Harris' best messages paint her as moderate," (https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1821578276554596422) which does not seem to be what the text says.
Isn't "moderate" content-free? A blank screen that people can fill with whatever they want?
Telling people she's "a normal Democrat" may be surprising to many, and sounds close enough to saying she's "moderate" for me to give Matt the benefit of the doubt here (at least close enough for Twitter),
I mean, the article explicitly contrasts "normie Democrat" to "moderate."
And, notably, suggests that progressive messaging outperforms moderate messaging for both Democrats and non-Democrats (!!), though both are outperformed by "normie Democrat."
That last bit about progressive messaging out performing moderate messaging I'm not sure I buy - it really only works because a lot of low-performing moderate messages were included.
From the chart:
#1 Moderate > #1 Progressive
#2 AND #3 Moderate > #2 AND #3 Progressive
#4 and #5 Moderate > #4, #5, and #6 Progressive
But.
#6 Progressive > #6 Moderate
And then there are #7,#8,#9 Moderate but no equivalent progressive
====
Immigration is the weird one - Immigration LIBERAL does > Immigration CONSERVATIVE but
1) What was the emphasis?
2) Voters may just not believe immigration conservative?
3) Or of course _Persuadable_ voters may in fact prefer immigration Liberal.
What would be helpful would be to see the actual prompts / questions.
From Twitter: "And here's a link to all the messages & by-message results:" https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15ixzsZffRvpDa1LEXJlS9mv6m00zzbDdMfvoG6IIXiA/edit?gid=80075598#gid=80075598
Fair. I think AD squares the circle pretty well, but I'm being unduly cranky because of how imprecise those words are, especially since the authors seem to be using them as a more specific insider shorthand.
Well, the article also described emphasizing her credentials as a prosecutor as an issue that unifies the Democratic Party. There's some heavy spin going on in this piece.
Yeah, if he's saying that, he's wrong.
The best I can square the circle is, if you emphasize "normie dem" stuff, then you definitely seem more moderate than a progressive does. Of course in that case "seeming moderate" is the side-effect, not the message.
How you’re a moderate matters. You might be a moderate by being completely anti-abortion but also wanting really high gas taxes, or you might be a moderate by saying you’re going to cut taxes, raise welfare spending, and reduce inflation. (What, are the voters going to know you’re lying?) The second set of messages is more popular, and each position is also more moderate individually.
I'd be interested in looking at the effect of contrasting the candidates. Pro-Harris or anti-Trump aren't the only options. You can do both at the same time.
Also, I find that a lot of people genuinely don't know and/or have forgotten things about Trump. There's a reason his numbers rise when he's out of the public eye and dip whenever people see him.
I think these types of studies are important and worthwhile, but as the writers basically admit ("not the be-all end-all"), they should be interpreted with caution. I imagine the precise messaging matters, whether pro-Harris out anti-Trump.
I think that's a contrast between free media and paid media. Voters watching Trump say something stupid is probably more persuasive than Democrats saying something negative about him yet again.
Future Forward testing finds that contrast ads do the best.
Thanks, Milan. Hope you're well!
I have seen two Harris ads to date, one from a PAC and one from the campaign. Both were positive Harris ads in a normie vein, if a little on the gauzy side.
For me it's a shame that this article didn't engage with the opposition to this approach. Dems should campaign on social security and Medicare is an extremely old idea that as the article softly acknowledges has lost some support in recent years. I think engaging with that dynamic would be more informative than simply restating an old idea. Is the evidence cited in this article really groundbreaking, or was ad testing also available in 2020 and for some reason did not lead the Biden campaign to adopt this approach?
Also, maybe engage with Project 2025? The attack on Trump that's proven so effective that Republicans are trying to write it out of history?
EDIT: aight I'll put my brief version of the Beutler/Stancil "vibes theory of politics": it makes a huge difference what the discourse is about. Open Reddit right now and you'll see people laughing at conservatives who are tweeting that JD Vance couch sex jokes are like Nazism and calling Trump weird is evil. Democrats look chill and fun, Republicans look deranged and also are too busy dealing with couch jokes to focus on their goal of defining Harris as a phony Hamas supporting communist who will turn your children trans.
I think part of the point of this post is that "groundbreaking" isn't necessarily valuable. Having proof that the same-old-same-old is actually valuable, and the recent years of engaging with Trump on his extremeness haven't been helping.
For those of us here, the idea of not being able to predict a candidate's position on Medicare, Social Security, or the minimum wage by only knowing their party seems odd. But swing voters aren't the type of people who subscribe here.
I would say I am a swing voter??? And I am here
Not a single person here is representative of swing voters, even if they happen to be one.
Lol.. ok
If you’re using Reddit to gauge how normal people feel about the election you’ll be in for a rude awakening.
Republicans think these narratives are important enough to be spending their time fighting them.
And Reddit it not a good place to get a pulse on the efficacy on that.
I think you should ride the vibes thing as far as it goes, but be ready for it to peter out. And then you have to settle into the more normal politics, having hopefully gleaned some information from the few weeks that the vibes bought you.
There was a time in the not too distant past where Democrats felt very out of touch by always trying to bring things back to kitchen table issues in a way that felt awkward and overly message tested. I suspect the key will be finding a way to use well tested messages in a way that feels authentic and not like you're reading the results of a poll test to voters.
I also think if Trump suddenly starts staying on message about how great social security is, then my sense is this strategy won't work as well. But as long as Trump saying crazy shit, then Dems can feel safe by talking about kitchen table issues. Which means Dems need to find ways to keep getting under Trumps skin so he says crazy shit, while also sticking to their own "normal" talking points.
"There was a time in the not too distant past where Democrats felt very out of touch by always trying to bring things back to kitchen table issues in a way that felt awkward and overly message tested."
The Bush years were weird.
I just want to point out that using what people are talking about on social media as proof that the discourse is important is tautological. Do we have any evidence other than vibes that social media is worth paying attention to at all as a guide to elections?
Republicans win about half of elections, despite policies that on average are less popular and candidates that are often crazy. In 2020 they didn't have a platform at all. They spend vast effort on political theatre - Benghazi, Ebola, EMAILS!, Hunter, on and on and on it goes.
So: they seem better at campaigning (more votes relative to policy popularity) and they use different tactics. It seems logical to try to replicate some of their success (but not the specific toxic/untrue messages).
What successes? They handed Democrats a trifecta in 2020, and despite winning half of all elections the last major piece of legislation they signed that wasn’t a tax cut was in 2007. It’s easy to outperform your platform when you simply never enact your platform (or wait for the courts to do it).
Take a step back. Democrats are around 50:50 to beat a truly awful opponent. Defeat could be catastrophic. That seems very bad to me and merits being open to new thinking. Doesn't mean you have to abandon kitchen table issues entirely. But open to trying qto do better
Taking the outside view, it seems unlikely that Democrats could outperform Republicans by employing the same strategies Republicans use. I think instead the takeaway is that, because Republicans have unpopular policies, they are forced to run on vibes and never enact those policies, and voters are generally happy enough with the status quo or Republican vibes to vote for them, unless Democrats offer something they actively want.
That's fair enough. I guess to go back to where I started, I wish the article had engaged with that option.
Lost every popular vote for President after 1988, save one...
You don't get anything for winning the popular vote for President. Republicans are good at focusing on how to win power. Dems could use that skill.
The response is to the idea that they are "better at campaigning". There is no evidence of that. They have a structural advantage compared to Dems in the EC, the Senate, and in more-gerrymandered House seats in red states. Accounting for natural thermostatic reactions and polarization at the national level, you can make the argument that their recent campaigning (McCain, Romney, Trump, Trump, Trump) has sucked.
American policy is just *way* more right wing than peer countries. Part of that is history and the structure of the system. But I think acting as if that has *nothing* to do with skill by the right wing party is misguided.
The most powerful messaging is through words linked to action. One major example we saw earlier and will see again soon - bipartisan border bill for Senate consideration and inevitable Republican defeat - Harris campaign ads underscore GOP hypocrisy and Democratic willingness to find reasonable bipartisan solutions. Chef’s kiss is Trump record of having done ZILCH when President and control of both chambers of Congress.