How Kamala Harris is avoiding Hillary Clinton’s big mistake

No mention of gender or race can be found in Kamala Harris's official merchandise
No mention of gender or race can be found in Kamala Harris's official merchandise - Brent Gudenschwager/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

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Susan Sheehan did not want to vote for Joe Biden even before his disastrous presidential debate in June.

“I was concerned about his mental abilities,” Ms Sheehan, 61, from Ogunquit, in Maine, told The Telegraph.

A self-described “old-school Republican”, she had no intention of voting for Donald Trump who, she added, was “horrible to women”.

Upset by the overturning of Roe v Wade, Ms Sheehan was one of millions of women energised by Kamala Harris’s entry into the race.

“I think she’s great. I don’t think Kamala can promise to bring it back, but she’s definitely going to move us in the right direction.”

She is not alone. The latest polls show a surge in support for Ms Harris among women voters with the four-point lead the Democrats had under Joe Biden jumping to 11 points.

The Democratic National Convention, which began on Monday, is full of supporters in a celebratory mood.

Kamala Harris's appeal is across the board during this election
Kamala Harris's appeal is across the board during this election - Julia Beverly / Alamy Live News

In the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, Ms Harris has widened the gap among voters from 10 to 17 per cent.

Trump’s national lead among male voters is unchanged, according to the polls, at 9 per cent. In the swing states, his lead among men has fallen slightly from 17 points to 15.

This shift could prove decisive in November.

Women have voted in greater numbers than men for decades, according to academic research, conducted by the Centre for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, in New Jersey.

In the 2020 presidential election, 74.1 per cent of women eligible to vote registered, compared with 71.2 per cent of men.

The number of women turning up to vote has outstripped men in every presidential election since 1964, with 68.4 per cent of eligible women casting a ballot compared to 65 per cent of men four years ago.

Kamala Harris speaks to supporters during a campaign rally at Reelworks in Denver, Colorado
Kamala Harris's campaign is determined not to make the same mistake as the Hillary Clinton campaign - JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty Images

Debbie Walsh, the centre’s director, told The Telegraph: “There was such dissatisfaction for Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee.

“When a Democratic woman is running you will see a larger gap because it energises women voters, especially young voters who were particularly dissatisfied.

“But women are not monolithic. I would guess white women without a college degree are still pro-Trump, but not those with a degree as well as blacks and Latinos.”

Ms Harris has underplayed the prospect of the United States electing the first female president in its 248-year existence, unlike Hillary Clinton, who was due to address the convention on Monday night.

This is a marked contrast to the political landscape in 2016, when much was made of the prospect of breaking the glass ceiling by electing a woman to the White House.

Clinton campaign put gender centre-stage

The extent to which the Clinton campaign made gender a plank of its pitch to voters was reflected in the merchandise it sold to raise funds.

There was a Hillary 2016 badge with a picture of Rosie the Riveter – the Second World War cultural icon who was used to persuade women to work in factories. The slogan “I’m With Her” was also regularly touted.

Ms Harris’s message is very different. Her campaign ads emphasise her work as a district attorney to hammer home the theme of the prosecutor running against a felon.

Willie Ritch, a political strategist, told The Telegraph: “One of the things which is very refreshing about Kamala Harris is that she has stepped away from identity politics which has characterised the Democrats in the last few election cycles.”

She appears to be borrowing from Barack Obama, who did not foreground his race during the 2008 campaign, barring a few exceptions. Mr Obama is reported to be advising the Harris team and his campaign director, David Plouffe, has recently joined.

It is now the Republicans who are making identity an issue, whether it is Trump questioning Ms Harris’s racial origins or JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, attacking what he described as “childless cat ladies”.

Rather than take offence, the Harris campaign has branded the attacks as “weird”.

Carol Mosely Braun, the first black woman to serve in the US Senate after her 1993 election, has welcomed the tactical shift.

“I’m the first black this, I’m the first that gets you nowhere. It really puts you in a corner and leaves you open to being accused of playing the race card, and so she has not done that, and that’s very smart of her,” she told Politico.

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Mary Noone, a Democratic political strategist, told The Telegraph that concentrating on bread-and-butter concerns is a shrewd tactic. “We call them kitchen table issues:  education, childcare, the family budget. These matter to women voters,” she said.

“They are not going to make the mistake they made with Hillary Clinton when a lot of suburban white women voted for Donald Trump and have since been alienated by what he did on abortion.”

Christopher Galdieri, professor of politics at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, told The Telegraph that Ms Harris also does not have the baggage of Ms Clinton during her 2016 run.

He said: “Harris is a relatively blank slate so most Americans are encountering her for the first time amid enthusiasm from Democrats and generally favourable news coverage.

“Hillary Clinton, by contrast, had been in the public eye for decades before her 2016 run, and had spent that entire time being vilified by conservatives.

“So women voters are more likely to embrace Harris simply because she brings so much less baggage to the race.

“If Harris can hold onto or increase these margins with women, without a similar loss of support among men, she will be in a very strong position headed into election day.”

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