What do you think about where we are right now? I can't call it. - And I'm not. - Asking you to call it. I'm just asking you to help us understand. Like, where is that momentum going? It is heading towards Trump. But what's interesting is that with Harris focused on why she should be elected president, that's when her numbers grew. She's had the best 60 days of any presidential candidate in modern history. [00:00:18] And then the moment that she turned anti-Trump and focused on him and said, don't vote for me, vote against him, that's when everything froze. And if she continues just to define this race as vote against Trump, she's going to stay where she is now and she may lose. [00:00:35] Sound advice from pollster Frank Luntz, who has noticed, like pretty much everyone else, that the Harris campaign has in fact made a pivot in the type of messaging that they've engaged in during this presidential campaign. And since that pivot was made, she has kind of been paralyzed in the polling, [00:00:55] and Donald Trump has been able to close his lead or close her lid, I should say, on him nationally and in some of these swing states. So it's certainly concerning. We have less than two weeks to go in this presidential election, and early voting has already taken place. [00:01:12] In fact, there's a record number of early votes in states like Georgia. And so it might be too late in some instances for Kamala Harris to change course. But I think it would be better for her to change course now rather than continue on. But there is some good news on that end. [00:01:28] So please stick around for the examples that I'm going to show you. Now, look, her campaign lately has consisted of yes, campaigning with neo cons like Liz Cheney. You guys all know how I feel about that. I think that that's a mistake. But there's also a lot of negative campaigning, very similar to what we saw [00:01:47] from Joe Biden in regard to Donald Trump. So, for instance, there's a new Harris campaign ad where you have like, this ominous, you know, disembodied voice that warns about what will happen in a second Trump term, that it will be worse than his first. [00:02:04] He's going to be surrounded by loyalists who will only enable him. Then you have certain rally events, like the one that recently happened in Erie, Pennsylvania, where she warned about project 2025. So you get the point. You know, it's more negative messaging, which is pretty different from the joyous, [00:02:23] positive, optimistic messaging we saw from Harris once she was named as Joe Biden's replacement. She also has called Trump increasingly unhinged, and she says that Trump poses a threat to our fundamental freedoms. Now, look, whether you agree with that message or not, put that aside. [00:02:40] Right. This is about what is working in terms of persuading the electorate to support her over Donald Trump, or over the decision to just stay home or write in a candidate. And so today, she actually held a press conference where she repeated former Trump [00:02:57] chief of staff John Kelly's claims that Trump is a fascist. Take a look. He said he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler had. Donald Trump said that because he does not want a military that is loyal [00:03:13] to the United States Constitution, he wants a military that is loyal to him. He wants a military who will be loyal to him personally, one that will obey his orders even when he tells them to break the law or abandon their oath [00:03:31] to the Constitution of the United States. So again, you know, these types of stories, these types of statements about Donald Trump coming from the Harris campaign are obviously the types of statements that would concern Democratic voters. [00:03:47] But Democratic voters are already on Kamala Harris's side. They're already planning to vote for her. So it's really about the undecided voters, and that's what the pollsters have been focusing on. And they've realized that there are pretty much no gains for [00:04:03] the Kamala Harris campaign as she engages in the negative campaigning. Again, you can agree with what she is saying. You can agree that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. That is different from whether or not that messaging is persuasive [00:04:19] to the undecided voters. And now, clearly resorting to shaming, by the way voters has been counterproductive to some extent. I'll give you the example of Obama telling black male voters that, you know, if they're hesitant or don't want to vote for Kamala Harris, [00:04:37] well, it must be because they have an issue with sexism or misogyny. I'm paraphrasing clearly. And look, I'm going to be honest, I'm actually kind of shocked at how angry people got after that statement. I know I personally would be annoyed if, you know, I came out and said, [00:04:54] oh, I'm iffy about Kamala Harris and someone accused me of being sexist or racist or something like that. I'd be annoyed by that for sure. But in previous presidential campaigns, there has been a lot of shaming from the Democratic Party, from the Democratic campaign. [00:05:10] And I tend to feel like to some extent it works. But it didn't work when it came to Obama's statements about, you know, young black male voters. And so there was an interesting segment done by MSNBC. Alex Wagner talked to some voters at a barbershop. [00:05:28] Obviously, this is anecdotal evidence. It's not indicative of how all black males in the country are feeling. But I think what they had to say was worth listening to. So let's take a look. Obama made remarks on the campaign trail. He was at a stop, I think Pittsburgh, right. [00:05:46] And he said, I think there's some brothers out there who are on the fence and they're saying it's because of this or that, but I think I'm paraphrasing here, but it's because they have a problem electing a woman as president. I was deeply offended, and it felt like a moment where it's like, you inwards, [00:06:02] better get in line and do what we say. And it felt like the him as the czar of the Democratic Party, coming down to say, go get these n-words in line. And the general tone of it was disgusting. It was abhorrent. I don't respect it. I didn't like nothing about it. [00:06:18] And Kamala, two days after that is like, we love our we love our black men. We have programs and things that we're rolling out for them. And she rolled out policy. Good cop, bad cop, you know, because I'm tired of the good cop, bad cop, but I'm tired of it. [00:06:34] I thought that point about the good cop bad cop was just so observant because it's so true. And, you know, not only in this specific case, but you see that play out in congressional issues all the time. [00:06:50] You know, when you have various factions within the Democratic Party debating the passage of legislation, you see the good cop, bad cop nonsense all the time. In fact, when Biden's agenda was being debated among Democrats in the Senate, [00:07:05] remember, the bad cops were the Kyrsten Sinema and the Joe Manchin's. But there was a whole host of other Democratic corporate Democrats in the Senate who certainly were not on board with some of the social safety net programs that Biden purported to be in favor of. [00:07:21] So I totally hear that when they talk about good cop, bad cop. But anyway, I also want to note that in that conversation, there were individuals, young males, who said, yeah, there is to some extent an issue of sexism in the country. So they made general comments about that. [00:07:38] But overall, all of the feedback that I have seen since Obama, you know, kind of tried to shame black voters into supporting Kamala, it's been negative. And so I think that there is limited utility to that type of negative campaigning as well. [00:07:54] So what are people looking for? I don't think that it's really that difficult to figure it out. People are looking for a message that gives them hope, something to look forward to, a reason, a policy, something to latch onto that voters can, you know, cite as their reason for why the candidate that they're voting for, [00:08:14] they believe will make their lives better. And I do think that Kamala Harris started out that way. I don't know why she made the pivot, but the pivot has not worked out well for her. It is reflected in the polling. And I want to give you even more information about this, because as you guys all know, [00:08:30] when you look at the polling in regard to what the priorities are for the voters, what's at the top of that list every single time? The economy. It's the economy, stupid. Like it's not rocket science. And so there was an interesting poll done. [00:08:48] This was a data that was compiled by the center for Working Class Politics in partnership with YouGov. And they recently tested various political messages on workers of every kind blue collar workers, voters in battleground states [00:09:04] in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. They also polled, you know, professionals, white collar workers. You guys get the point. And they wanted to see, okay, what kind of messaging from Kamala Harris would actually appeal to these American workers. [00:09:21] And it is pretty incredible to see it because it seems pretty intuitive. But I hope that Harris's campaign is getting this message. So here's what they found. Economically focused messages and messages that employed a populist [00:09:37] narrative fared best relative to Trump style messages about Biden's competence. Immigration. Corporate elites. Critical race theory. Inflation. Election integrity and tariffs. Meanwhile, Harris's messages on abortion and immigration [00:09:54] fared worse than any of the economic or populist messages we tested, which is an interesting finding because obviously the rollback of reproductive rights has been a massive political liability for the Republican Party. [00:10:09] That was certainly the case in the midterm elections. And I think Democrats were kind of banking on that still being the case for the presidential election. I still think that it's a powerful message. And I have no problem with Kamala Harris talking about reproductive rights [00:10:25] and what the rollback of those rights has done to women in many red states across the country. So I'm not telling her to drop that. But the point is, the economic messaging really did reign supreme according to what the participants of this poll were saying. [00:10:41] Let's get to some more of it. So yet no message was as unpopular as the one we call the Democratic threat message. It was the least popular message among the working class constituencies Harris and the Democrats need most among blue collar workers, a group that leans Republican. [00:11:01] The Democratic threat message was a whopping 14.4 points underwater relative to the average support for Trump's messages. That's that's a big deal. That is a very big deal. [00:11:16] Now, the the study didn't really go into why that is. Like, why is it that the threat to democracy messaging isn't really working out well for the voters? It could be, you know, a an element of fatigue, right? [00:11:31] Hearing the same message and the same, you know, scare tactics starts to lose its effectiveness. The more and more you hear it, that's a possibility. It could be that some voters just don't believe it for whatever reason. And look, we're talking about blue collar workers who tend to lean Republican. [00:11:48] So maybe they're more primed to not believe a message like that. So why don't we take a look at left leaning voters that participated in this polling among more liberal leaning service and clerical workers, it was also the least popular message, finishing only 1.6 percentage points [00:12:08] ahead of the Trump average. Even among professionals, the most liberal of the bunch and the group that liked the message the best, the message barely outperformed Trump's messages. That is insane. Like, I would not have predicted that. That is incredibly surprising. [00:12:26] But the opposite is true when it comes to economic populist messaging, because people are going to worry about what's happening in their personal lives, and they're going to worry about their personal finances and whether or not they are thriving before anything else. [00:12:42] And remember, guys, I think this is just my speculation. So this was not included in this polling. But my concern is that as our political system becomes more and more corrupt as a result of, you know, campaign [00:12:57] finance laws and how unlimited, you know, corporate money and billionaire money can flow into these super PACs as a result of members of Congress trading individual stocks and essentially being able to make decisions that, in the end, really do enrich them. Personally, I think Americans just don't have warm, fuzzy feelings about how [00:13:18] this democracy is working out for them. And so when you constantly talk about like, oh, this is a threat to democracy, I think there's some portion of the electorate that looks at our political system and thinks, this hasn't really worked out so well for me. I'm worried about what's happening in my bank account. [00:13:33] I'm worried about being able to fund my children's education. You know, these are bread and butter issues that obviously tend to concern American voters more than anything else. So let's get to some more information here. [00:13:49] So you know, the opposite is true when it comes to the economic populist messaging, as I mentioned, so strong populist messaging that combined progressive economic policies with strong condemnation of billionaires, [00:14:05] big corporations and the politicians who serve them actually performed the best with all workers, all workers. That includes blue collar workers, service workers, clerical workers, and even professionals. Because guess what? Work is work. [00:14:20] Work is work, people. All right. Does it matter what your job is? People are going to want to know that if they're putting in the 40 hours a week, if they're busting their butts, if they're doing overtime, they want to make sure that they're going to be able to afford a decent life, a good life. [00:14:38] And, you know, inflation is something that is being held against the Democratic Party because inflation became a problem under Biden. I think that it's unfair to blame Biden to some extent. I wish he had done something about the price gouging as the price gouging was happening. [00:14:54] So I do think that he deserves some of the blame. But what I believe Kamala Harris needs to do to kind of overpower the negativity that comes along with the inflation is to be specific and and clear about what she intends to do to improve [00:15:09] the economic conditions for Americans. Among independents, the strong populist message was best received, and this is what matters the most. Guys, the independent voters, the swing voters, the undecided voters, they're the ones that both campaigns are trying to appeal to right now. [00:15:25] So let me give you the rest of that. So while the Democratic threat message was least favored, only Democrats strongly preferred the Democratic threat message, and even then it was among their least favorite. [00:15:40] So Kamala Harris isn't trying to appeal to Democratic voters. They're going to show up. They're going to vote for her. She needs to appeal to the swing voters and undecideds. Now let's get to some more where, you know, the writer of this piece, Dustin Guastalla, I think, concisely summed up what the issue is here. [00:16:01] He writes that if Harris loses, it'll be because the campaign and the candidate represent a party that is now fundamentally, fundamentally alien to many working people. A party so beholden to the contradictory mix of interests that in the effort [00:16:18] to appease everyone and offend no one, top strategists have rolled out a vague, unpopular and uninspiring pitch seemingly designed to help them replay the results of the 2016 election. That very last line I don't agree with entirely. [00:16:33] I think Hillary Clinton and the way that she campaigned in 2016 was actually far worse. But I do think that Kamala Harris has the ability to pivot back to something more inspiring, and I hope that she can get a little more specific about how she plans [00:16:49] to basically improve the economic conditions for all American workers. Now, here's the good news in an NBC news interview, Harris clearly seems to be getting the message about, hey, your pivot wasn't so great. You need to pivot back. Take a look. [00:17:05] Our new NBC news poll shows that more voters think that the Biden administration policies have hurt them rather than help them. And I wonder, are the last four years an obstacle to you in this race? Here's how I look at it. First of all, let me be very clear. [00:17:22] Mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration. I bring my own experiences, my own ideas to it, and it has informed a number of my areas of focus, most of which are onto your point lowering costs. So part of my plan includes what we need to do to bring down the price [00:17:37] of groceries, including the work I will do dealing with price gouging, something I dealt with when I was attorney general. Something I will deal with going forward. All right. There you go. She's obviously trying to differentiate herself from Joe Biden. She understands that, you know, saying things like, [00:17:55] oh, I wouldn't do anything different isn't going to work to her advantage considering how unpopular his presidency has been. So I like that she opened with making that distinction. And then she immediately talked about economic policies. Now, I mean, grocery store inflation, like when you go to the grocery store. [00:18:13] Yes, groceries are more expensive than they were in 2020, for sure, but inflation has slowed down. And I don't know if she's actually going to do something about it when she gets elected. But that's beside the point. Right. Policy is different from the politics she's trying to win. [00:18:30] And so focusing on an economic message, I think is far better than talking about how much you love Liz Cheney. And she was also asked about whether she thinks sexism is a problem. And honestly, I like this answer the most. Take a look. You've been reluctant to lean into to talk about the historic nature [00:18:47] of your candidacy on the campaign trail. Why is that? Well, I'm clearly a woman. I don't mean to point that out to anyone. The point that most people really care about is, can you do the job, and do you have a plan to actually focus on them? [00:19:03] There is a big gender gap in this race. Fewer men support you right now than they did President Biden. Some of your allies have suggested there's sexism at play. I wonder, do you think there is sexism at play here? Let me just tell you something. You've come to my events and you will see there are men and women at those events. [00:19:20] So the experience that I am having is one in which it is clear that regardless of someone's gender, They want to know that their president has a plan to lower cost, that their president has a plan to secure America in the context of our position around the world. [00:19:37] Do you not see sexism as a factor in this race at all? I don't think of it that way. My challenge is the challenge of making sure I can talk with and listen to as many voters as possible and earn their vote. [00:19:53] I thought that was great. I thought that was perfect. She didn't take the bait. She didn't do what Hillary Clinton loved to do, which is constantly whine, woe is me. You know, I'm running a perfect campaign and it's because of the sexism or it's because of Russia and it's because of the others, [00:20:08] and it's because of the electorate. I don't think that's a winning message. I love that Kamala Harris didn't take that bait. I think that that was perfect. So stay away from shaming people. Give them an optimistic future to look forward to and talk about how you're going [00:20:24] to make their lives better. Okay, we've heard the negative stuff about Trump. We all know. Everyone knows. It's just it's not working because I think it's so repetitive and people are looking for something positive to look forward to. [00:20:40] They want a reason to vote for Kamala Harris as opposed to, voting for Harris because they have a reason to vote against Donald Trump. I think people are fatigued from that as well. So I thought she handled that NBC news interview really well. [00:20:55] You should check the whole thing out and let me know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. You've got emojis of me Anna John Jr. So those are super fun. [00:21:14] But you also get playback of our exclusive member only shows and specials right after they air. So all of that, all you got to do is click that join button right underneath the video. Thank you.