Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign is having “flashbacks to 2016” and Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump according to a new report from CNN.
One of the story’s authors, Priscilla Alvarez, joined Dana Bash on air to discuss it on Wednesday.
“This has been a campaign that was described by multiple Democrats, allies, aides to the vice president as a good vibes campaign. But what’s also creeping in now is that anxiety. The reason for that is because these polls are not really moving despite multiple battleground blitzes, despite the opportunities she has had across media outlets. There is still not a lot of movement from voters who are moving more towards her versus former President Donald Trump,” Alvarez told Bash. “In fact, I had one source describe it to me this way. Quote, ‘People are nervous. They know the polls are tight… a lot of us are having these flashbacks to 2016, too. We know when it can go the wrong way, and it can still feel fresh.'”
“So 2016 is the key here. When I talk to Harris campaign officials it often comes up in conversation. Where did Hillary Clinton have her pitfalls and where can they make up that ground and build on what Joe Biden did in 2020?” she added before concluding that there is “certainly some anxiety and nerves setting in as election day gets closer and those polls just remain deadlocked.”
When she finished, Bash noted that she talked to a Democratic activist on Tuesday who said she felt the party was “sleepwalking into 2016,” before turning to Kayla Tausche for more analysis.
“Yeah, and it’s definitely a cautionary tale that still comes up in a lot of conversations. And I think that where Priscilla was talking about how it’s informing some of the strategy is important, but it’s also important to remember the polling from back in 2016,” replied Tausche.
“Obviously, there was a very big issue with polling back then not capturing the would be Trump voter, whether they were not picking up the phone or they had a general distrust of pollsters. And while some of that still exists, pollsters have tried to recalibrate the data. But this time eight years ago, Hillary Clinton was up by 12 points over Donald Trump. She had 50%, Trump had about 38%. And so when you look at these polls that showed that Harris and Trump are still within the margin of error, and you compare it to 2016, that right there is one of the main reasons why you have that anxiety,” she concluded.
Watch above via CNN.
