Since replacing Joe Biden on the democratic ticket in late July, Kamala Harris’ election campaign has gained huge momentum, but it is very rarely because of her policies.
Instead, the campaign is largely built on an overarching message of hope, progress and freedom combined with scathing remarks about her opponents.
This strategy has been undoubtedly working for Harris and it is clearly based on the hard lessons learned from the Hilary Clinton campaign, as well as the Republicans attacks on Biden over the last six years.
Many voters viewed Clinton as a cold, out of touch micromanager with a lot of skeletons in her closet, while Biden has largely been condemned for his age.
As such, the Harris campaign has gone all out on promoting Kamala as a younger, more vibrant and hopeful candidate that will push for progress and not let the country go backwards.
“We’re not going back” has become something of a slogan for the campaign, and is one of the key pillars of Harris’ teams’ strategy.
The other main pillar, and the thing that truly sets the Harris campaign apart from Clinton, is attacking Republicans.
Abandoning the old ‘they go low, we go high’ mantra of Michelle Obama, the Democrats have attacked republicans for there corruption, hypocrisy, incompetence and most importantly, just how weird many of their candidates are.
This ‘Weird’ branding has been incredibly effective for Democrats as Republicans are scrambling to fight against the label.
Republican media outlets like Fox News and One America News have been struggling to fight back against the label which has not been helped by the candidates themselves.
Both Trump and Vance have been repeatedly bombing on the campaign trail with nonsensical ramblings, alienating answers and general unreliability.
This contrasts massively with the Harris campaign who have continually built-up momentum since Harris replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket.
Republicans have struggled to attack Harris and have struggled even more against her running mate Tim Walz.
Walz is the image of everything that Republicans claim to value, meaning they have really struggled to attack his image.
One thing that has become incredibly apparent on both sides however is that policy is very much an afterthought in this campaign.
The massive success of Harris’ campaign online has come from her message of hope, progress and overreaching ideas rather than individual policies.
That’s not to say that her campaign has been entirely devoid of policies as they do have a few pivotal policies that they are using to prop up their message of hope.
The biggest policy of the campaign is that of reproductive freedoms as Republicans at all levels of government have been attacking abortion rights for years which is very unpopular amongst women.
This is what has fueled a lot of Harris’ messaging about freedom and also explains her choice of campaign song.
Her other major policy is to implement universal background checks when purchasing a firearm.
This policy is viewed by Republicans as a massive overstep of big government restricting the people’s freedoms, despite their own attempts to restrict women’s freedoms, and as a violation of the Second Amendment.
The policy however is massively popular amongst democrats, progressives and many moderates due to Americas massive gun violence and mass shooting problems.
Outside of these two flagship policies however, the Democrats have been very quiet about policy.
This is likely on purpose as the overarching messaging of hope and vigour is far more effective against the nihilistic messaging of the Trump campaign while also allowing Harris’ charm and charisma to take centre stage rather than focusing on dull policy like the Clinton campaign did.
The approach however has been undeniably effective and has captured a since of optimism and momentum that hasn’t been seen 2008.
As such the approach is not like to change anytime soon but this may end up coming back to bite Harris if she gets into the White House.
Featured image credit: BBC News
Features Editor and Head of Podcasting.
Fourth-year Journalism and Politics student.
Primarily focus of Politics, Technology, Gaming and Pop-Culture
