As Kamala Harris tries to stitch together an electorate to beat Donald Trump, there’s one key voter bloc where she’s lagging behind Joe Biden’s 2020 numbers: moderates.
A new study from center-left think tank Third Way, exclusively provided to NOTUS, shows that Harris’ support among self-identified moderates has room to grow, particularly if she wants to match Biden’s 2020 performance in battleground states.
Alarmingly for the Harris campaign, the gaps are widest in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, where her support among moderates is projected to be 4 percentage points or more behind Biden.
“Moderate voters — who are so essential for Harris to pick up — they’re more open to voting for Harris than voting for Trump,” Lucas Holtz, the author of the study, told NOTUS. “Reaching those folks every single day is what is going to really push her over the edge.”
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“But, she does need to win that supermajority,” he added.
On the whole, Biden won 62% of self-proclaimed moderate voters in 2020, continuing a trend for successful Democratic presidential candidates. (Since 1980, only one Democratic candidate has managed to win without a supermajority of moderates: Barack Obama in 2012, who still won 56% of moderates.)
But if you ask Third Way, Harris needs to break 60% with moderates to win.
The tracking is particularly bleak in Georgia, where Republicans have heavily turned out in early voting and Harris is tracking toward a 6% drop from Biden’s 65% in the state. In Wisconsin, she’s at 59% to Biden’s 64% in 2020. In Michigan, it’s 57% to Biden’s 62%. Nevada? She’s behind 55% to Biden’s 59%.
Of course, Harris is desperately trying to win over moderates. Her campaign has largely been defined by a political shift to the right, particularly on immigration and the southern border. She’s also made extensive use of Trump’s enemies in the GOP, hauling former GOP lawmakers and aides across the major battleground states.
She even went on Fox News for an interview with Bret Baier.
According to a Democratic operative close to the campaign, part of the problem may just be the polling. This person suggested, based on internal focus groups conducted for the Harris campaign, that some moderates are reluctant to express support for Trump “because they don’t want to be harassed.”
“We gotta work, don’t get me wrong,” this person added.
While Harris is below the thresholds of Biden’s 2020 coalition in swing states, Third Way still feels like there’s reason to be optimistic about the current trajectory.
“She’s doing everything she needs to do on that front,” Holtz said. “Campaigning with Liz Cheney shows where her priority is at with the center of the electorate.”
Third Way compiled the data by averaging battleground polls with voter breakdowns.
For some Democrats, the data is just another cause for concern in an extremely close race. But Holtz believes there’s a silver lining in the analysis: Pennsylvania.
The state that may be more critical than any other shows Harris running just 1% behind Biden’s numbers in Pennsylvania, 58% to 59%. (Third Way also expressed optimism about Harris’ numbers in North Carolina, though polling averages show Trump with a consistent — but small — advantage there.)
In Pennsylvania, however, it’s a true toss-up. Both campaigns have been scrambling to find an edge in the state — and some Democrats believe there’s reason to believe Harris could actually be in a better spot than other polling with other voting blocs suggests.
“So the race is a dead heat right now with all these pollsters saying Trump’s getting 20% of the Black male vote,” the Democratic operative said. “Well, what happens when he only gets 12% of it?”
Third Way also tallied how much moderate support Harris needs to win each battleground by correlating with Biden’s margin of victory in a specific state, such as Michigan. In some swing states, the data suggests Harris can fall short of the 60% threshold with moderates and still win.
Again, the data was positive for Harris in Pennsylvania, where polling has her a single percentage point behind her target of 59% with moderates. It’s the same story in Michigan.
Potential Harris victories in those two states would leave Trump hanging by a single thread, almost literally. If Harris wins Pennsylvania and Michigan, Trump would likely have to sweep every other battleground state, including Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Wisconsin.
While Harris’ best path to the White House includes a heavy dose of moderates, Trump’s is a little different. With conservatives comprising a larger base of voters, the study projects Trump could win with less than 40% support from moderates.
“Given where she currently stands in the polls, Harris and her campaign have an opportunity to build a broad ideological coalition with moderate and conservative voters alike backing Harris at 2020 levels,” the study said. “Falling short on this task would likely result in a Trump victory.”
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Ben T.N. Mause is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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