Letter from America | Kamala needs more than good vibes

CHRISTOPHER is my Uber driver to JFK International Airport in New York. It is 3pm, and in this city (like in Cape Town) you must leave by 2.30 to avoid traffic hell. We are already too late. The cars are bumper to bumper on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Christopher is a third-generation Dominican American. He says he has never voted in an election. “What difference will it make to my life whether it’s Harris or Trump?"

We are snaking along the freeway. 

“That is not America,” he says, nodding to Manhattan on our left. That is America." He points to the right, the borough of Queens. “Let me show you," he says. “We have to get off the freeway anyway. Otherwise, we aren't going to make the airport on time."

We drive along blocks of small walk-ups with porches. Corner shops (bodegas). Car washes and motels. Diners. Strip malls.

If he were to vote, I ask, who would he vote for? 

He gives a little laugh. “Not for Harris, that's for sure. Ordinary working folk are hurting. Our lives have not gotten better in the Biden years. They have gotten worse."

Christopher has two small children. His wife is a stay-at-home mom. Two or three years ago, their monthly grocery bill was between $500 and $600. Now, he says, he needs $900.

He hands me his phone to show me his Instagram page. He is a motorbike enthusiast. There is a picture of him in black and orange leathers, holding his infant daughter in his helmet.

“Those days are gone," he says. “I sold my motorbike. I thought it would help us just even out. But that never happened. Life is a lot harder. Everyone feels it. I feel it.

“I have to work longer hours because there are fewer rides. My barber feels it. The guy who owns the bodega feels it. Hell, even the drug dealers are feeling it. And Trump is a businessman. He understands the economy. If I had to vote, I would vote for him, and so would ‘my demographic'."

And what is this demographic, I ask

“Ordinary working Latinos," he says.

The Latino vote

Latinos comprise 15% of the US electorate, with California and Texas having the highest number.

This demographic's power expands in each election; its share of the electorate has doubled since 2000, making Latinos the second-fastest-growing voter bloc. 

While Democrats have consistently secured the overall Latino vote, the extent of that advantage has varied. In 2012, Barack Obama won 71% of the Latino vote. In 2004, the Republicans under George W Bush cut into that, earning 40% of the bloc's support. In 2020, the pendulum returned to the Democrats, with Biden winning 65% of the Latino vote over Trump’s 32%.

“It’s the economy, stupid," was coined by Bill Clinton's chief strategist in his successful 1992 campaign against George Bush. In what will, by all accounts, be a savagely close race between Trump and Harris, the economy will once again loom large. For Latino voters, economic concerns are more important than anything else.

UnidosUS is the largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organisation, and its data hub includes a 2023 survey in which 54% of respondents named inflation and the rising cost of living their top concerns, while 44% said jobs and the economy were their biggest worries.

Turnout has, however, always been a critical issue with Latino voters. In the last midterm elections in 2022, Latino turnout trailed the national average by 46%. This is most acute in the 18 to 29-year-old bracket – only 14% voted in 2022.

One in four eligible Latino voters say they are undecided or unlikely to vote on November 5.

Stemming the surge

Before President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the Democratic ticket, there was talk of a massive Latino surge for Trump. However, Harris's entry has not only excited the Democratic base in general but brought the Latino vote back into a historically normal range.

Equis Research is a Democratic polling firm that focuses on Latinos. Its latest poll of 2,183 registered voters who identify as Hispanic or Latino suggests Harris has turned around the lagging support from Latinos. However, she is still a few points short of the level Biden achieved in 2020. 

In the seven most competitive states – Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – Harris leads Trump among registered Hispanic voters by 56% to 37%.

The poll memo says: “Out the gate, the vice president has quickly amassed the support of a wide swathe of discontented Hispanic voters, and she still has running room. What those last Latino voters do could determine the results in hotly contested states."

Harris has made her best gains among Latinos who identify as liberal, but she is also doing better than Biden among those who say they hold moderate views (up 12 points) and conservatives (up seven points). 

A unique issue in the former Biden-Trump match-up was a significant subsection of the voting public who said they disliked both candidates. The polls now show that in the Latino bloc, Harris has secured 65% of these so-called “double haters" compared to 11% for Trump.

Some 15% of registered Latinos still fall into the persuadable category, and their votes will be critical in the swing states.

Flip-flopping

The Harris campaign has undoubtedly saved the Democrats from what was becoming an ever more likely loss to Trump. Still, until now her campaign has been fuelled mainly by Democratic relief and euphoria.

As the race entered its last 80 days, the Harris/Walz ticket was in danger of starting to run on empty by powering itself on biography and feel-good fumes alone.

An ever-louder criticism has been Harris's lack of concrete policy plans. Vice presidents traditionally do not articulate views that differ from the president's, but with her surprise ascendancy to the head of the ticket, it has become critical that she make her policy vision clear. 

In her first weeks as a candidate, after she took over Biden's campaign towards the end of July, her policy pronouncements involved moving away from the liberal stances she took in her failed presidential bid in 2020, including proposals to ban fracking, decriminalise illegal border crossings, establish a single-payer healthcare system and abolish private health insurance – positions that are big, fat liabilities in this election.

The Trump campaign is aiming to paint Harris as a radical liberal and a flip-flopper, and its latest attack ads are using old videos of her discussing these policy positions.

“Kamala Harris has flip-flopped on virtually every policy she has supported and lived by for her entire career, from the Border to Tips, and the Fake News Media isn’t reporting it,” Trump posted on his Truth Social network on Sunday.

“She sounds more like Trump than Trump, copying almost everything. She is conning the American public, and will flip right back. I will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! There will be no flipping!!!”

Spin city

Harris's campaign is trying to portray her move away from the policies she embraced five years ago to the more centrist positions she now supports as a reflection of a consensus-seeking style.

“While Donald Trump is wedded to the extreme ideas in his Project 2025 agenda, Vice President Harris believes real leadership means bringing all sides together to build consensus,” Harris spokesman Kevin Munoz said this week. 

“It is that approach that made it possible for the Biden-Harris administration to achieve bipartisan breakthroughs on everything from infrastructure to gun violence prevention. As president, she will take that same pragmatic approach, focusing on common-sense solutions for the sake of progress.”

So, what are her policies now?

Harris's policy position is still developing.

She and Walz have spoken out on their support for abortion, their intention to ban assault-style weapons, and rather opaquely about their support for “building up the middle class”. The details have been relatively thin. 

So far, she has largely adopted the policies Biden pushed or implemented as president (restoring abortion access, raising the federal minimum wage, passing a new surtax on billionaires, and reforming the Supreme Court), in some cases adding her touch, such as an emphasis on lower-income Americans.

However, Harris needs to define a clear political identity far more robustly; otherwise, she risks being railroaded by Republicans into a caricature of her 2020 persona.

The honeymoon is over. In the next 80 days, the gloves will come off. At a rambling press conference (read a transcript here) at Mar-a-Lago on August 8, Trump said in his usual over-the-top style: “I’m doing tremendous amounts of taping here. We have commercials that are at a level I don’t think that anybody’s ever done before."

Those Republican attack ads will bring dense smog into the political atmosphere. They will portray Harris as a dangerous liberal, as “Flip-Flopping Kamala” who is not qualified for the Oval Office.

While Harris's relatively opaque political persona has been an advantage so far, allowing her to colour in the outlines with what has turned out to be a signature positivity, it will become a mortal liability unless she starts crayoning some serious policy positions into the equation as she unveils her economic agenda over the coming weeks.

♦ VWB ♦

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