When all the dust settles on a chaotic few weeks of American politics, this year’s presidential race will look very different than it did before.
But despite the upheaval, there’s a good chance that the new matchup will look strangely familiar, even typical. In fact, it might look much more typical than the old Joe Biden-Donald Trump race.
After all, the Biden-Trump matchup stopped following the usual script long before what proved to be a fateful debate. Here are just a few of the ways that the race will be different now that Vice President Kamala Harris is in it.
A Democrat for change
Incumbency is usually an asset to a president seeking re-election. For President Biden, incumbency was a burden.
In polls, a majority of voters say they are deeply dissatisfied with the state of the country. They say the political and economic system is broken. In short, they want change.
Mr. Trump is a change candidate. Mr. Biden was not. Not only did he represent the status quo, but he also struggled to communicate a vision for his second term. His campaign to defend democracy and abortion rights was, essentially, an effort to defend the system and America as it was before Mr. Trump. Even Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign to “restore the soul of the nation” or bring a “return to normalcy” was a promise to return to pre-Trump politics. That may have seemed refreshing to voters amid the chaos of the Trump presidency, but it doesn’t seem to be enough for voters today.
With Ms. Harris, Democrats will have another chance to make the case that they can improve the nation’s fortunes. For one, she’s neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Trump — two figures who have been in public life for decades. For another, she’s not the president. She may be burdened by voters’ perceptions of Mr. Biden’s record, but she’ll have room to distinguish herself. She even has room to argue for a new direction.
The return of issues?
What has been the most hotly debated issue of the 2024 campaign so far?
By the standards of prior elections, there hasn’t really been one. Just think back to the 2020 election at this time, which was dominated by the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. If any issue has been dominant this year, it was Mr. Biden’s age — and that’s not typically what people mean by an “issue.”
Why haven’t the issues been front and center? Mr. Biden is a relatively moderate Democrat and his policies are generally popular, or at least not especially unpopular. (The border is perhaps the only major exception.) But he often appeared frail as a campaigner and didn’t seem able to land a major blow on Mr. Trump on issues like abortion, democracy, Project 2025 or even the several criminal indictments against him, including a conviction.
With Ms. Harris in the race, the issues might make a comeback. In the past, she staked out some left-leaning positions that can now leave her vulnerable to attack from Republicans, like banning fracking or supporting Medicare for all. Conversely, Democrats will have a vigorous campaigner capable of attacking Mr. Trump on abortion, democracy and more.
The return of the usual demographic divide?
Over the last year, polls have shown something surprising: a huge decline in Democratic support among young, Black and Hispanic voters, even as Mr. Biden held his own among older, white working-class voters.
The unusual demographic pattern yielded unusual results in the state polling as well. Mr. Biden stayed resilient in relatively white Northern battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, even as Mr. Trump surged ahead nationwide and in the competitive Sun Belt states.
Oddly, it was enough to diminish the Republican advantage in the Electoral College relative to the popular vote, as Mr. Trump made big gains in relatively noncompetitive, diverse states that wouldn’t earn him any additional Electoral College votes.
If the early polling on a Harris-Trump matchup is any indication, this unusual trend might fade. Ms. Harris has fared better than Mr. Biden among young, Black and Hispanic voters in most polls so far this year.
To this point, most Harris-Trump polling has not shown Ms. Harris reaching typical Democratic benchmarks among Black, Hispanic and younger voters. Still, the numbers look somewhat more typical than the Biden-Trump polling. Georgia, Nevada and Arizona may turn out to be newly competitive.
White working-class voters return to front and center?
For the last six decades, Democratic fortunes in presidential elections usually turned on how they did with white, moderate, often working-class swing voters.
Two Democratic presidents elected since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, Bill Clinton and Mr. Biden, were all but intentionally selected to help their party among white, moderate swing voters. Another was a moderate Southerner (Jimmy Carter). And the other, Barack Obama, focused relentlessly on assuaging their concerns — and managed to excel among white working-class voters (in the North) with the help of a populist economic pitch.
The Biden-Trump matchup wasn’t fitting into this framework. Mr. Biden had a lot of problems, but older and white working-class voters didn’t rank high on the list. Instead, young, Black and Hispanic voters appeared poised to defect from him. It set up an unusual election where usual Democratic constituencies were the key swing voters.
With Ms. Harris, Democrats have selected a candidate who may have more appeal to young and nonwhite voters than among white working-class moderates. As with most Democrats of the last 60 years, her campaign will have to think as much about addressing the concerns of those white blue-collar moderates as about anything else — beginning with her vice-presidential selection.
When will we know?
On Monday, we republished our polling averages with the Harris-Trump matchup, and it showed Mr. Trump leading Ms. Harris by three percentage points. Almost all of these polls were conducted before President Biden left the race, so these numbers represent a baseline for judging what might come next more than they measure where things stand today.
But even once we do see a new set of Harris-Trump polls — and we’re in the field already — the race still won’t be especially clear. For very different reasons, the two candidates might be running with the wind at their back right now.
A strong set of polls for Mr. Trump could simply reflect lasting good will in the wake of the assassination attempt and his party’s convention. If Ms. Harris leads in coming polls, one could say it’s only because she’s benefiting from a wave of endorsements that will soon give way to renewed scrutiny and Republican attacks.
And no matter what, the electorate still hasn’t seen much of Ms. Harris as a presidential candidate — most haven’t heard her message, and they haven’t heard the attacks against her, either. Her standing might improve in the weeks ahead; it might decline as well.
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