The Kamala Coalition

I’m seeing reports about Kamala Harris reviving the Obama coalition and also engaging various other collections of potential voters and while all of that appears to be true (we can’t know for sure until the polls close in November) I keep thinking that there is something more going on than those reports are capturing. I have encountered voters who don’t match any of those constituencies who have become reanimated politically and who (unexpectedly to me) have expressed not just support for Harris but enthusiasm for her – even when they have policy differences with her.

For all the people who became newly engaged in politics with the arrival of Trump I don’t think pundits have appreciated how many voters have been growing more disengaged as politicians across the spectrum have adopted the same kind of combative, divisive time and techniques that Trump and his acolytes have popularized in the last few election cycles.