Running low on freelancing projects so I figured I’d waste my time with a little speculation. The current political zeitgeist seems to be that it’s Kamala’s race to lose by virtue of the abortion issue and not being Biden or Trump. Polling is only just now starting to trickle in, but assuming she’s got the edge right now, how does it go wrong? Here are some scenarios:

  1. She picks Josh Shapiro as her VP and loses Michigan. Shapiro might help her lock in Pennsylvania, but he also “stands out among the current field of potential running mates as being egregiously bad on Palestine,” as David Klion writes for The New Republic. That might be enough to lose the support of Michigan’s significant Arab-American population and hand it to Trump, which is a big deal as many of the Democratic roads to electoral victory run through Michigan.
  2. Republican lawsuits gum up the ballot. While legal experts have generally dismissed the possibility that efforts to challenge Brandon’s dropout and swap to Kamala, this wouldn’t be the first time that such experts have been caught with their pants down on significant legal rulings. Even if these lawsuits don’t go anywhere, they could depress turnout by causing confusion and enabling the spread of misinformation in swing states.
  3. Trump forces J.D. Vance off the ticket and gets a VP with more rizz. Ironically, this would open the GOP up to the type of litigation from point 2, but with actual legal credence since the nomination process is complete. Might still be worth it since the dude seems to be a charisma vacuum.
  4. Kamala calls someone a honkey or cracker on a hot mic and white moderates freak out. This is my just for fun, pretty much. But like, what if?

Thoughts??

  • SSJMarxEnglish
    6·
    2 months ago

    I think the way she loses is complacency and over-reliance on polling. Same things that sunk Hillary, basically - don’t fund a ground game, don’t contest winnable states, don’t shore up loseable states. I’m fully in the “whoever excites their base the most wins” camp but I’m also in the “the American electorate have very short memories” camp - Kamala can’t expect the explosion of energy that followed Joe dropping out to be self-sustaining all the way to November, her campaign has to keep the energy up and if possible increase it.

    Alternate possibility: Kamala leans too hard into the coconut shit and starts talking like a terminal Twitter user and alienates all of the people who just got excited for her.