If there’s one thing we can count on with the 2024 presidential election, now only weeks away, is that it will be contentious, divisive, and partisan, just like it’s always been in the age of former president Donald Trump. However, there are signs that Kamala Harris is making inroads with voters not traditionally expected to vote for her.
According to a new CNN poll, Harris is leading her opponent with college-graduated white people by 18 points, a historic level never before seen by a Democratic candidate. This margin is double Joe Biden’s in 2020 (nine points) and more than triple Hillary Clinton’s in 2016 (five points). This has left people thinking she’ll do much better with Republicans than originally thought. One commenter asserts she will absolutely make history when it comes to Republicans and that it will be within an unprecedented margin.
Others think Trump’s divisiveness is growing stale and that people want to hear more about policies and messages of bipartisanship than the vitriolic politics of today.
Kamala is doing historically better than Trump with all voters with a college degree as well, with a healthy 21-point lead over her opponent. This is important because the percentage of voters with a college degree has doubled since 1980, when only about 20% had one. Now it hovers around 41%.
If Harris wins the election, this would be the largest win with white college grads for a Democrat in recorded history. That isn’t all. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in August shows about a quarter of Republicans view the Harris campaign in a favorable light.
There have also been several high-profile Republican endorsements for the vice president. Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President to Republican President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, recently campaigned with Harris in Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party. This was not by accident. Harris is clearly trying to attract as many voters from the other side as she can.
Harris and Cheney appeared together at a rally where banners said “Country Over Party.” “In this election, putting patriotism ahead of partisanship is not an aspiration. It is our duty,” Cheney said.
About two dozen Wisconsin Republicans endorsed Harris, calling the presidential race “a choice between the Wisconsin values of freedom, democracy, and decency that Vice President Harris and Governor Walz represent, and Donald Trump’s complete lack of character, divisive rhetoric, and extremism.”
In September, about 100 ex-Republican Congress members and former officials from the administrations of George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Trump signed a letter endorsing Harris and calling out Trump for having “contempt for the norms of decent, ethical and lawful behavior.”
Other signs show that this is a growing trend as well. A new survey by The New York Times/Siena College reveals that the proportion of people who self-identify as Republicans and say they plan to vote for Harris has doubled in the past month. Previously, the number was at around 5% and now it’s at 9%. That’s almost one in 10.
This by no means insinuates the election is a sure thing for the Harris-Walz campaign, but it does illustrate how even in his own party, many are tired of the Trump era of divisive politics.
