With less than two months until Election Day, Harris and Trump may face declining enthusiasm for their candidacies. The race will laregly be decided by voter enthusiasm driving turnout.
Here are three major warning signs for each candidate showing a risk of declining enthusiasm ahead of Election Day:
Harris: No boost from DNC
The Democratic National Convention was highly anticipated, with many observers believing that it could deal a mortal blow to the Harris campaign, similar to the infamous 1968 DNC riots, or inject new energy into the campaign, securing a Democratic victory in November.
Both of these expectations fell flat, as the convention largely came and went without major incident. Though the Democrats were spared the embarrassing display of 1968, the lack of a convention bump could signal a major decline in enthusiasm among Democrats.
“There was a surge of enthusiasm for Harris post-Biden dropout, but that might have happened no matter what,” election analyst Nate Silver said in a post on X. “Thought convention speech was good, but bypassing” Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) for the vice presidential nomination in favor of Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) is “beginning to look bad and they haven’t really found a 2nd gear after Hot Brat Summer.”
Trump: Secret Republican intrigue
Trump’s primary victory and assassination attempt survival effectively united the Republican Party, with nearly all his major Republican former rivals taking pilgrimages to the Republican National Convention to sing his praises. Coming out against the former president has destroyed several Republicans’ careers, including former Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.
However, a number of prominent Republicans are secretly rooting for Harris to defeat their candidate, as detailed in Politico. The outlet reported three main GOP camps are quietly rooting for Trump to be soundly defeated.
Some anti-abortion Republicans are angry with Trump for his easing position on abortion and hope his defeat would lead to a shift to a stronger party position on the matter. War hawks have long seethed over Trump’s noninterventionist tendencies and hope his defeat would allow the party to return to its previous dominance of neoconservatives. The final group are free traders, who are angry over Trump’s protectionist tendencies and new economic policies that would support tariffs.
Each group believes that a Trump defeat would allow their faction to retake the party.
Harris: Loss of support in key states
Despite an initial surge, Harris has continued to struggle in several key swing states, mainly Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Silver pointed to a steady erosion of Harris’s numbers in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two of the most important states of the race.
“In PA, our polling averages had Harris +1.8 pre-DNC, but it’s now Harris +1.0,” he said in a post on X. “That’s before any convention bounce adjustment, which is implemented at a later stage of the model. In MI, the polling average has fallen from Harris +3.1 pre-DNC to Harris +1.9 now.”
If Trump were to take Pennsylvania and Michigan, Harris would have to take nearly every other swing state to tie.
Particularly among white voters without college degrees and men, Harris’s support has diminished in swing states. In Pennsylvania, a CNN poll shows 63% of white voters without college degrees supporting Trump while 31% support Harris. In Georgia, support for Trump jumps to 71% for the same group.
“You‘ve seen Donald Trump‘s advantage, very significant with male voters,” CNN’s political director David Chalian said. “Eighteen points in Nevada, 15-point advantage in Pennsylvania. That’s the gap when we talk about the gender gap. Harris’s advantage with women in addition to Trump‘s advantage with men and who wins that battle, who extends that advantage, could have a lot to say in these battleground states.”
Trump: Goldman Sachs casts dire economic prediction
A study from Goldman Sachs economists predicted that Trump’s economic plan would hurt the economy, reducing the GDP and raising the deficit.
“We estimate that if Trump wins in a sweep or with divided government, the hit to growth from tariffs and tighter immigration policy would outweigh the positive fiscal impulse” from maintaining most tax cuts, the report said, according to Bloomberg.
The Trump campaign countered by saying that economists had also doubted Trump’s economic plan in 2016, failing to predict the massive growth.
“These Wall Street elites would be wise to review the record and acknowledge the shortcomings of their past work if they’d like their new forecasts to be seen as credible,” Brian Hughes, a senior adviser on the campaign, told the outlet.
The report also criticized Trump’s immigration plan, which would drastically reduce the number of immigrants.
Harris: Failure to break with Biden on Gaza
The specter haunting Biden for the past year looks set to unleash itself on Harris: pro-Palestinian demonstrators who will go so far as to withhold their votes to express their dissatisfaction with the administration’s handling of the war in Gaza.
Protests at the DNC were notably dampened by ambiguity over Harris’s position on the conflict. Her failure to distinguish herself from Biden’s policy, largely toeing the same line on the conflict, has sapped the optimism of activists hoping she would chart a different course.
“I think there was an excitement at the beginning, I think some of that has been dampened,” James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, said of Harris’s candidacy, speaking with the Hill.
With school starting back up, campus protests could feed into the Republican narrative that the Democratic Party is the party of chaos, affecting swing voters, while her support for Israel could dampen the enthusiasm of Arab American and young voters.
Pro-Palestinian supporters voiced frustration after Harris’s CNN interview on Aug. 29, when she expressed firm support for the Jewish state.
“Let me be very clear: I am unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself,” Harris said. “And that’s not going to change.”
However, she has tried to toe the line in an effort to bring “uncommitted” voters back into the Democratic fold.
“The scale of suffering is heartbreaking,” she said during her DNC speech. “President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination”
Trump: Assassination attempt fades from national scene
The assassination attempt against Trump at a rally on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, drew attention from all corners of the world and seemed set to dominate the electoral cycle. The image of the former president pumping his fist seconds after the shooting became recognizable worldwide.
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However, Harris stole much of the wind from the Republicans’ sails when Biden dropped out and she obtained the Democratic nomination, and the media cycle quickly moved on. Google trends show the topic with very little engagement by September.
Whether the Trump campaign and Republicans will be able to refocus on the topic remains to be seen. The events of that day are the subject of a congressional investigation.
