When vp Kamala Harris stepped into the US Presidential race after President Joe Biden dropped out, she launched into a marketing campaign that appears starkly completely different from the one Hillary Clinton ran towards Former President Donald Trump in 2016. Each girls have confronted a difficult Republican opponent in Trump, but Harris has chosen a unique method— staying away from Clinton’s “break the glass ceiling” narrative and leaning into points that resonate past gender.
Gender politics and shaping marketing campaign
In her historic run because the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2016, Hilary Clinton usually highlighted the importance of breaking the “highest and hardest glass ceiling,” bringing the dialog of gender equality into the middle of her marketing campaign. Kamala Harris, nonetheless, has prevented specializing in gender or her racial id for that matter, not mentioning it even as soon as throughout her nomination acceptance speech.
Regardless of the symbolic weight of doubtless turning into the primary feminine and Asian-American President, Harris has opted for a method that underplays gender, believing that American voters could reply higher to her monitor document than to the narrative of a historic “first”, drawing inspiration from the Obama marketing campaign.
As an alternative, she has positioned her sights on Midwestern states like Wisconsin—territory Clinton misplaced in 2016 after skipping a last go to. Harris has majorly focussed on insurance policies and selections throughout her marketing campaign.
She hasn’t left her id, in spite of everything
Whereas Harris doesn’t explicitly use her id for marketing campaign, her supporters amplify it for her. Grassroots teams, coalition and influential fraternities, have propelled her marketing campaign’s message by way of digital gatherings and occasions.
Her allies, together with her vice presidential candidate regularly spotlight the historic nature of her candidacy, however Harris has stayed away from it, betting that voters care extra about her {qualifications} than about her breaking new floor as a candidate.
Marketing campaign advertisements on document over assault
A stark distinction lies in Harris’ promoting technique in comparison with Hilary Clinton’s. Hilary launched waves of destructive advertisements attacking Trump, particularly within the marketing campaign’s closing weeks, highlighting his divisive rhetoric and indecent feedback. Harris, nonetheless, has opted for a extra balanced method.
Her advertisements characteristic her work as an legal professional common, the implications of Roe v. Wade being overturned, her summer season job at McDonald’s, and her battles towards highly effective companies, portray an image of her expertise and work with solely a restricted variety of advertisements attacking Trump.
Responding to private assaults with silence or humor
‘Turned black’, ‘childless catlady’, ‘Slept her approach to the highest’, Kamala has needed to face many private assaults just like what Hilary needed to face again in 2016. But her response has been way more restrained. Whereas Clinton took Trump’s assaults head-on, Harris has chosen to both ignore or deflect, usually with humor.
When Harris was requested to reply to Trump’s racial assault in a CNN interview, Harris shook her head and mentioned, “Standard, drained playbook,” ignoring it with “Subsequent query, please” in a restrained response.
Modified stance on immigration
Probably the most important points this election cycle, immigration is the place Harris’s technique diverges most notably from Clinton’s. Republicans have mounted criticism towards the Biden administration’s method to the border, which Harris has needed to deal with instantly. In response, she has pledged to tighten asylum restrictions and enhance border safety, a place that distances her from each Biden and her earlier stance as a senator. Hilary Clinton, against this, advocated for a pathway to citizenship, an Workplace of Immigrant Affairs, and elevated sources for asylum seekers and immigration attorneys, positioning herself as an immigration reformist.
Harris’s pivot on immigration displays a marketing campaign adapting to the political actuality that immigration is a divisive and high-stakes challenge for a lot of voters. As an alternative of framing it as a reform-based coverage, she has taken a security-first method, with an emphasis on decreasing unlawful crossings and expediting asylum instances.
Whereas Trump was capable of defeat the final girl he confronted in an election, Hillary Clinton, a lot has modified since then. He has been discovered liable in a sexual abuse trial, and the Supreme Court docket’s overturning of Roe v Wade has heightened public scrutiny of his insurance policies and appointments. However polls present that the race remains to be very shut, with Trump’s reputation solely rising.
With simply days to go till the US election, the race stays tight between Harris and Trump, each nationally and in essential battleground states. Harris is betting that this new method—one rooted much less in ‘breaking the glass ceiling’ and extra in pragmatic coverage change—may lastly yield a unique consequence in an election towards Donald Trump.
