Harris’s Final Challenge: Restore a Splintering Democratic Coalition
The New York Times
Defections from Black and Latino voters are making Kamala Harris more dependent on white, suburban voters — and complicating her path to victory.
In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris is contending with erosion within the Democratic coalition that put Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the White House, and growing more dependent on white voters who historically aligned more with Republicans.
Black and Latino voters, two essential pillars of that coalition, have drifted away from Democrats in striking numbers, according to New York Times/Siena College polling.
The defections, if they hold to Election Day, would make Ms. Harris’s path to victory far more difficult, complicating her efforts both in big cities like Philadelphia and Detroit and across Sun Belt battlegrounds such as Georgia and Arizona.
A Harris win would also be reliant on support and high turnout from college-educated white voters and suburbanites, including voters who traditionally leaned Republican until the Trump era.
“She’s doing very well in suburban areas that went blue after Donald Trump came into office,” Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said. “That’s what’s keeping her in the race right now, while she’s losing a point or two because of the less enthusiastic support among urban men.”
Ms. Harris’s predicament is the clearest display yet of the ways former President Donald J. Trump is creating new political alliances that could fundamentally alter the makeup of the two major parties.
