Will Americans Give Kamala A Pass On Policy Just To Be Rid Of Trump?

She Should Not Take That Chance

Things are still looking up for Kamala. Voters are dying for a plausible alternative to Trump (and Biden). RFK, Jr never came close. A former drug addict with a severely damaged brain, he’s an all around crackpot whose polling numbers continue shrinking the more people see what he is. “Kennedy’s views,” wrote Clare Malone, “are heterodox. He inveighs against the American ‘war machine,’ opposing military aid to Ukraine, but supports Israel’s war in Gaza. He is pro-choice and also wants to ‘seal’ the southern border. On the campaign trail, he has embraced his status as an oddball and an outsider. In May, The Times reported that Kennedy had once testified, in a divorce deposition, that a parasitic worm had eaten part of his brain; in response, he posted on Twitter, ‘I offer to eat 5 more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate.’… Kennedy’s approval ratings tend to be higher among Republicans, but Timothy Mellon, a billionaire who backs Trump, has given twenty-five million dollars to a Kennedy-affiliated super pac— a suggestion that, in some circles at least, the Kennedy campaign has been seen as a potential spoiler for Democrats. In a text, Kennedy said that Trump is “a terrible human being. The worst president ever and barely human. He is probably a sociopath,” but still insisted that Biden was “more dangerous to the Republic and the planet.” He managed to halve his polling numbers and I expect them to halve again— to between 2 and 3%— before November.

Meanwhile, according to the new national Amherst poll a 7 point swing towards team blue went from a 4 point lead for Trump to a 3 point lead for Kamala. And at the same time, a poll of Latino voters shows Trump’s support collapsing as Kamala’s grows. She now holds a nearly 20-point lead over him in the battleground states— 55-37% in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina. 

How does Kamala keep growing the momentum? Progressives suggest she identifies her campaign with the kinds of widely popular solutions that almost all Americans outside of the Murdoch echo chamber back. Yesterday, John Bresnahan reported Bernie and some of his congressional allies— Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD)—  are suggesting she “embrace a sweeping progressive agenda during her run… Sanders recently commissioned a poll of more than 1,150 voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin… The poll shows the progressive agenda— much of which was included in Build Back Better and other proposals by Biden, Sanders notes— was overwhelmingly popular. This comes even as the state of the U.S. economy, jobs and inflation, issues on which Trump and Republicans are dominating, are easily the top focus for voters.

[T]he poll shows that increasing taxes on the wealthy is supported by a 71%-27% margin overall. Even Republicans favored it by a 55%-43% majority.

Raising taxes on large corporations was also popular. A full 67% of respondents supported this, compared to 29% who said these companies should pay the same as they are now or less.

And there was very strong backing for increasing the minimum wage, with fully 89% saying the current $7.25 per hour rate needs to be boosted. Raising the rate to $17 per hour was backed by 70% of respondents, the majority of those strongly. 

… Other long-time progressive planks— many of which Sanders has unsuccessfully pushed for years— get a big thumbs up in this poll too. These include expanding Social Security benefits; adding dental, vision and hearing coverage to Medicare; a bigger Child Tax Credit; single-payer health care; eliminating medical debt; building two million “affordable-housing units” and capping rent increases; and free college for all, among other actions.

Bernie and all the Capitol Hill progressives are all in on defeating Trump and electing Kamala. But many are looking beyond November for what kind of a presidency we’ll be able to expect from Kamala. “What I want to make sure— and what this all is about— is to get the point not only to the vice president but to every Democratic candidate that if you run on issues, economic issues of concern to the working class of this country [that] we have ignored for too many years,” said Bernie, “you can win this election. That’s the main thrust of this poll… I think the overwhelming economic evidence is that the reason we’ve had inflation in recent years has everything to do with corporate greed. Most of the inflation we’re seeing in recent years has to do with record-breaking corporate profits.”