Can “Kamalamania” Continue to Election Day?

Vice President Kamala Harris’s polling rise has been called “Kamalamania.” Those wondering how this boomlet might end can learn from the example of another female politico whose late entry into a national election turned the race on its head: New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern.

Ardern is now internationally known after her nearly two terms as prime minister. But in July 2017, she was a globally obscure politician in the Labour Party. She had only become the party’s deputy leader in March. With an election scheduled for late September, the smart money was on the 36-year-old to gain experience on the national stage and climb the ladder thereafter.

But that was not to be. Labour leader Andrew Little resigned on August 1 with his party at a mere 24% in the polls and was likely headed to a landslide defeat. His young deputy was quickly elevated to the top slot. The party surely just hoped not to be annihilated seven weeks later.

Ardern instead captured Kiwis’ imagination. Labour skyrocketed, closing the gap with the ruling center-right National Party by half within just one week. By the end of August, Ardern had taken Labour into the lead. “Jacindamania” was born.

Democrats clearly hope Harris can replicate that feat, and so far, she has. But they and Republicans should look to what happened next before assuming the race is now over.

In New Zealand, the National Party predictably went on the attack, highlighting the possibility Ardern could raise taxes and questioning her foreign policy experience. The air started to leak from Labour’s balloon, and National regained the polling lead by election day. In the end, National won, garnering 44% to Labour’s 37%.

Ardern still ended up forming the government because National had not won a majority of seats under New Zealand’s proportional representation system. Then-Prime Minister Bill English’s maladroit handling of coalition negotiations gave Ardern a lifeline. She created a coalition of odd bedfellows, bringing the populist, anti-immigrant New Zealand First Party and the Greens together with her. The Ardern legend was born.

That cannot happen, though, under America’s first-past-the-post system. If Trump wins a plurality of votes nationally, he will almost certainly also win a majority of votes in the Electoral College.

The story of Jacindamania, then, rests not on her ultimate triumph but on how an initial burst of enthusiasm can wane under campaign pressure. Ardern, for example, announced she would set up a tax working group to recommend tax policy changes if elected. This gave National room to argue she could implement or raise taxes, charges that ate away at her lead. Republicans need only take advantage of a similar slip up and drop Harris’s numbers by a few percent to regain the lead.

Democrats seem to understand this better at the moment. They are swamping the airwaves and digital universe with ads promoting Harris. Some even argue that she will be tough on the border. This smartly tries to undercut her biggest weakness, as a recent memo from a progressive organization plainly shows.

It’s still true, though, that both Harris and the Biden-Harris administration more broadly carry a lot of political baggage. She might want to say she’ll be tough on the border, but the fact is that the border crisis happened on her watch. A smart Trump campaign will tie her in knots as she tries to deflect responsibility for the record surge in illegal migration.

The economy will also cause her problems. Inflation has declined, but real wages have only recently caught up. Living standards have not budged after nearly four years of Biden-Harris. That might not have the same detrimental political effect now given our extreme polarization, but it cannot help her nascent campaign.

And that’s before the recent rise in unemployment. The most widely reported unemployment rate has gone up in each of the last four months and now stands at 4.3%. In contrast, the unemployment rate steadily declined throughout Trump’s administration and stood at 3.5% before the pandemic struck.

Early polls show Trump leads Harris on who voters think can best handle the economy. Expect Trump to make that point frequently as the campaign begins in earnest.

Even the most recent polls amid her surge find that Harris is still viewed unfavorably by more people than like her. Just a small dent in that level of support would bring Harris down to Trump’s favorability level. That would mean the election would be decided by people who dislike both candidates—and voters generally disapprove of the administration’s job performance.

Harris has had a remarkably successful entry into the campaign. She has re-energized Democrats, attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in donations, and reset the race. Her challenge is to do what even Ardern could not: keep the mania going for the entire campaign. The jury is out on whether the former prosecutor can win her case.