"We Don't Know Her"
Are undecided voters pulling a Mariah Carey on Kamala Harris? Or do they just not want to talk about politics with pollsters? Or is it something else?
Mariah Carey is known for her “I don’t know her” dis of Jennifer Lopez almost as much as she’s known for her stratospheric high notes and that earworm Christmas song she recorded.
In recent weeks, we’ve been hearing that undecided voters remain reluctant about supporting Kamala Harris because they “don’t know her.” Kamala Harris has been nationally visible and prominent for nearly a decade, first as an outspoken Senator and more recently as the Vice President of the United States. Prior to that, she was the Attorney General of California and the District Attorney in San Francisco.
So is that reluctance to support Kamala Harris a Mariah Carey-level insult? Is it willful ignorance? Is it actual ignorance?
We’re just past the halfway mark between the day that President Biden endorsed Kamala Harris as his successor and Election Day. So, even if you knew nothing about Kamala Harris prior to Biden’s endorsement, is there really any excuse not to “know her” at this point, particularly in this unique and especially heated election season?
I’m not talking about the willful ignorance of pundits like New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who kvetches that nobody knows anything about any of Harris’ policies. That’s a flat-out lie, one that reveals both his bias and his incompetence as a journalist. Stephens certainly doesn’t hold Trump, whose policies vacillate depending on which direction the money’s coming from, to the same standard.
In the past several weeks:
She’s introduced herself and her running mate to the national audience at the Democratic National Convention, a debut that was heralded as wildly successful, even by right-wing media.
She demonstrated her mettle during her first (and possibly only) debate with her opponent. She “seemed to dominate the debate stage.” (That’s journalism-speak for “she mopped the floor with Trump.”)
She’s been campaigning almost non-stop at rallies and meet-and-greets, filling arenas and other venues with tens of thousands of voters.
She did an event with Oprah Winfrey (Oprah frickin’ Winfrey!) that attracted a massive audience and added tens of millions of dollars to her campaign coffers.
She has proved that she can move gracefully and seemingly effortlessly from easy-going one-on-one interactions with voters to serious policy discussions on matters of domestic and international importance.
She’s done all this while still fulfilling her duties as Vice President. But never mind. There are still so-called undecided voters, and it’s that elusive demographic that may decide the election.
There are a number of possibilities why someone may tell pollsters that they’re in the “undecided” category:
They may be disengaged from politics. They just may not be terribly interested in (or alienated from) politics. Their family or work responsibilities may not have afforded them the ability to pay attention to the day-to-day details of the presidential race.
They may be unwilling to reveal their views to pollsters. If, for example, someone is a blue voter in a red state, they may feel uncomfortable or even threatened to let their views be known. They may be former Trump supporters or former Republicans who are afraid their may be backlash from their former party. They may even be the spouse of a Trump supporter and have been publicly going along with their MAGA spouse for their own safety, while holding different political views.
They may, in fact, be closeted Trump voters who don’t want their views challenged or their bubbles burst.
They may have a visceral dislike of Kamala Harris (“she laughs too much” or “there’s just something about her I don’t like”), so they’re reluctant to go public with their views.
Finally, of course, there are racism and misogyny. These voters may not love everything Trump stands for, but at least he’s a white male. People may not be likely to tell pollsters that they don’t like Kamala Harris because of her race or her gender, so it’s more expedient for them to remain uncommitted.
That last bullet point is certainly way more nuanced than what I described. Feelings around race and gender are often masked or unacknowledged, so it may be simpler to say that “need to know more” than to examine deeply-rooted, sometimes trans-generational emotions around race and gender.
But would anyone “need to know more” about a white male candidate with a resume that included being a District Attorney, a State Attorney General, a U.S. Senator, and Vice President of the United States? Doubtful. I’ve never heard any such objections made around any male presidential candidate, most of whom in my lifetime have had resumes with far fewer accomplishments.
That leaves Harris — or any woman or person of color — in the position of having to be that much more accomplished than their political opponents. There’s a special brand of irony that applies in the 2024 presidential race, because the candidate she’s running against had absolutely no experience in public service in his entire life. He had spent his entire life hoarding wealth, losing wealth, and — most of all — barricading himself within the fortress of his own ego. All he had was money (mostly other people’s money) and loud, uninformed opinions.
Many of the voters who seem willing to accept autocracy and dictatorship from Trump expect perfection from Harris.
For those undecided voters who are so inclined, there are plenty of ways to learn some of the specifics of Kamala Harris’ accomplishments. Here are a few:
If there were ever a time to “get to know” Kamala Harris, it would be now.
There’s no easy single answer to the undecided dilemma. The only way we’ll truly know what’s really going on with these undecided voters is when all the votes have been cast and counted.