Kamala would have benefited from a shorter campaign, not a longer one

Or, political gravity would have set in regardless. Either way, 107 days was enough time, if not too much.

This week marks the one year anniversary of Joe Biden’s replacement atop the Democratic ticket with Kamala Harris. A mini-primary was averted and the Democrats launched directly into the fall campaign against Trump.

For a while, the “vibes” of it all were impeccable. Harris immediately improved on Biden’s numbers and inched into a lead in the polls. One may take issue with the RealClearPolitics average, but their chart is the best at showing the day-by-day shifts:

Immediately post-switch, Harris was down 1.7 points to Trump and was approaching the 2 point lead she would have until early October by late August.

And in this newsletter’s Average of the Averages, the race was remarkably stable from late August through early October, with five separate weekly Harris +2.9 readings.