Top political strategist David Axelrod has outlined the indicators for Vice President Kamala Harris winning the presidency on election night.
The Democrat, who spearheaded both of former President Barack Obama‘s successful presidential campaigns, said that former President Donald Trump has a “slight edge” going into November 5 but that Harris could win by turning out key voter demographics.
Speaking to CNN‘s Anderson Cooper on his weekly podcast The Axe Files, Axelrod said that Harris needed a higher turnout from women who would have traditionally backed the Republican nominee while also mobilizing younger voters and minority groups.
“If you push me against the wall and I look at all the data and I put the whole picture together, Trump maybe has a slight edge, but not anything that would be predictive. It’s so close that anything can move it,” Axelrod said.
“Voters know Trump, and there’s a tremendous gender gap. There could be Republican women and non-college white women who just don’t want to tell anybody how they’re voting and aren’t being polled. You hear stories about stickers in the ladies room saying, ‘You don’t have to tell anyone who you voted for,'” he continued.
“There’s also young people and African American voters, Hispanic voters who need to be sufficiently motivated.
“I can understand their reticence because there are people in these minority communities who have been told time and again that things are going to change and they haven’t changed enough, and it makes one a little skeptical about the process.
“So on Election Day and election night, when the returns start coming in, and we start looking at exit polls, the thing I’m going to be looking for is this: Is she doing better among college white women than we thought she would? Is she doing better among Republican women?”
David Axelrod speaks in New York City on September 18, 2017. The former Obama strategist said Donald Trump has a “slight edge” in the November 5 election.
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The Harris campaign has long since focused on appealing to both women and disgruntled Republican moderates, both groups that Trump performs poorly with.
Harris has put issues like abortion, which motivate women voters, at the heart of her campaign and has even begun airing ads calling on women in Republican households to vote opposite to their families.
However, this has led to a heavy gender divide this election—Harris leads with women but has struggled to make tracks with men, even in minority communities.
Trump’s campaign has explicitly targeted male voters, calling on them to turn out on Election Day to outweigh high proportions of early voting activity from women.
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