An underdog, by definition, is a contender who has dim prospects of winning.
In the final stretch of the presidential race, it’s the mantle Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign wants to claim.
Harris, her campaign and allies have repeatedly used the term to describe her candidacy, in a marked shift in messaging from just months ago, when President Joe Biden steered the ticket. Then, Biden made a bold prediction: “Let me say it as clear as I can: I’m staying in the race!” he said. “I’ll beat Donald Trump.”
Campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon had, more than once, put her full faith behind a Biden victory, despite persistent concerns over his age and signs of sluggish fundraising. That included a week before the fateful presidential debate when she declared victory, telling the media outlet Puck, “We are going to win.”
Then, two days after Biden’s debate performance threw the party into chaos, she stuck with that messaging: “I say with full confidence, we will win.”
Now, it is O’Malley Dillon who is leading the branding on the new Democratic nominee, attempting to portray the candidate who has better polling, more money and more ground troops than Biden and who has been a heartbeat away from the presidency for the last three and a half years, as the person disadvantaged in the race.
Trump’s team calls the framing ludicrous.
“Kamala Harris is not the underdog, nor is she the candidate of the future. Kamala Harris is the vice president of the United States right now,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.
“She is responsible for the problems American people are experiencing right now … She deserves to be elected out of office.”
Trump has taken a drastically different route, already declaring victory.
“We don’t need votes. We’ve got more votes than anybody’s ever had,” Trump said at a Detroit event two months ago. He projected the same confidence Aug. 30, at a Johnstown, Pennsylvania, rally.
“We should win a blowout. We should blow them out,” Trump said. “You know, we win the state, we win the whole thing.”
But inside the campaign, a Trump official said that even as he projects confidence, no one is taking the race for granted. That’s why Trump is doing multiple media interviews weekly and holding rallies, she said.
“We are confident President Trump has the momentum in this race, but no one is sitting back at Trump headquarters and chillin’ right now,” Leavitt said. “We are working around the clock to win this election.”
Part of the Harris strategy is the typical post-Labor Day lowering of expectations. Another part of it is the reality of a compressed, rushed timeline that Harris has been under to introduce herself to voters while having to take on major actions such as picking a vice president and holding a national convention within weeks of stepping into the top of the ticket.
But some of it runs deeper.
At a live event at the Democratic National Convention with Politico, O’Malley Dillon revealed what kept her up at night.
“Honestly, complacency, right? I certainly feel like, you know, you could kind of look at this moment and be so energized and be like: ‘We got it,’ and we don’t have it. We don’t have it. This is going to be an extraordinarily close race. I cannot state that enough,” she said.
“We are a polarized nation and a challenging time, and despite all the things that are happening in this country, Donald Trump still has more support than he has had at any other point,” she added.
Democrats have been stung by overconfidence before — in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 run against Trump, the party thought it had the race in the bag, only to watch its great blue wall of states crumble.
Harris has reinvigorated Democrats and quickly made up ground that slipped under Biden.
But for all of the packed rallies, massive fundraising, soaring enthusiasm and volunteering spikes the campaign has enjoyed since Biden endorsed Harris on July 21, the race fundamentals haven’t changed.
Victory will come down to a handful of battleground states and, as the polling looks today, it remains on the knife’s edge.
“Democrats are terrified. The race is tied. Everyone understands that,” said Matt Bennett, the co-founder and executive vice president of the center-left group Third Way. “Democrats are very, very worried. Not because of anything that Harris has done, she has not made a single mistake yet. It’s that the downside risk of losing is so catastrophic.”
To be sure, Harris’ candidacy vanquished Trump’s designs on expanding his map into states like New Jersey. Instead, it’s Harris who has Democrats stretching into places like the typically red North Carolina, where Trump’s campaign is now forced to pour money.
But as of yet, most polls show the two within the margin of error in each of the battlegrounds.
“Nobody has a clear advantage here, that’s for sure,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth Poll. After the Trump-Biden debate, Murray said Trump showed signs of pulling ahead in both national and battleground polls. Harris’ entry “reset the campaign back to pretty much even,” he said.
Pennsylvania is particularly of concern to Democrats. Depending on the states and their electoral vote value, they’d have to pick up two other states or possibly even three to make up for that pivotal blue wall state. Democrats roundly say the Keystone State is of greatest concern, in large part because of Trump’s strong appeal with rural, white men.
Murray said that among the trends he’s tracking is where the older white vote that stuck with Biden ultimately gravitates.
“That was one of the most interesting findings when Biden was in the campaign — when we asked questions about the candidates’ mental, physical stamina, their ability to do the job — is, senior voters were sticking with Biden on that question,” he said.
Bradley Beychok, co-founder of the Democratic-aligned American Bridge, described Harris as “ascendant” but remained sober about the party’s prospects.
“It’s a jump ball,” he added.
“There’s no criticism from me if her and her campaign say that they’re underdogs, because some of the models have her as a slight underdog,” Beychok said. “I can argue that she’s a slight underdog. I could argue that’s a toss up. I could argue that she’s a slight favorite.”