How Kamala Harris’ “weird and free” message is making an impact

“You’re weird.”

With this simple allusion – and a more straightforward message overall – Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign has shifted the discussion away from the weaknesses of her boss, President Joe Biden, and focused the spotlight on her opponent, Donald Trump.

The change in tone was clearly visible at the rallies this week, where they her new vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Governor Tim WalzWith Beyonce’s “Freedom” as the soundtrack, the two made it clear that they wanted to defend American freedoms while their “weird” Republican opponents Trump and his running mate JD Vance threatened to take them away.

“We are not going back,” Ms. Harris told an enthusiastic crowd in Philadelphia, starting the refrain of what has now become the campaign’s de facto slogan.

It’s a watered-down version of Biden’s 2020 message – that Trump was a “threat to democracy” – and it portrays the former president as someone who has lost touch with American life.

Even the vice president’s press releases, which come from a campaign team that once served Biden, reflect the shift in tone from deeply serious to somewhat more casual.

Just five days after Biden resigned, a Harris spokesman joked that a speech by Trump made him sound like “someone you wouldn’t want to sit next to in a restaurant.”

Campaign strategists say this new message seems to be resonating with Democratic-leaning voters because it makes voting for Ms Harris seem more like a sensible choice rather than a civic duty. But it is too early to say whether this newfound goodwill will last through Election Day in November for a vice president who until recently struggled to capture the attention of American voters.

California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat who considers the vice president a close friend, said the campaign’s fresh rhetoric reflected Ms Harris’s “great sense of humor” and her ability to be “a good communicator at a very basic level.”

“The fact is that these things are proving to be their strengths, and their cheerfulness cuts through the dark, menacing undertones of Donald Trump and his running mate.”

Meanwhile, Trump, known as a successful mudslinger and energetic campaigner since entering politics during the 2016 presidential campaign, has struggled to hit back – especially against the “outlandish” portrayal.

“They’re the weird guys. Nobody has ever called me weird. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not weird,” Trump said last week in an interview with conservative radio host Clay Travis.

He returned to the theme at a rally in Montana on Friday, telling the crowd: “We are very solid people. We want strong borders, we want good elections, we want low interest rates, we want the ability to buy a home.”

“I think we are the opposite of weird, they are weird.”

Polls show Ms Harris, who once trailed Trump, is now in the lead.

David Polyansky, who was deputy campaign manager for Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign, said the shift may be because Ms Harris beat Trump at his own game.

Since his first run for president, Trump has benefited from being the most important political issue in the country, and he enjoys what political insiders like to call “earned media” or a free press.

But it was Harris’ dramatic move to the top of the Democratic ticket just weeks before the Democratic National Convention that has dominated headlines and radio shows in recent weeks – and all without her having to sit down for a major media interview.

Stealing the spotlight from the former president, who was recently the victim of an assassination attempt, is no small feat, Polyansky said.

“It’s really quite remarkable,” he said.

Her campaign appears to have received further impetus from the nomination of Mr Walz as her vice-presidential candidate.

A survey conducted by the New York Times and Siena College From August 5 to 9, Ms. Harris is ahead of Trump in three key swing states – Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan – by 50% to 46%.

It comes after a recent YouGov surveyThe poll, conducted August 4-6, suggested she would win the majority of the vote: 45% of respondents said they would vote for her in November, compared to 43% for Trump.

This is a reversal. A similar poll by YouGov, conducted almost three weeks ago, showed that she was three points behind.

In fact, it was Mr Walz who first used the label “weird” when he appeared in the media last month to support Ms Harris’s young candidate. He immediately used it again at the rally with Ms Harris in Philadelphia, when he spoke of her Republican opponents: “These guys are creepy and, yeah, just damn weird.”

Mr Walz’s folksy manner seemed to resonate with several voters who spoke to the BBC, who said they liked the Minnesota governor because he was so open and honest.

Tyler Engel, an independent voter from Ohio who is vacationing in St. Augustine, Florida, said between puffs on a cigarette that Mr. Walz seemed “like a normal guy, a family man.”

“And if there is one thing we lack in this country, it is normal people,” added Mr Engel.

Another voter, John Patterson of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, said he thought Mr. Walz was “a very sincere person.”

“With him, what you see is what you get,” he added.

Some political advisers marveled at the effectiveness of the “weird” label, with many saying its breakthrough was because it seemed authentic, was not a crowd-tested catchphrase or cliché, and arose “quickly and organically.”

Calling Trump and JD Vance “weird” effectively repackaged President Biden’s “threat to democracy” theme in a “very relatable – almost lighthearted – way that was perhaps less strident and more colloquial,” said Brian Brokaw, who has worked on several of Ms Harris’s campaigns and ran a Super PAC that supported her 2020 presidential campaign.

He said the term had a direct impact on transforming the campaign from a referendum on Biden’s four-year term to a question: “Do we really want to go back to what we did during the Trump era?”

Republican pollster Frank Luntz was more skeptical.

Speaking on BBC Newsnight on Tuesday, he declared Ms Harris the new frontrunner, saying she had gained new “momentum”.

However, he rejected the label “strange” as “strange in itself” because it would not resonate with voters.

The catchphrase actually seemed to resonate with several undecided voters interviewed by the BBC. Jacob Fisher, an independent voter from Atlanta, said he thought it was appropriate and only a mild insult to call Mr Trump and Mr Vance “weird” in an age of political name-calling.

“I think that’s fair,” Fisher said. “You can’t say it’s very harsh just because the other guy talks about his opponents being vermin. So ‘weird’? I don’t know, but you can’t really complain when you’re Donald Trump.”

Still, voters who supported Trump have been unimpressed by the campaign’s recent messages.

Frank and Theresa Walker of Illinois shared the view that the US is “going to hell” under the Biden-Harris administration, and Gem Lowery – a Trump voter in Florida – said she did not like Harris’ choice for vice president or the “weird” label they had used when discussing Trump, Mr Vance and the Republican platform.

“I think the Democrats are the weird guys,” Lowery told the BBC. “So no, I don’t think it’s right to call the Republicans ‘weird.'”

Mrs Harris “Brat Summer” won’t last forever.

With Mr. Walz’s election and the Democratic National Convention approaching, Ms. Harris’s media dominance is sure to remain intact. But experts agree that the campaign will soon have to shift gears.

Brokaw, a longtime adviser to Harris, said her campaign must work to maintain the enthusiasm that has prevailed since the vice president was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate.

“The honeymoon period is the convention, and then it’s two months of hard work, probably with some debates,” Brokaw said. “It’s an exciting time, but at some point you come back to reality and then it starts.”

“If we were still talking about Trump and Vance being weird in October, I would probably be surprised,” he added.

Republican strategist David Polyansky said the label “works well from a 60,000-foot perspective,” but he believes a message on the economy and immigration will ultimately sway voters in November.

“It is therefore crucial for Trump not to fall for the bait, but to focus on his message and remind people of his record and the administration’s failures on both issues.”

Additional reporting by Mike Wendling and Rachel Looker