How Trump Could Win—and What Donors Can Still Do
I hope you've appreciated that this website doesn’t traffic in fear-mongering. I don’t think inciting panic is a helpful way to raise money.
But glib cheerleading isn’t helpful, either. We must be clear-eyed and focused on what it will take to win the election—and, by contrast, how we could lose.
Today, I want to take a walk on the dark side and look at how Harris could fall short—and what donors can still do to reduce that possibility. With the election less than a month away and the polls tied, here are five reasons Trump could win.
1. Harris doesn’t match Biden’s 2020 margins with non-college whites. Around half the electorate in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are whites without college degrees. Hillary Clinton badly lost these voters in 2016, but Biden clawed back a few points here—enough to help him win the Blue Wall states. So far, though, Harris has struggled to match or exceed Biden’s margins with non-college whites, polls show—which could doom her chances, particularly in Pennsylvania. What you can do: Support Working America, which is running field and digital outreach to working-class voters in battleground states, including having 36,000 face-to-face conversations every night, growing to a planned 70,000 per night by Election Day. Donate
2. Democrats fail to crack Trump’s lock on rural voters. To cut into Trump’s huge margins in rural America, a key source of his strength, the Harris campaign, state parties, and civic groups are mounting an unprecedented effort to engage rural voters. If these efforts work, and Harris matches or exceeds Biden's vote share with these voters (33%), she has a good chance of winning the election. What you can do: Support the Rural Victory Fund, the c4 arm of the Rural Democracy Initiative, which supports organizers in battleground states with deep experience connecting with rural voters. This is a high-impact giving option to help Democrats win more votes in rural America. Donate
3. Black voter turnout is weak and Trump also increases his vote share here. Both these threats are very real given that Black turnout in some urban Democratic strongholds fell in recent elections and polls show Harris’s level of support with Black voters well below Biden’s 2020 margin of 91%. What you can do: Support One PA, which is running a large field operation in the five most heavily Black counties of Pennsylvania, with a major focus on Philadelphia—where it’s imperative that Harris run up the vote tally if she’s going to carry this must-win state. Donate
4. Young voters don’t rally for Democrats like they have in the past. Not only do battleground state polls show Harris still falling short of Biden’s 2020 margins with 18-29-year-olds, but youth turnout declined in 2022 compared to 2018. Democrats need to do more to excite these voters, and fast. What you can do: Support the Alliance for Youth Action, which is supporting youth voting groups nationwide to register over 100,000 new voters, knock on more than 2 million doors, and distribute over 2 million voter guides. Donate
Okay, I think that’s enough gloom, doom, and homework for now. I believe Democrats can and will win in November. But one way we’ll do that is by focusing our attention on what could go wrong and getting ahead of the curve.
Remember, all we can do as individuals in this sprawling national election is control what we can control. And while most things are beyond our control, how much money (and time) we give to help Democrats win is something we can control.
