Inside the Democrat implosion as Kamala's team is gripped by fear and 'vibes' drain away: 'Nobody should be even slightly optimistic right now'
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Democrats are spending another week wondering if Kamala Harris has let her momentum in the 2024 race completely slip away.
A murderer's row of bad PR for the Harris campaign this week featured continued tanking in the polls, a widely panned CNN town hall, Donald Trump beating her to the Joe Rogan bump and even fellow Democrats slamming her rhetoric.
Harris now trails Trump in the polling average in the crucial swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to Real Clear Politics.
Fear is now gripping Harris' campaign and the 'vibes' are draining away as prominent Democratic lawmakers, as well as the liberal media, have been forced to publicly acknowledge the campaign is faltering at the final hurdle.
One Democratic strategist admitted to The Hill: 'Yes, it's close, but are things trending our way? No. And no one wants to openly admit that. Could we still win? Maybe. Should anyone be even slightly optimistic right now? No.'
While some noted that Harris is taking risks like partnering with Liz Cheney and holding rallies in red Texas in the waning weeks of the campaign, another strategist put it bluntly: 'If this is a vibe election, the current vibes ain't great.'
Democrats are spending another week wondering if Kamala Harris has let her momentum in the 2024 race completely slip away
Donald Trump beating Harris to the Joe Rogan bump exacerbated an already bad PR week for Harris
Team Harris was clearly hoping to make gains with her exclusive town hall with CNN's Anderson Cooper in swing state Pennsylvania, which was held in place of a debate that Trump refused to participate in.
But it was Harris' inability to provide clear answers on both domestic and foreign policy, and trademark meandering responses throughout the 90-minute session that had even CNN's left-leaning panelists ripping her afterwards.
Veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod, who helped get Barack Obama elected and served as one of his top advisers, summed up Harris' performance as 'word salad city.'
Van Jones, another prominent talking head on CNN who also worked in the Obama administration, echoed Axelrod's key point.
'The word salad stuff gets on my nerves,' he bluntly said on-air after the town hall wrapped.
'I think some of the evasions are not necessary.'
And CNN's Dana Bash said of Harris afterward that 'if her goal was to close the deal, they're not sure she did that.'
Team Harris was clearly hoping to make gains with her exclusive town hall with CNN's Anderson Cooper in swing state Pennsylvania, which was held in place of a debate that Trump refused to participate in
Democratic pundits David Axelrod and Van Jones both said that when Vice President Kamala Harris didn't want to answer a question her tell was that she went into 'word salad' mode
Some of Harris' answers even angered fellow Democrats, like when she agreed with Trump's former Chief of Staff John Kelly, who this week reiterated his claim that the former president wished to rule as a fascist.
'Yes, I do,' she answered, echoing Joe Biden's opinion on the matter. 'Yes, I do. And I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted.'
New York City Mayor Eric Adams harshly criticized her for that response in a press conference Saturday.
'I have had those comments hurled at me by some political leaders in the city; my answer is 'No,'' he said.
Adams slammed comparisons of Trump to the likes of Adolf Hitler and asked Harris to tone it down.
'I know what Hitler has done, and I know what a fascist regime looks like. I think, as I have called for over and over again, that the level of conversation, I think we can all dial down the temperature,' he added.
Liberals have grown even more despondent after it emerged that Trump's interview with Joe Rogan amassed a staggering 17 million YouTube views in less than 24 hours.
The three-hour sit down covered a wide range of topics including UFOs, the John F. Kennedy assassination files, the border and healthy food in the US.
Mayor Eric Adams was speaking at a news conference Saturday and was asked questions about preparation for Trump's blockbuster Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden
As soon as the episode was released just after 10pm Eastern Time on Friday night, viewing figures skyrocketed with 300,000 in the first 30 minutes.
By comparison, Kamala Harris' appearance on the Call her Daddy podcast with Alex Cooper has clocked just 685,000 views in the two weeks since it went live.
The Vice President was also due to be interviewed by Rogan, but had to pull out due to 'scheduling conflicts', a spokesman said.
However, since details of Trump's ratings emerged many liberals have begun urging Harris to sit down with the popular podcast host.
Ultimately, it may be the polling and Trump's hold over various key swing states that does Harris in.
She trails Trump in the polling averages in every purple state: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia.
Biden was able to take all of those except for North Carolina in 2020, while losing the three midwestern states was the end of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, pushing Trump to the White House.
Senator John Fetterman warned in an interview with the New York Times that Trump's message is connecting as strongly as ever in Pennsylvania.
Senator John Fetterman warned in an interview with the New York Times that Trump's message is connecting as strongly as ever
Harris trails Trump in the polling averages in every purple state: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia
'It's astonishing. I was doing an event in Indiana County - very, very red. And there was a superstore of Trump stuff, and it was a hundred feet long, and it was dozens of T-shirts and hats and bumper stickers and all kinds of, I mean, it's like, Where does this all come from? It's the kind of thing that has taken on its own life,' he said.
Fetterman praised Harris' campaign but was wary of Trump's special relationship with his purple state and the appeal of adding Elon Musk's support, saying that the Tesla CEO is, in some ways, 'a bigger star than Trump.'
'It's just - it's real. And now Musk is joining him. I mean, to a lot of people, that's Tony Stark. That's the world's richest guy. And he's obviously, and undeniably, a brilliant guy, and he's saying, Hey, that's my guy for president. That's going to really matter.'
A Franklin and Marshall College poll in Pennsylvania shows Trump ahead of Harris by 50 percent to 49 percent among likely voters, but among all registered voters, the vice president still has an edge 48 percent to 44 percent.
In a separate Emerson College poll, also out of the Keystone State, Trump has a one point lead among voters, signaling just how tight the race truly is in Pennsylvania.
The poll has the ex-president at 49 percent and the vice president at 48 percent. Another three percent of voters had another choice or were undecided.
Democrats like Jim Manley, who helped run the late Nevada Senator Harry Reid's powerful Nevada political machine, have been fuming about how things have been handled because they still see this as a winnable election.
'It's pretty damn frustrating for it to be so close given how extreme and unhinged Trump's rhetoric has become in the last couple of weeks,' he said.
With Beyonce and Michelle Obama having held campaign events for Harris over the weekend, he's hoping those are a part of a strategy to get the vice president over the line.
'I just hope and trust they've got a plan,' Manley added.
