“It’s the double-haters and the conflicted partisans.”
That’s what Marquette pollster Charles Franklin told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Thursday about who is left to decide the election in Wisconsin. It’s also the group Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are trying to hit with their latest closing argument on guns.
And there’s some evidence it might be working.
While the race has mostly stagnated on gun policy, with Trump and Harris sticking closely to the platforms each party has run on since the start. Harris, like Joe Biden before her, is pushing for universal background checks, a “red flag” law, and an “assault weapons” ban. Trump is a bit lighter on policy promises but has said he’ll undo all of Biden’s executive gun action and push for national concealed carry reciprocity.
But the lack of policy shakeups doesn’t mean nothing about guns in the 2024 race has changed. Most notably, Harris has taken to talking a lot about her own gun as a way to counter Trump’s attacks on her record of backing different confiscation efforts throughout her career.
“This business about taking everyone’s guns away; Tim Walz and I are both gun owners,” Harris said at the debate. “We’re not taking anyone’s guns away.”
Pointing to her personal ownership of a handgun, which she’s since revealed is a Glock, has been her main message on guns ever since. She even told Oprah Winfrey, “If somebody breaks in my house, they’re getting shot” at a recent campaign event.
On Sunday, Walz took his shot at the same move in the form of a hunting photo op. That event was used to launch “Hunters and Anglers for Harris-Walz.” Much like Gun Owners for Trump, the effort doesn’t appear to have any real organizational heft to it. It’s just a way of trying to signal a certain group of voters that it’s ok to vote for Harris.
In fact, a campaign staffer literally told Outdoor Life they’re hoping to create a “permission structure for those who simply love to hunt, fish, and be outside, to join the Harris-Walz campaign.”
What all this clearly isn’t is an effort to persuade voters who list gun rights near the top of their priority list. Otherwise, Harris would have moved further to the center on the issue and ditched at least the sale ban on America’s most popular rifle after dropping her support for forcing owners to sell them to the government. Instead, she’s trying to thread a needle to keep gun-control activists energized to support her without scaring off the remaining voters up for grabs.
Looking through the polling it isn’t hard to see why the Harris Campaign is going this route.
The Marquette poll Charles Franklin was commenting on shows there are very few undecided voters left. The company found 12 percent of Wisconsin voters hadn’t made up their minds when Biden was still in the race. The number is less than half that now.
Those remaining undecideds are mostly Independents and moderate Republicans. Harris wants to peel those voters off. Or, at the very least, convince them she’s not as radical as she might seem and it’s ok to stay home rather than turn out to vote for Trump. Talking about how she and Walz own guns and don’t want to take them from anybody is part of that strategy.
Of course, it’s not the only part of it. Harris has tried to present a more moderate position on almost every issue since she took over the top of the ticket. She’s also elevated former Republicans, most notably Liz Cheney, as part of her campaign and said she plans to put one in her cabinet if elected.
It’s difficult to separate those efforts and judge which are having the biggest effect. The polling that looks at the sort of undecideds at play in Wisconsin doesn’t provide us any granular data on that point. However, it does indicate the overall Harris effort may be working.
In the latest New York Times poll, Harris has increased her support among Republicans by four points. It only jumped from five to nine points, but that may be all she needs in such a close race. The poll also found the remaining undecideds are leaning more toward Harris than Trump, a reversal from the previous poll.
Additionally, a new poll shows Harris is performing well with voters who supported Niki Haley during her primary run against Trump. The survey of 781 registered Republicans and independents that Dem-leaning pollster Blueprint conducted for The Bulwark found Trump has only won over about 45 percent of those voters, while Harris has grabbed 36 percent.
It would be better if we had a lot more polling on this point, and if it tested the Harris gun message in particular. But these are the sorts of voters Marquette is finding are among the few who haven’t backed a candidate yet, and Harris seems to be peeling some off.
Polling is hard in the best of circumstances. It’s not meant to be a perfect predictor. It only gets harder the further you try to drill down into the crosstabs and suss out which unpolled factor is creating movement. Still, it’s better than mere anecdotes and likely the best we’re going to get before election day actually arrives.
It also fits logically with what we know. Gun policy isn’t a top issue for most voters. Most who do have it at the top of their priorities have probably already made up their mind. But the vast majority of voters still think it is an important issue, the contrast between the candidates is stark, and the remaining undecideds seem to be Independents and Republicans unsure about Trump–a group Harris has made some inroads with.
Whoever wins the race to define Harris on guns could win the entire race.
If the Harris Campaign can convince the tiny slice of undecided voters left that she’s just a gun owner looking for “common sense” reforms, that may get her across the finish line. If the Trump Campaign, or the NRA for that matter, can convince them she’s a gun-grabbing radical, that could swing the election just enough in his direction.
