732 right now.
And big night tonight, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
expected to kick off the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Yeah.
4000 delegates are gathered for the DNC.
So are protesters.
Joining us this morning to discuss what Kamala Harris and
Tim Walz need to do to keep up their momentum
and convince undecided voters is Democratic strategist Trip Yang.
So good morning, Trip.
Thanks for being with us.
Good morning.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, the Democrats really pulling out all the stops, right?
I mean, they have former President Barack Obama, former President
Bill Clinton all expected to make appearances and speeches.
How much of an effect do you think this will
have on undecided voters?
It absolutely is a tremendous opportunity for Democrats.
I myself, before I started my political consulting firm, I've
worked on three presidential campaigns dating back to President Obama's
campaign in Iowa.
And so historically, conventions, you get about four percentage points
a bump up for the candidate.
And so it's a tremendous opportunity for the Kamala Harris,
Tim Waltz ticket to introduce and reintroduce themselves and their
policies to the American people.
It's a huge opportunity for the Democratic Party.
And it's seemingly if, if poll numbers show anything.
And some people don't believe the polls, right?
But the winds in their sails right now because we're
seeing a bit of a bump for Kamala Harris and
Tim Walsh.
So talk about the poll numbers going into the convention.
Absolutely polling.
The key thing about polling here is that you look
at the trend line where the candidate is growing.
Kamala Harris, clearly in the last four so weeks since
she became presumptive and now the Democratic nominee, her numbers
have gone, you know, very much surging uphill.
Donald Trump, he's clearly hit a ceiling here.
And so polling, polling is very, very important.
The other thing you look at is that Kamala Harris's
favorables are pretty good.
Donald Trump's favorables, the unfavorable ratio, not that great.
So right now the win is that Kamala Harris is
back.
There are issues.
There are issues that that Donald Trump is leading on,
immigration being one of them.
One of the polls said that he was up 10
points in the issue of immigration and the economy.
So how is she going to make up ground there?
Well, look, you're always going to have opportunities and challenges,
whether you're a Democrat or a Republican.
Kamala Harris pulls better on personality on issues such as,
you know, reproductive rights, you know, defending democracy.
Yes, Donald Trump is going to pull better on certain
issues.
But that's why you have the campaign.
That's why you run with a set of policies.
And that's why you provide a positive vision for yourself,
for the party, for the country.
Talk about distractions, though, that might be happening at the
DNC.
There are protesters there protesting against the war in Gaza.
How much do you think that that takes away from
what's happening at the DNCI?
Think it's really healthy to have this type of discourse
in the Democratic Party.
I'm a Democrat, loyal, long time.
You will always have a Big 10 coalition in the
Democratic Party.
It is a healthy discourse to have this type of
conversation about the conflict.
What I will say, though, I will say something that's
significant, is that even amongst the Democratic activist community, Kamala
Harris is viewed as someone who has traditionally or actually
earlier on in the conflict, has had a more nuanced
opinion.
She came out for a ceasefire earlier than most folks
in the Democratic Party have.
And so, look, you're never going to make everyone happy,
but you can give them room and an opportunity to
engage with you on these issues.
So all eyes, of course, on Chicago and the convention.
So what are some of the key things she has
to 0 in on, as Hazel talked about in the
first question, to bring some of the independents in right
now, she's she's hired key senior advisors, David Plouffe, who
ran Barack Obama's first successful campaign, right.
There's only 78 days left here.
So these four days are going to make a huge
difference.
Absolutely.
You have to provide a positive vision for the country,
lean on your strengths.
Earlier on in this year, Donald Trump had a comparative
advantage over Joe Biden on the age issue.
Right now, Democrats have completely flipped the script.
Kamala Harris is seen as more vibrant, more healthy, obviously
younger.
The other thing is you have to key into lean
into key voters of color, black, Latino and Asian American
voters.
Asian American voters are right now 7% of the country
fastest growing electorate going to be key in winning some
of these battleground states like Pennsylvania and Nevada and Georgia.
How important though, do you think it is that she
actually make herself more available to the press because there's
been a lot of, you know, heat on her because
she hasn't really spoken to the press as often as
as former President Donald Trump has.
I think sometimes with these issues, it's more of a
a matter of quality over quantity campaigns.
You take a lot of time to assemble good team,
good core message, have to deploy your surrogates and so
right now and of course the convention takes a lot
of planning as well.
So it's really about quality more than quantity.
Once you get to the convention, I think you're going
to see VP Harris open up a lot more in
terms of these media interviews.
At the same time, ever since she announced her VP
pick of Tim Waltz, she has done a lot of
barnstorming across all these states.
I know she was in Pennsylvania earlier this week where
I should say in the past couple days.
So the direct voter engagement and interaction has always been
there.
Yeah.
But is it giving the Republican opponent, Donald Trump, fodder?
Right.
Because he's able to go out there during his press
conference and say, here I am, I'm also campaigning.
But she can't do one of these.
She's sticking to a script.
I think that's a very good argument.
But every time Donald Trump opens his mouth, there's a
very good chance he says something kind of knuckleheaded, you
know, maybe something a little bit racial.
And so sometimes you have to let your opponent defeat
himself.
Now, she does have some other heavy hitters on the
celebrity side that are expected to make, well, at least
we're hearing rumors that Beyoncé, Taylor Swift possibly making appearances
at the convention.
That would be really smart.
Look, if someone knows about that, it's probably a little
bit above my pay grade.
But Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, I've seen a lot of
polling the voters, they have some of the highest favourables
of any mainstream celebrity.
So any candidate would be very lucky to have them
stumping for them.
And and there's this idea that there's four other celebrities
hosting each night, right?
Do you know about this?
I know there's a lot of influencers at the convention.
This is the first Democratic convention that that has actually
recruited and organized engage hundreds of influencers.
Some of them are TikTok on social media.
The Democratic Party obviously also has had a lot of
celebrities in the past.
In my in the past presidential campaigns that I've worked
on, Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen have often headline rallies
for the Democratic tickets.
So, you know, this is, you know, this is part
of the the pageantry.
I think Katy Perry was at a convention a couple
years ago.
You know, you got to energize and excite your vote.
And I got to say, earlier in this year, some
Democratic voters were maybe not as energized as, you know,
probably we've seen in the past.
But right now, if you look at the polling, they're
very, very excited to let Kamala Harris.
And President Biden is is expected to speak as well.
I think you'll get a hero's ovation.
All right, Trip Yang, thanks so much for being with
us this morning.