A survey by NewsBusters, a project of the Media Research Center, targets Democratic and Independent voters with a simple question: Are you aware or unaware? From there they touched on ten policy questions about the sitting vice president who has spoken so little about policy during her campaign.
“Some things were stunning. Of the ten things we polled, they were no lower than 71% unaware,” Curtis Houck, the managing editor for NewsBusters, said on Washington Watch Wednesday.
Among the interesting findings were:
- 71% of likely Harris voters were unaware that Harris has considered the ideas of de-funding police and paying reparations for black people.
- 73% did not know that she favors the Green New Deal – which would, among other things, cut the military budget by 50% and devastate gas-powered cars with a goal of net zero for U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
- 78% did not know that in 2020 Harris encouraged donations to the bail fund for violent criminals jailed for their roles in the Minneapolis riots after George Floyd’s death.
- 86% did not know that in a CCN Town Hall program Harris said there needs to be a conversation on allowing death row inmates to vote.
“So, no matter how you slice it, no matter what the issue – whether it’s the economy, environment, crime, the border – her voters do not know what she believes in. The fact that they’re still willing to vote for her anyway is a real dangerous commentary on the state of our politics,” Houck told show host Jody Hice.
The survey’s findings make it easy to conclude that likely Harris voters also do not understand the impact of “reproductive rights” – the code phrase she often uses for abortion. It’s been a hot topic for Democrats since the Supreme Court’s decision to return abortion regulation to the states in the summer of 2022 – and especially this week at the Democratic National Convention.
Eight states this fall have ballot initiatives that, if successful, would codify abortion in state constitutions. They’re not all blue states. One of them is Florida.
The Pavone Challenge
Democrats inside Chicago's United Center have been celebrating abortion this week … while offering the procedure for free outside the convention arena. Frank Pavone, a former Catholic priest and leader in the fight for life, would like to see Democrats use modern technology to be more specific as they celebrate abortion.
“My challenge is, you’ve got all these big screens at the convention, all this technology, you’ve got people watching from coast to coast … [so] show us an abortion. You think this is such a great idea, show it to us. They won’t, not in a million years would they dream of doing something like that,” he said on American Family Radio Thursday.
Pavone’s idea would allow lightly informed likely Harris voters a clearer picture of what Democrats are supporting. He told show host Jenna Ellis the party has given speaking time to several women who have had an abortion but won’t take up his challenge because of the brutality of the procedure.
“They won’t even quote the words in the medical textbooks that describe how abortions are done because when you go there you hear the word ‘dismemberment,’ you hear the word ‘decapitation,’” Pavone described.
In pursuit of their aims Democrats have become disconnected from “real life” stories about abortion, he said.
“We have the Silent No More movement, and these people who have had abortions speak out about their stories. These three women who took the stage Monday night at the convention, talking about their abortion stories – for every one of them, we’ve got a hundred women who will stand up there and say My abortion destroyed my life,” Pavone said.
It's all about snapshots & sound bites
But will facts about Harris’ positions sway her likely voters? Conservative show host and commenter Dan Bongino doesn’t think so. Elections turn on two things, Bongino said in a recent podcast interview. Neither of them is policy.
“Campaigns are really two things. They are snapshots and sound bites. It’s quick little things that people ingest. The hard reality is people are working for a living. You've got cab drivers, architects, pilots. They’re not reading a 51-page tax plan. It’s a freaking sound bite,” Bongino said.
The Harris campaign, he shared, has deftly managed these two things, and the candidate at the top of the ticket has mostly avoided policy discussion in rare public comments.
Republicans hope Bongino’s theory is off the mark.
“The narrative that they want to be out there is that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, and the Tim Walz pick underlining this, that they are a danger to each individual Americans’ personal, economic and national security,” Houck said.
Unfair, unbalanced
A NewsBusters study shows that coverage of Harris by ABC, CBS and NBC is positive 84% of the time, Houck pointed out. Even the media commentary of the Harris campaign is light on policy, he added.
“Only twice have they mentioned her ideology as a 'progressive,'” he said. “Our side? We’re always labeled 'conservatives', 'hard right' or even just 'Republican.' There’s always some sort of label affixed to us – but they haven’t done that with Kamala Harris.”
