Vice President Kamala Harris gave the American public 103 days to vote for president. It’s not often — especially considering the former President Donald Trump began his campaign in November 2022 — but it’s a timeline not too different from other countries, many of which have shorter campaign cycles.
The United States has the longest campaign cycle among its peers because we operate on a presidential system We have fixed terms of leadership, and we know there are elections every four years, so it’s easy to start early (esp Procedural barriers to running for president)
“It’s different from most other democracies, which are parliamentary systems and have irregularly scheduled elections where you can have – like in Israel – five elections in a very short period of time,” Peveril Square, professor of political science at the University of Missouri, told Vox. “Or you can say a snap election, like in France or Great Britain.”
So how do other countries with short campaign periods handle their leadership elections — and what does that tell us about what the next three months might look like for Harris’ campaign?
The US system has unique factors that make comparisons difficult
Comparing US presidential campaigns to those of other countries – even our allies and peers – is like comparing apples and oranges for many reasons.
The uneven cycle of a parliamentary system forces campaign machinery — how debates are run up to the ballot printing deadline — to be much more flexible than in the United States. Also, many of these systems are highly centralized rather than federalized like in the United States. In parliamentary systems, candidates run on relatively narrow party manifestos; Individual differences between candidates of the same party are small. That means in a case like Harris, where one candidate is replaced late by another, voters don’t really have to understand how the new candidate differs from the old one.
A major challenge Democrats may face is the role of money in the US electoral system. Supreme Court judgment in 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Political donations essentially qualify as free speech. It determined that corporations have rights when individuals make campaign donations and In some cases you can donate an unlimited amount. This led to an astronomical increase in campaign fundraising, changing the course of American politics in critical ways that didn’t just apply to European countries like France.
Harris raised more than that $100 million since President Joe Biden’s endorsement Sunday, but will need to keep the money flowing; Trump’s Second quarter drawn That was $60 million more than Biden. Campaigns run with fast money as they finance ad buys and ground operations, and so do their outside partners. In an age of limitless political spending, there is a race to the heart of the biggest wars – a race that is not a problem in European politics. Patrick Camorelsenior resident scholar at the Stanford Center in Washington, told Vox.
“It is the parties that receive the money” in the European elections, “and this money is the people’s money.” Also, Camorelle said, “In Europe, you have spending limits, which in the United States would be considered restrictions on freedom of expression.” There are always limits to how much parties can spend in European elections — and there are very strict limits on corporate donations, which are intended to preserve candidate independence and ensure a pluralistic political system with a relatively level playing field.
And in most European countries, “advertising in the media doesn’t cost you money,” Camorel said. Media organizations must give equal airtime to official candidates – “even minor candidates from smaller parties are given equal airtime.”
This is not the case in the United States. And in the absence of spending caps or media rules, Democrats — who have insisted Small donor support in recent years – Harris will have to find ways to keep his fundraising numbers high, especially as they work to oust large individual donors who have pledged large donations to outside groups aligned with Trump.
Another key difference Democrats have to contend with is the idea that voters need to identify with candidates. Harris, though vice president for the past four years, remains something of a blank slate, leading to much speculation about what his policy stance is.
He has just over three months for voters to get to know him, but his European counterparts don’t face the same struggles in their shorter election cycles. Party leaders are usually already known numbers, having worked their way through the leadership over many years after holding various positions in government. Plus Europeans pay much more attention to politics than Americans, Camorelle said — so voters get to know the candidates and their parties in ways that American voters don’t.
But there is one way the situation could play to Democrats’ advantage
There is one way Harris could really benefit from the European-style campaign cycle he faces.
In general, America’s campaign cycle is so long that candidates run the risk of alienating voters as they move around on election day. With that certainly appearing to be the case in this cycle Voters are telling regular voters They wished they were Choices other than Trump and Biden.
“One of the problems with running candidates for years before an election is that the public can get tired of them and their message,” Squire said. “[Harris will] Cut the benefits of having an institution in place; He can only take over the Biden-Harris organization, “though relatively fresh to voters. “He’s not really the incumbent, and could run as someone who is somewhat known, but not that well, by many Americans.”
Harris, to an extent, may have the best of both worlds: He already has the advantage of being in a national leadership position. He has the Democratic machinery behind him, including Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and will have access to Biden’s fundraising dollars. But voters haven’t seen his campaign everywhere for months now, which means he will seems new
In a two-party system where Democrats have a wide mix of ideologies — think centrist Democrats like Biden versus more left-leaning politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders (who is an independent, but part of a largely Democratic coalition) — Harris needs to clarify and explain his position. He will have to strike a balance of staying close to Biden’s policies while offering the changes voters want, which could prove a challenging needle to thread in the short term.
However, the shorter campaign cycle may mean less opportunity for the kind of lapses in debate performance that ultimately forced Biden to resign. And Trump and the Republican Party will have less time to create a damaging narrative about Harris that overshadows his policies and performance — but he creates a narrative about himself first.
Harris has won the support of all the major Democratic players — now he needs to focus on what matters most, which is broadcasting his policies and building a coalition of voters who think he can be the next president.
