This was always a challenging race for Vice President Kamala Harris. She started late, and ran against a tough opponent in a bleak environment. She faced an electorate hungry for change, upset with the direction of the country and the economy.
If she wins, she will be able to credit a handful of factors that helped her fight those headwinds and defeat former President Donald J. Trump.
Here is what analysts will be saying should Ms. Harris win. (And here is the same thought experiment on a Trump victory.)
Turnout, turnout, turnout
The vice president’s embrace of the traditional Democratic get-out-the-vote effort, relying on paid staff and unions to knock on doors, will have proven to be every bit as effective as promised. By contrast, Mr. Trump largely outsourced this work to allies, including Elon Musk, who had far less experience in the world of organizing and reaching voters.
The Harris campaign said it had dispatched 2,500 staff members, working out of 353 offices nationwide, to work on finding supporters and getting them to vote. In one week alone, the campaign logged 600,000 door-knocks and three million phone calls. A Harris win would offer proof for what has often seemed a barroom theory of political operatives and strategists: that turnout operations make a difference in close races.
