Harris is winning the all-important battle — of vibes

There has been a tendency among Democrats to get exasperated at the American people for not voting their material interests — for policies that would help them better their conditions. They wonder (as the title of a book raising the concern goes) “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” but what they really mean is, “What’s the Matter with America?”

In recent years, however, a growing body of scholarship has shown that people don’t tend to vote rationally, but rather use voting to express themselves in emotional, ideological and moral ways. This view of human behavior, which I would associate with scholars such as Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Haidt, sees elections as involving a great deal of intangible intuition and passion. Voters choose from the gut and then rationalize their choice, consciously or not. Kamala Harris’s campaign seems premised on this latter, intuition-based approach.

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