Harris PAC founder foubts optimism in public polls

The founder of the main outside spending group backing Kamala Harris' presidential bid says their own opinion polling is less "rosy" than public polls suggest and warned that Democrats face much closer races in key states.

Chauncey McLean, president of Future Forward, a super political action committee, or super PAC, that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to back Harris in the Nov. 5 election, spoke on Monday during an event hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.

"Our numbers are much less rosy than what you're seeing in the public," said McLean, who rarely talks publicly.

Harris enters the Democratic National Convention in Chicago riding a wave of public polls that show she has already reshaped a race that strongly favored Republican Donald Trump in the final weeks of President Joe Biden's candidacy. Harris is leading in a compilation of national polls by FiveThirtyEight 46.6% to 43.8% for Republican Donald Trump, and has pulled ahead in several public battleground state polls.

Future Forward has created a massive polling operation that created and tested some 500 digital and television ads for Biden and some 200 for Harris. They have talked to some 375,000 Americans in the weeks after Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee on July 22.

McLean said the group has at least $250 million left to spend, planning a wave of advertising from digital to television between Labor Day on Sept. 2 and Election Day on Nov. 5.

In Kamala Harris, we have a chance to elect a president who is for the middle class because she is from the middle class.

Super PACs can raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, then spend unlimited amounts to overtly advocate for or against political candidates.

McLean said the majority of Harris' momentum in the immediate aftermath of Biden dropping out was from young voters of color, and that has opened up Sunbelt states such as Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, states which Democrats had largely written off in the final days of the Biden campaign.

"She has multiple paths," with seven states in play, a complete turnaround from when Biden was on the ticket, he said. The other states include Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

McLean said Pennsylvania remains the most consequential state in the group's analysis and he called the race a "coin flip" based on its polls. He says Harris must win one of three states - Pennsylvania, North Carolina or Georgia - to win the White House.

He warned that Harris has yet to fully rebuild the Biden coalition of Blacks, Hispanics and young voters that brought him the White House in 2020.

McLean said polling shows the public wants more detailed policy positions from Harris.

He says they don't want "white papers," but they also don't want platitudes. He says they need more concrete examples of how she may differ from Biden and make their lives easier economically. Trump allies have called on Harris to do the same in recent days, hoping to pin her down on controversial issues.

The race is as tight as ever, McLean said.

"We have it tight as a tick, and pretty much across the board," he said.