Former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele, now a frequent critic of the party, said Sunday he thinks Vice President Harris will win the general election, flipping North Carolina and Florida in the process.
“This coalition that’s being created right now by Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is not just one to watch, but it’s going to be one that the history books will study, when, I think, she takes this thing to victory,” Steele said in an interview on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart.”
“Florida and North Carolina will fall, along with Georgia,” Steele continued.
Steele agreed with author and podcast host Steve Phillips, who said Florida and North Carolina “are now in play” for Harris, pointing to an increase in enthusiasm and in support from Black voters in key swing states.
Phillips said in a recent piece discussed in the MSNBC interview that “nearly every state Barack Obama won in 2012 is within reach and winnable by Harris.”
“I agree with Steve’s argument,” Steele said, and he recalled saying soon after Harris replaced President Biden as the party’s candidate that “at the end of the day, this election for the Democrats could be bigger than Obama, that what Kamala Harris had the potential to do then — which is now being borne out and certainly reflected in what Steve just said — is she could create a different coalition.”
The Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision — which overturned the federal right to abortion — could open up an opportunity for Harris to tap into the center-right segment of voters who oppose highly restrictive abortion laws but might have otherwise supported Republican candidates, Steele said.
He added that he thinks Harris has the potential to bring together a historic coalition that extends beyond just Obama and Biden voters.
Steele said Harris’s coalition could be “one that was more than just a combination of Obama and Biden, meaning, ’08 and ’20, but even adding in new elements. Because what has happened transformationally, in terms of issues, is Dobbs. Abortion is now in play.”
“What that does is it draws in center-right voters who would otherwise be aligned with the Republican Party, now falling away because of the heavy-handed nature in which Republicans want to control women’s bodies and their rights, take away their rights, and that does not sit well, either,” Steele said.
