Why are we still talking about cat memes in the 2024 campaign?

CNN

Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN

(CNN) — Far be it from anyone to identify a defined strategy in the cat memes that have overtaken the American political conversation in a pivotal election year.

But it’s worth considering why, rather than move on from insults against “childless cat ladies” and false stories about Haitian migrants eating cats in Ohio, former President Donald Trump’s campaign and his allies keep the controversies simmering.

Beyond Trump’s general refusal to ever admit an error, do they see an upside in stirring the pot?

Ramaswamy to hold event in Springfield

Why else, the day after the Republican mayor of Springfield, Ohio, said at a press conference that he’d prefer neither campaign turn his city into a background for a political event, would Vivek Ramaswamy, the Ohio-based businessman who is one of Trump’s most vocal and spirited supporters, announce he would hold a town hall in the city?

Never mind the state’s Republican governor, who also counseled against a campaign visit, called out state troopers to city schools to ease concern about scores of bomb threats.

Why else, rather than move on from mean critiques of women without biological children, would Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders open a town hall event with Trump in Michigan on Tuesdaywith a not-so-subtle reference to Vice President Kamala Harris’ personal life?

Sanders seems to criticize Harris over children

Sanders began what could have been a touching anecdote by noting that her own children keep her humble.

But then she aimed a barb at Harris, who, “unfortunately,” according to Sanders, “doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.” Harris is a stepmother.

Intentional or not, the insult cued a new round of stories about how the Trump campaign doesn’t seem to mind turning off women voters.

The Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson said on CNN that she views Sanders as somebody “who’s a potentially really great messenger to women, to young moms, across the country.”

That’s probably why Trump’s campaign picked Sanders to interview the former president during the town hall event. Women voters have shifted away from Trump since Harris entered the race, according to polls.

But the need to “twist the knife in a little bit to Vice President Harris” contradicts that message, according to Anderson.

Very few undecided voters

Perceptions of the election are so set in stone that it may not matter who Trump, his running mate Sen. JD Vance or any other Republican offends.

CNN’s senior data reporter, Harry Enten, said in an appearance on CNN Tuesday that pretty much everyone has made up their minds.

“In fact, it’s the lowest level of undecideds that we’ve seen in polling at this point this entire 21st century.”

He was referring to an aggregate of polling, but Enten later pointed me to a September New York Times/Siena College poll that tells a similar story.

How do you reach someone who sees the election as NBD?

Enten argued that one difficulty in speaking to this tiny but consequential sliver of voters is that the campaigns might not know what they’re looking for. While most, 30%, cite the economy as their top issue, a large chunk of the undecided voters, 28%, he pointed out, say they don’t have a top issue.

“What exactly are you going to talk about to the folks who say, ‘Wait a minute, we don’t have a top issue?’” Enten wondered.

Will the cat memes pierce through?

Another thing that separates this sliver of undecided voters from the rest of the country, Enten noted, is that large majorities of Harris supporters (70%) and Trump supporters (72%) say this is the most important election in their lifetime. Only about a quarter of undecided voters see this election as the most important in their lifetime.

Any discussion of immigration could benefit Trump

There’s also an argument that, in particular when it comes to the Springfield story, any coverage of the immigration issue benefits Trump – even when he’s saying things that are untrue about Haitian migrants, drawing the gentle rebuke of Ohio’s governor or unintentionally misgendering a Puerto Rican reggaeton star, as Trump did at one recent rally in Las Vegas.

Trump assumed that the musician Nicky Jam is a woman. He’s not. So it was somewhat uncomfortable when Trump said of Jam, “She’s hot!,” and was then joined by a tattooed man in a MAGA hat.

Jam, by the way, is not the only Puerto Rican musician to endorse Trump – something that has not gotten as much attention as Taylor Swift’s or Billie Eilish’s endorsements of Harris, but could in hindsight have an effect in Philadelphia, where there is a Puerto Rican population. Pennsylvania doesn’t have the largest Puerto Rican population in the continental US, but it is a major swing state.

Every day the political conversation is tied to immigration is a winner for Trump, argued Lance Trover, who was an adviser to the short-lived presidential campaign of North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. In an appearance on CNN Wednesday, Trover noted that polling suggests a majority of Americans support the idea of mass deportation, for instance, even though the Haitians in Springfield are in the US legally.

“I’m guessing the Trump campaign is wagering that Americans have moved on from the dogs and the cats and the memes, and they are wagering that Americans as a whole are looking at this community and asking themselves a foundational question: ‘What if 10, 20, 30,000 people moved into my community?’ And that’s a fair discussion to have across the country,” Trover said.

Bold wager

Pushing verifiably incorrect stories seems like a bold wager, even if it does keep the focus on immigration. Insulting women seems even bolder in an election that could come down to relatively few votes in a handful of states.

Anderson wrote in The New York Times that while Harris may have an edge in nationwide polling and Democrats remain fired up and united behind Harris after her strong debate performance, it’s not yet clear that the race has materially changed. Polling still suggests super tight races in those pivotal states.

“It’s of course better to have your side more energized than your opponent’s, but an enthusiastic vote doesn’t count more than a begrudging one so long as they both turn out,” Anderson wrote.

If this is a strategy, seems like it could backfire

While Trump and Vance frequently gripe about which comments get coverage in the media, it’s hard to ignore that they keep teasing out these controversies with their comments and actions.

There is evidence that the attacks on Harris’ personal life are having an effect, but not a good one for Trump, according to the anti-Trump Republican strategist Sarah Longwell, who appeared Wednesday on “The Lead” with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“Every time I do a focus group with swing voters, they bring up JD Vance talking about childless cat ladies. Like, this is the kind of thing that’s breaking through and is really causing, I think, independent voters to say … ‘Why do they keep attacking women?’”

“I’ve never seen a campaign do more to alienate … the single largest voting bloc in an election,” Longwell said.

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