Could Trump win? Yes, and some Democrats privately claim they know why

In fairness to Future Forward, the PAC released positive biographical ads about Harris six days after Biden's departure. But for critics that was five days too long. In their view, Future Forward spends too much time testing ads before running, and here it cost the PAC crucial time at a critical moment.

This is also about a fundamental, fundamental disagreement within the party. Future Forward strongly believes that advertising must be thoroughly tested before airing because political activists – who are partisan – are often poor at predicting how swing voters will view advertising. But critics worry that this will make the PAC what they call “slow to deploy resources.”

Meanwhile, there is also a fundamental disagreement within the party about the timing of the advertising. According to the Democrat familiar with Future Foward's thinking, in the early days of Harris' campaign, the PAC really believed that siphoning off resources for later spending wouldn't have been a worthwhile trade-off because ads being run if voters are really turned on, get more for the money. But several critics pointed out that defining Trump early — as Democrats successfully did against Mitt Romney in 2012 — is central to the role of super PACs like Future Forward.