It’s pretty obvious Kamala Harris’s candidacy changes the 2024 presidential race more than a little, and I wrote at New York about one avenue she has for victory that might have eluded Joe Biden:
During her brief run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, Kamala Harris was widely believed to be emulating Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign strategy. She treated South Carolina, the first primary state with a substantial Black electorate, as the site of her potential breakthrough. But she front-loaded resources into Iowa to prepare for that breakthrough by reassuring Black voters that she could win in the largely white jurisdiction. She had the added advantage of being from the large state of California, where the primary had just been moved up to Super Tuesday (March 3). For a thrilling moment, after her commanding performance in a June 2019 debate, Harris seemed on track to pull off this feat, threatening Joe Biden’s hold on South Carolina in the polls and surging in Iowa. But neither she nor Cory Booker, who also relied on the Obama precedent, could displace Biden as the favorite of Black voters or strike gold in the crowded Iowa field. Out of money and luck, Harris dropped out before voters voted.
Now Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for 2024 without having to navigate any primaries. But she still faces some key strategic decisions. Joe Biden was consistently trailing Donald Trump in the polls in no small part because he was underperforming among young and non-white voters, the very heart of the much-discussed Obama coalition. Can Harris recoup some of these potential losses without sacrificing support elsewhere in the electorate? That is a question she must address at the very beginning of her general-election campaign.
There’s a chance that Harris can inject a bit of the Obama “hope and change” magic into a Democratic ticket that had previously felt like a desperate effort to defend an unpopular administration led by a low-energy incumbent, as Ron Brownstein suggests in The Atlantic:
“Polls have shown that a significant share of Americans doubt the mental capacity of Trump, who has stumbled through his own procession of verbal flubs, memory lapses, and incomprehensible tangents during stump speeches and interviews to relatively little attention in the shadow of Biden’s difficulties. Particularly if Harris picks a younger running mate, she could top a ticket that embodies the generational change that many voters indicated they were yearning for when facing a Trump-Biden rematch …
“In the best-case scenario for this line of thinking, Harris could regain ground among the younger voters and Black and Hispanic voters who have drifted away from Biden since 2020. At the same time, she could further expand Democrats’ already solid margins among college-educated women who support abortion rights.”
Team Trump seems to believe it can offset these potential gains by depicting Harris as a “California radical” and a symbol of diversity who might alienate the older white voters with whom Biden had some residual strength. Obama overcame similar race-saturated appeals in 2008, but he had a lot of help from a financial collapse and an unpopular war presided over by the party of his opponent.
Following Obama’s path has major strategic implications in terms of the battleground map. Any significant improvement over Biden’s performance among Black, Latino, and under-30 voters might put Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina — very nearly conceded to Trump in recent weeks — back into play. But erosion of Biden’s support among older and/or non-college-educated white voters could create potholes in his narrow Rust Belt path to victory in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
These strategic choices could definitely affect Harris’s choice of a running-mate, not just in terms of potentially picking a veep from a battleground state, but as a way of amplifying the shift produced by Biden’s withdrawal. Brownstein even thinks Harris might consider following Bill Clinton’s 1992 example of doubling down on her own strengths:
“The other option that energizes many Democrats would be for Harris to take the bold, historic option of selecting another woman: Whitmer. That would be a greater gamble, but a possible model would be 1992, when Bill Clinton chose Al Gore as his running mate; Gore was, like him, a centrist Baby Boomer southerner—rather than an older D.C. hand. ‘I love Josh Shapiro and I think he would be a great VP candidate, but I would double down’ with Whitmer, [Democratci consultant Mike] Mikus told me. ‘I don’t think you have to go with a moderate white guy. I think you can be bold [with a pick] that electrifies your base.’ I heard similar views from several consultants.”
Whitmer’s expressed disinterest in the veepstakes may take that particular option off the table, but the broader point remains: Harris does not have to — and may not be able to — simply adopt Biden’s strategy and tweak it slightly. She may be able to contemplate gains in the electorate that were unimaginable for an 81-year-old white male incumbent. But the strategic opportunity to follow Obama’s path to the White House will first depend on Harris’s ability to refocus persuadable voters on Trump’s shaky record, bad character, and extremist agenda. Biden could not do that after the debate debacle of June 27. His successor must begin taking the battle to the former president right now.
Regarding Bush (and Gov. Romney, and other socially backward types of their ilk) on gay marriage: It is not clear to me that they will not be able to use it as a wedge issue. But I believe it should be possible for our candidate to argue forcefully that it is un-American to decry judges for doing the terrificly important job that the Founders gave them: defending the rights of a minority of citizens, especially when those citizens are widely disliked. When Bush and his allies lament that the “will of the people” has been usurped by activist judges, they really are talking about the mob mentality of the bullying majority, which Madison & Co. most reasonably feared.
“And as we’ve seen in the last few weeks, people don’t really start thinking about an election until very late. He could tank, as his father did when people started thinking seriously about whether they wanted to see him on TV for another 4 years.”
Ron Thompson, I certainly hope you’re right. The continuously mounting evidence of this administration’s utter dishonesty and incompetence makes it rather discouraging that Bush’s approval rating is still anywhere near 50%.
I am of the belief that Karl Rove still has cards to play.
But in order to keep Rove off his game, Dems have to keep Bush playing defense. Talk lost tax revenue as well as defecit. Index cuts to popular and essential programs in terms of dollars gained by people who make over $2 million per year. Ask the big question, “Should a president deceive you in order to do something you agree with? Graphically demonstrate (not simply pie charts, etc) how long it would take to make up the the slack between the jobs Bush promised and the jobs he’s created. There’s more, but I have to get back to work….
The problem with Kerry is the same as it was for Gore, he seems completely ungenuine (ingenuine?). I believe that he, like Gore, is a very well qualified and principled individual, and I would vote for him in a heartbeat, but he is going to turn off my mother-in-law just like Gore. He just can’t win because Bush seems genuine (ironies of ironies).
I’m still for Clark. The question “Who can beat Bush?” is the right question. I don’t think the answer is Kerry because Kerry says he won’t make an issue of the war. Of course he might be rethinking that if the polls show that it’s safe to speak up, but assuming he sticks to his original agenda, he won’t talk about the war. and that is not only cowardly but also stupid.
Bush will make an issue of the war. He has to. He has no othe issue. That means like it or not the Democrats have to run against the war. Humphrey tried to ignore the biggest moral issue of his day when he ran aginst Nixon in 1968. He concentrated on domestic issues because the Democratic party leaders then, as now, lacked the balls to take a moral stand or provide leadership in opposition to a war. Humphrey lost.
Dean understands that leaders create issues. /they speak out over and over until they are heard. They don’t check the polls to find out what they think. The problem is that Dean isn’t the right messenger to tell the American people that Bush led them into an unnecessary war and killed over 500 citizens for a megalomaniacal fantasy. Kerry is in a better position to attack but he lacks the nerve. He won’t publicize Bush’s lies until the polls tell him it’s safe. That leaves Clark.
Clark is the person who has the courage to take an stand and the stature and experience to back it up. He is the one that can tell Americans that they got conned and misled. His candidacy is that best thing that has happened to the Democrats in years.
He’s also the best choice for another reason. He’s a Southerner and he has the Southerner’s ability to talk about values, religion, family etc. and sound sincere(because he is sincere). Those issues and that sincere demeanor matter to Independent voters. It may be that Ruy is right and we don’t need the Southern states to win. However we do need the Independent voters and they are more likey to vote for a Southerner regardless of where they reside. Look at the track record. Southern Democrats have won far more often than Northerners. It’s a matter of style. They have a broader appeal in marginal states.
To bad he won’t get the nomination.
A similar thing happened in the President’s last big speech, on September 7th. He did a Sunday night address to the nation on Iraq, hurriedly announced on Friday afternoon, and the percentage of approval for his handling of Iraq after the speech was worse than before. So that’s twice in a row he’s left his audience unimpressed.
The country willed itself to think well of him after 9/11. And as we’ve seen in the last few weeks, people don’t really start thinking about an election until very late. He could tank, as his father did when people started thinking seriously about whether they wanted to see him on TV for another 4 years.
i think it’s great that Bush’s SOTU address was properly interpreted, and it HURT him accordingly. after all, he focused more on steroids than health care.