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.
Yes, we have to overwhelm them with a landslide and GOTV will be crucial. But I was getting at what Susan picked up. We need to weigh in on the spin game, and hard. First, we have to shout that Kerry did win, and support all efforts of the Kerry campaign to make sure the votes are counted. And we have to have a good narrative about why Bush lost. We have to create our own facts, starting now.
Alan S,
You are absolutely correct.
The Bush Machine is all about saying something and making it so by saying it over and over and over.
Fox News and Gallup are in on it. So is the New York Post, the Washington Times, and Drudge. Likewise Limbaugh.
They take daily talking points and utilize brainwashing techniques aka marketing techniques.
They are losing because their product sucks so hard. People try Kerry Cola, and even though the marketing sucks, it tastes better.
Bush and team already plan to either declare victory or war the night of November 2nd. Unless there is a landslide, this guy is not leaving office without a fight. I can easily see him counting on litigation or legislatures to steal a few key states.
That is the main reason we need to win by 5 million or more votes. We need a landslide to rid the country of this counterfeit King who stole the presidency once, and will surely do so again if given any chance.
Danton wrote:
“Are there circumstances in which the “50% rule” doesn’t quite hold? Could, say, the majority of undecided voters break for an incumbent in a time of war?”
=================================
What time of war?
The public doesn’t perceive this as a US war, but as a Bush war, and there has been no indication the undecideds are in any way moved by Bush’s constant pitch that this is a war time.
If they would buy that dubious proposition, they would have bought it already.
All polls shows undecideds decidedly anti-war.
Ruy, echoing “Gabby Hayes,” I was very happy to see you get props from Krugman, who’s one of my idols.
But I share Alan’s concern about the guerilla campaign that Bush/Cheney are waging. My advice: volunteer NOW to get out the vote and do what you can to help the Dems keep voter fraud at bay.
Alan, We certainly made a difference right after each debate when we flooded the polls with votes stating that Kerry won. Hope we can be effectively mobilized to help bring about victory on Nov. 2.
At the moment, I’m on pins and needles. My DD and Ruy make me feel hopeful, then I read Altercation and Eric reports that things just ain’t that rosy.
Oyi!
Krugman’s article is important because it says it out loud that we are in an evolving coup d’etat. And it reinforces the picture of Bush’s world painted by Ron Suskind in his important NY Times article
Krugman’s point about Gallup illustrates perfectly what the Bush advisor meant when he told Suskind that “we create our own reality.” This remark has nothing to do with faith vs secular, it is ad-speak. I’ve been around advertising types for years, and it is how they speak. They do create perceptions, and for them, that is reality.
Gallup, Fox, and the others are working very hard to create the perception that Bush is winning. They are not obsessed, like those in the reality-based community with analyzing facts as they exist. They are creating perceptions–reality in the world of politics. And as the Bush adviser told Suskind, the rest of us just have to rush to catch up.
While the rest of us are glued to TV on election night, analyzing the election results, the right wing media machine will be forging ahead, creating the perception that Bush has already won. We’ve all got to do what we can to create the alternative perception, that Bush lost and Kerry won. Let’s not be caught flat-footed this time around.
Are there circumstances in which the “50% rule” doesn’t quite hold? Could, say, the majority of undecided voters break for an incumbent in a time of war? I ask this because lots of blogs seem to take the rule as an article of faith
Ruy, you didn’t mention that he gave you a shout out and props by name.
I was reading Krugman earlier today and saw the tip of the hat he gave you on deconstructing Gallup and others.
Congrats. I’ve been sending people here for the past 6 weeks to get people educated on polls.