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.
ThinkingGuy:
Look, I understand your anger and your desire to hit back. Palin is really pissing me off too. I’m not advocating that Obama and Biden not respond to attacks. On the contrary; direct response is essential. But the most effective counterattack won’t be matching Palin’s cheap shots with some of our own. There are so many contradictions between the McCain/Palin messages and their policies, it’s not hard to pick them apart (and Obama/Biden are already doing so).
My experience in sports, business and politics is to trust your training, stick to the game plan and make your shots — in the political world, that means building a strong campaign organization, staying on message and getting out the vote. And if someone throws an elbow, you don’t throw one back; you just don’t back down.
Um, I do not think when the enemy is coming AT you with pitchforks is a good time to start putting them away.
Sorry folks, the MSM is not going to tell it like it is, but the Republicans have unleashed Beauty Queen, and she is going to draw nasty blood anywhere and everywhere she goes..with lies, and insults. We can and MUST fight back with equal venom, or say hello to president McCain.
Ah another “reformer with results,” I guess the McCain campaign is so tied to Bush they are even stealing his campaign themes.
Open Memo to Democrats:
Put down your pitchforks and pick up your ploughshares.
The only way we’re going to win the presidency is through hard work. Ignore the media and partisan “spokespersons”; don’t waste any more time trolling the blogosphere for Republican gaffes and outrageous statements; resist the temptation to vent or be snide. From now until polls close on Nov. 4, we need to put all our efforts into getting out the vote. And the only way to get out the vote is to make phone calls, knock on doors and be physically visible in your community.
History tells us that turnout is the most important factor in close races, and there is no doubt now that this race will be close. Remember 2000? We can fume all we want about a “stolen” election (the thief being either the Supreme Court or Ralph Nader), but the fact is that too many Florida Democrats were either AWOL or voted for someone other than Gore (unbelievably, 12% of Florida Democrats voted for Bush!). If Democrats stay home or vote for McCain because 1) Hillary Clinton isn’t the nominee, 2) McCain/Palin successfully raise doubts about Obama/Biden or 3) no one bothered to ask them to vote, then we will have failed as a political party.
For almost two years now, America has resoundingly supported the Democrats’ optimistic message of change. Americans want our soldiers out of Iraq. Americans want comprehensive health care reform. Americans want a fair and equitable tax policy. Americans want the federal government to provide real leadership and responsible oversight of the economy. Americans want a foreign policy that projects America’s best attributes, not our worst fears. Americans want to roll up their sleeves and solve our energy problems once and for all. We are on the right side of every major issue facing the country today.
The primaries are history. The conventions over. Our job for the next 60 days is to deliver one single message to as many voters — Democratic, Independent and Republican — as possible: that Barack Obama and Joe Biden will bring about the change we all want, and John McCain and Sarah Palin will not. The numbers are in our favor. “Base” Democrats outnumber “base” Republicans this year. If we mobilize Democrats and win over as many Independents and moderate Republicans (those who are turned off by Palin’s vitriol and extreme views) as possible, we can win this election.
BUT WE MUST ACT! Action, powered by a positive and authentic message of change, is the only path to victory. Action is the “secret sauce” that has lifted the Obama campaign from a mere sliver of hope to a real movement. Because at the end of the day, rhetoric and policy positions and good intentions are meaningless if our efforts fall short.
If you’re in this to improve our country, to enact meaningful change and to prove that Democrats have better answers to the pressing questions of the day, then I’m asking you to do the most you possibly can to encourage your family, friends and neighbors to vote, and to vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.