Suddenly, Kamala Harris is the Democrats' last, best hope of preventing a Trump restoration and a full MAGA takeover of Washington.
It's a prospect that excites some Democrats and terrifies others.
As vice president, Harris was always the most likely political heir to President Biden, whose withdrawal Sunday from his uphill reelection campaign brought forward his legacy by several years.
Ceding the Democratic nomination to Harris is the quickest and most convenient move for the party, given the limited time before the start of its nominating convention on August 19 and the short window until the November 5 election.
There would also be the political fallout if Biden had passed over the nation’s first Black and Asian female vice president. The snub would have sparked animosity among many members of a key constituency at a time when former President Trump appears to be making significant inroads with the Democratic base.
By replacing Biden, Harris automatically inherits his treasury and campaign infrastructure. This was, after all, the Biden-Harris re-election committee. That handover of power is significant. It is impossible to imagine any other Democrat building a viable political operation or raising the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to win the White House from scratch at this point.
But just because Harris is the logical alternative to Biden doesn't make her a consensus choice.
Some would have preferred a sort of mini-primary between now and the convention, romanticizing what would have quickly become a fractious fight that would leave little time to heal before November. A noteworthy parallel is 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson abruptly stepped aside rather than seek reelection. Democrats gathered in Chicago (where, incidentally, next month’s convention meets), where blood ran in the streets and the contested candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was narrowly defeated in November.
For better or worse, it will be Harris.
Some of the concerns about her rise have to do with perceptions of the American electorate and the country’s attitude toward race and gender. Put bluntly, a certain segment of the population will never support anyone other than a white man as president. As unfair as that may seem, it’s nothing Harris can change.
The question, then, is how her entry as a Democratic candidate alters the political dynamics of the presidential race. Will the surge of enthusiasm in black neighborhoods in Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia offset the loss of white support in rural Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania?
Will North Carolina, with its significant black population, become more competitive? Will New Hampshire and Maine, states that are almost entirely white and predominantly rural, become less competitive?
We won't know for a while, but Harris's strategists will soon have to determine where and how to best deploy their resources and the time and energy of the vice president and her eventual running mate.
A bigger question is whether the vice president has improved as a candidate since her dismal 2020 White House campaign. Democrats certainly hope so.
“Her campaign was a disaster,” said Jim Manley, who spent decades in the Senate as a communications strategist for Democratic leaders. “It fell apart in a furious round of recriminations and she made several strategic mistakes along the way. … I just have doubts about what kind of campaign she would run this time.”
The biggest problem in 2020 was the candidate herself.
The historic nature of her candidacy generated great enthusiasm, but without a galvanizing issue or a solid ideological base of support, she failed to increase that enthusiasm.
As a candidate, Harris appeared indecisive and unsteady, shifting her stance on health care and other issues and, in particular, omitting a political truism, such as whether the Boston Marathon bomber should be allowed to vote from prison (after hesitation, Harris said no).
Harris dropped out of the race before a single vote was cast, and her candidacy — and her political promise — went up in smoke. By making her his running mate, Biden rescued the junior senator from California from the Capitol Hill purgatory she never much cared for.
But her first few years in the White House did not help Harris's political image. She was given a portfolio of tough issues, including immigration, and did not receive much visible help from Biden. Voters can expect to hear a lot from Republicans about how she has botched her role as “border czar.”
A series of gaffes early in the administration shook Harris’ confidence, leading her to make more mistakes that further disoriented her. Voters can expect to hear a lot from Republicans about her many early gaffes and misrepresentations.
But Harris's performance improved over time, especially after she found a theme to lean on.
The 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating the national right to abortion gave Harris the purpose she was lacking as a presidential candidate. More importantly, the fight for abortion rights placed Harris in a role — prosecuting the case against Republicans — that feels familiar and comfortable to the former courtroom litigator.
She is no doubt eager to debate Trump, the architect of the Supreme Court ruling, who is unlikely to steamroll her as he did the hapless Biden. Democrats are eager to draw a contrast between career prosecutor and convicted felon.
Despite all that, Harris could end up being a terrible candidate. Maybe 2020 wasn’t an anomaly. Maybe that’s the best Harris can be.
But after Biden’s collapse in the fateful June debate, Democrats were left with only bad options. The 81-year-old president, who is proving his worth, seemed almost certain to lose to Trump, perhaps by a very bad route, taking down Democratic House and Senate candidates with him.
Why not take the risk?
Harris may not be the perfect candidate to take on Trump (what real-life candidate is?), but she gives Democrats a chance to win the White House and flip the House, something many were willing to rule out as long as Biden was an anchor on their candidacy.
For that reason alone the party is in better shape than it was 24 hours ago.
