This summer, when it increasingly looked like President Joe Biden would drop out of the 2024 race, a pair of questions dominated media coverage and political punditry. Should Vice President Kamala Harris succeed him as the Democratic nominee? Or was there a better candidate who could give Donald Trump a tougher fight?
Some of the party floated this idea Mini-elementary. In the end, that open process never happened — Harris and his allies moved quickly to secure the delegates needed to secure the nomination before the convention, no one stepped forward to challenge the vice president, and the Democratic base quickly rallied behind Harris.
Since then, broadly speaking, there are two ways to look at how his presidential campaign has unfolded.
One is more suspicious of how Harris got through. Here he is, running against a twice-impeached, historically unpopular, convicted felon ex-president — and it still is. A toss up
Another view offers a more charitable interpretation of Democratic campaigns. After an aging, historically unpopular incumbent badly damaged his party’s hopes of victory, Harris returned his side to a competitive race. He regained the level of support his party needed among mostly non-white, college-educated and young voters while assembling a coalition that spanned from former Vice President Dick Cheney to Republican Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And he did it as a standard-bearer for a ruling political party at a time when the only hard and fast trend in world politics is that ruling parties are being punished. A period of post-Covid inflation.
Here are the cases for each perspective.
Harris is fumbling that case
The debate that Harris should perform better is predicated on what some see as Donald Trump’s unique awfulness. With Biden out of the race, now who is Trump? Historically unpopular Presidential candidate, whose campaign ground game practically Non-existent, who have been consistently outspent by Democrats, and whose last weeks have been filled chaos and late-breaking scandals.
The argument that Harris underperformed rests on two different accusations: that he played it too safe and that he played it too vague.
The “safe” charge relates to his perceived pivot from the center toward moderates and disaffected Republicans on the court. Progressives argue that it has drained its support and energy from the political left. Her embrace of Liz and Dick Cheney, for example, has recently revived criticism. The anti-war left And guess what it might be Backfire with Arab American voters.
Similar criticisms have been made of his stance on Gaza. Aside from a few nods to Palestinian plight in speeches and debates, Harris’ refusal or inability to distance himself from the Biden administration’s position has lost him support on the left.
Zooming out a bit, critics point out that Harris’s central pivot on the campaign trail reflects a larger problem: that Harris is never clear about why he wants to be president, what he really believes, or where he stands on certain policies. He avoided explaining changes in policy positions and avoided talking to the press, opting instead for influencers and content creators in friendly settings, alternative media, or social media.
Just this week, one Axios reports The latest example of Harris’ evasive strategy: When asked about Harris’ positions on 12 policy issues he previously supported — such as ending the death penalty at the federal level, eliminating the Senate filibuster, or paying reparations to black Americans — the campaign declined to comment.
And so, on the eve of the election, Harris remains neck-and-neck with Trump — whose favorability rating is now the highest They have since left office despite spending millions on advertising against him.
Harris is beating expectations that case
A more positive assessment of Harris’ campaign is that, given where Harris started and what he faced, the neck-and-neck run was an achievement, not a failure.
As Nate Cohn of the New York Times did writtenThe national atmosphere in general is one with all the elements of a Republican landslide and a conservative cultural revulsion. Americans really dislike Joe Biden. They are angry about the direction the country is going. Republicans have an edge in national party identification. And Republicans have an edge on most issues that voters seem to care about, especially the economy and immigration. Gallup Recently framed It goes like this: “Almost all Gallup measures that have shown some correlation with past presidential election results or that speak to current perceptions of the two major parties favor the Republican Party over the Democratic Party.”
that dynamic truth For ruling parties around the world. Voters have consistently punished incumbents in nearly every democratic election held this year, largely due to dissatisfaction with both the pandemic response and the economic crisis caused by inflation and rising global interest rates. This was true for the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, which was ousted from power in the summer; In South Africa, where the African National Congress Party lost its majority the first time; in France; in Japan; in Germany; in India (to a degree), and more recently, in Botswana. In the north, Canada’s ruling Liberal Party is mirroring much of American politics over the last year: The party has been trailing the Conservative Party in the polls for months, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing similar internal pressure to resign before leading his party. Electoral disaster In less than a year.
It’s also unclear whether Harris can take a position on Gaza that doesn’t cost him support from parts of the Democratic coalition.
Some of Harris’ moves seem to be paying off. Yes, he has moved his platform to the right where Trump has an advantage — crime and immigration — while moderating or compromising on others. But this has opened up a big tent of ideological alliances. His focus on individual liberties (mainly abortion rights) and democracy has given him a significant boost among Democratic partisans and moderates. in final vote In the cycle, Harris was able to essentially wipe out Trump’s advantage on the economy and to enter With those who see immigration as a top concern: Final PBS/Marist PollFor example, voters tied Harris and Trump on the question of who would manage the economy better.
And among subgroups, he has bridged the gender gap, increasing Democratic support levels among women voters by a historic margin, while recovering Democratic support levels among young voters and non-white voters in which Biden was severely weak. Additionally, he did so as he raised his favorability ratings to positive single digits after the president started this summer almost as badly as Biden at his lowest point.
All told, Harris’ defenders see a candidate who, despite a hostile national environment, has given his party a chance — a much better situation than Democrats had when Harris took the nomination just months ago.
