Since 1976, the royal families of US politics have brought money and name recognition to their respective presidential or vice-presidential ballots. Kamala Harris needs to break the mould. Only Donald Trump is left as someone with widespread name recognition, and that came about after years of television and business fame.
Harris has suffered what most vice-presidents have had to endure; near anonymity with a president determined to cast a long shadow. Biden had eight years in Barack Obama’s shadow and, even after serving that long apprenticeship, he was sidelined by Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016.
It was no surprise Biden was reluctant to give up the nomination for a second term, even though it was obvious he was handing Trump a comprehensive win in November. Biden only gave Harris a few minutes’ notice that he was ending his campaign. The Vice-President received the same amount of notice as many of the President’s closest confidants. Biden was determined to stay. He kept his thinking to a very small group of people.
Clearly, the building wave of warnings from Nancy Pelosi and her surrogates that the Democrats could not win with Biden had an impact. The President was warned that up to 100 elected Democrats would hit the media over the next few days calling for him to pass the torch to a younger candidate. A Michigan poll was released on Sunday morning indicating Biden was down 7 per cent to Trump in that vital swing state. Game over.
The fact that a simple statement was released on social media (from the same bunker Biden occupied during the Covid-19 pandemic) illustrated this was not a long-planned move. The hurried events were further complicated when the President realised he needed to put out a second statement just a few minutes later endorsing his Vice-President for the job. I bet those few minutes of Harris’s life felt like days.
The Democratic Party is a coalition of interests. Harris has had to rapidly gain the support of various internal party groupings in order to prevent an ugly open convention in late August. After three weeks of post-debate self-flagellation in the Democratic Party, another three weeks of infighting would have sealed the Democrats’ fate.
Despite Obama’s support for a contest, Harris and her team moved quickly. The black and Hispanic caucuses threw their support behind Harris in short order. Others such as EMILYs List, state governors, the Clintons and key donors all rapidly fell into line. There was no real competition. It was never in doubt.
Of the nearly 4000 delegates to the Democratic Convention, 56 per cent are women and 42 per cent are African-American. California, Harris’s home state, also has the biggest delegation.
With Biden and Clinton’s support locked up, it was game over for a challenge, even with Obama still sitting on the fence. Just to make sure there are no complications, senior Democratic operators are trying to bring forward the nomination of Harris through a virtual vote in early August. This minimises the risk of disruption on the convention floor later that month.
In the past 24 hours, we’ve had a conga line of running mate applicants appear in the media. Early speculation is that Harris will choose a straight white man from a swing state to be her running mate. Currently, the Democrats are 29 per cent behind the Republicans in that demographic. They need to recover some of that support to get close to winning in November, and to save a clean sweep of the House and Senate.
It will be a close and unorthodox election. The battle will come down to just 600,000 voters in four states. The number of undecided voters is very low at around 4-6 per cent. In Australia, at the same time in the cycle, it would be double that. So instead of fighting over undecided voters, the election will be won or lost on voter turnout.
The distortion of the electoral boundaries and the electoral college further complicates matters. The Democrats need to win 51.5 per cent of the national vote to win the election. As of now, they are sitting on 45 per cent. Historically, it’s been hard for Trump to push past 46 per cent, meaning that without an enthusiastic voter base, Biden/Harris would’ve struggled to win the presidency.
The change at the top of the ticket has already reinvigorated the Democrats and their supporters. In less than 24 hours, campaign fundraising has surged and supporters have re-emerged in all forms of media.
Well-rehearsed lines about Harris the prosecutor versus Trump the criminal are being wheeled out, and now advocates are even being so bold as to claim Trump is too old to be president.
It’s going to be a crazy few months and there are many turns in the road ahead. Harris has to assemble a new campaign team and a newish policy narrative. She has to explain why, as Vice-President, she was unable to solve the Mexican border problem. Conversely, Harris will be able to prosecute Trump’s vulnerability on abortion policy. The next debate will be compulsory viewing.
If the Democrats are to be competitive they need to heed the advice of James Carville, Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign director, and remember the maxim – “it’s the economy, stupid”. Cost-of-living pressures remain the greatest concern for American voters, and so far Trump is winning.
Like Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman before him, Biden was mugged by the reality that his polling numbers indicated he would not be re-elected. Everyone was nervous he would stumble in a press conference or on the shuffle to the podium. Harris can still win without big names such as Biden, Clinton and Obama on her ticket if she can energise the base, but with Trump as her opponent the path to November will be unpredictable.
Joe Hockey served as treasurer of Australia from 2013-15. He was Australian ambassador to the US from 2016-20.
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