Could Kamala Harris really fare any worse than Joe Biden against Donald Trump? Her boss leaves the race with his poll numbers collapsing in the swing states he must carry and now, terrifying for Democrats, in states they have held for decades.
Why would Harris be more chronically unpopular than Biden in the parts of America her party simply must win?
But here we are. Biden is dropping out of the race. He has backed Harris to succeed him. There are at least eight reasons Harris could, and I now think will, arrest their party’s decline.
1. If Biden was a puppet of anti-Trump forces in the Democratic establishment – and the consensus says he was – wouldn’t Harris be a much more effective and controllable puppet? She is at least coachable. A cackle at a press conference might jar. But a geriatric freeze? Biden’s terrible optics have now vanished from the campaign.
2. As incumbent Vice-President, she is next in line so the problem of succession would have constitutional legitimacy. A brokered convention in Chicago would be a disaster for the party. The identity politics that got her the VP spot would likely halt any move to deny her the top of the ticket.
Her own pick of a running mate could balance that ticket and represent the centre and left of the Democratic Party. That centre could feign conservative positions and that left could pretend to be centrist. The facade need only last until November 5.
3. Decades younger than Biden (81 vs. 59), Harris offers an impeccably woke style of leader college graduates under 35 have been trained to embrace: pro-abortion, anti-guns, rainbow flag-waving, racially conscious, appropriately secular. Joe Biden notoriously swallowed his Catholic rectitude to back abortion on demand. Kamala is a true zealot of reproductive licence. This would win over the cultural left – and not a few female swing voters.
4. Even better, she could parlay these progressive credentials with a hard-nosed record of jailing the bad guys – starting with the felon Donald Trump.
Reminding the electorate of this would win over the swing-voting, law and order centre. Biden gave Harris the southern border knowing that her failure would mean she couldn’t replace him. But now she has. She survived her complicity in this border scandal. She can make that unfair bargain part of her campaign message: “Let Kamala be Kamala and she’ll keep us safe.”
5. Two-term president Barack Obama proved that a mixed-race candidate could salve the conscience of white liberals. These men and women would again take solace in voting for a mediocrity because as least the mediocrity is a person of colour. Like casting Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption, Kamala would mean white voters could root for a non-white character, making the election, to quote Family Guy, ”more special for the audience”.
6. All over the Western world, the quality of leadership has declined. Look at the new British cabinet. Westminster has become Hollywood for former student hacks and DEI hires. The bar is low. Kamala would not need much manipulation to get over it. Or is the left only playing campus politics? “Black women can run Harvard. But we didn’t mean they can run the country.” Now Biden has been prevailed upon to resign, Harris is the only tenable replacement.
7. Jill Biden hating Harris is great gossip. But if the hatred is as deep as some sources suggest, it was a terrible reason not to replace Joe with Kamala sooner. The Obamas never rated the Bidens – and seemingly have doubts about Harris too. The Clooneys have wreaked revenge for Biden’s not indulging their anti-Semitism (dressed up as international law). Democrats everywhere will breathe easier with Kamala at the head of the ticket.
8. Remember, she does not have to be a great president. She merely has to be a less-worse candidate than Trump. His circus-style nominating convention, and his MAGA running mate JD Vance, were evidence of hubris. Trump is not tacking to a pragmatic centre to win over independents – where this election will be won and lost. Harris could. She may lose to him. But Democrats (and bookies) were so convinced Biden couldn’t win, why not give Harris her shot?
Dumping Joe for Kamala could well unite the Democrats as they face what they insist is an existential threat to American democracy – a threat so great they were prepared to lie across months and years about the declining cognitive capacities of the man they initially chose to meet it. That deceit may linger. No matter. The emergency is now to find the least implausible candidate with a chance of victory. Why shouldn’t this be Kamala Harris?
Timothy J. Lynch is professor of American politics at the University of Melbourne.
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