On Tuesday, Joe Biden’s running mate was finally revealed to be Sen. Kamala Harris of California. The pick is in many ways unsurprising (even if I still personally believe Rep. Val Demings of Florida would have been the smartest choice), given that Harris topped numerous pundits’ “Most Likely VP Pick” lists for the past few months. Her status as a favorite was largely due to her own presidential campaign that achieved a brief frontrunner status earlier this year as well as her being a three-time statewide elected official from the most populous state in the nation. Furthermore, her personal charisma and effective debating ability undoubtedly made her an enticing possibility for a campaign seeking to drive up enthusiasm for Biden going into November. But now that the choice is official, how much does this impact the general election, if at all? The TL;DR is that I don’t think it impacts the race that significantly, but I do have some points that I believe are worth mentioning.
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Of course, something obvious to note is that Biden did in the end choose a woman of color, a fact which did not always seem certain to happen to the point that numerous Black Democrats publicly called on Biden to choose a Black woman as his running-mate. We also know that some white women who were being considered such as Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer requested that their names be taken out of consideration precisely because they believed Biden should choose an African-American. And for the sake of his campaign, it is a good thing that he listened. In this moment of social turmoil over the deaths of individuals such as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others; deciding not to choose an African-American, especially after being so public about considering numerous well-qualified women of color for the VP slot, would have unnecessarily damaged the Biden campaign with just a month before early mail voting begins.
A general rule about VP picks is that they do not typically provide a significant boost to a campaign, but they have the potential to be an enormous drag if you make the wrong choice. In the case of racial diversity, Biden essentially avoided such a drag by choosing Kamala Harris. Given Biden’s history of gaffes, particularly concerning African-Americans as of late, the Democrats could not afford to lose any more goodwill amongst minorities. Their campaign will hope that they can keep Black turnout above 2016 levels, or at least avoid a further dip from Hillary Clinton’s poor performance amongst minorities.
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Speaking of turnout, a plus for the Biden campaign in choosing Kamala Harris is her relatively broad appeal within the Democratic Party. Though Harris got in trouble during her own presidential bid for seemingly waffling on key issues (and I will discuss that more in a bit), an ironic benefit of that indefinite persona is that she never fully alienated the left-wing or the center of the Democratic Party. Since Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential race, Biden has attempted to unify the Democratic Party by discussing policy issues and churning out policy planks in cooperation with more progressive Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. While this has provided fodder to the Trump campaign to allege that Biden is caving to left-wing interests, the move has clearly been an attempt to avoid the tremendous fallout that Hillary Clinton had with the Sanders wing of the party in 2016. Having Kamala Harris on the ticket should help with that attempt at unifying the party without alienating his moderate and racially diverse base.
Going into the general election, Trump will surely continue to paint the Biden/Harris ticket as beholden to the Left, but that will likely only be truly effective amongst his conservative base. For moderate Republicans disaffected with the President and Independents, the presence of Harris on the ticket will likely cement Biden’s status as a mainstream politician with mainstream beliefs (though left-of-center, of course). Democrats have been making significant gains amongst white suburbanites since Trump took office, with the moderate constituency being key to the Democrats taking the House in 2018. Polls show Biden leading significantly amongst white suburbanites against Trump in the general, and having Harris on the ticket shouldn’t damage that lead like an Elizabeth Warren or (especially) a Bernie Sanders might.
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So far it may seem from my commentary thus far that Kamala Harris was the perfect pick. But not so fast. The last point I would like to make is the reason why I felt that Rep. Val Demings would have been a stronger pick than Harris, and that is one word: baggage. To be clear, anyone who Biden might have chosen would have been subjected to a torrent of opposition research and attacks from the Trump campaign. Such is the way of politics, and the slinging goes both ways (though Trump’s brand of attacks is egregiously vicious). That being said, Kamala Harris did not leave the presidential contest in a good light. In many ways, she was the Jeb Bush of this cycle: a major contender with every reason to be a dominant force in the primaries yet whose own unforced errors led to a precipitous plunge into non-factor status before exiting the contest.
As I mentioned above, Harris did herself no favors in the primary campaign by seeming to flip-flop on big issues such as healthcare, at some moments seeming to be in favor of a single-payer healthcare plan and at other times seeming to be more on the side of a public Medicare option. This alongside her swipe at Biden for his position on busing (that was later poorly received after it turned out her position on busing was quite similar to Biden’s) built a public narrative that Kamala Harris was disingenuous and a political opportunist. This persona was effectively exemplified by Maya Rudolph’s portrayal of the California Senator in Saturday Night Live skits. The image stuck, and the Harris campaign (at the time) was unable to fully recover.
A common attack line from the Trump campaign has been that Biden is secretly beholden to the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, arguing that his moderate image is a mirage. That tactic has proved ineffective so far, but the President has already seized on the news of Harris’ pick as reinforcement of his allegation. Harris’ waffling on major issues in the primary provides ammunition to the Republicans to allege that voters cannot trust the Democratic ticket when they sound moderate. Whether that line of attack will be successful remains to be seen. I honestly doubt it will be in the end, given that the entire Democratic primary was essentially a contest of Biden pushing back against more liberal contenders. That was the national narrative of the race, and that is what voters likely think about when they think of Joe Biden. However, Democrats should be wary of Harris’ prior mistakes haunting them in the general election.
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To close things out, I would like to reiterate that I do not believe the choice of Kamala Harris will have a massive impact on the results of the general election, except inasmuch as Biden avoided making a terrible mistake in running-mate. When voters go to the polls (or vote by mail as a safer option during the pandemic), they will likely be making their final decision based on who is at the top of the ticket, namely Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Harris and Pence serve more as reinforcements of whatever images the Democrats and Republicans wish to portray for their nominees. On balance, Harris was a safe choice for the Biden campaign that could help them gin up enthusiasm for the ticket. The Senator's mistakes in the primaries should simply serve to prepare Democrats for what kind of attacks to expect in the coming months.
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