Kamala Harris’ first task: Get emboldened Democrats to fall in line

Follow our live blog for more coverage.

WASHINGTON – Time is short, party tension is high, and many congressional Democrats on July 21 rushed to rally behind

Vice-President Kamala Harris as their pick for the top of the ticket. 

The vice-president’s first task in formally securing the Democratic presidential nomination will be to corral her former congressional colleagues, newly emboldened after a successful pressure campaign to force their party’s leader, Mr Joe Biden, off the 2024 ballot.

Mr Biden could not leverage the deep relationships and ties developed over five decades in Washington to stave off the calls for him to step aside in the race against Donald Trump. For Ms Harris, that could be even more daunting, as she barely touched down in the US Senate in 2017 before launching her first bid for the presidency.

Ms Harris’ weak ties leave little time to build the kinds of unwavering alliances that she could rely on in political combat. But she wasted no time, making calls to Hill Democrats on July 21 to shore up support.

“This is a sprint,” California senator Laphonza Butler, a close Harris ally, said in an interview. “She is making the calls to make sure that people know what she said in her statement: that she’s ready to earn this nomination.”

There is no playbook for the coming weeks. But among the most urgent battles ahead is rapidly conveying to the US public a fuller and more compelling portrait of a woman who, despite her high office, has mostly been a minor supporting character in the political dramas that have occupied the nation. Republicans will try to present her as a villain.

Ms Harris spent much of her career as a prosecutor and served as California’s attorney-general before winning her Senate seat in 2016. She made history as the first woman vice-president and would do so again if elected president. 

Democratic lawmakers will play powerful roles in presenting the portrait and helping build her a political following, along with either helping consolidate her party support or feeding opposition. They will be calibrating how closely to join their political fortunes to her candidacy.

And they are acutely aware of Ms Harris’ strengths, as well as the problems her nomination could create for the party. 

Ms Harris has had her share of difficulties throughout her career in national politics, including some self-inflicted wounds. 

Her bid for the 2020 nomination began with lofty expectations, but flamed out before the Iowa caucuses as she struggled to convey a clear message to voters and her operation was plagued by infighting. 

As vice-president, she has been criticised for her role in addressing the root causes of migration as crossings at the US-Mexico border surged. 

But after Mr Biden endorsed Ms Harris on July 21, former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the party’s 2016 nominee, quickly followed suit.

So did members of the Congressional Black Caucus and some other notable Democrats – progressive senator Elizabeth Warren and Ms Pramila Jayapal, who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The top two Democratic leaders in the Senate – Mr Chuck Schumer and Mr Dick Durbin – as well as House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries did not explicitly back Ms Harris in early statements on July 21. 

As a senator, Ms Harris, 59, drew praise for her lawyerly grilling of Trump’s three Supreme Court nominees during his first term. But her voting record was cautiously centrist and her career as a prosecutor made many progressives sceptical. 

New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive who supported Mr Biden’s reelection campaign even in its last days, suggested in a social media post before Mr Biden’s withdrawal that there are doubts about handing the nomination to Ms Harris. 

“If you think there is a consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave, that they will support Vice-President Harris, you would be mistaken,” she said on Instagram on July 18. “I’m in these rooms, I see what they say in conversations.”

Other Democrats had urged against an anointed successor to Mr Biden and argued for creating an abbreviated contest before and during the Democratic National Convention in late August.  

“I would support Kamala Harris as the nominee. But I think she has to earn it,” Representative Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat, told an audience at a Politico event on July 18. 

Lawmakers skeptical

Mr Smith is not alone. Other congressional leaders of the effort to oust Mr Biden said they were not sold on Ms Harris. While these lawmakers do not control the convention process, they are highly influential. 

They have a lot at stake. Control of both the House and the Senate hang in the balance and is sure to be heavily influenced by voters’ response to the top of the ticket. 

Democratic Representative Lloyd Doggett, the first to publicly call on Mr Biden to step aside, on July 21 said Democrats should consider “all talented individuals who wish to be considered”.

Limited polling on Ms Harris at the top of the ticket supports worries of such Democrats. An Insider Advantage poll out on July 18 found Ms Harris faring worse than Mr Biden in match-ups in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona. 

Her work on immigration has led to Republicans calling her the administration’s “border czar”.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, whose names had been in the mix, endorsed Ms Harris on July 21. 

Team Harris

There are others, however, who say skipping over Ms Harris would be a mistake. That base of support includes fellow Californians and members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Pennsylvania Representative Summer Lee called Ms Harris an “obvious choice” and California Representative Jared Huffman said it “needs to be” Ms Harris.

Florida’s Ms Kathy Castor backed Ms Harris and called her a “fighter.”

Republicans ready

Republicans say they are ready to turn their attacks to Ms Harris once Mr Biden is out of the way. 

Republican pollster Anthony Fabrizio, speaking to a Milwaukee audience outside the Republican National Convention, said she is largely a blank canvass for Republican campaign gurus. 

“She is for a vice-president fairly undefined,” he said. “We’re ready to define her.

At least one prominent Republican supported Ms Harris in the past.

Before launching his own political career, Trump made two donations totaling US$6,000 (S$8,070) to Ms Harris’ 2014 reelection campaign for attorney-general of California, state campaign finance records show. Her campaign donated the sum to charity in 2015, after she won her second term. BLOOMBERG